Everything you need to know about the NA LCS 4-way playoff tie

The NA LCS 2018 Summer Split has come to a close ... mostly. If the point of the summer split is just to figure out which teams will make it into the playoffs, then this one is over and done with. But while we may know which six teams are headed to playoffs, we don’t have any idea where most of them will be seeded, thanks to a massively complicated four-way tie in the bottom four playoff spots. This situation is so complex that it has forced Riot to add an additional day to its schedule as all of the tiebreakers will be played on Monday this week.

TSM, Echo Fox, 100 Thieves and FlyQuest all ended the split with a 10-8 record, leaving all four teams above the playoff line, but tied for seeding. This sets up one of Riot’s most complicated tiebreakers ever. Each team will have to play two games, but the easiest way to think of this might be like a losers bracket tournament. First the teams match up against their first opponent. Then, after that match, the two winning teams play each other, and the two losing teams play each other, giving us a solid ranking of where the teams fall from third to sixth.

During the first round, TSM will face off against Echo Fox, a team they’ve lost to twice already during the summer split. Meanwhile, the other first round match up is 100 Thieves vs FlyQuest, a match up that was split evenly during the regular season.

As for the games themselves, they’ll be played on the same patch cycle as week 9’s other matches. These games will start on Monday, August 20 at 6 p.m. ET and in true NA LCS fashion will be best of ones. Just like regular season matches, these games can be streamed on the Riot Games Twitch and YouTube channels, as well as on lolesports.com.

Schedule

• Echo Fox vs TSM, 6 p.m. ET
• 100 Thieves vs FlyQuest, 7 p.m. ET
• TBD vs TBD, 8 p.m. ET
• TBD vs TBD, 9 p.m. ET