Mid-Season Invitational 2025 is upon us, bringing a new format and full fearless from June 27th to July 12th. On Tuesday, Riot Games unveiled the details about the format of the competition. Here is everything you need to know about the MSI 2025 tournament format.

The Qualified teams

This year, MSI will only be a best-of-five series full of Fearless, with ten teams — two from each region — competing against each other and a chance at winning MSI 2025. Top 2 seeds from the LCK, LPL, LCP, LEC, as well as the top seeds from LTA North and LTA South :

LEC: Movistar KOI (MKOI) - G2 Esports (G2)
LCK: Gen.G (GEN) - T1 (T1)
LPL: Anyone's Legend (AL) - Bilibili Gaming (BLG)
LCP: CTBC Flying Oyster (CFO) - GAM Esports (GAM)
LTA: FlyQuest (FLY) - FURIA (FUR)

The play-in Stage

The play-in stage will feature the second seeds from LEC, LCP, LPL, and the representative from the LTA South. These four teams will play against each other in a best-of-five, double-elimination bracket with seeding decided by the regional results coming out of First Stand 2025.

The two teams that reach two wins will move on to the Bracket Stage alongside the 1st seed of each region, and the LCK 2nd seed, which gets directly put into the bracket stage because of Hanwha Life Esports winning First Stand.

Bracket Stage

In the Bracket stage, the eight qualified teams will be playing another best-of-five double-elimination bracket with matchups decided by a draw. Teams will be split into four different tiers, with those tiers spread out across the bracket, based on First Stand results :

Tier 1 will play against Tier 4, and Tier 2 will play against Tier 3. Just like last year, teams from the same region cannot be drawn into the same side of the bracket making sure we get region-on-region matches. This automatically determines several matchups, which significantly narrows down the number of possible draw results. Of the six potential team combinations advancing from Play-Ins, four scenarios require no additional draw, and the other two only need one final placement decision to complete the bracket.

Because LCK1 and LCK2 can’t be on the same side of the bracket, LCK1 and LTA1 are fixed on one side, while LEC1 and LCK2 are placed on the opposite side. This setup stays consistent across all six possible outcomes.

Riot Games detailed the six possible Play-In scenarios:

"SCENARIO 1: LEC2 and LTA2 Advance (single draw required)

Several placements are determined by regional restrictions:

This leaves two matchups unassigned:

SCENARIO 2: LCP2 and LPL2 Advance (single draw required)

A draw is needed to place one Tier 4 team—whichever is drawn will face LCK1. From that one choice, all other matchups cascade by rule to avoid potential second round same-region matchups. For example:

SCENARIO 3: LEC2 and LPL2 Advance (no draw required)

This outcome immediately determines all placements based on the rules above:

SCENARIO 4: LEC2 and LCP2 Advance (no draw required)

This outcome immediately determines all placements based on the rules above:

SCENARIO 5: LTA2 and LCP2 Advance (no draw required)

This outcome also falls perfectly into place by rule:

SCENARIO 6: LTA2 and LPL2 Advance (no draw required)

This outcome also falls perfectly into place by rule:

The Rewards for winning

The winning team of MSI 2025 will secure a spot at Worlds 2025 (the team still has to qualify for its Summer domestic playoffs), and the second best region will secure an additional slot at Worlds.