What is the LoL Mid-Season Invitational?

The esports calendar has a fair bit going on in June. And if you’re a new fan of MOBAs, the genre where LoL and DOTA 2 take most of the attention, you may be wondering what the current hype is about. Well, essentially, this month delivers what can be referred to as ‘MSI LoL’ or ‘LoL MSI’, a key highlight of League of Legends esports for 2025.

Not related to the tech or gaming laptop manufacturer, the MSI League of Legends tournament is the Mid-Season International. And it’s a highlight of the LoL annual esports calendar, well worth your attention if you’re keen on seeing the best talents playing the most widely followed MOBA game on the planet. 

It garners a fair bit of attention and requires a bit of a closer look. So, to answer “what is MSI League of Legends?”, we’ll dive into all you need to know. 

Like other esports tournaments, the LoL Mid-Season Invitational changes its host location year after year. While 2024’s was held in Chengdu, Sichuan, China, LoL MSI 2025 is being held at the Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We’ll look at the history of MSI LoL and more details about this year’s event below, but let’s cover a few more contextual bits of information first. 

This year’s MSI LoL event is the second global (or cross-regional) LoL event of 2025. Last year, the MSI League of Legends tournament was the first ‘global’ event of the LoL calendar. However, with the arrival of a new, ‘First Stand’ event in March, won by Hanwha Life Esports, LoL MSI is now the second of three cross-regionals on the schedule. The third is the Worlds, which kicks off at the end of September. 

The LoL MSI schedule runs from Friday, June 27, to Saturday, July 12, comprising 14 days of action. Although neither the schedule nor ticket info makes it clear which days relate to which part of the event, there are gaps in the live dates that suggest how things play out for the LoL MSI brackets, quarterfinal, semifinal, bracket final, and Grand Final stages.

We expect the ‘Play-In’ stage to kick off the schedule from June 27 to June 29. There’s then a break in the schedule, suggesting the Bracket Stage runs from July 1 to July 5. And there is no July 6 in the ticket listings, so this suggests that July 7 to July 12 features the latter stages, potentially of quarterfinal, semifinal, bracket final, and Grand Final matches…although this isn’t confirmed at the time of writing.

The LoL MSI brackets are ‘Play-in’ and ‘Bracket’ Stages, which we go through in our deeper look at the LoL MSI brackets. The LoL Mid-Season International features 10 teams,  effectively split across the two stages. As Hanwha Life Esports won First Stand in March, Korea has two qualified teams in the Bracket Stage. The remaining four global regions then have one team each in for the ‘Play-In’, and one team for the ‘Bracket’ Stage.

For both the Play-In and Bracket stages of the tournament, LoL MSI rules dictate a ‘Bo5’ (best of 5) approach for matches, plus the inclusion of the new Fearless Draft rule. This effectively means no LoL champion can be played more than once during the series. 

This is a massive rule with huge implications, not only adding an extra element of tactical planning to matches but also a serious amount of forethought as teams plot their way to glory, carefully utilizing preferred champions along the way to get the lion’s share of the $2,000,000 Lol MSI prize pool. 

As covered briefly earlier, the LoL MSI location will be Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and the venue for live attendance of the matches is the Pacific Coliseum. However, if you want to get your hands on LoL MSI tickets, you’ll have to be quick. 

At the time of writing, Canada’s Ticket Leader site, selling LoL MSI tickets, does show availability, but every day of the tournament is marked as either ‘Not Many Left’ or ‘Almost Gone’. Most of the cheaper tickets from $55 (CAD) appear to have gone, leaving only the $75, $95, or higher priced levels. 

Among the history of LoL esports victors, the history of the LoL Mid-Season Invitational winners is pretty much a who’s who of LoL teams. Including the first event in 2015, where a close grand final between Edward Gaming beat SK Telecom T1 three games to two, there have been nine LoL MSI events, not including this year’s in Vancouver. 

As you’d expect, the 2020 event was canceled due to COVID-19. It was replaced by the Mid-Season Streamathon, hosted by Riot Games. Of the live events, the locations have been:

The previous LoL Mid-Season Invitation winners are led in titles by the Chinese team, Royal Never Give Up, who have three titles, including back-to-back wins in 2021 and 2022, followed by the two-time winning Korean team SK Telecom T1, with back-to-back titles in 2016 and 2017. 

Now, the second of the three global (cross-regional) highlights of the LoL esports scene, MSI LoL 2025, looks to deliver another action-packed event, and the first in Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia. As we get ready for the end of June, you can be assured of some world-class displays from top LoL eSports talents, as tickets for the event are flying.