Two more teams are leaving the LCS as the North American league will be reunited with South America for the upcoming 2025 season.
Image Credit: Robert Paul/Riot Games
NRG and Immortals out of the LCS
The 2024 competitive season hasn’t even ended and there is already major news breaking out. Not only did C9 fire one of its star players for behavioral issues, but the LCS is also losing two more teams heading into 2025.
As reported by LCS insider Travis Gafford, both IMT and NRG will be leaving the league before the start of the 2025 season. The North American league is losing yet another two organizations after Evil Geniuses and Golden Guardians exited from the LCS last year, reducing the number of teams from 10 to 8.
The news comes shortly after the three LCS teams have been confirmed for Worlds 2024 and as Riot Games is looking to restructure with the new Americas League, which will merge the LCS, LLA, and CBLOL into one major region. Nonetheless, the LCS and CBLOL will operate as two different conferences.
NRG’s quitting comes as a surprise
While Immortals have struggled to maintain competitive relevance in the league for the past few years, not many expected NRG to make the decision to leave the LCS. The organization came back to the league last year after a long hiatus by acquiring Counter Logic Gaming’s slot. The team also won the Championship last year and was the only western team in the league to make it to a top-eight finish at Worlds.
Despite this, NRG is still looking to leave the League of Legends scene. Earlier this year, Riot revealed that both North and South conferences would operate with six teams so it looks like the six other organizations (100 Thieves, Cloud9, Dignitas, FlyQuest, Shopify Rebellion, and Team Liquid) are looking to stay unless new acquisitions take place.
