League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational 2024: The 5 teams you should be looking out for
From past champions to rising contenders, here are the five teams to look out for in this year's League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational.
The 2024 League of Legends (LoL) Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) is about to begin and so much more is on the line for the teams competing this year.
The champions of the MSI will earn a coveted spot at Worlds 2024, boosting their region's allocation by one. Similarly, the second-best performing area will get an extra spot for their own region.
With each team having their own journey and story to tell, here are the 5 teams you need to look out for at the MSI:
Gen.G
South Korean powerhouse and four-time LoL Korea Championship (LCK) champion Gen.G has been a mainstay of international competitions for many years now.
However, they’re yet to find international success. The team did a few changes to this year’s roster, signing Kim “Kiin” Gi-in in the top lane and taking back Son “Lehends” Si-woo as support.
Perhaps the best addition to the team this year is world champion Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu, who won the Worlds 2020 title with Dplus KIA (then known as DWG KIA).
And this year, they’re still led by one of the strongest midlaners in LoL esports Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon, where they looked unquestionably dominant in the LCK Regular Spring Season, where they only lost 1 game throughout the entire season, and went undefeated in the Spring playoffs, even defeating 2023 World Champions T1.
And yet while Gen.G seems to have T1’s number for many seasons now, they’re yet to pull through and defeat the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) teams and reach an international grand final.
Will this be the roster to win a world title for Gen.G this year?
Bilibili Gaming
It’s no doubt that Bilibili Gaming could be one of the most formidable contenders to win the MSI title this year. The team came in second in MSI 2023 and made it to the semifinals of Worlds in the same year, where they were eventually defeated by Weibo Gaming in a 3-2 upset.
With the addition of the former mid laner of “Golden Road” contender JD Gaming, Zhuo "knight" Ding, this year, BLG nearly swept through the LPL Regular Spring Season. They only dropped one game to Invictus Gaming before breezing through the Playoffs, where they took the Spring Championship title.
Should they continue to keep their form and not choke at any point in the competition, they have a big chance to win the 2024 MSI title.
T1
Of course, T1, the most successful organisation in LoL Esports should be part of the list, being the team with the most championship titles under their name: four world championships, 2 MSI titles, 8 LCK titles and 2 Champions Korea titles.
On top of this, T1’s current roster are the same as the team that won the 2023 World Championship, led by LoL G.O.A.T. Lee “Faker” Sang hyeok.
However, the 2024 Spring Season has been quite challenging for the team. Since January, T1 were the subject of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that escalated up until March and April.
This prevented the team from streaming or practising the game to the point where they even dropped to the lower bracket of the LCK Spring Playoffs, prompting Faker to express his frustration over the situation.
Despite this, the team showed resilience and were able to turn things around and make it to the grand finals where they were once again defeated by Gen.G 3-0.
Will T1’s struggle in Spring show up at the MSI as well? Or will they continue to adapt and claim their third MSI title?
G2 Esports
It’s been a while since G2 reached an international grand final, yet I still included them in this list.
G2 last won MSI in 2019 and were contenders of the “Golden Road” then — however in the past few years, the LoL European Championship powerhouse has only ever reached the semifinals of international competitions.
Led by Rasmus "Caps" Borregaard Winther, and having kept their 2023 roster, G2 continue to be the strongest European team, winning the LEC Spring Championship this year.
They’ve also boasted in 2023 of having knocked out the competition during scrims—and showed how formidable they could be during the early stages of international competitions.
However, this time, G2 needs to figure out how to replicate their scrim success onstage to make it to the end.
With other top teams from the LCK and LPL constantly challenging the meta, G2 would need to evolve their strategy faster during the tournament.
Because while there’s no question that they have skilled players, the constantly shifting meta would mean that they need to adjust their strategy and quickly adapt and look out for new ones all the time.
Top Esports
Top Esports is another LPL team to watch out for. Their roster is stacked with top players and former World champions and MSI title holders including former JD Gaming (and Golden Road contender) Bai “369” Jia-Hao, 2018 World Champion Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo, and 2021 World Champions Gao “Tian” Tian-Liang and Tian “Meiko” Le.
This roster was also the team that pulled off a 3-1 upset against JD Gaming at the 2024 LPL Spring Playoffs, which qualified them for MSI this year.
Should they be able to overcome their weaknesses, and perhaps pull off more upsets at MSI, they just might snag this year’s MSI title.
Which team are you rooting for at the MSI?
Anna is a freelance writer and photographer. She is a gamer who loves RPGs and platformers, and is a League of Legends geek. She's also a food enthusiast who loves a good cup of black coffee.
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