MSI 2024: Venue locations, dates, and format

After three months of exciting League of Legends action, a dozen of the world’s best teams will be colliding at the first international tournament of the year, the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational. The tournament will take place in China and will last just over two weeks.

Whether you’re rooting for the LCK powerhouses, LPL juggernauts, or are hoping for greatness from the LCS or LEC, each region will be sending their top squad to this event in an attempt to etch their names in the annals of League history. The teams will need to lock in quickly and find momentum as they blast through some of the most exciting games of the year so far.

Here are the most important pieces of information you’ll need to know about MSI’s location, dates, and format.

MSI 2024: Location and venue

This year, MSI will be coming to Chengdu, China. The entire tournament will take place at the Chengdu Financial City Performing Arts Center, allowing fans to stay in one location and plan out one place to reside while they enjoy the festivities. This should also be good for players since they don’t have to worry about traveling to different locations while training.

MSI 2024: All tournament stage dates

The 2024 Mid-Season Invitational will be taking place from May 1 to 19, with only single-day breaks between the stages. This means the first half of May will be action-packed with multiple best-of-three series to enjoy as the battle rages on for the trophy.

• The play-in stage will run from Wednesday, May 1 to Sunday, May 5.
• The first week of the bracket stage will run from Tuesday, May 7 to Sunday, May 12.
• The second week of the bracket stage will take place from Tuesday, May 14 to Saturday, May 18.
• The finals will be on Sunday, May 19.

MSI 2024: Full format

This year, MSI’s tournament format is relatively straightforward, but it has excited the LoL esports fanbase due to one small change made by Riot before the start of the event. Overall, there will be a play-in stage featuring the second seeds from the LPL, LCK, LCS, and LEC as they are matched up with the No. 1 seeds from the VCS, PCS, LLA, and CBLoL.

These eight teams will be drawn into two double-elimination brackets made up of best-of-three matches. Additionally, each team will be split into four different tiers and split into the two brackets to ensure there will always be cross-regional play to start off the tournament.

The tiers are as follows:

• Tier one: LPL and LCK second seed
• Tier two: LCS and LEC second seed
• Tier three: PCS and VCS first seed
• Tier four: LLA and CBLoL first seed

After the stage concludes, the two best teams from the play-ins will be thrown into the bracket stage, where they will be drawn into two brackets alongside six of the best teams in the world. The No. 1 seeds from the LCK, LPL, LCS, and LEC are matched with the two teams with perfect records from play-ins, and two teams with a single loss in play-ins.

Starting with a highly requested double-elimination bracket of best-of-fives, these teams will battle to the finals on Sunday, May 19. In a similar vein to the play-ins, the bracket stage will also have the final eight teams at the tournament split into four tiers, with the Korean and Chinese representatives taking first seed due to their success at previous iterations of MSI.

The tiers are as follows:

• Tier one: LPL and LCK first seed
• Tier two: LCS and LEC first seed
• Tier three: Play-in teams with 2-0 records
• Tier four: Play-in teams with 2-1 records

One of the most exciting changes of MSI lies in a new rule that Riot has implemented where each side of the bracket stage can only have one team per region. As a result, fans are guaranteed cross-regional play for the first two rounds of the upper bracket, and the first round of the lower bracket.