Open up territory and fight polar wars-Why did League of Legends MSI choose Iceland?

Author Wang Siqi

Editor Kevin

"Fighting polar, who will break through the ice? The mid-season champion is back! "

In the early morning of March 2, 20021,the League of Legends Championship officially announced that the mid-season championship of 20021will be held in Reykjavik, Iceland. This is the return of MSI after the cancellation of MSI in 2020, one year later.

Video loading ...

Why did MSI choose to settle in Iceland?

Reykjavik is the capital and the largest city in Iceland, with a beautiful environment and almost no pollution. It has been rated as one of the happiest cities in the world for many years. It is worth mentioning that Reykjavik's population is only 1 1.5 million, and its mobility is very low. Seeing this, I believe you have a preliminary answer to why MSI settled in Iceland.

The data show that since February, there have been zero new cases in Iceland, and the epidemic prevention action has been ahead of Europe-2021year. Today, when the epidemic situation has not been effectively controlled, it is one of the best choices to place MSI in a beautiful and relatively safe "isolated" place in Iceland. At the same time, the success of S 10 in Shanghai also provided enough confidence for the return of MSI.

In 2020, the League of Legends Championship team has been actively preparing and planning the return of MSI. However, after S 10 was successfully held, it provided a safe competition and working environment for the players and staff in accordance with the relevant regulations on epidemic prevention, and provided sufficient experience and foundation for the return of MSI.

Yesterday, the official said in a notice: "These teams will be isolated when they arrive in Iceland. For the health and safety of players, staff and local residents, the competition will not be open to the audience. "

For the sake of safety, the League of Legends championship team will once again cooperate with epidemic prevention and control partners in the global finals. At that time, the Icelandic government will also actively participate in and cooperate with this MSI, and put forward a plan that is conducive to the competition, and fully support this MSI in terms of health and safety.

Open up territory: when League of Legends comes to the polar night

At this moment, open the WeChat friends bar-I believe that like me, many friends have positioned themselves in Iceland. This may also verify the sentence: "Iceland is a destination that countless people must visit once in their lives."

So is League of Legends.

In recent years, League of Legends events have been trying to expand their territory. From North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Now MSI is located in Iceland, and it is also in the promotional video, which also makes the footsteps of League of Legends draw a circle on the map of Northern Europe.

Iceland is different from the "cold" impression of the extremely cold places in northern Europe, and the e-sports atmosphere here has always been extremely hot.

Due to the geographical location, the weather in northern Europe is cold, with short days and long nights. Some indoor sports have become the first choice of people in this area-such as e-sports and related events, and it is perfect to develop here.

Nordic countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and Sweden have become gathering places for e-sports players. As early as in the top four of S8, it was found that there were five Danes in the top four teams of that tournament-it can be said that Nordic players were the biggest winners of that S8 tournament.

Arriving in Iceland on the night of the polar region represents a new field for the League of Legends.

Looking back on 2020, the total viewing time of League of Legends Global Finals was S1051871885 hours, and the number of simultaneous viewers of the championship and runner-up finals reached 45.95 million, both higher than S9-it is particularly noteworthy that only the champions in small divisions and the seeds ranked lower in big divisions participated in S65438+.

In the "National E-sports" released from June, 5438 to February, 2020, "Why can S 10 take the lead in the year of global competitive decline?" The author has done statistics: "In the competition of the No.3 seed SN team of LPL, due to the existence of Vietnamese wild hand SofM in the SN team, the first show of the third-party organization SN team S 10 attracted more than 250,000 Vietnamese audiences, and the final third place in the championship attracted more than 660,000 Vietnamese fans, setting a related record."

The dramatic increase in audience data of finalists reflects that after ten years of development, League of Legends e-sports system still has a lot of potential to be tapped in emerging competition areas-Iceland and Northern Europe, where League of Legends events have not yet arrived, are such places.

New events+new competition system: the trip to Iceland is worth looking forward to.

As the beginning of the second decade of League of Legends e-sports, it is also the venue of another FPS game VALORANT《Stage 2 Masters "under RIOT. This trip to Iceland has a deeper meaning.

FPS games have always been another label of Nordic e-sports. Therefore, in recent years, VALORANT has brought rapid growth of fans in Europe, which has become one of the important reasons why League of Legends teams put MSI in the Nordic arena. Therefore, in May this year, Lorant's "Second Stage Masters" will also be unveiled at the Iceland Stadium together with MSI.

Responding to VALORANT's new competition system is MSI's brand-new competition system.

"Say goodbye to the finalists! All teams in each division will start at the same stage of the mid-season championship. "

Compared with the previous "group match-elimination match-championship match", this MSI has greatly changed its competition system. Cancel the finalist, join the group and eliminate the double round robin system. At the same time, the number of competitions has doubled, so that the teams in each division have the opportunity to communicate-although the overall competition system is shorter than that in the S competition, this change has made 12 teams stand on the same starting line in the group competition and elimination competition.

I believe that the new competition system will take the mid-season championship to a new height.

After a year, the return of MSI gave us enough surprises. In the interview, John Needham, the global head of fist game e-sports, said: "We are very excited to bring fist, the top e-sports event, to Iceland, a country with unique charm. This means that people's enthusiasm for our e-sports projects is everywhere. "

At the same time, we also expect that under the polar and aurora of ice and snow, the outstanding Icelandic MSI will give birth to new miracles.