The first Factions storyline, Mirrorwater, began as a clash between Ionia, Demacia, Piltover, and Noxus. The Freljord joined the fray partway through the storyline, and was ultimately victorious.
All skill levels are welcome. To get started, sign up for a faction here.
Faction versus faction matches tied to a dynamic storyline.
Factions is a community-powered League of Legends game mode in which Summoners declare for a faction, such as Noxus or Ionia, and fight matches using faction-specific Champion lists. These small rosters give each faction distinctive strengths and weaknesses—for example, Demacia has a very strong all-in teamfight, while Piltover has excellent poke—and allow players to really delve deeply into these matchups. Members of each faction are encouraged to collaborate on faction strategies that make the best use of their rosters and exploit weaknesses in their opponents’. The rosters also give each faction a cohesive in-game thematic flavor, such as Piltover’s steampunk aesthetic or the spooky vibe of the Shadow Isles.
In addition to creating some novel gameplay and flavorful matches, Factions puts players in the center of the narrative as Summoners whose actions shape the future of Runeterra. Factions gain points from victories and lose points from defeats. In-universe, these point totals represent the influence each faction has with the Council, and determine how the story progresses. We also hold interactive lore events in which Summoners make important decisions for their factions.
Anyone can start a scored match anytime.
Play Factions whenever you like, as often or as little as you like. You don’t need any special permission to create a scored match. If you have questions, try joining our Discord server and hopping into the #match-creation channel.
Matches have a base point value set by the map type, which is then adjusted based on the relative skill levels of the two teams and the relative standings of the two factions. In short, a predictable stomp is worth fewer points, while an upset victory is worth more points.
Noxus and Zaun meet on the Fields of Justice during the Insurrection arc. Here, Noxus chose to forgo a traditional “marksman” ADC—and won. Non-meta strategies can sometimes succeed in the context of the limited rosters used in Factions.
Although most Factions matches are casual pick-up matches, we also hold shoutcasted Featured Matches every Saturday and Sunday starting at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time (3:30 Eastern) and a few major Tournaments per storyline. Featured Matches and Tournaments decide key plot points and allow factions to expand their Champion rosters.
Each chapter of the Factions story features different playable factions.
Factions is played in a series of storylines. Each storyline features a different set of playable factions, chosen beforehand by poll, and tells a new chapter of the larger story of Runeterra. Each storyline lasts about two or three months, and centers around a dispute in the League of Legends.
Our previous storylines:
- Part I: Mirrorwater — A strange comet crashes in League territory.
- Part II: Ceruleana — A magical island rises from the sea.
- Part III: Discord — The Void invades Runeterra.
- Part IV: Shon-Xan — Noxian refugees flee to Ionia, provoking a new war.
- Part V: Hextech Revolution — An abundant arcane energy source is discovered in Shurima.
- Part VI: Nyroth — Explorers discover a new continent to the west of Valoran, once home to a mighty civilization annihilated a thousand years ago by a shockwave from Valoran’s Rune Wars.
- Part VII: Lines in the Sand—Azir calls Shurima up from the sands and declares the return of the empire. Noxus and Piltover battle to suppress the revolution and maintain colonial control.
- Part VIII: Divinity—Divine magic returns to Runeterra when a nexus aligned with supernatural energy is discovered in the Guardian’s Sea, bringing echoes of the Rune Wars and the Age of Divinity that preceded them.
- Part IX: Black Winter—Demacia and Ionia fight to contain the Black Winter, a necromantic storm that spreads the Harrowing across all of Runeterra.
We are currently in the tenth Factions arc: Insurrection. On 1 May, 27 CLE, a Shuriman city called Qa’hhar revolted against its Noxian overseers, triggering a “police action” by neighboring Zaunite forces and a clash between these two allied nations.
Factions has unique strengths as a game mode and lore format.
While we think Factions is a lot of fun as a community mode, one of our goals is to have Riot eventually implement an official Factions game mode, or perhaps a Team Builder-based lore event that would let Summoners queue up for Factions-style matches. We think Factions has a number of strengths as a mode:
- Community. Factions creates a strong sense of community, especially within a given faction; Summoners have an incentive to work together to devise strategies for using their factions’ rosters to the fullest and to coach each other.
- Player-driven story. Factions combines story and gameplay in a dynamic way. Match outcomes drive the ongoing storyline, and we also have interactive lore events that put players (Summoners) in the midst of the lore making critical decisions. This gives players a real stake in what happens in-universe.
- Strategy. The limited rosters give each faction distinctive strengths and weaknesses. For example, Demacia is an all-in teamfight faction, while Noxus focuses on early-game brawls and assassination. Many unorthodox tactics can be viable (and are sometimes necessary) in Factions. The full 100+ Champion pool is so vast that it’s hard for a non-pro player to comprehend even a fraction of the possible matchups; Factions narrows the field and allows ordinary players to really get familiar with how various team comps match up.
- Cross-Tier play. Factions gives high- and low-Tier Summoners the opportunity to play together in a friendly environment.
See you on the Fields, Summoner.
Factions is an unofficial community creation. This site is not operated by Riot Games.
The use of Riot Games artwork is not intended to assert ownership.
FACTIONS 
Sounds interesting.. Gonna join this :D
Suggestion: Why not use discord as a chatting software?
Hello! We do have a Discord, actually. Two; one for casual community stuff and another for League Factions stuff. Feel free to add me in game, and I’ll link those to you.
Since this whole thing is about one or more faction against another in a dispute settled in the league, have you ever considered a inter-faction conflict? For example, While Noxus is a powerful empire it is not quite united as Demacia, considering that Katarina, Talon and Even Cassiopeia, not only hate Swain, but suspect him involved with the disappearance of Lord Du Coutue, and the late Grand General Darkwill. and have been plotting against him ever since. Say they pick a moment to find the right allies to and start their own coup when all other subtle means have failed. Kat and Talon could easily find themselves the manpower with their ties and friends in Bilgewater and family fortune and influence to boot, not to mention a enemy against swain could easily find allies from those also hate him and his court such as Sion and Riven and could even extend to a bit of Demacian support if desperate enough considering Kat’s unique relationship with Garen and Prince Jarvan might just be willing to risk it to finish Swain once and for all especially after Swains recent actions since the Nyroth dispute. Cass, of course is not without her own influence with her influence and friendship with Xerath and Renekton could not only enslist their aid but could negotiate with Azir himself and use Noxus claim of Shuriman lands as leverage/incestive to support her cause. Swain on the other hand is not without allies himself, including his court such as Darius and Leblanc he has counted on his alliance from Zaun, such as Singed and Warwick to assist them and if desperate enough can seek aid from the Void and/or Shadow Isles.
In another case, Freljord is divided by three primary groups: The Avarosan, lead by Queen Ashe and her Husband Trydamere, The Winters Claw led by Sejuani, and The Frostguard led by Lissandra, Considering Lissandra’s inevitable betrayal and Sejuani seeing Ashe and her methods as weakness could easily start a civil war that will have to involve the rest of Valoran. Lissandra only real ally in Freljord is Trundle last I checked, so she would have to step out of her way to seek a bit of outside aid such as the Void or Shadow isles, while Sejuani may despise Ashe she knows that her rival is surrounded by many friends and allies and would need more than her own allies in Freljord consisting of Volibear, Udyr and Olaf. Considering her philosophy of strength and conquest she could gain support from Noxus to counter Ashe’s alliance with Demacia, or perhaps she could ally with the rising Shuriman empire knowing full well it’s goal of reclaiming it’s former glory.
Of course neither of this is taken into account of the league sticking their own ore into the mix as they in fact have access to Champions that answer directly under them (or imprisoned and conditioned for some) such as Brand and Fiddlesticks and Kayle.
I just thought of this as a way to not only expand upon lore that’s already implied yet not explored but to mix-up the factions and teams in battle. consider it an experiment to look for new strategies and synergies from champions from unlikely factions.
What do you think
You guys might like to have a look at the Tournament API, to create games and evaluate them.
https://developer.riotgames.com/docs/tournaments-api
This however will require a production key.
just wondering thoughts on aurelion Sol. and the “targon” rito lore update. Im hesitant to suggest a new faction as we would only have taric, bard, aurelion sol, leona, and mantheon, and while i know that SI survived with no adc for the longest time, having 3 support and only 1 potentially viable adc gimp in bard it would be a horrible faction to play as.
I personally would hate to include diana in a “targon” champ list (for obvious reasons) but potentially we could add malphite and kayle. but back to the main query, what to do with more cosmic entities like Aurelion Sol and to a lesser extent Bard? just remove them from factions? or only under certain circumstances? like only get Aurelion sol if you have 2 or more targonians on your team or only get bard if there is a potential catastrophy?
(last idea: chose between aatrox and bard if you are losing horribly instead of just aatrox)
How do you take into account official Rito events such as the Shurima event that debuted Azir, and the now-ongoing Burning Tides event centered on Bilgewater?
In short: as best as we can. For example, when Udyr was retconned into a hybrid Ionian/Freljordian Champion during Mirrorwater, an arc that involved both Ionia and Freljord, we had a lore event to decide where to place him. We also did Nyroth on another continent (of our own invention) in part because of all the turmoil in the Riot lore, to give Riot more time to clarify what was going on with Shurima and other locales.
Caveat: part of the idea of Factions is that the storyline does progress. For example, in the offical Riot-verse, Nami has been “venturing into the world of the land-walkers for the first time, in search of a Moonstone” for something like 3 years. The Nami in Factions had the same origin, but then (in part due to the successes of Bilgewater in Nyroth) forged a new moonstone by allying with Diana and the Lunari, and (together with Miss Fortune and others) elevated Bilgewater from “crime-ridden port town” to “crime-ridden port town that’s also the center of an emerging alliance with the Marai and Atlanteans“. So, Burning Tides can probably happen in parallel in the Factions universe. (I’ll be able to say more once I know what’s happening with BT.) But it might spin a little differently in the Factions verse. For comparison, maybe look at the Harrowing. It happened in both universes, but played out somewhat differently (I think?) in the Factions verse. (I say “I think” because I’m not entirely clear on how it resolved in the Riot universe.)
The only outright rejection of Riot canon so far is The Great Retcon itself. Riot said, “okay, the League universe no longer contains a League, or Summoners, or any of that stuff”, to which I said, “GTFO” and flipped the table. That does cause some secondary variances.
W/r/t/ the Harrowing, I think all we were told was that the “forces” of the Black Mist were “defeated” with a temporary alliance between Gangplank, Miss Fortune, and the forces at their disposal. Not much beyond that.
I was also archive-binging the Hextech Revolution/Nyroth stuff the other night, and I came across the jailed off-the-deep-end Summoner raving about how the League didn’t exist. (this was during Jarvan’s incarceration and Malzahar’s escape) I immediately thought: ;) I see what you did there…
:3
It was a bit of a cheap shot, I admit.
Him literally screaming “RETCON! RETCON!” was a nice touch.
I’ve been trying to confirm that I registered but it won’t.
Is this NA only at the moment?
It is NA only at the moment, but that will change within a week or so. We’re getting everything in place so that we can easily “copy-paste” the necessary admin framework to other regions. As for confirming registration, you should see your name on the Summoner List within a day or so. It’s manually checked and updated.
Apparently, back then. . .
They didn’t spell out words with the bans. *the horror D:*
Just as a note, I was the TehGuitar who signed up for this. I got a name change, and am now VG Luna. The TehGuitar currently in your sheet is someone else. I ask you to please update your record so I can play, or to add me as a new person :)
The forum is down it’s all Bakarok’s fault
I came here from reddit and I must say I’m amazed by your version of the Journal of Justice. Much props from Poland <3
I just joined in and am loving this. This was a great idea guys.
When I first saw this website I was overjoyed. This was too good to be true!
Unfortunately, it kind of was. I’m on EUW…
I really wish someone would start this on EUW. I’m dying to try this out.
why, your dreams have now been realized, good fellow! For there is a EUW server with a Factions!!!
http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/26ke6h/factions_game_mode_expands_to_euw_at_last/
Thank you based god. I’ll sign up right away.
You got the results for the next arc yet cupcake?
Never mind just saw it. Piltover vs the yordles :D. Time to raise my donger.
This seems awesome! I hope Riot makes this an official gamemode.
Is this NA only at the moment? I’ve been trying to confirm that I registered but it won’t let me because I’m on EUW.
Unfortunately, this is indeed NA only at the moment. I keep hearing from EUW people who want to set up Factions over there, and I’ve offered help, but it seems like it hasn’t gotten rolling yet.
Although for various reasons I can’t volunteer to actually run EUW Factions right now, if you or anyone else on EUW wants to start Factions there, please let me know. (You can email me at CupcakeTrapLOL using Google’s email service which I will not spell out the address for in order to avoid automated spam.) I would be delighted to assist.
I’m itching to try this out. At first I was overjoyed to see this website, but after I was extremely bummed out to see it was only NA. I really hope someone will try to get the ball rolling.
I can’t really commit to running Factions anywhere other than NA at the moment, but I would be delighted to help you or anyone else who wants to take the lead on starting Factions on another server. Just let me know.
Are you guys thinking about making a forum for this site? It would make getting out information easier.
That’s an interesting idea. We certainly could! That might be especially handy for the FAQ section, as it’d provide a place for Factions members to ask questions and discuss things that would also retain a copy of the discussion.
forums would definately make this easier for new players and i would like to see this
I think that’s pretty much what /r/LeagueFactions is for. I suppose we could try to set up our own forum system as well.
well i see Cupcake is here, so i submitted for noxus =) ill be happy to play when i can!
Awesome concept glad I surf the forums during my down time. The execution is great and I love playing these games keep up the Great Work!
Thank you for joining in! :) Factions wouldn’t be what it is today without the outpouring of enthusiasm from the community.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR LINKING ME TO THIS! How did I not know about this!? I think I will actually get involved!
Welcome! ^^ Share with friends if you like. We’re always keen to get more
peopleSUMMONERS involved.I was promised Pasta…..