Has Fearless Draft helped or hindered League of Legends esports?

The 2025 League of Legends esports season has already become a milestone year for the MOBA title.

On top of several regions merging to create more combative gameplay and higher-quality matches, the year has been defined by the introduction of Fearless Draft across all competitions.

Following the conclusion of First Stand — a new international event centred around Fearless Draft — has this new drafting format helped League of Legends jump to the next level? Or are there any negative consequences that might have hindered the game in the long term? Let’s break down the pros and cons of Fearless Draft.

For those who haven’t followed competitive League of Legends this year, the Fearless Draft mode is an evolution of the traditional pick-and-ban system used by teams during the drafting process.

With the increasing number of champions and an ever-changing meta, nailing drafts and making sure players can deliver on game plans centred around team compositions is a key aspect of determining the outcome of a match.

The Fearless Draft mode essentially forbids players from choosing champions that have been previously chosen in a given series (if Jinx, for example, is picked in Game 1, she cannot be picked again for the rest of the series). This format applies to best-of-three and best-of-five matches, where the champion pool would shrink the longer the series goes.

In other words, Fearless Draft forces teams to play different champions in every game of a series, bringing more champion diversity, increasing the overall volatility and putting more pressure on coaching staff as they would need to think on a higher strategic level.

Throughout the past few years, League of Legends was often criticised for its stale meta and lack of innovation in drafts. Once teams figured out optimal picks and compositions, organisations would end up trading the same champions in every game, leading to similar or even identical drafts across several games.

To some, this led to a dull watching experience for fans as there were no ‘X factors’ and stronger teams would often dismantle weaker ones due to being mechanically superior.

The goal of the Fearless Draft was to force teams to adapt, rewarding those who can proficiently utilise a large variety of champions and play different strategies instead of relying on a single gameplay approach. It also adds volatility, leading to potentially closer matches between top and bottom-tiered squads.

There are different ways to look at the overall effects of Fearless Draft on the competitive scene. If judging from a viewership perspective, one could say that the Fearless Draft hasn’t made much of a difference so far. However, it’s way too early to tell given the small sample size of Fearless Draft events.

In terms of peak viewership, two events with Fearless Draft in 2025 have hit over the 1m figure, according to Esports Charts. The game between HLE and T1 in the LCK Cup recorded a little over 1.9m.

A direct comparison, however, can be made by looking at the viewership numbers between the 2024 and 2025 LEC Winter Splits. This year, the peak number was 801,369, almost 30,000 lower than the one in the previous year. The average viewership has also gone down by a small margin this year (down by almost 10,000, according to Esports Charts).

What has seemingly changed, though, is the enjoyment of the fans’ viewing experience. Earlier this year, Sheep Esports polled 14,000 people, with 90% agreeing with the addition of the new drafting format.

The increased champion diversity makes games more enjoyable as different in-game patterns are showcased in a lower number of matches. According to the data site Games of Legends, First Stand registered 88 unique champion picks and bans throughout the tournament, the same as MSI (Mid-Season Invitational) last year.

This same number was achieved by an event that only lasted one week and featured five teams.

Most importantly, fans won’t see teams recycling the same picks in a series. “Fearless flattens the curve and kicks away the boring handshakes,” said former LoL Data Analyst Flora ‘Arailla’ Parmentier.

This was evident at First Stand. Despite having a tournament where Hanwha Life Esports was considered the dominant force and was the favorite to win the tournament, fans were able to see several unique picks, including top laner Zeus’ Vladimir and Kayle, as well as mid laner Zeka’s Kassadin and Zed.

The last time Kayle was picked in the top-tier professional leagues, for example, was in the summer of 2023, and only on two occasions.

Nevertheless, Fearless Draft might not be all roses and flowers. Some fans might find themselves not recognising the hype behind unique champion picks or be confused about certain aspects of gameplay.

Additionally, it could potentially skew competitive integrity as Fearless Draft can be imbalanced in certain scenarios. A team might find itself losing due to the draft difference and not because its players were necessarily inferior to the opponents.

Esports personality Adrian ‘Jamada‘ Wharlton-Thorne was one of the people in the space against the extension of Fearless Draft. He believes it should be Riot’s balance team to create different metas instead of artificially creating a meta by removing options.

On social media, he explained: “You would be more entertained with a significantly higher level of play with champ variety if Riot more actively balanced pro meta every few patches instead of metas remaining almost the same for whole years at a time.”

With so many high-stakes matches in LoL, some have complained about potentially losing ‘quality’. This is because now teams will find it hard to extract absolute peak performance when being forced to pilot a larger pool of champions.

Prior to First Stand’s Grand Final, Riot Games announced the extension of Fearless Draft across the entirety of 2025 as opposed to just the first part of the season as originally planned.

While the decision might not be the best from an integrity perspective, fans’ positive attitude and support of Fearless Draft have brought Riot to change things on the fly.

“The viewers are the most important part of the equation. Pro Players and teams’ opinions literally shouldn’t matter,” said esports personality Nick ‘LS’ De Cesare in a post on X.

Regulatory changes happen all the time in professional sports and most competitive disciplines, including esports. It’s part of what makes the industry dynamic and entertaining for the fans, just like Riot Games updates champions or releases new ones. In the end, Fearless Draft is Riot Games’ attempt to enhance the sport’s spectacle.

LS was one of the early advocates for the introduction of Fearless Draft in competitive League of Legends. Now that it has become the norm, the content creator has been pushing to bring a further evolution of the Fearless Draft – the ‘Ironman Format‘.

Compared to the current iteration, the Ironman format would see teams have both picks and bans become unavailable for the following games. If it were to go to Silver Scrapes (Game 5) in a best-of-five series, teams would be forbidden to play up to 80 champions, and 100 champions would be chosen or banned in one single series.

While fans would witness even more unique picks and dynamic gameplay, the Ironman format would open up another layer of complexity that would potentially further drive the casual viewer away.

Despite its short tenure, Fearless Draft has already produced several new scenarios with higher frequency. Considering the League of Legends season is only a third of the way through, fans are almost guaranteed to see new interactions and picks step on Summoner’s Rift for the remainder of the year. With every best-of-five series, fans will eventually conclude as to whether Fearless has helped or hindered the scene.