The annual Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) features the top League of Legends teams from each respective region competing for the coveted MSI Trophy. However, this year’s tournament marks the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that the event has gone ahead. MSI 2021 will feature reigning world champion DAMWON Gaming, but also new faces that haven’t been able to make it to the summer event in recent years. These include teams like MAD Lions and Royal Never Give Up, who’ll be competing in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Stream Schedule
While there would usually be 12 teams attending, GAM Esports will not be able to participate due to COVID-19 travel restrictions in Vietnam. As such, the remaining participants have been broken up into one group of three and two groups of four.
| Group A | Group B | Group C |
| Royal Never Give Up – LPL | MAD Lions – LEC | DWG KIA (DAMWON Gaming) – LCK |
| Unicorns of Love – LCL | PSG Talon – PCS | Cloud9 – LCS |
| Pentanet GG – LCO | fastPay Wildcats (Istanbul Wildcats) – TCL | Gillette Infinity (Infinity Esports) – LLA |
| paiN Gaming – CBLOL | DetonatioN FocusMe – LJL |
The Groups Stage will take place between May 6 and May 11. Since one group has a lower amount of players, those in Group A will play in a quadruple round-robin format, whereas those in Groups B & C will play in a double round-robin format. The top two teams will advance to the next stage as usual.
The Rumble stage (May 14 – May 18) will showcase the remaining six teams in another double round-robin format, with the top four proceeding to the next stage.
The Semi-Finals (May 21 – May 22) will consist of a single elimination bracket, with a best-of-five matches to determine the top two teams that will advance to the Final on May 23.
MSI 2021 drops and watch rewards
Not only can fans tune in to the latest MSI 2021 action on lolesports, there are also in-game cosmetics up for grabs. Watching live matches or VODs of the current split will unlock certain rewards between April 29 at 8 p.m. ET, and May 29 at 9 p.m. ET.
- Watch 1 Live Game or VOD:
- 500 Blue Essence
- Watch 5 Additional Games:
- Hextech Chest + Key
- Watch 10 More Games:
- lolesports.com exclusive “Too Bad!” emote
In addition to watch rewards, drops are back for MSI 2021, which can only be obtained by watching live matches. However, instead of it being completely random like at previous events, the frequency of drops increases depending on how many epic plays and exciting moments there are in a single game.
There are four exclusive icons available here, along with random surprise rewards given out such as sweepstakes entries, branded Hextech Chests, Jax champion shards and more.
