2021 Mid-Season Invitational gets new format, dates revealed

William Davis Published 01/03/2021

The 2021 Mid-Season Invitational will happen and fans now know when, where, and how it will take place.

MSI 2021 will take place in Reykjavík, Iceland from May 6 to 22. 

After missing out on MSI in 2020, the second-biggest event on the League of Legends calendar is set for 2021 and will bring together top teams from all around the world. After a variety of rumors, it is now confirmed that the event will take place in Iceland’s capital city and will be in a bubble format like the one seen during the 2020 World Championship, which largely played out without an audience. Besides that, Riot is changing up the format and dividing the tournament into three stages. 

MSI 2021 will mark the first time that an official Riot Games tournament will take place in Iceland. All games will be played at the Laugardalshöll indoor sporting arena behind closed doors, but will still include the top performers of the first half of the season from each region. 

No teams have been decided for the MSI 2021 yet, but it will only be a few weeks before regional champions will start being crowned. 

Format changes for the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational

The biggest change to the MSI 2021 format is the fact that the play-in stage has been removed. This means that all teams from all regions will now start at the same stage of the tournament. 

The tournament will be divided into three stages, starting with the group stage, followed by the “rumble,” then ending with the knockout stage. The first stage will include all 12 teams, who will be split into three groups of four teams. Each group will play a best-of-one double round robin. The two best teams from each group will advance to the next stage. 

The Rumble Stage is where the six teams will play another double round robin, to find the top four teams that will move on to the final stage. Once again, it’s in a best-of-one format. The final stage has the four remaining teams compete in a single-elimination bracket. All matches will be best-of-five and there will be no room for mistakes. 

The team that wins two best-of-fives in the knockout stage will be crowned the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational champions. 

Who won MSI?

The Mid-Season Invitational has been held a total of five times, with four different winners. The first-ever MSI was won by EDward Gaming in 2015, followed up by two years dominated by SK Telecom T1. Royal Never Give Up won in 2018, followed up by G2 Esports winning the most recent MSI in 2019. 

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