LoL eSports’ elite tournaments, the Mid Season Invitational (MSI) and Worlds, are set to change. Riot Games will be implementing innovations for 2023.
The League of Legends World Championship, or LoL Worlds for short, was a huge success again this year. Over 5 million concurrent viewers crowned the finals as one of the most watched eSports events of all time. Still, not all fans are happy with the tournament format.
The sport’s other major competition, the MSI, also has room for improvement. Developer and organiser Riot Games would like to exploit this more in the coming year 2023 and has now announced changes to the formats of the two tournaments. Will the fans’ wishes be fulfilled from now on?
Relive the greatest Worlds of all time in this year’s Moments & Memories Worlds2022
Watch here: https://t.co/bvGBQjGSZ3 pic.twitter.com/40AMMFLDAB
– LoL Esports (@lolesports) November 12, 2022
LoL Worlds & MSI: Fans still disappointed with knockout stage
During a press conference, Naz Aletaha, Global Head of League of Legends Esports, and John Needham, President of eSports at Riot Games, announced changes to the formats of the two major LoL competitions. However, to the disappointment of some fans, the so-called “Single Elimination” format is to remain in place.
While Riot’s other hit Valorant, like many other eSports titles, is based on a “double elimination” system, the giant LoL of all things is an exception. This is to remain the case for the time being. Needham explains this decision as follows: “The Worlds are one of the biggest sporting events in the world. And all the major sporting events on the planet have single-elimination as a core element of their tournaments, at least in the knockout phase. We will continue with single-elimination because it keeps the excitement at the highest level.”
So the knockout stages of the two tournaments will most likely remain the same. How exactly the qualification and group stages will be reworked is still left open by the developers. According to Aletaha, however, a concrete announcement will be made at the “start of the season”, i.e. in a few months’ time.
