Over the past few years, numerous international League of Legends tournaments have drifted into predictability.
The same regional giants clash for supremacy, and any genuine shifts in strategy or storyline mostly feel like footnotes rather than headlines. However, MSI 2025 broke that cycle.
The event, held in Vancouver, Canada, delivered a show that reminded veteran fans that League of Legends esports can — and must — continue to innovate.
Too often, the Mid-Season Invitational has been seen as a midpoint event to confirm which LPL and LCK team would secure the first ticket to that year’s World Championship. And while Western teams have carved out some of their biggest upsets in past MSIs, the final showdown has mostly come down to the same Eastern powerhouses.
For years, it has just felt like a formality — a done deal before the games even began.
Yet this year — even with another all-LCK final and LPL vs. LCK matchups dominating the bracket — MSI felt fresh. The 2025 iteration of the event exposed a raw and exciting competitive ecosystem capable of reinvention even after ten years.
To understand why the community has praised this year’s MSI, it’s important to take a step back to March 2025. This is when one of the main factors to MSI 2025’s success was first introduced on the League of Legends esports’ international stage—Fearless Draft.
Keep Reading
- MSI 2025 breaks its all-time esports viewership record
- MSI 2025 Play-In preview: Upsets from underdog teams incoming?
- Gen.G secures back-to-back MSI titles and first spot at Worlds 2025
Fearless Draft made its debut at First Stand, yet its impact was limited as only five teams could participate and many were still adjusting to the new drafting mode. The early-season rust also held back Fearless Draft’s full potential.
So, MSI 2025 was arguably the mode’s first true test on the international stage. The results were more than promising and it was a catalyst for transformation, both tactically and in terms of entertainment.
Fearless Draft
MSI 2025 showcased a level of champion diversity rarely seen at international League of Legends events. At MSI 2024, where just a handful of champions dominated the Rift, K’Sante alone appeared in over 65% of games, as pointed out by caster Isaac ‘Azael’ Cummings-Bentley on X. This year’s tournament shattered that pattern.
Over 109 unique champions appeared across 80 games.
This wasn’t diversity for diversity’s sake, but it reinvigorated the very essence of competition. Every match felt distinct, and every draft created a fresh narrative that hooked fans in.
Fearless Draft forced teams to dig deeper into the champion pool, putting a spotlight on players’ versatility and depth.
Bilibili Gaming’s mid laner Zhuo ‘Knight’ Ding pulled out Veigar in the final game against G2 Esports during the Play-In stage. FlyQuest’s top laner Gabriël ‘Bwipo’ Rau locked in Garen also against G2 and made it work. Both players flipped the script against a team usually praised for its own creative drafts.
Moments like these didn’t just create highlight reels — they intrigued fans to watch, driving up viewership in a way the tournament hadn’t seen before.
Viewership
MSI 2023 peaked at 2.3m concurrent viewers, Worlds 2023 saw 6.4m, and MSI 2024 inched higher to 2.8m.
MSI 2025 recorded 3.4m peak viewers during the T1 vs. Gen.G final, according to Esports Charts. This is the tournament’s highest viewership ever.
The League of Legends Worlds 2024 Finals in London still holds the record for peak viewership with 6.94m, but if the esports’ momentum continues, it may be challenged this year. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that MSI 2024 had a slightly higher average viewership than the 2025 event — 955,000 in 2025 compared to 1.01m in 2024.
This is likely influenced by less favourable time zones for European audiences this year, which included a lot of games starting at 1am BST. Still, the tournament drew 21 percent more peak viewers than the previous year, underscoring the growing interest among audiences in watching League of Legends esports.
However, it can be argued that these numbers don’t particularly reflect a resurgence of the ecosystem, but more of its fans’ hunger for something different. When draft phases break away from overused schemes, matches turn unpredictable and that sense of genuine suspense is what League of Legends esports needs most.
Fearless Draft also became the catalyst for longer, more electrifying series. A record nine best‑of‑five match-ups stretched to decisive game five this MSI. While some finished with anticlimactic endings, that matters less than the fans’ anticipation before the final game, as the iconic Silver Scrapes theme blasted around the venues.
Fearless Draft alone didn’t conjure these new narratives, but it cracked the door wide open for teams to walk through. At MSI 2025, League of Legends esports felt like unpredictability could happen in every game.
Creating Narratives and News Fans
For Riot Games and the wider esports ecosystem, unpredictability and narratives matter.
Regional leagues remain vital, but audiences typically cap at local loyalty. International events, however, hold the power to shift fandom as it provides windows for new fans to peek in. Casual and hardcore fans may pick a favourite team, which could lead to them following organisations during upcoming regular Splits.
The hope is that when teams like PaiN, FURIA or CTBC Flying Oyster deliver a scare against giants, it pushes a few thousand new viewers to check in weekly. Not just twice a year when the confetti falls.
At MSI 2025, FURIA forced G2 and GAM Esports to five-game matches before being eliminated early. Meanwhile, CTBC Flying Oyster pushed World Champions T1 to a game five series and then knocked out Europe’s top seed MKOI.
It is in these upsets and near‑upsets that new rivalries find roots, giving international events staying power far beyond the final trophy lift. The question is whether this spark ignited by MSI 2025 carries forward.
What’s Next?
Worlds 2025 now bears the weight of this momentum. It will have to deliver a stage where Fearless Draft is tested again under even brighter lights and where the threads spun at MSI tie into larger tapestries of stories worth following.
League of Legends esports does not need more of the same — it needs reminders like MSI 2025 that innovation, risk and a touch of chaos can still highlight the sport fifteen years on.
When Worlds returns, the pressure is not just to crown the best team in the world but to prove that MSI 2025 was not a fluke or novelty. It was a glimpse at a future where no region’s narrative is safe, no champion pick is stale and no match is over before the Nexus falls.
That is how an esport stays alive, by refusing to stand still.
Source: https://esportsinsider.com/
