Riot Games posted a detailed explanation on how the competition in North America and Europe will be like for the 2013 Season. The official start of the season is set for February 7th.
According to the source, Season 3 (a.k.a. League of Legends Championship Series or LCS) will have a total of three stages: a two-part regular season and a concluding World Championship tournament that will award the six-digit prizes to the winning team.
The information below concerns the European and North American circuits only as they will be the only two to abide that structure. Other regions will use their own local league to determine their S3WC representatives: The Champions for Korea and GPL for Asia.
LCS First Half
Starts February 7th, ends April 20th
NA teams: TSM, CLG, Dignitas + Top 5 from S3 NA live qualifier
EU teams: M5, SK Gaming, ex-CLG.eu + Top 5 from S3 EU live qualifier
Each division is a quadruple round robin, meaning each team will play each other four times
Competition is weekly
NA teams compete Thursdays and Fridays
EU teams compete Saturday and Sunday
Midseason and promotion tournaments
Takes place after LCS first half is over
Top 6 of each division advances to midseason playoffs
#1 and #2 in the division are seeded directly into Ro4
#3 to #6 play in the Ro6 wild-card round
Winners of the wild-card round advance to the Ro4 to play #1 and #2
Losers of the wild-card round join #7 and #8 in the rankings as well as "rising stars from the amateur ranks" in the so called "promotion tournament". Winners will continue on to the second half of LSC, losers are out of the league.
All-star break tournament
The best players world wide are assembled into regional teams
Region is pit against region for high stakes
LSC second half
Mimics LSC first half
The playoffs after the second half will determine which teams will advance to the World Championship.
Needless to say, GosuGamers will be all over the whole Season 3 action and you can expect every little bit of information to be provided via our coverage hubs.
Source: League of Legends
