Five Teams to Watch at the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational

Thirteen teams in total received invites to the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational tournament after winning their respective regions. That, mixed with the large timezone differential, will make it a large task for North American League of Legends fans to catch most of the action starting this Wednesday.

Instead of putting together a power ranking, or a single team highlight, we thought it would be a good idea to highlight five teams that you truly shouldn’t miss. That is, if you have the ability to catch the tournament streamed live, or via video-on-demand after the fact. 

G2 Esports

There have been so many stories heading into the Mid-Season Invitational but none of them come close to the will he or won't he of the G2 Esports terrific support player Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle, who enters the international tournament after winning the LEC Spring Championship despite two very injured wrists.

Promisq (Mikyx’s substitute) is no slouch himself, even outplaying SKT’s star Faker in solo queue during their rehearsals in Korea. Though they won’t be seeing any action at MSI 2019 until the group stage, G2 Esports may be the strongest EU squad ever sent to the international stage. 

1907 Fenerbahce

This young and fiery squad from the Turkish region got drawn into the “group of death” but many (including me) have them pegged to make it clear from their prescribed group.

Fenerbahce made their way in dramatically dominant fashion through the TCL Playoffs without dropping a single game. Led by their Korean-born Ruin in the top-lane and TCL young-gun Hades at ad-carry, Fenerbahce is one of the only clear choices of Play-In stage teams to make a real run with some good luck. 

Team Liquid

Much like the EU’s G2 Esports, North America’s Team Liquid may very well be the strongest team that the region has ever put forward onto an international stage. After displaying an intense ability to come back from a 0-2 deficit to reverse sweep TSM in the LCS Spring Grand Finals.

Bolstered by the greatest carry to ever play in North America, Doublelift, and with multiple world champions surrounding him, Team Liquid has a lot of the NA region’s trust in them. Unfortunately, NA only qualified to the double knockout against the winners of the Play-In. Though, the hope lays within the small chances of Team Liquid not making it through to the big show at the main event. 

Phong Vu Buffalo

This Vietnamese team is our pick for the dark horse of the tournament. They are hungry and immensely talented. Better yet, they are playing the Play-In Stage in their home country in front of a crowd that is going to most definitely have their back.

Even though Phong Vu Buffalo is playing in a group that has Turkish hopefuls 1907 Fenerbahce, one of these two teams are most likely to make it out of Group A (sorry Isurus Gaming). Keep your eyes on the Buffalo as MSI 2019 gets underway this week. 

Invictus Gaming

It would be very difficult to get through a list of teams to watch at an international event without mentioning the current World Champion title holders. That’s where Invictus Gaming comes in. The line-up for Invictus Gaming hasn’t changed since they wiped the Worlds 2018 stage with Europe's Fnatic just a few months ago. 

With their high regional seeding, Invictus Gaming automatically qualified for the final round of the MSI tournament structure, which will see them and five other teams battle it out in the knockout bracket. This means that like G2 Esports, we won’t actually see iG play for a while yet. 

Starting on Wednesday, May 1st, the best teams on earth (each the winner of their respective regions) will play each other for the right to be crowded Mid-Season Invitational Champions. 

Check out our MSI 2019 viewing guide for more details.