LPL In-Person MSI Attendance is in Jeopardy

The 2022 Mid-Season Invitational is around a corner. Just one more month and we are finally going to be able to watch some international esports once more, though the Mid-Season Invitational won't host the 2021 League of Legends World Champions EDG. 

Well, it seems that there might be some other issues for the team that is going to be representing the LPL and it's all thanks to our good friend 'Rona. DoinB, mid laner for LNG Esports recently talked about this on his stream. 

LPL Representative to Play Remotely at MSI 2022

Scheduling for any LPL team is going to be a mess this year, with not only the Mid-Season Invitational, LPL Summer Split and the Asia Games coming up, but also travel restrictions thanks to the Coronavirus. 

In a recent stream by DoinB, the mid laner and former World Champion elaborated on the tight schedule and even stated that the LPL representative might have to play the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational remotely, while the rest of the world converges onto Busan, South Korea. 

This is in part due to the strict quarantine rules that have hit Shanghai. Anyone who comes into the city will have to quarantine for 21-days, which could cross with the start of the LPL Summer Split, which would be pretty hard on teams who have little options for competing during quarantine. 

“If you don’t quarantine, you can’t play in the summer split. You can’t promote academy teams to play, right? It’s impossible to play the matches via the hotel’s computers when you have to quarantine in a hotel.”

LPL Summer Split Shortened Due to Asia Games

DoinB has also previously spoken out about the upcoming 2022 LPL Summer Split and told fans not to be surprised if the whole split is only going to last for a whole month. To do so, there could be up to four best-of-three's a day scheduled. 

This is done because of the upcoming Asia Games which will take place in Hangzhou in September and ahead of the 2022 League of Legends World Championship. This is the second time that esports is part of the event, and both Korean and Chinese pros will be competing at the event. 

The LPL is the league with the most teams, so shortening the Spring Split to a single month seems extremely ambitious, but Riot has not made any official announcements yet in regard to what they plan on doing. 

For now, the league is still trying to finish the 2022 LPL playoffs, with those also getting elongated due to the high number of COVID cases in Shanghai. The playoffs have been postponed, making the rest of the 2022 a tight fit for any LPL teams trying to make MSI.