With a format change to the European League of Legends Championship Series ahead, the 10 EU LCS-affiliated teams submitted their region preferences to Riot Games, league sources told ESPN.
Four teams -- Fnatic, G2 Esports, Misfits and Splyce -- have asked to play in London; Unicorns of Love, FC Schalke 04 Esports and Team ROCCAT have chosen Berlin; H2K Gaming and Giants Gaming have opted for Barcelona, Spain; and Team Vitality pegged Paris as its home.
These city choices can be changed in the coming weeks, and the four regional leagues will round out their participants to reach six teams each, sources said. Expected members include an array of existing League of Legends teams outside of the EU LCS, European sports teams and new entrepreneurs who are interested in the opportunity to enter the League of Legends scene.
Riot Games communicated its format changes in an owners meeting on Sunday at the Summer Split finals in Paris. Those changes include splitting the current EU LCS into four regions, upping the total number of participants to 24 across each region and creating a UEFA Champions League-inspired competition to complement the regional leagues.
The changes come after back-and-forth among the community, team owners and Riot Games about the European LCS as it compares to North American LCS. In May, Riot announced the latter league was accepting applications for charter membership and since has received more than 100 applicants, sources said. Four of those applicants included the newly declared London teams, as reported by ESPN in August.
Riot has had ongoing discussions about the future of the EU LCS and decided early on that it wanted to mirror soccer's UEFA Champions League, sources said. The future of the EU LCS, including revenue sharing details, have not been disclosed.