Perhaps among all the MSI tournaments that have been held, the 2022 edition has seen the most issues. From the organization of the tournament to handling unexpected situations, Riot Games has left the audience shaking their heads in disappointment. In fact, even the display of ping during matches was faulty, which shows that Riot has truly done a poor job for an international tournament of MSI 2022’s caliber.
Recently, League of Legends experts discussed another flaw of MSI 2022 in a podcast, pointing out that its format is extremely poor. According to veteran commentator Montecristo, who has been involved with LCK and many other esports tournaments, the format of MSI 2022 is the worst he has ever seen. This has significantly reduced the quality of matches and viewership for MSI 2022 compared to previous years.
The main reason for this is the boredom of the Play-In Stage. For example, in Group C, featuring G2 Esports, Evil Geniuses, and Order, it became clear after the first match what the strengths of these teams were. Therefore, no matter how many times they played, G2 continued to win quite easily against the other two opponents. Viewers themselves were not interested in watching G2 and EG take turns “bullying” ORD.
During the aforementioned podcast, League of Legends experts argued that it is time for MSI to adopt a winners and losers bracket format, especially for the Rumble Stage. For the Play-In Stage, they suggested having only 2 groups with 6 teams each. The top two teams from each group would advance to the Rumble Stage in the winners bracket, while the teams finishing 3rd and 4th would start in the losers bracket, and the bottom two teams would be eliminated. This format sounds quite similar to the TI format of DOTA 2.
This format would make matches in the Play-In Stage more dramatic, as lower-ranked teams would have to fight fiercely for a ticket to the next round. With only 4 teams being eliminated and the Rumble Stage featuring do-or-die matches, the excitement for MSI would be much higher compared to the current double round-robin format.
One thing we need to remember is that the biggest hope for Western League of Legends at MSI 2022 – G2 Esports – also came from the losers bracket. Specifically, they won 3 consecutive matches in the losers bracket before defeating Rogue 3-0 in the Grand Final to claim the LEC Spring 2022 championship. This shows that the winners and losers bracket format can definitely be applied to international tournaments and create extremely interesting narratives. Hopefully, Riot Games will soon change and implement this format for MSI or even for Worlds in the future.
