'League of Legends' is launching its own player combine this fall

League of Legends developer Riot Games is taking a page out of traditional sports' playbook and inviting top, unsigned players to a new showcase event called Scouting Grounds to show off players' skills to top organizations.

The 2016 North American Scouting Grounds takes place Nov. 13-19 and will invite the top North American players from League's ranked ladder to Los Angeles. Riot will be sending out invitations in late October to the four highest-ranking players in each role: top, jungle, mid, ADC and support.

Those 20 players will get to workshop with current pros, then be drafted into teams headed by League of Legends Championship Series pros and coaches for a round robin tournament. Following the event, teams around the world will receive VODs to check out the chosen players, similar to the NFL's Scouting Combine that puts college football players through a number of events to show their skills off to NFL teams.

The announcement of Scouting Grounds comes after Riot's recent changes to its Interregional Movement Policy. Teams have been prioritizing foreign talent over local talent (mostly from South Korea), so Riot increased restrictions on teams signing "imported" players. Teams with imported players like Team Liquid and Cloud9 will have to adapt to the new rules and look for more local talent in North America.

In its announcement, Riot did not specify that players invited to the Scouting Grounds are guaranteed to be drafted by teams, although the showcase will probably increase the likelihood of participating players moving up to the pros.

Requirements for entry

Riot will send email surveys to all players with Master and Challenger rankings in October, and interested players must complete that survey to be eligible for an invitation.

There are also a few restrictions listed by Riot that limit who is eligible for an invitation to Scouting Grounds:

• You must be 16 years of age by the start of the Challenger Series 2017 spring split.

• You’re very interested in playing LoL professionally.

• You have not played in more than two professional LoL matches in any league.

• You cannot be under contract by any professional team including Challenger teams at the time invites go out.

• You’re a North American resident as determined by the Interregional Movement Policy.

• You can pass a player behavior check, similar to what Challenger and LCS players must pass. This check includes a review of in-game behavior, Terms of Service violations, and looks at previous bans or suspensions.

If you match all that criteria and are one of the top players in your chosen role, you may just have an opportunity to show the top teams what you've got.