Even Faker's participation doesn't help! The MSI Play-In stage is too boring, criticized by viewers, all five matches ended with 3-0 scores.

Hello to all LPL viewers and League of Legends summoners, this is World Game Hub.

The MSI Mid-Season Invitational has been contested for three match days. This year's Play-In stage features strong teams from the four major regions, but the format is double elimination. T1 has already achieved six consecutive wins and advanced successfully.

However, due to the poor entertainment value of the matches, this MSI has received criticism from netizens across various regions.

Even Faker's participation doesn't help; the MSI entertainment value is poor.

Here's the story: many viewers may not have paid much attention to the Play-In stage or matches outside of T1. Currently, five BO5 series have been played in the Play-In stage, and all of them ended with a 3-0 score, surprising many viewers. In the recently concluded match between TLAW and KC, TLAW achieved a 3-0 victory.

Such scores and match content would make anyone call them boring. It also caught many viewers off guard, and even Riot probably didn't expect the Play-In stage to turn out like this.

If the upcoming T1 vs TLAW match also ends with a 3-0 (which is quite likely), this Play-In stage will essentially become a tasteless and regrettable fixture, like a "chicken rib" event.

Maybe Riot thought before the tournament that placing T1 in the Play-In stage would effectively boost viewership. The facts prove otherwise; even T1's own form isn't that great. Moreover, the highly stratified results between regions have led viewers to believe Riot's format arrangement has major issues, and the MSI event for League of Legends also faces a significant problem.

The double-elimination format is unreasonable and makes upsets unlikely.

The reason for such one-sided matches, besides the widely recognized gap between regions, is mainly due to Riot's format arrangement. Since MSI switched to a format where core regions send two teams, it has consistently used a BO5 format with double elimination.

Initially, this was to differentiate from the single-elimination format of Worlds, giving MSI its own more distinctive format characteristics.

However, this year's MSI had a serious problem with Riot's seeding pool arrangement. Due to the LCK's poor performance at the First Stand tournament, their second seed T1 had to play in the Play-In stage, while some weaker region champion teams were placed in higher seeding pools.

As the team with the best performance in the first split, LPL's BLG even had to face T1 in the first round, which is clearly unreasonable.

Editor

Furthermore, the Play-In stage also uses a double-elimination format. As a result, the vast difference in team strength leads to a large number of low-entertainment, "chicken rib" matches that viewers find a waste of time.

If the goal is to increase event viewership, it would be better to change BO5 to BO1 or BO3. MSI could start with group play, then determine the top teams before moving to a double-elimination bracket.

MSI still needs reform; there are too many weak teams.

The BO5 format is the hardest for upsets to occur; this is a common consensus. Personally, I believe what Riot wants to achieve is to give teams from all regions a greater sense of participation. If a weaker team comes to MSI and immediately faces a strong team in a BO5, gets swept, and quickly goes home, it's a huge blow to the team and players.

The current problem League of Legends faces is that there are too many weak teams in world events, which continuously reduces the entertainment value of major international tournaments. Introducing more BO1 games to give weak teams a greater sense of participation would be a good approach.

It is expected that in the upcoming main event stage, there will still be some BO5 matches with huge skill gaps. This MSI Play-In stage did not start well, and Riot needs to seriously reflect on their format arrangement.

Since Worlds has adopted the Swiss system format, MSI could fully adopt a group stage approach. They could simply abandon the Play-In stage, group all teams together, then determine the top eight or top six to play BO5 knockout rounds. Alternatively, they could think of other more innovative formats.

A full BO5 plus double-elimination format tends to make the entire event long and tedious. I hope Riot can further reform MSI's format next year, striving to prevent this year's situation from happening again.