League of Legends history
The Mid-Season Invitational: the year's other trophy
MSI began in 2015 as a way to give regional spring champions something international to play for, and quickly became the tournament where the balance of power for the year is revealed — or comprehensively misread.
It counts as an elite event in our archive, which means an MSI appearance alone is enough to put a player in the pool even if they never reached Worlds.
Why MSI is a bad predictor
MSI is played early in the year on a patch that will be gone by autumn, with rosters that are usually mid-rebuild. Only twice has an MSI winner gone on to win Worlds in the same season. That disconnect is what makes MSI-only line-ups interesting: they are genuinely strong teams whose defining result is a trophy most casual fans skip.
G2 2019 and Europe's ceiling
G2's win over Team Liquid in 2019 is still Europe's only MSI, and the roster that did it — Wunder, Jankos, Caps, Perkz, Mikyx — went on to lose the Worlds final that same year. Any European line-up round from 2019 to 2020 comes back to those five, with Perkz's move from mid to bot lane being the detail worth remembering.
RNG's two
Royal Never Give Up are the only two-time MSI champions, in 2018 and 2022, with completely different rosters. Uzi anchored the first; the second was played from China under a remote arrangement while the rest of the field was in Korea. Same logo, four years apart, no shared players — exactly the kind of pairing our line-up mode is built around.
Mid-Season Invitational champions
| Year | Champion | Region | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | EDward Gaming | China | Beat SK Telecom T1 in the final |
| 2016 | SK Telecom T1 | Korea | Faker's first MSI |
| 2017 | SK Telecom T1 | Korea | Back-to-back |
| 2018 | Royal Never Give Up | China | Uzi's signature international title |
| 2019 | G2 Esports | Europe | Europe's only MSI |
| 2020 | — | — | Cancelled |
| 2021 | DWG KIA | Korea | As reigning world champions |
| 2022 | Royal Never Give Up | China | Played remotely from China |
| 2023 | JD Gaming | China | Expanded double-elimination format |
| 2024 | Gen.G | Korea | First MSI for the organisation |
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Compiled from public tournament and roster records. Last reviewed: September 2026.