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What is the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational?

Riot··2 votes·46,821 views

First time watching an international esports event or want a quick recap of the changes coming to the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational?

Here’s your guide to the upcoming tournament in Brazil:

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What is the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational?

The 2017 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) is an international League of Legends tournament. Starting this year, all 13 regions will participate by sending their most recent split champion (Spring Split or Split 1) to face off against other regional champions to prove who is the strongest region.

MSI travels to different host regions and this year it will be taking place in Brazil. Previous tournaments took place in China and North America.

Who is playing at MSI 2017?

Here’s the following teams, regional leagues, and regions that will be competing at MSI 2017:

  • CBLOL’s Red Canids - Brazil
  • TBD (LPL Finals on 4/29) - China
  • LCL’s Virtus.pro - Commonwealth of Independent States
  • EU LCS's G2 Esports - Europe
  • LJL’s Rampage - Japan
  • LCK's SK Telecom T1 -  Korea
  • LLN’s Lyon Gaming - Latin America North
  • CLS’s Isurus Gaming - Latin America South
  • NA LCS's TSM - North America
  • OPL’s Dire Wolves - Oceania
  • GPL’s Marines Esports - Southeast Asia
  • LMS's Flash Wolves - Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau
  • TCL's SuperMassive eSports - Turkey

What are they playing for?

The MSI Champion title, trophy, medals, prize pool, and the regional glory that comes with victory on the global stage.

As we previously announced, 25% of the total sales from the Conqueror Karma and the Conqueror ward skin will contribute the MSI 2017 prize pool from April 24-May 24.

The MSI prize pool is made up of a base of $250,000, coupled with 25% of the total sale of Conqueror Karma and ward skins, which is guaranteed to be at least $750,000, for a total prize pool of at least $1 million.    

Here’s how it’s broken down by team placement at MSI 2017:

  • Champion: 40%
  • 2nd Place: 20%
  • 3rd/4th Place: 10% each
  • 5th/6th Place: 5% each
  • 7th Place: 2.5%
  • 8th/9th Place: 1.5% each
  • 10th/11th Place: 1.25% each
  • 12th/13th Place: 1% each

As with last year, the results of MSI will impact where regions are seeded for the 2017 World Championship. Learn more about regional seeding at Worlds 2017 here.

What’s the format of MSI 2017?

The tournament has three different phases:

  • Play-In Stage
  • Group Stage
  • Knockout Stage

Play-In Stage

The brand-new stage takes place at the CBLOL Studio starting on April 28. Ten teams will will participate in the Play-In including:

  • CBLOL’s Red Canids - Brazil (BR)
  • LCL’s Virtus.pro - Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
  • LJL’s Rampage - Japan (JPN)
  • LLN’s Lyon Gaming - Latin America North (LAN)
  • CLS’s Isurus Gaming - Latin America South (LAS)
  • NA LCS's TSM - North America (NA) - Round 1 bye, starts in Round 2
  • OPL’s Dire Wolves - Oceania (OCE)
  • GPL’s Marines Esports (GPL Finals on 4/16) - Southeast Asia (SEA)
  • LMS's Flash Wolves - Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau (LMS) - Round 1 bye, starts in Round 2
  • TCL's SuperMassive eSports - Turkey (TUR)

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Group Stage

Three teams from the Play-In Stage will advance to take on the most recent champions from Europe, China, and Korea. The format remains the same as last year with the six teams competing in a Best of 1 double round robin which means every team will play each other twice.

Knockout Stage

As with last year, the top four teams from the Group Stage will advance to a Best of 5 bracket.

When is MSI happening? How can I watch?

Play-In Stage

Round 1 Dates: April 28 - May 1

Round 2 Dates: May 3 - 4

Round 3 Dates: May 6

Location: CBLOL Studio in São Paulo, Brazil.

Group Stage

Dates: May 10-14

Location: Jeunesse Arena (formerly Rio Arena) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Knockout Stage

Dates: May 19-21

Location: Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro

The MSI 2017 broadcast begins at 11:00 AM PT each day and will be streamed on Lolesports.

What are the rules for MSI 2017?

We’ve been working closely with all the regional leagues in advance of MSI 2017 to give them time to understand and comply with the ruleset. If you’d like to review the official language in the ruleset, read the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational rules here.

How can I support my region at MSI?

Learn more about how you can support your region and all the in-game content that will be available here.

Stay tuned to Lolesports to see who will reign at MSI 2017. The battle begins with opening match of the Play-In Stage, where Brazil’s Red Canids taking on Oceania's Dire Wolves on Friday, April 28 at 11:00 AM PT.

 

 

34 Comments

lIIaoi11 votes

Is there gonna be a bracket we can fill out for this? I think that would be great for some more easy event icons that go to players that did the best on their bracket. Possibly even a small percentage of the prize pool for the player that gets 100% on their bracket.

Miror B4 votes

Upvoted only because rito can/should implement this. If they want to have more of their tournaments taken seriously, then they have to start treating them like their "crown jewel" of worlds. Customized skins/wards are a nice opening touch, but to truly get people invested we need things like brackets and potentially specialty events like a "caster bowl" (where casters from each region face off against eachother similar to the all-star modes, while having player guests like Meteos/Scarra do commentary on it). Create something big and give people a bunch of reasons to watch it, and they usually will in droves.

RiggIes3 votes

Just realised that NA LCS is the only "major" region that doesn't even auto qualify for group stage......LUL inb4 TSM doesn't make it out of play-in LUL

Arclight Thresh1 votes

Then what's TSM? TSM is NA and auto qualified...

RiggIes3 votes

You serious bro? Go to round 2 of the graphs and tell me what you see there right next to LMS and above Winner A of round 1 of play-in stage......(Hint: it's the region TSM is in)

OMGSoAnnoying1 votes

TSM is in the second round of the play-in stage. The top three regions from last year's MSI are the ones that auto-qualified for the group stage (KR/CN/EU). So TSM still has to win one best of five series to get to the group stage, but they have two chances.

On a side note, I kinda feel bad for the RED Canids, playing in their home country and they came so close to getting out of that first round.

GLG MonkWTF1 votes

CLG got second in last year's MSI though....

ConcombreDeMer2 votes

If 25% of the conqueror karma and ward sales are at least 750 000$, does it mean that riot usually gets at least 3 000 000$ with only a skin and a ward?

GrayBlood2 votes

EU being better than LMS and NA LUL [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

Xyraga1 votes

Auto quality for group stage based on how well each region did at last worlds, Since EU play Brazil made it to quart finals it easy for them get auto quality. Hopefully during worlds they do better placement. I'm not sure outside other main region are other region still on par, even though Brazil did well last year in worlds, I think more of them getting lucky took games off EU G2 and NA CLG (CLG shouldn't gone they suck so bad last summer).

JasMeister1 votes

Where does it say it's based off of'Worlds' performance? Just curious because I'm confused by how auto-qualifying works.

HIGHERTHYR1 votes

So 24 games that are unnecessary, thanks riot. They could have just made a standard iwc tournament (instead of calling it msi buttround), took 3 of those teams and gave us the 2nd place teams from NA, EU, LCK, LPL, and LMS...but apparently riot lacks commons sense. The iwc tournment would also provide more viewership overall (as another tournament), and the people interested in those regions get to enjoy that as well.

Lantern Archon1 votes

Frankly, the only thing that confuses me is how weak teams are expected to get better, if teams like SKT win (fairly consistently) large prize pools at international tournaments, and can offer players more money, glory, and benefits than weaker teams as a result.

Paquay1 votes

This is how pretty much all sports work. Winners get more prize money.

The only thing is in the US, a lot of our leagues have salary caps because Americans enjoy parity in their sports.

Lantern Archon1 votes

True, but in the NFL, for example, teams that finished lower in the standings will receive better draft picks at the beginning of the next season. Team liquid, for better or worse, will not be receiving better picks at the "LoL Draft" this coming year.

Eleshakai1 votes

Teams have salary caps to prevent individual players from getting paid 250 million dollars a season.

Paquay1 votes

That's only kind of true. Sports have salary caps so that you cannot always buy the best players and consistently dominate year after year. This allows more parity in leagues with salary caps because the overall roster salary is roughly equal. You have to balance stars with role-players.

Take into account leagues or sports that don't have salary caps and you'll see trends of there being a handful of dominate teams, and then the rest of the league that has a very minor chance at winning the championship.

OMGSoAnnoying1 votes

And it wasn't just prime starters for some of them. Look at the NFL in the 80s before the salary cap.

San Francisco dominated many years, they not only had some of the best starters, but the best backups who could have started on other teams. Example... quarterback, they had a future Hall of Famer (Joe Montana) starting, and another future Hall of Famer (Steve Young) backing him up.

Breegot1 votes

Are you living under a rock? This is how the world works. Having money produces more opportunities to make money..

narsh1 votes

Maybe it's me being dense but why does china get a buy over NA since last year in worlds we made it to the quarterfinals as did China. My only guess would be C9 came in as 3rd seed and I think RNG came in second.

JurBurr1 votes

In the last 3 years Korea, China and EU have performed better then NA and LMS so if NA performs better at MSI and worlds this year then EU might be were NA is now at next years MSI.

OMGSoAnnoying1 votes

It's based on last year's MSI -- SKT won, Royal Never Give Up (CN) placed second, and the EU team came third. CLG (NA's team at last year's MSI) didn't get that high.

JasMeister1 votes

That makes no sense. SKT won, yes... but CLG was Second playing SKT in the finals. In the group stage, RNG was 1st and CLG was 2nd and SKT was 3rd (http://www.lolesports.com/en_US/msi/msi_2016/standings/groups). EU was a joke last year only winning two games, only one more than the international wildcard team. So what is the bracket 'auto-qualifying' really based off of?[zombie-brand-facepalm]

OMGSoAnnoying1 votes

My mistake there. I must have misread how it was explained in the earlier post about how they got it set up.

Steefness1 votes

It's basically Riot trying to rig it for the NA team. When NA can't compete with either Korea, China, or EU, then don't invite any of them to the show. It's shameful, and I wont be watching.

JasMeister1 votes

NA has been doing better than EU this past year.summoner 21

narsh1 votes

its obvious riot was so mad at CLG placing second last year they wanted to be sure we would place as low as possible. Next year they will send TL so the world stage can die from laughter. (Shame on you if you cannot figure out this was a troll post and nothing more)

Däkota1 votes

So, if only 3 teams make it to group stage from play in (the winners of round 2 and winner of losers bracket). How is the 6th team in group stage confirmed? (Since only SKT and G2 auto-qualified, leaving 4 open spots in group). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Boccoboso1 votes

The winner of the LPL (China Region) get auto qualified for as well. They are placed with SKT and G2. Its the winner of Royal Never Give Up and Team WE

Eleshakai1 votes

Damn... loser 1 vs loser 2... that's harsh ;)

(j/k)

EcipsFlow1 votes

So hyped! I can't wait to find out who will win the second place this time!

VMystikage1 votes

Omg... North America vs. Vietnam! [zombie-brand-mindblown] Too excited!

Findeacano1 votes

Help! There was an MSI promo video that showed the play in teams and then individual shots of Maple, Zven, Bjergsen and Faker. Where is this video???

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