After years of criticism, Riot Games has finally delivered the MSI format everyone had been begging for—with a double elimination bracket, best-of-five series, and Fearless Draft—but that hasn’t stopped League of Legends fans from finding something to complain about.
“You can all suck it up that you have crappy schedules to watch your favorite teams for one tournament,” a Reddit user said, explaining how fans have been complaining about the tournament’s match timings. “As a very long-time fan of LOL Esports living in NA, we get a single tournament once every 4 or 5 years where we have great times to watch,” they added.
International League tournaments have always forced fans to juggle tricky schedules, and as a truly global esport, someone inevitably ends up drawing the short end of the stick. With the ongoing MSI 2025, American fans are having the time of their life with great timings for the event, while fans elsewhere have had to sacrifice their sleep or wake up early to catch their favorite teams in action at one of the biggest stages in the world.
As long as time zones and sleep schedules clash, the debate around international events is here to stay, but other fans are looking at the brighter side of the event. The tournament pits the best teams across the globe in a Fearless Draft with best-of-five series, which almost guarantees that each series will have a few surprise off-meta champion picks.
Unlike previous tournaments, each team will have ample opportunities to gain momentum in MSI 2025, prep their strategies to showcase their endurance, and sweep away a series even after losing two consecutive matches.
Fans often complained about teams not getting enough matches, and losing one match on a bad day could mean disqualification and a waiting bus for the airport—but here, each team has more matches to come to form and learn better from their opponents to pull massive upsets.
