The 2016 Mid-Season Invitational marked the third edition of Riot Games’ international tournament, held midway through the year between the Spring and Summer Splits of the regional leagues. The event was the first to feature 13 teams and saw SK Telecom T1 claim the title for the second consecutive year, defeating G2 Esports 3-1 in the Grand Final.
The trophy ceremony was conducted by none other than Brazilian legend and two-time World Cup winner and Ballon d’Or recipient
Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima, who came on stage to present the medals to the Korean players. At this edition of MSI, support player Lee "
Wolf" Jae-wan was named Finals MVP, becoming the first support to receive the award and one of only two supports to have won it alongside Gen.G's Son "
" Si-woo in 2024.
Location, Dates, Prize Pool and Format
The 2017 MSI was held in São Paulo, Brazil, from April 28 to May 21, with 13 teams competing. The tournament began with a Play-In featuring eight teams in a double round-robin BO1 group stage, followed by a BO5 Bracket Stage, with three teams advancing to the six-team Main Event. There, the top four of group stage reached the BO5 Knockout Stage.
Yes, it's Ronaldo with Kkoma at MSI 2017. Credit: Riot Games
The prize pool was once again increased for the 2017 edition, reaching $1,690,000. Winners SKT T1 received $676,000, while runners-up G2 earned $338,000. The semifinalists, Flash Wolves and Team WE, each received $169,000. TSM and GIGABYTE Marines earned $84,500 each, followed by SuperMassive with $42,250, RED Canids and Lyon Gaming with $25,350 each, Dire Wolves and Virtus.pro with $21,125 each, and Rampage and Isurus with $16,900 each.
Participating Teams
A total of 13 teams from 13 different regions participated in this MSI, but only three qualified directly for the Main Event: LCK champions SKT T1, LPL champions Team WE, and EU LCS champions G2 Esports. TSM and Flash Wolves, the NA LCS and LMS champions respectively, entered in Round 2 of the Play-In.
Round 1 of the Play-In featured CBLOL's RED Canids (Brazil), GPL's GIGABYTE Marines (Southeast Asia), LCL's Virtus.pro (Russia), TCL's SuperMassive Esports (Türkiye), CLS' Isurus (Latin America South), LJL's Rampage (Japan), LLN's Lyon Gaming (Latin America North), and OPL's Dire Esports (Oceania).
Peanut's first international trophy and a first final for G2
The results of the competition were fairly predictable. The Chinese-Korean dominance of the previous years continued to make itself felt, and the group stage only confirmed this trend. SKT T1 finished first in the group with an 8-2 record, dropping two games to the Wolves and WE. The Chinese team finished second at 7-3, while G2, FW and TSM all ended the group stage at 4-6.
The Samurai advanced directly to the Knockout Stage thanks to their better head-to-head record, while TSM and the Flash Wolves had to play a BO1 tiebreaker to determine who would advance to the next stage. It was the Taiwanese team who came out on top and went on to face T1.
The rest of the competition first saw T1 comfortably clean sweep the Flash Wolves in the semifinals, while G2 began writing another chapter in their long history of international performances, securing an impressive 3-1 victory over WE to qualify for the Grand Final.
T1 with the 2017 MSI Trophy. Credit: Riot Games
Unfortunately for Europe, the mountain was still too high to climb. They faced the Korean machine, the defending champions, led by living legend Lee "
Faker" Sang-hyeok during one of the peaks of his career. A 3-1 victory sealed the back-to-back title for SKT and gave young Han "
Peanut" Wang-ho his first international trophy.
He would then endure a seven-year drought before finally winning another trophy outside Korea, lifting the First Stand 2025 title with Hanwha Life Esports. It is also important to note that this was Faker and T1's last
MSI title. In total, they would go on to win two titles (2016 and 2017) and lose three finals, in 2015, 2022 and 2025.
Team’s Rosters
Team WE
- Ke "957" Chang-Yu
- Xiang "Condi" Ren-Jie
- Su "xiye" Han-Wei
- Jin "Mystic" Seong-jun
- Nam "Ben" Dong-hyun
- Yoon "zero" Kyung-sup
SK Telecom T1
- Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon
- Han "Peanut" Wang-ho
- Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok
- Bae "Bang" Jun-sik
- Lee "Wolf" Jae-wan
G2 Esports
- Ki "Expect" Dae-han
- Kim "Trick" Gang-yun
- Luka "Perkz" Perković
- Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen
- Alfonso "Mithy" Aguirre Rodríguez
Flash Wolves
- Yu "MMD" Li-Hong
- Hung "Karsa" Hao-Hsuan
- Huang "Maple" Yi-Tang
- Lu "Betty" Yu-hung
- Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh
TSM
- Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell
- Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen
- Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg
- Jason "WildTurtle" Tran
- Vincent "Biofrost" Wang
GIGABYTE Marines
- Phan "Stark" Minh
- Đỗ "Levi" Duy Khánh
- Trần "Optimus" Văn Cường
- Nguyễn "Slay" Ngọc Hùng
- Trần "Archie" Minh Nhựt
SuperMassive
- Asım "fabFabulous" Karakaya
- İlyas "Stomaged" Furkan
- Koray "Naru" Bıçak
- Berkay "Zeitnot" Aşıkuzun
- Mustafa Kemal "Dumbledoge" Gökseloğlu
RED Canids
- Leonardo "Robo" Souza
- Carlos Henrique "Nappon" Rücker
- Gabriel "tockers" Claumann/Felipe "YoDa" Noronha
- Felipe "brTT" Gonçalves da Rocha
- Hugo "Dioud" Padioleau
Virtus.pro
- Rafael "Doxy" Adl Zarabi
- Ilya "Kreox" Grom
- Ivan "Paranoia" Tipuhov
- Daniel "Blasting" Kudrin
- Aleksandr "SaNTaS" Lifashin
Dire Wolves
- Ryan "Chippys" Short
- Shern "Shernfire" Cherng
- Richard "Richard" Su
- Calvin "k1ng" Truong
- Mitchell "Destiny" Shaw
Isurus
- Franco Jesús "Pride" Sanzana Villarroel
- Diego "QQMore" Alonso Apablaza Abarzúa
- Esteban "Emp" Ramírez Mercado
- Benjamín "Kindless" Fuenzalida
- Leandro "Newbie" Marcos
Lyon Gaming
- Daniel "Jirall" del Castillo
- Sebastián "Oddie" Alonso Niño Zavaleta
- Ali "Seiya" Bracamontes Munguía
- Matías "WhiteLotus" Musso
- Mariano "Genthix" Polonsky
Rampage
- Shunsuke "Evi" Murase
- Lee "Tussle" Moon-yong
- Osamu "Ramune" Ozawa
- Yuta "YutoriMoyasi" Noguchi
- Jeon "Dara" Jeong-hoon
