MSI debuts this weekend! Get ready by reading our primer and locking in your Pick'Ems and Crystal Ball guesses before it's too late.
League of Legends has a new demon slayer in town: Corvin Locke. Locke will be an assassin-archetype melee, mid-lane mage, similar to Katarina, though with the added need to manage mana. Like Katarina, Locke will be bringing mobility and tons of damage to the table, but unlike Kat, also comes with some heavy duty built-in crowd control.
Schedule
MSI debuts on the 28th of June at 8 PM PDT (West Coast America), 5 AM CEST (Central Europe), and 12 PM KST (Korea).
The very first game will see LCK's second seed T1 facing off against LCS' second seed Team Liquid. Later on in the day, a second BO5 will be featuring LCP's second seed Relove Deep Cross Gaming facing off against LEC's second seed Karmine Corp.
Out of these four teams, only one will move on the Bracket Stage, which will begin on the 3rd of July.
Format
The format is pretty similar to MSI 2025's format, with some small changes to Play-In Stage.
Eleven teams were invited to MSI 2026, two from Korea, China, EMEA, Asia-Pacific, and North America, and one from Brazil. Of these, four teams will be duking it out in the Play-Ins for a chance to join seven other teams that have automatically qualified for the Bracket Stage.
The Play-In Stage features a double elimination bracket, which means that teams need two lose two BO5s before they're eliminated. All matches in the Play-In stage are best-of-fives, and there will be only one winner that advances to the Bracket Stage.
The Bracket Stage follows the same format: double elimination, best-of-fives.
Qualified Teams
This year, the qualified teams from the six different regions are:
1: First Seed 2: Second Seed
Drops
As always, Drops will be enabled if you watch MSI on LolEsports.com while logged in with your Riot ID. This year, the drops include the “Ducky!” and “No Running!” icons featuring Yunara and Renekton, as well as special acivations from MSI's partners like Opera GX, Secretlab, and Coinbase.
Pick'Ems & Crystal Ball
You can get even more rewards by participating in the MSI 2026 Pick'Ems! Lock in your choices either in the client or on LolEsports.com for a chance to earn Icons, Emotes, and even potentially Broken Covenant Jhin, if you're really lucky, or just really skilled.
You'll acquire the El Tigre Braum "Pinfall" Emote just for participating, while you'd need to be in the top 50% of predictors to earn the Zenith Games Blitzcrank "Settle the Score" Icon, and in the top 25% to get Janitor Thresh & Zac "Clean Up" Emote. For Broken Covenant Jhin, you need the perfect score.
If you want to try your luck at predicting more… specific stuff, you can head on over to the Crystal Ball and make ultra precise guesses; which champion will be most played, which will die the most, which will be the most banned? Lock your predictions in at LolEsports.com or directly in your League of Legends client before the first match for a chance to earn the exclusive “Doesn’t Look Good” emote.
Skin Promotions
Broken Covenant Jhin has been selected as the official LoL Esports revenue-share champion and skin for MSI 2026. A portion of proceeds from all Broken Covenant Jhin and MSI Winner offerings will be shared with LoL Esports teams competing in 2026. So if you want to support your favourite team, you can do so by buying Broken Covenant Jhin skin (1350 RP), the Border Set Bundle (2660 RP), or the Chroma Bundle (4110 RP), with individual Chromas also available for 290 RP each.
MSI Accessories will be available in the store later as well, including an MSI Winner Icon (250 RP) and an MSI Winner Emote (350 RP). These will have to wait until a champion is crowned in July.
