Mid-Season Invitational 2022: Teams, format, prize pool and more

Riot Games first League of Legends international event of the year, MSI 2022, is just around the corner. Eleven regional champions will do battle in South Korea in the hope of being crowned the Mid-Season Invitational champion. Esports.gg is here to bring you the rundown on the teams, the format and the prize pool for MSI 2022.

The Mid-Season Invitational every year features the best team from every competitive region in League of Legends. T1, who is considered the best in the world right now, headlines the event after a dominant 20-0 spring split. G2 Esports will also be returning to MSI for the first time since lifting the trophy in 2019.

As of the time of writing this article, only seven of eleven regions have concluded their domestic playoffs. Esports.gg will be putting together a detailed article listing every team that has qualified for MSI 2022. Highlighting their journey to South Korea and LoL's next international event.

The eleven teams will compete across three stages at MSI. The group stage, the rumble stage and the knockout stage (playoffs).

Introduced in 2021, the group stage for MSI replaces what originally was the play-in portion of the tournament. No team is guaranteed their spot in the main portion of MSI (Rumble) and must earn their way there. The eleven teams will be drawn into three groups based on their seeding. Each group will be a double round-robin. All matches are best-of-one and the top two teams in each group advance to Stage 2.

Long-time League of Legends fans will be familiar with the format for the newly called Rumble Stage. The six teams that advanced through the group stage will compete in a new six-team group. Each team will play each other twice and the top four advance to the knockout stage.

Again akin to the old MSI format, the knockout stage will host the final four teams left in the tournament. Although it has not been confirmed by Riot, the 2021 format saw the first seed take on the fourth seed, and the second and third seed duel it out. Each series is a best-of-five.

The eleven teams will be competing for a share of the $250,000 prize pool. Here is how the prize pool is allocated amongst the teams.

This article will be updated as the remaining teams qualify for MSI.

Stay tuned to Esports.gg for the latest League of Legends news and updates.