Riot Games revealed on Monday that it will add a new global event on the League of Legends esports calendar and revamped the number of slots to both the Mid-Season Invitational and Worlds in 2025. The new event will join the Mid-Season Invitational and Worlds 2025 to serve as one of the top three global events of the year.
The new unnamed event will take place in March 2025, and will feature five slots—one per region. Teams from each region will slug it out in Split 1 in January to determine who gets to compete on the global stage.
In a media briefing with The Esports Advocate, a Riot representative said that the new event will use “Fearless Mode” in Bo3 or Bo5 matches (specifics to be determined at a later date) as each region will face off against the other four regions. In Fearless Mode, teams are not allowed to pick champions they have already played in a best-of-series, meaning each champion played by a team is taken off the table in subsequent matches against the same team. The LPL is currently experimenting with the format, but its academy-level league, the LDL, has been using it for two years in a Bo3 match.
In addition to the new event, Riot revealed changes to the number of slots available to regions for both MSI and Worlds. In 2025 one slot per region will be available for the unannounced event, two slots will be available per region for MSI, and three slots per region for Worlds.
In addition, one Worlds slot is granted to the winner of MSI, and one slot will be awarded to the “second-best performing team,” according to Riot. In addition, the “16th and the 17th team will play a best-of-five [Bo5] matchup,” a Riot rep. tells us, to bring the number down to 16 teams, who will then compete in a Swiss stage format.
There will also be an end-of-season competition in each region for teams to secure the Tier-2 guest spot, though details on the format, timing and more are still being ironed out by Riot. Ultimately, teams that secure that guest spot and want to play at the tier-1 level, will have to defend that spot against other regional tier-2 teams at the end of each season, according to Riot.
Finally, Riot said that it will move towards having regional champions at the end of the year based on performance. [waiting on a response from Riot]
Finally, Riot will introduce a regional champions component. This year teams are named champions for their respective Splits, but in 2025, the regional champions will be determined at the end of the year before Worlds. The five global leagues will conduct roadshow events with invited teams, using a structure and format that works for them, according to what Riot told us on Tuesday. From there, the three qualified teams for Worlds from each region will be identified. Some regions will have a fourth team depending on results at MSI—since winning MSI qualifies for Worlds and the second best-performing region at MSI earns an extra slot as well. All of this leads to three regions with three slots, and two regions with four slots, for a total of 17 teams at Worlds 2025.
Learn more about the other changes coming to League of Legends Esports in 2025:
