League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational is heading to Canada in 2025

With Worlds 2024 drawing to its inevitable, thrilling conclusion, Riot Games has begun to lay out plans for 2025. With plenty of changes ahead for the upcoming season, the developer has confirmed that the Mid-Season Invitational will be heading to Canada for the first time.

During the press briefing before the Worlds Finals for 2024, Riot’s Global Head of Strategy Chris Greeley revealed the news, saying, “We are thrilled to announce that Canada will be hosting next year’s Mid-Season Invitational.”

“After a long hiatus from live League of Legends eSports events in Canada, we couldn’t be more excited to bring international competition back to our North American fans. Canada will welcome ten qualified teams from our five regions, all battling for a chance to secure their place in history and, of course, their place at Worlds.”

Canada hasn’t hosted a major League of Legends event since the LCS Spring Finals all the way back in 2017, and fan calls to bring esports back to the country had been growing louder. Information about exactly which city will play host to the Mid-Season Invitational will come later, with an announcement expected in January 2025.

The event is now set to serve as the second major international tournament on the calendar, after Riot also confirmed the First Stand tournament during the same briefing.

Set to run from March 10 – March 17, First Stand will be unlike anything players have seen to date. The tournament will follow a new draft system known as the Fearless draft.

This system allows teams to only select champions once during each best-of-five match-up. After a champion has been used, neither team can take advantage of them again in any of the remaining games of that series.

With one team set to compete from each region, it looks to reignite old rivalries once again.