New Rapid League on Lichess on Mondays

Are Rapid Team battles rare on Lichess?

Once you join teams on Lichess, you will probably find yourself sooner or later playing in some team battles that include Blitz, Classical or Bullet time controls. Checking various active teams, it seemed like there was some gap and almost no Rapid team battles were organized yet.

Elite Team Battles turn into Rapid League after 125 editions

The Elite Team Battles with @Ensemo were already hosted 125 times (!) on Mondays and we decided to try out the somewhat new and rare time control format for Team battles with "10+0", allowing Berserk players could still choose if they want to play Blitz with 5 Minute Berserk as Rapid rating or actual classical Rapid with 10 minutes.

Qualifier event to divide teams into Leagues with 350 registrations

The idea of the qualifier event was to divide the teams into the future divisions, where teams would play in battles of 10 teams maximum just like in the Lichess (Blitz) league that takes place every Thursday and Sunday. Not knowing what to expect and how many leaders to choose from, it turned out that 10 leaders led onto interesting battles on the top as well as interesting battles in the middle of the field to determine if the teams would land in future Rapid League 1, 2, 3 or 4.

What's next in the Rapid League?

For the upcoming Rapid League on October 3rd, teams will continue to play in "League mode" with 10 teams maximum, starting from the "grid" as in the Qualifier. New teams that are still interested to join will join the grid from the lowest league which is currently League 4 - keep in mind though that first come first serve counts in the lower leagues - as soon 10 teams will have joined League 4, new teams will continue in League 5 etc. It is also planned to rotate time controls just like in the Lichess Bundesliga (10+0 and 7+5 are for sure, there might be another third time control).

Where do I find the links of the next edition?

The next edition of the Rapid League will continue on Monday, October 3rd as following:

Rapid League 1 including the teams TEAM COLOMBIA RAPIDAS, Black dragon chess, Chessmaste & Friends, Rochade Europa - Schachzeitung, Colegas de Kike, Dark Horse, القادة, Шахматисты Ферганы, Намангана, Андижана городов Узбекистана, Evolution legends , Торпедо Москва

Rapid League 2 | Rapid League 3 | Rapid League 4

All teams will find the upcoming links in the tournament descriptions, where they can click after the end of each event.

Can my team still join from the next edition on?

Yes, new teams can join (and withdraw also) anytime. Just contact Ensemo or me anytime and we will add your team asap.

Good luck and have fun everyone!