Mid-Season Invitational

Mid-Season Invitational is an annual League of Legends tournament, happening between the Spring and Summer splits of all regions. The Spring Split champions of each LoL Region compete for the MSI trophy and an extra team slot for their region at LoL Worlds.

The first Mid-Season Invitational was held in 2015 in Tallahassee, Florida. The event featured the champions of the five main LoL regions and one extra team from the International Wildcard event. Edward Gaming were crowned the first-ever Mid-Season Invitational Champions.

Since then, six different teams earned the MSI trophy, with Royal Never Give Up winning on three different occasions (2018, 2021, 2022).

In 2023, thanks to a new format change, the Mid-Season Invitational will feature a total of 13 teams, two teams from each major region and one team from the five wild card regions.

When is MSI LoL 2023?

Mid-Season Invitational 2023 starts on the 2nd of May 2023 and ends on the 21st of May 2023. The tournament this year will be held in London, with all three weeks of competition taking place at the Copper Box Arena.

For those who cannot attend, the best way to enjoy MSI is by watching it online through live streams which will give you special drops and in-game rewards.

Watch MSI LoL Live:

MSI 2023 TEAMS

All the MSI 2023 teams are top teams from their own home regions. The 13 teams participating are:

  • Gen.G – LCK
  • T1 – LCK
  • JD Gaming – LPL
  • BLG – LPL
  • MAD Lions – LEC
  • G2 Esports – LEC
  • Cloud9 – LCS
  • Golden Guardians – LCS
  • LOUD – CBLOL
  • PSG Talon – PCS
  • DetonatioN FocusMe – LJL
  • Movistar R7 – LLA
  • GAM Esports – VCS

Read our MSI Power Rankings to find which MSI 2023 teams are the favorites in this year’s competition.

MSI 2023 Format

At the start of 2023, Riot Games made the decision of changing the tournament format following the restructuring of some minor regions in 2023. Regions like LCO, TCL, or the CIS will no longer have their own spot at MSI. Therefore, the remaining minor regions that are going to be invited are LLA, CBLOL, LJL, PCS, and VCS.

The four major regions (Korea, China, Europe, and North America), instead, are going to get two representatives per region, meaning that there will be eight teams. In addition to the five from the minor regions, there will be 13 teams altogether.

The new format will have five teams, the first seeds from the major region as well as the two seeds from Korea (having won last year’s Worlds), going directly to the bracket stage, with the remaining teams starting in the play-in stage.

MSI Play-in stage

The eight teams from the play-in stage will be drawn into two groups of four, with double-elimination brackets. All matches will be best-of-three, with the two winners from the groups qualifying for the playoffs stage.

The last team to qualify for the next stage will be chosen through a Last Chance Qualifier, as the lower bracket winners will have battle it out in one last deciding series.

MSI Playoffs

The Rumble stage at MSI is gone, and it will be replaced by an eight-team, double-elimination playoff bracket. It will be the first time LoL Esports features double elimination at an international tournament.

The participants will be drawn randomly and will have to play in best-of-five matches, with all teams getting a second chance to redeem themselves. Once two teams are left, they will clash in the finals to determine the MSI champions.

MSI Schedule

The schedule at Mid-Season Invitational has already been set and all the matches are set to be played between the 2nd-21st of May. MSI LoL odds are already widely available for the opening matches.

Mid-Season Invitational Winners

The MSI winners thus far were:

  • 2015 – Edward Gaming
  • 2016 – SK Telecom T1
  • 2017  – SK Telecom T1
  • 2018 – Royal Never Give Up
  • 2019 – G2 Esports
  • 2020 – Cancelled
  • 2021 – Royal Never Give Up
  • 2022 – Royal Never Give Up

Mid-Season Invitational History

The MSI History started in 2015, with the tournament evolving with each consecutive iteration. The prize money, host destinations, competing teams and ruleset are constantly adapted and tweaked as the tournament grew in size and scope. Initially the LoL esports system consisted of major and minor regions with the main regions automatically participating in the MSI Group Stage, while the minor regions had to play through a Play-Ins event. Starting in 2021, all regions are on equal grounds and they are seeded based on their regions past performance in international League of Legends events.

2015 Mid-Season Invitational

MSI 2015 was the first event of its type organized by Riot Games. It was hosted in Florida, USA between 7–10 May 2015. The event featured 12 participating regions, with LPL, LCK, EULCS, NALCS and LMS automatically seeded into the main event. The remaining 7 teams played a separate International Wildcard Invitational event in Turkey to determine the final 6th participant at MSI 2015. The winner of the Wildcard event was the TCL champion Beşiktaş Esports.

EDward Gaming defeated SKT T1 3:2 in the final to claim the first ever MSI trophy.

2016 Mid-Season Invitational

MSI 2016 was hosted in China, between 4-16 May 2016. The event featured 13 participating regions, with LPL, LCK, EULCS, NALCS and LMS automatically seeded into the main event. The remaining 8 teams played a separate 2016 International Wildcard Invitational event in Mexico to determine the final 6th participant at MSI 2016. The winner of the Wildcard event was the TCL champion SuperMassive eSports.

SKT T1 defeated Counter Logic Gaming 3:0 to claim the trophy and $1,000,000 in prize money. This event was the first one to feature MSI betting at a large scale, with the final being one of the most “bet on” matches to date.

SKT T1 wins MSI

2017 Mid-Season Invitational

MSI 2017 was hosted in Brazil between April 28-May 21 2017. The event featured 13 participating regions, with the LPL, LCK and EULCS automatically seeded into the main event. The remaining ten teams played through a play-in stage to determine the three participants heading into the Main Event stage.

SKT T1 defeated G2 Esports 3:1 in the final. This event marked the first time a team successfully completing a back-to-back championship run at the Mid-Season Invitational.

2018 Mid-Season Invitational

MSI 2019 was hosted in Germany and France between 3-20 May 2018. The event featured 14 participating regions, with the LPL, LCK, EU LCS and NA LCS automatically seeded into the main event.  The remaining ten teams played through a play-in stage to determine the two participants heading into the Main Event stage.

Royal Never Give Up defeated Kingzone DragonX 3:1 in the final. It marked the first time an LCK team lost a major event at the hands of a non-LCK team in over three years.

2019 Mid-Season Invitational

MSI 2019 was hosted in Vietnam and Taiwan between 1-19 May 2019. The event featured 13 participating regions, with the LPL, LEC and LCK automatically seeded into the main event.  The remaining ten teams played through a play-in stage to determine the three participants heading into the Main Event stage.

g2 msi 2019

Image Credits | Riot Games

G2 Esports defeated Team Liquid 3:0 in the MSI final, in the fastest international event series to date. G2 is currently the reigning MSI champion.

2021 Mid-Season Invitational

Following the cancellation of MSI in 2020, the international tournament returned in 2021 in Reykjavík, Iceland. Despite being a fully offline event, Riot Games made sure that the various teams were able to play safely in what was essentially a ‘bubble’. Therefore, no fans were allowed in the studio.

Nonetheless, the international tournament showcased great matches all round, especially from the Rumble stage onwards. All the teams from the major regions were able to take victories off of each other, showing that the west could battle it out with the stronger eastern teams.

MAD Lions, PSG Talon, DWG Kia and Royal Never Give Up were the 4 teams that qualified for the knockout stage, with the latter two fighting in the event’s finals. In the end, RNG defeated DWG Kia 3-2 to become the 2nd ever organization to win two MSI titles.

2022 Mid-Season Invitational

In 2022 MSI moved away from Iceland and went back to Busan, South Korea. Despite the change of location, the script did not change, with Royal Never Give Up winning, once again, against a Korean team. This time, however, it was T1 who failed to take the trophy, after achieving a record-breaking perfect regular split in the LCK Spring 2022.

rng msi 2022

Image Credits | Riot Games

This victory also marked an important milestone for RNG: they became the second team in MSI history to win back-to-back titles, and are now currently the only organization with three MSI championships under their belt.

The two spots in the top four were occupied by EU’s G2 Esports and NA’s Evil Geniuses, proving that there was still a gap to beat the Eastern regions.