On April 21, 2022, Riot Games released a statement on Twitter regarding the COVID-19 situation in the LPL and the effect it would have on the Mid-Season Invitational.
Due to the ongoing pandemic in China, the LPL representative (TOP Esports or Royal Never Give Up) will be unable to travel to Busan, Korea. However, the team will be allowed to participate to MSI remotely from China.
Mid-Season Invitational 2022 Update: https://t.co/Hi9GDJtCoM pic.twitter.com/JqMZV6owjd
— LoL Esports (@lolesports) April 21, 2022
To keep the competition fair, Riot will be using a network latency tool, which will maintain the ping to around 35ms for all teams throughout the competition. The same tool that was used during the LPL vs. LCK Showdown throughout the 2020 Mid-Season cup.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the era of lag. At least Jankos has somebody to blame now for his Nidalee spears.
"To ensure the competitive integrity of the competition, all MSI teams will be able to practice and scrim at this ping, and we will deploy referee support and monitoring throughout the tournament in both Korea and China".
As to T1, their situation remains unknown. They are expected to announce soon whether they will attend MSI or not, depending on the team that is chosen for the Asian Games.
Could the pieces be aligning once again for another EU vs NA finals, as was the case in 2019?
NA comfort zone 👀 https://t.co/kYowm2Brui pic.twitter.com/VvYOCYkLjd
— Immortals (@Immortals) April 21, 2022
Here is the schedule for the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational:
Group stage (May 10-15): Teams will be drawn into three groups of four to play a best-of-one double round-robin.
Rumble stage (May 18-22): Top two teams of each group advance to the Rumble stage. The six remaining teams compete in a best-of-one double-round robin.
Knockout stage (May 27-29): The top four teams that are left in the competition will compete in a single-elimination best-of-five. The bracket will be formed depending on the standings during the Rumble stage. First plays fourth & second plays third. The winners of the series will clash in the MSI 2022 Finals.
