The First Stand Tournament (FST, also simply as First Stand) is an annual League of Legends international tournament hosted by Riot Games at the conclusion of the first of three splits of the game's professional esports scene. It is the third international tournament under the new split structure and competitive calendar by Riot Games since 2025.[1][2]
On 11 June 2024, Riot Games announced the creation of a new split structure and competitive calendar for the League of Legends esports scene, including a three-split calendar similar to that of the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) to be applied to all major regions and the creation of a new international tournament to conclude the first split.[1] During the media day for the 2024 League of Legends World Championship Final at The O2 Arena in London, United Kingdom on 1 November 2024, Riot Games announced that the new international tournament would be named "First Stand Tournament" (FST), with the inaugural edition set to take place from 10 to 16 March 2025 in Seoul, South Korea.[3]
In November 2025, Riot Games announced that FST 2026 would take place from 16–22 March 2026, in São Paulo, Brazil.[5] It will be the second international League of Legends competition to be hosted in Latin America after the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational, which was also held in Brazil.[6] Differing from last year, the format is set to involve two double-elimination groups which concludes into a single-elimination knockout stage, where best-of-five series will be played throughout the entire competition.[7]
2027
The same video that announced the hosts of the 2026 edition of the tournament also confirmed that FST in 2027 will be hosted in Southeast Asia (including Taiwan), which will be the first time an international League of Legends tournament will be hosted in the region since Vietnam and Taiwan's hosting of the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational.[6]
The following is a breakdown of the qualified teams per region:
LCK: LCK Cup Champion
LPL: Stage 1 Winner
LEC: Winter Split Champion
LCS: Lock-In Champion
CBLOL: Copa CBLOL Champion
LCP: Season Kickoff Qualifying Series Winner
In each series played in the tournament, the "Fearless Draft" format is implemented. Fearless Draft pertains to a draft format in League of Legends popularized by China's LoL Development League where teams cannot pick a champion that they've already played in a series. For instance, when one team picks a champion in any stage of the series, they and their opponents may not pick said champion for the succeeding games. Hence, for every game of a best-of series, there will be ten additional bans, narrowing teams' champion pools.[8]
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2026 First Stand Tournament 
