Rumours had been widespread already, now Riot has confirmed that the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) 2020 has been cancelled. After the regional leagues moved to an online format the MSI’s demise is just the latest victim of the CoVid-19 Pandemic.
An Update from John Needham, Global Head of Esports:https://t.co/Omqq78jVNh pic.twitter.com/uAIGlBCAUt
— lolesports (@lolesports) April 23, 2020
Initially the MSI was scheduled for May before Riot postponed it to June hoping for the effects of the pandemic to wane. WIth cancellation now officially announced that hope has faded as the health and security of the potential attendees are prioritised.
Will there be Alternatives?
There will be no direct replacement for the event. John Needham, Global Head of Esports at Riot said the following in his statement:
“MSI serves as an international tournament that brings together the global League of Legends community—and any other version of the event this year would not meet our standards.”
Nevertheless the team at Riot is working on alternative events and activities to still bring the separate regions together. They hope to be able to announce more details on those in the coming weeks.
Changes to Worlds 2020
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Historically the MSI was also used to determine the amount of seeds for each region at Worlds as well as the coveted places in pool one for the group draw. To compensate for the now cancelled MSI Riot has announced several changes to the Worlds format in 2020:
The regional seed distribution is as follows:
- LPL (China), LEC (Europe): 4 teams each
- LCK (Korea), LCS (North America): 3 teams each
- PCS (South East Asia), VCS (Vietnam): 2 teams each
- CBLOL (Brazil), TCL (Turkey), LJL (Japan), LLA (Latin America), OPL (Oceania), LCL (Commonwealth of Independent States): 1 team each
Further information on Worlds 2020 as well as the distribution of the regions across the pools will be announced on a later date. Riot stressed the international achievements of the teams from the LPL, LEC and VCS during the last two years as reason to award more seeds to these leagues. Resulting in a record number of teams at Worlds for them.
Were you looking forward to the MSI? What do you think about the changes coming to Worlds 2020? Tell us via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or Discord!