Riot Games is constantly looking to make improvements to the professional League of Legends scene, and they've announced some new rules for the 2015 Summer Split. Here's a quick rundown of what's changing.

Best interests of LCS

I love the name of this section, but it’s pretty simple. While they don’t plan on utilizing it often, it essentially gives LCS officials the power to make decisions for urgent situations that aren’t covered by other rules, as they arise. The whole Kori/MYM debacle from earlier this year was given as an example of a time where this would have been helpful. Some might fear that abuse of power is possible with such a rule, but Riot attempted to assuage those fears: “This ruling will only be used in extreme circumstances that requires immediate attention in order to protect the health of the LCS and we’ll always give full context into how we weighed our decisions when any major actions are taken.”

Substitution policies

File this one under “it’s about time.” With other regions already showing how instrumental substitutes can be to a team’s success (SK Telecom T1 has been the most well-publicized example,) NA and EU LCS teams will now have the opportunity to utilize substitutes as well. They can use subs in by changing their roster in between day 1 and day 2 of an LCS week, and will also have the option to use a sub in between games of a playoff series. To help accommodate this and make sure teams are adequately prepared, teams are now required to have three substitute players on their roster, instead of the 2 that was previously mandated. Subs now also must have a solo queue ranking of at least Diamond III, compared to the previous Diamond V requirement. It’s subject to change, but for now, teams will have a limit of 6 players on their roster during playoffs.

Residency rules modification

Riot had previously introduced the “interregional movement policy” in an attempt to help regions maintain their individual identities. It worked to an extent, but created some confusion as players were classified as either Residents, Non-Residents, or Exempt Non-Residents for their region. The Exempt Non-Resident classification is now eliminated, and all players who previously had that tag must now declare which region is their sole region of residency. In the interest of fairness and not causing players to be “trapped” in one place, players may declare a new region of residency for the 2016 season.

Playoffs side selection

This one seems pretty cut and dry. During playoffs, teams must decide which side they’ll play on, and lock in their roster, 72 hours before their first game is to be played. This is simply to prevent gamesmanship by any team that liked to wait until the last moment to declare these things, as now both sides will have adequate time to prepare for their matches.

So, no huge sweeping changes (like a best of 2 format some fans have been clamoring for), but overall, these appear to be rules that will only be a positive for the LCS. We won’t have to wait long to see them in action, as the Summer Split starts next week!