 With this re-branding, the tournament was expand from 16 to 18 teams.At the beginning of the 2018 season, it was announced that the teams that finished 2nd and 3rd in the bottom two tiers of the Peruvian football league system would compete on the promotion play-offs at the end of the year to decide which two teams would receive the expansion slots.Both Carlos A. Mannucci and Cienciano qualified to the promotion play-offs as runner-up and third place teams in the second division.