League of Legend's Mid-Season Invitational is Canceled. So Far, Worlds Isn't

In an unsurprising but still important announcement, Riot Games has announced that the second-biggest League of Legend eSport event of the year, the Mid-Season Invitational, has been canceled.

The Global League of Legends Esports team has been working hard over the past few months to react to these changes, support our regional leagues as they have successfully pivoted to online competition, and try to preserve our next big international competition, the Mid-Season Invitational. One outcome of this hard work was the decision to delay MSI from May to July with the hope that the crisis would be waning, travel restrictions would come down, and we could deliver an exceptional MSI.

Based on the modeling of our external risk advisors, however, it appears highly unlikely that either the global spread/impact of COVID-19 or the restrictive travel and public gathering policies responding to the crisis will abate significantly by the time of MSI’s current planned dates (July 3-19). With this model plus input from health authorities, local governments, regional leagues and teams, travel experts, and other stakeholders, we have made the difficult decision to not hold MSI in 2020. We believe this decision was necessary to ensure the health and safety of the players, teams, crew, partners, media, and fans.

This complicates the esports scene slightly, as the mid-season Invitational was typically how they would decide how many teams each region could bring to worlds. With its absence, they’ll be using a different method to figure that out, although it doesn’t seem to involve cross-region play: as instead of taking the Mid-Season invitational to a purely digital venue, it seems they plan to do something else entirely that focuses on individual regions.

Surprisingly, however, they’ve announced absolutely no plans to cancel Worlds, which is still scheduled for this Fall in Shanghai. Friggin’ Shanghai.

This decision also allows us to dedicate our global esports team and resources to planning for Worlds 2020. We are totally committed to delivering the biggest spectacle we’ve ever produced in China to celebrate our sport’s 10-year anniversary.

Um. Alright. I hope for everyone’s sake that works out, but if it doesn’t… I think everyone would be fine with missing a 10-year anniversary if it means no one has to die to put it together.

Maybe I’m just projecting, who knows.