In a post made on the League of Legends blog today, the company posted information and time changes for the Mid-Season Invitational Play-In Stage in order to accommodate the nation mourning the passing of their former Prime Minister.
According to local Vietnamese customs, broadcasts, and entertainment programs are put on hold to support the people’s mourning on a nation-wide scale. Wanting to adhere to local customs, Riot Games has stated that they will be removing May 3rd and most of May 4th from their tournament schedule. Which is the period of time where the country will mourn the former leader.
New Schedule
You will note that most of the dates and time remain the same as previous schedules, except for May 4th, which will see matches start very late in the day (Pacific Time). This is May 5th local time.
The Play-In stage of the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational is taking part in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam before moving to the nation's capital Hanoi for the Group Stage starting on May the 10th.
This is the first international League of Legends tournament to take place in Vietnam, which is home to one of the strongest and youngest competitive leagues. At the Mid-Season Invitational, the Vietnam region will be represented by Phong Vu Buffalo -- who is one of our five teams to watch at MSI list -- who qualified for the MSI Play-Ins after winning the VCS Spring Split. The Phong Vu Buffalo roster is unchanged from the same line-up that went to Worlds in 2018.
Vietnam’s local customs do not change the start of the tournament, however, and everything is still planned to kick-off on Wednesday, May 1st.
With the time gap between Pacific Time and Vietnam, this year’s MSI is going to difficult to watch. The time shift on Saturday evening means that some of the Play-In Stage will be easier to watch live.
For a complete rundown of the tournament and how to catch it, check out our guide on how to watch MSI 2019.
It’s difficult to move and shift large-scale events like this so close to it actually happening, so this is very impressive to accommodate such a thing.