While the top League of Legends teams duke it out at Worlds 2019, the next generation of up-and-coming North American pros is revving their engines. This Nov 11-16, 20 top amateur League of Legends players will take part in the annual LCS Scouting Grounds, now presented by official LCS automotive partner Honda (the first-ever presenting sponsor of the event) and re-branded as the Honda Scouting Grounds. We appreciate Honda’s deep commitment to the LoL community and to empowering players’ dreams of a career in esports. Honda’s Scouting Grounds partnership comes on the heels of the automotive brand’s recent announcement as the official automotive partner of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS). In 2019, Honda became the first automaker in the US to sponsor both an esports team (Team Liquid) and an esports league (LCS).

Along with our partner Honda, we have a lot in store for LCS fans, including awarding a Honda MVP, content chronicling competitors’ journeys throughout the event, a revamped and enhanced Draft, and more. Before we kick off this year’s event, we’re here to give you a few more details about how it’ll work, the Draft itself and what’s new and improved in 2019 for fans and prospective competitors. 

Honda Scouting Grounds is an annual event held in the offseason that highlights the best up-and-coming North American League of Legends talent in front of the LCS pro teams. The players who will compete in Honda Scouting Grounds qualified through solo queue performance and, starting this year, the FACEIT Scouting Grounds Circuit. After a week of training and competition at the pro level, culminating in a mini-tournament between four squads at the LCS Arena, the team organizations will take turns selecting the most promising players for an exclusive negotiation period in the Honda Scouting Grounds Draft. 

We held a draft at the end of Scouting Grounds 2017, and while it was a great part of the event for viewers, there were issues raised by teams and players that we wanted to address before bringing it back. The 2019 Honda Scouting Grounds draft format will be different from its predecessor while still giving fans an exciting finale to the event. Here are the details:

Time and Place: The draft will take place shortly after the 1st place match on Nov. 16 at the LCS Arena (est. 6:30PM PT).

How It Works:

• When a team chooses a player, they’re drafting exclusive negotiating rights with the player. The rights will last for 10 days, from Nov 17-26. Players are not required to sign with teams who have drafted them.
• Each LCS team is granted 1 pick. Teams are allowed to trade and sell picks.
• The pick order for teams is the reverse order of LCS standings from Summer Split. This allows teams who are potentially the most interested in top new talent to benefit the most from the event. The order will be as follows:
• 1st – Evil Geniuses
• 2nd – FlyQuest
• 3rd – 100 Thieves
• 4th –  Golden Guardians
• 5th – Immortals
• 6th – TSM
• 7th – Counter Logic Gaming
• 8th – Dignitas (formerly Clutch Gaming)
• 9th – Cloud 9
• 10th – Team Liquid

We’d also like to announce another partner for the event, this time on the data and statistics side: Mobalytics. Mobalytics is an online gameplay analysis assistant that uses your match and champion data to give you recommendations and advice for how to improve in League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra and Wild Rift (coming soon), and more. Mobalytics will provide stats-based profiles of every competitor at the Honda Scouting Grounds, including results from solo queue and the FACEIT circuit (if applicable). A portion of these profiles will be available on the Mobalytics website along with tools for comparing player stats. We’ll also be working with them to create content for fans during the event which highlights the capabilities and performance of the players as they compete, so stay tuned.