LoL Esports has confirmed the group stage draw for the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational in Reykjavík, Iceland. All 12 regional leagues have been seeded and drawn into three groups, and there will be some tasty fixtures for the teams that qualify through their regional Spring Playoffs.
The three top-seeded teams that will head each group are the LPL, LCK, and LEC. The LCS is seeded into the second tier along with the VCS and PCS, meaning the North American representative will have to face a team from a top-seeded league in the group stage.
Group A will see China’s top team from the LPL take on the representatives from the VCS (Vietnam), LCL (CIS), and LCO (Oceania). Group B is headed by the LEC, who will play teams from the PCS (Southeast Asia), TCL (Turkey), and CBLOL (Brazil). Group C sees the LCK drawn alongside the LCS, LLA (Latin America), and LJL (Japan).
In a shakeup for this year’s season, LoL Esports has also revealed that the winning team of MSI will earn their region an extra spot at the World Championships in China. There will also be an extra Worlds spot for the region that finishes top of the global power rankings after MSI. If that happens to be the same region that won MSI, then that spot will go to the region placed second in the rankings.
The #MSI2021 Groups! pic.twitter.com/8winbzgEJP
— LoL Esports (@lolesports) March 30, 2021
While we don’t know which teams will be filling these spots in the groups just yet, there is already plenty of scope for some big fixtures. LCS vs LCK in Group C is guaranteed to be a spicy game, and a TCL side potentially going up against Turkish LEC talent in Group B could also happen.
MSI 2021 kicks off in Reykjavík on Thursday, May 6.
