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Dot Esports
Dot Esports
Rijit Banerjee

Fearless Draft is giving us peak League of Legends—and the numbers prove it

MSI 2025 has already shattered the record for the most game-five series at an international League of Legends event, bringing fans a thrilling experience.

Worlds 2021 gave League fans six intense Silver Scrapes series, but MSI 2025 has already broken that record, and with two series still to go, the total could climb even higher. The tournament has seen seven game-five series, three of which came in the play-in stages, while the rest came in the high-pressure group stage matches.

Coach Tom of T1 (L) and coach KIM of Gen.G Esports shake hands during MSI 2025 Bracket Stage Day 8 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, Canada on July 09, 2025.
The LCK rivalry is always the most exciting matchup for the fans. Photo by Liu YiCun via Riot Games

Gen.G and T1 faced each other in the latest best-of-five, and it was the second-highest watched match in the history of MSI, according to stats site Esports Charts. The match was neck to neck, but it also saw some out-of-the-box picks like Zed jungle from Canyon. Gen.G narrowly managed to win the decider and make their way to the finals to defend their MSI title. 

Riot went all out this year by confirming Fearless Draft in all of its domestic and international League esports tournaments for the remainder of 2025, and it’s already showing us results, with teams fighting to the very last match with unique champions. Fearless Draft has turned every champ select into a mind game and every series into a marathon, forcing teams to dig deeper, adapt faster, and show more of themselves than ever before.

In past League competitions, players often clung to comfort picks, leading to repetitive matchups and frustrating fans when teams failed to ban a key champion. Now, with Fearless Draft, teams can play more boldly, knowing no champion can appear more than once in a series, making way for more diverse ways of strategizing in the drafts.

And with Worlds 2025 on the horizon, featuring even more teams, we may see even more nail-biting series. Fearless Draft has raised the bar, and the best may still be yet to come.


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