Who are the teams competing at MSI 2024?

The Mid-Season Invitational 2024 (MSI 2024) is League of Legends’ first major international LAN tournament of this year’s competitive season.

Taking place in Chengdu, China between May 1st – 19th, the event gathers the best teams from League of Legends’ main leagues — LPL (China), LEC (EMEA), LCK (South Korea), LCS (North America), VCS (Vietnam), CBLOL (Brazil), PCS (Asia-Pacific) and LLA (LATAM).

This is the second year that MSI will feature two teams from the LPL, LCK, LEC and LCS, with the original format previously only having split champions.

For 2024, the stakes have been raised even higher with the MSI winner gaining an automatic qualification spot for the League of Legends World Championship.​​ But who are the teams competing at MSI 2024? Esports Insider provides a brief look into each of the 12 competitors and their history in esports.

The winner of the LPL Spring Split, China’s tier-one league, Bilibili Gaming enters MSI as the region’s champion for the first time. In the scene, Bilibili Gaming is known for its solid run at the 2023 World Championship, where the team was knocked out in the semifinals by Weibo Gaming. The team also finished second at the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational. 

Bilibili Gaming was created by Chinese video-sharing website Bilibili.com in 2017. Although the organisation has largely focused on League of Legends, Bilibili Gaming has recently entered VCT China, one of Riot Games’ major VALORANT leagues, as a partner team. 

Interestingly Bilibili.com also owned Hangzhou Spark, a team in the now-defunct Overwatch League. The team performed well throughout the OWL, consistently recording top-five placements between 2019 and 2023.

Created by Top Sport, a Chinese athletics apparel company, Top Esports has become a steady and solid contender in its home region. Since the organisation’s formation in 2017, the team has won one LPL title, in 2020, as well as the Mid-Season Cup. Held in 2020 during the pandemic, the Mid-Season Cup replaced MSI and was between Chinese and South Korean teams. 

Top Esports has reached three LPL split finals since its 2020 triumph but has failed to win the title. When it comes to other international tournaments, Top Esports’ most notable run came at Worlds 2020, with the organisation reaching the semifinals before ultimately losing to fellow LPL team Suning. This is the first time Top Esports is competing at the MSI. 

One of the most notable organisations in South Korea, Gen.G has grown from a major player in its region to a successful global organisation with operations in Asia and the United States. In the US, the organisation is known for its scholastic projects and community outreach.

Gen.G is synonymous with League of Legends and is currently a domestic powerhouse in South Korea. The organisation has beaten rivals T1 in three consecutive splits, the most recent being LCK Spring 2024. Gen.G finished fourth at the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational, the only MSI it has entered. Similar to Top Esports, Gen.G also competed in 2020’s Mid-Season Cup.

The organisation was created in 2017 as KSV Esports to compete in the Overwatch League, which ended up happening under the Seoul Dynasty name. That same year KSV acquired Samsung Galaxy’s League of Legends roster and rebranded to Gen.G.

Apart from League of Legends, Gen.G also competes in VALORANT, where the team recently finished runners-up at VCT Masters Madrid 2024, losing to North American organisation Sentinels.

T1 is the most successful esports organisation in League of Legends’ history and one of the most popular esports teams in the world. Founded in 2004, the organisation entered League of Legends in 2012 and has since won multiple competitions in the game. 

This includes winning four World Championships and being the current Worlds title holder. T1 has also won two MSI events (2016 and 2017) and 10 LCK titles. The organisation holds records for both the amount of Worlds and LCK titles. 

Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok is widely regarded as the greatest League of Legends player of all time and one of the greatest esports players ever. Faker is a national hero in South Korea and has been alongside T1 since his debut in 2013. Alongside League of Legends, T1 competes in VALORANT.

G2 Esports is a notable European esports organisation that has achieved major accolades across multiple games. G2 has won Rainbow Six Siege’s Six Invitational twice and is the only European team to have won MSI (2019). In 2023, the organisation also won Counter-Strike’s IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne events.

Alongside its European dominance, the organisation also holds two North American rosters in VALORANT’s VCT Americas and Rocket League’s RLCS. 

G2 Esports won the latest LEC Spring Split by beating rivals Fnatic in the grand finals. As a result, the organisation has won three consecutive LEC splits, taking its overall record to 14 LEC split titles since 2013. 

The only team from Europe ever to win a League of Legends Worlds title, Fnatic is one of the region’s most successful organisations. In League of Legends, the team’s rivalry with G2 Esports has been ongoing for years, however, the organisation’s last split victory was LEC Summer Split 2018.

The organisation makes its return to MSI after a long absence, with its last appearance being in 2018 when it finished the tournament as a semi-finalist. Fnatic also competed at MSI in 2015. 

Nevertheless, Fnatic is a team with a storied history of competing in other titles, winning several Majors in Counter-Strike between 2013 and 2015. Fnatic also had a lot of success in VALORANT, winning the VCT Masters Tokyo and the VCT LOCK//IN in 2023. 

Team Liquid is a household name in esports, having won dozens of trophies across several games during more than two decades of history. Starting as a StarCraft clan in 2002, the company went on to win Dota 2’s The International in 2017 and CS:GO’s Intel Grand Slam in 2019. Team Liquid owns Liquipedia, one of the most notable esports knowledge databases in the world. 

In the North American League of Legends scene, Team Liquid has won the LCS five times. However, its last title before this year’s Spring Split victory was Summer Split 2019. Team Liquid made its first MSI appearance in 2018, with its best result coming in 2019 as the runner-up to G2 Esports.

An organisation that initially gained popularity with its eco-focused identity, FlyQuest was purchased by the Viola family in 2022, the owners of NHL team Florida Panthers. The organisation has recently seen an upswing in performance, finishing second in the LCS for the first time since 2020. 

FlyQuest is mostly connected to League of Legends and appeared at the World Championship in 2020, however, the organisation did not make it out of the group stage. MSI 2024 is FlyQuest’s first-ever Mid-Season Invitational and, as of this writing, it has yet to win a major trophy in League of Legends despite being a steady performer in several games since its inception. FlyQuest recently entered Counter-Strike and competed at IEM Chengdu. 

Following a turbulent split that featured a Vietnamese League of Legends Championship (VCS) match-fixing scandal, GAM Esports ultimately walked out victorious. Since its League of Legends debut in 2016, GAM Esports has appeared in two editions of the Mid-Season Invitational — 2017 and 2023. Although qualifying for the 2021 edition, GAM did not participate due to COVID-19 regulations. The team also participated in the Mid-Season Showdown 2020, a tournament held during the pandemic. 

The organisation appeared at the League of Legends World Championships in 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023. As with MSI 2021, GAM qualified for Worlds 2021 but did not participate. The team has won seven VCS split, making GAM the record holder for the number of titles in its home region. 

Founded in 2019 but entering League of Legends in 2021, LOUD is a Brazilian esports organisation known for its success in League of Legends and VALORANT. The team appeared at the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational but ultimately got knocked out in the second round. This was LOUD’s only appearance at the MSI to date.

The team has won the last four splits of Brazil’s CBLOL and participated in back-to-back League of Legends World Championships in 2022 and 2023. 

Alongside LOUD, the CBLOL has been gaining traction, breaking viewership records and attracting high-quality brands such as Coca-Cola. 

In VALORANT, LOUD has won VALORANT Champions 2022 and VCT Americas 2023. This makes the team one of the most decorated organisations to come out of Brazil. The organisation also competes in Free Fire, a popular mobile game in the country.

Created as a joint venture between French football club Paris Saint-Germain and esports organisation Talon Esports, PSG Talon is the most successful team in the PCS, the highest-tier competitive LoL for Asia Pacific. PSG Talon has won the most titles in the PCS to date (seven) and is the team with the most MSI and World Championship appearances to come out of the region. 

PSG Talon has competed in the last three editions of the Mid-Season Invitational. The team also qualified for the MSI in 2020, but appeared at the Mid-Season Showdown instead, due to COVID-19. PSG Talon has also competed at Worlds in 2020, 2021 and 2023.

Interestingly, only Talon’s League of Legends and Rainbow Six teams feature the PSG moniker. Outside of its PSG partnership, Talon Esports competes in VALORANT, PUBG Mobile and Dota 2.

A lesser-known organisation to fans outside Central and South America, Estral Esports is based in Mexico and entered the League of Legends ecosystem in 2021. 

The organisation won an LLA split — LATAM’s official league — for the first time in its history and is making its MSI debut this year. Interestingly, Estral Esports finished second in the LLA four times between 2021 and 2024, finishing third once. 

The company has fielded rosters in other games in the past, notably for shooter title Gears of War, but now only competes in League of Legends.