MSI 2020 is reportedly not happening

League of Legends’ 2020 Mid-Season Invitational is canceled, according to reporter Travis Gafford.

Gafford dropped the “rumor” about MSI during his show, Hotline League, which he co-hosts with LCS analyst Mark Zimmerman.

Gafford said that he was “fairly confident” in the veracity of the rumor, adding that “it should come as no surprise to anybody.”

Nisqy, Cloud9’s mid laner who most recently won the 2020 LCS Spring Split and achieved the best split record by a North American team, was a guest on Hotline League and was asked for his reaction about the cancellation. He added that it “sucks” but said the team already had an inkling that it wasn’t going to happen due to the extreme difficulties in organizing a global event at this time.

In March, Riot postponed MSI to July instead of its traditional date in May, citing the developing COVID-19 situation that’s heavily affected global travel restrictions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced League‘s competitions across the world to move online. MSI is a global tournament, however, so an online tournament will come with its own caveats, such as ping issues. Fans have jokingly suggested a solution for equal ping: artificially inflating latency for all players.

For now, even a novel solution likely won’t bring the hyped LAN event back from the dead this year. Riot Games has yet to comment on the event’s rumored cancellation, so the developer could be hard at work trying to find an answer to the difficult problem.

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