Rulebook

These rules cover every part of FDS Season 1: who can play, the draft, rosters and substitutions, the schedule, match-day procedure, and how everyone is expected to behave in and out of game. Every player and captain should read them in full before the season starts. By playing in FDS, you agree to follow them.

Season 1 at a glance

• Format: draft league. Six teams of five, built in a live snake draft
• Games: Fearless Draft, played on NA servers
• Regular season: October 10 – November 7, single round robin, every match a best of three
• Playoffs: November 14 – December 12, top four teams, double elimination
• Relegation: the bottom two teams play for a spot in the league
• Match time: Saturdays at 5:00 PM ET, unless both captains agree to move it
• Entry fee: $10, due October 11

Who can play

• You need at least 50 ranked Solo/Duo games in the 2026 season. If you have fewer than 50 this season, 100 or more games in the 2025 season also qualifies you.
• You must play at a Platinum level or higher. We look at several things to judge this: your current rank, your peak ranks, your ranks in past seasons, and whether you are a one-trick or were duo-boosted.
• Anyone who appears to be smurfing, or whose account doesn't reflect how well they really play, can be turned away or suspended.
• You must stay in the FDS Discord server for the whole season. Leaving the server, or being banned from it, can get you disqualified.

Entry fee

• Every drafted player pays a $10 USD entry fee, due by October 11, the day after the first match day.
• Every dollar goes to the first-place prize.
• If you haven't paid by then and haven't agreed on a later date with Different, you will be removed from your team and your captain will choose a replacement.
• You can pay with PayPal, Zelle, Crypto, Wise or Cash App. DM Different for the payment details. If you need another payment method, DM Different.

Smurfs

• Captains must report any player they suspect is a smurf to the admins. A captain who fails to report one loses their captain spot and is barred from captaining in future seasons.
• A reported player is re-evaluated and may be removed from the league.
• If a team gains a meaningful advantage from playing a smurf, it forfeits every match that player played in, and the player is removed immediately. Those matches are not replayed.

Captains are the link between their team and the league staff, so they need to be reachable and helpful. If you feel your captain isn't doing the job, tell an admin.

Players who signed up as captains before the draft are the ones who draft the teams.

What captains are responsible for

• Reporting games. After every game, post the game and its draft in the matching forum on the Discord, and confirm the winner on the website.
• Getting the team there. Keep your team talking and plan around everyone's availability. Making sure your team shows up on match day is your job.
• Raising problems early. Tell the league staff about any issue as soon as you know about it; small problems handled early don't turn into big ones. If you need an admin, use your team's text channel.
• Voting on rule changes. If something comes up mid-season that the rules don't cover, captains may be asked to vote on a change or a new rule. A simple majority passes it.

A captain who doesn't meet these responsibilities can be removed as captain on the spot and will likely be barred from captaining in the future.

Using a substitute

A team may play a substitute in a match when all of the following are true:

• The sub is approved. The captain posts the request in the sub-requests channel and an admin confirms it. A sub that isn't posted and confirmed there doesn't count.
• The opposing captain knows exactly who is coming in and who is sitting out.
• The sub's PV is the same as or higher than the PV of the player being replaced. A higher PV means a lower-rated player.

Some exceptions and limits:

• The opposing captain can waive the PV requirement, but the sub still needs approval from both captains and an admin.
• A player already on another team can't sub unless the opposing captain agrees.
• If no eligible sub can be found, or a team keeps asking for unreasonable subs, the admins may choose the sub for them.

Roster lock

Each team's lineup locks 24 hours before its series begins. Any change after that is an emergency substitution.

Emergency substitutions

An emergency sub replaces a scheduled player because of something unexpected inside those 24 hours, such as a personal emergency, a power outage or a connection problem. Teams that abuse emergency subs can be made to forfeit.

• Before a game's draft: the team uses an official sub and loses one ban in every game that sub plays, plus one more ban for each further emergency sub. If that isn't possible, the series is rescheduled. If neither works, the series is forfeited.
• After a game's draft: the sub takes the missing player's place and the draft stays as it is. The other team may choose to redo the draft, in which case the substituting team takes the ban penalty above.
• A ban penalty always removes a team's earliest bans in the draft order.
• The opposing captain can waive any substitution penalty.

• Trades are allowed at any time during the regular season.
• After a trade, every team must still have exactly five players and still meet the PV gates (see The Draft).
• Captains run trades. Players don't need to be told until a trade is confirmed.
• Disclose known issues. Captains must tell the admins and the other captain about anything that could disrupt the traded player, whether mental, scheduling or anything else.
• Every trade is checked for fairness by a vote of the staff team, and the majority decides.
• A trade only becomes official when an admin posts it in the trades channel. Any trade that isn't posted there is void.
• Once a team has been eliminated from playoff contention, it can't trade with teams that can still make the playoffs.
• If a player pressures or threatens their captain into a trade, the captain may replace that player.

FDS is a draft league: captains build their rosters in a live snake draft on this website. The order runs 1 to 6 in odd rounds and 6 to 1 in even rounds. Each captain starts on their own team and makes four picks.

Draft order

Captains with a higher PV (lower-rated players) choose their draft position before captains with a lower PV.

Player Value (PV)

Every player is given a PV based on several factors, including current and past ranks. Lower PV means a stronger player.

PV gates

A team's total PV, captain included, must be:

• at least 150 once it has three players (the captain and two picks), and
• at least 296 with a full roster of five.

Because lower PV is stronger, these minimums stop any team from stacking the best players. The draft board greys out anyone who would make a gate impossible to reach. If nobody left can get a team to a gate, it must take one of the players who get it closest. On a team's last pick, that means the highest-PV player still available.

The pick clock

• The clock gets longer each round: 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00.
• If the clock runs out, the site automatically drafts the best available player the PV gates allow.

Season dates

• Regular season: five weeks, October 10 – November 7
• Playoffs and relegation: November 14 – December 12
• No games on November 28 (Thanksgiving)
• Matches are played Saturdays at 5:00 PM ET, unless both captains agree to another time.
• The full schedule is at franchisedraftseries.com/schedule.

Regular season

• A single round robin: every team plays every other team once.
• Every regular-season match is a best of three (Bo3).

Standings

Teams are ranked by series record, and the playoff seeds come from these standings. Ties are broken in this order:

1. Total game record
2. Head-to-head result
3. Average win time (faster ranks higher)

Tiebreakers only count regular-season games.

Rescheduling

• A match can move to any day and time if both captains agree and it doesn't clash with another playoff match.
• Both captains must post the change in the reschedule channel, and an admin must confirm it. Otherwise the reschedule is void.
• If the captains can't agree, the match is played at its default time: Saturday at 5:00 PM ET.
• An approved reschedule can only be undone if both captains agree.

Playoffs

The top four teams make the playoffs, a double-elimination bracket: a team's first loss drops it to the lower bracket, and a second loss ends its season. Playoff matches are best of three, except the lower bracket final and the grand final, which are best of five.

All matches start Saturdays at 5:00 PM ET. A playoff match can be moved if both captains agree; the grand final can only be moved if both teams agree.

Relegation

The bottom two teams in the standings play a best-of-five relegation match. The loser loses its franchise spot in the league.

First selection in the playoffs

• Game 1: the higher seed has first selection. Ties in seeding are settled with the regular-season tiebreakers.
• Lower bracket final: the team that dropped down from the upper final has game 1 first selection.
• Grand final: the team coming from the upper bracket has game 1 first selection, whatever its seed.
• After game 1: the team that lost the previous game has first selection.

Fearless Draft

Every series uses Fearless Draft: once a champion has been picked in a series, neither team can pick it again for the rest of that series.

First selection

The team with first selection chooses either the side (blue or red) or the pick order (first or second pick), and the other team makes the remaining choice.

• Regular season, game 1: the team listed on the left on the website chooses the pick order, and the team on the right chooses the side.
• Every game after that: the team that lost the previous game has first selection.

Being on time

The clock starts as soon as one team is in the lobby and ready to play. Lateness also counts between games of a series, and the penalties add up:

• Both captains can agree to waive a lateness penalty.
• While admins are handling a pre-game issue, the lateness clock is paused.
• To dispute a lateness call, send a screenshot showing all five of your players in the lobby, the draft link posted in the lobby chat, and your computer's clock. Then send a second screenshot showing the time the penalty would apply. A screen recording also works.
• A captain whose team forfeits three or more times through poor organization may be removed as captain, at the admins' discretion.
• A player who is repeatedly late may be removed from their team.

Voice channels

• While you are playing, you must be in your team's voice channel in the FDS Discord.
• Once a game has started, only the five players in that game may be in the channel. Anyone else can join before the game, between games and after.

• Drafts happen outside the client on Drafter.lol, or a similar tool if it is down.
• If a team bans or picks something by mistake, it can correct it any time before the opponent's next pick or ban. If the other team disputes the correction and has no proof, the correction stands.
• Teams can swap roles freely until the draft ends. At the end, confirm which player is taking which champion with Drafter.lol's confirmation step. Once confirmed, those assignments are final.
• Anyone in a champion select or a game may not watch the opponent's stream (stream sniping). Doing so is an immediate loss of the current match.
• Champions that are newly released or reworked are disabled for two weeks after they come out.

Pauses

• Each team gets 5 minutes of total pause time per game. Going over is a loss of that game, unless the opposing captain lets it go.
• Both teams must agree before a game is unpaused, and the player who paused must be the one to unpause. Unpausing without the other team's okay costs your team one ban in its next game.
• Don't pause while anyone is in a fight. If it happens, an admin must be contacted during the pause; a team that unpauses before reaching an admin is disqualified from that game.
• If the fight didn't really matter (for example, a stray skillshot with no follow-up), the teams can agree to move on. Usually, the fix for a mid-fight pause is to let the other team take the kill. Admins will make a fair call.

Accounts

You must play on one of the accounts you registered.

Chat and conduct

In-game chat and emotes are allowed. Excessive toxicity, harassment, hate speech, or unsportsmanlike or mean-spirited behavior will get you a temporary or permanent ban from FDS.

Forfeits

• Games that aren't being streamed may be forfeited.
• Games on an official FDS stream may not be forfeited. A player who forfeits a streamed game is disqualified from the league unless there is an extreme circumstance, and their captain may be barred from captaining.

• Games shown on the official FDS stream may not be streamed anywhere else.
• Other games may be streamed, on a 2.5-minute delay.
• If you played in a streamed game, don't share the result publicly until it has aired.
• Don't post about a game in the Twitch chat or the Discord until it has finished on stream.
• On stream or in its chat, don't attack players or viewers. Breaking Twitch's Terms of Service means an immediate ban. No advertising without the admins' permission.

• Don't abuse the player report system. Doing so leads to discipline for you or your team.
• Everyone in the FDS community is expected to follow these rules and the #rules channel in the FDS Discord.

Admin authority

Situations these rules don't cover will come up. When they do, admins may create, change or interpret rules as needed. Their decision is final, and everyone involved is expected to respect it.