This year's League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational was a huge success.

With the tournament format having been completely changed in its second year, a team having been assembled with a strong, supportive following, and the tournament's time zone favouring the teams finishing highest in their pools, the tournament has naturally written itself into the history books of professional competition, and for all the right reasons.

But while MSI has established itself as one of League’s most-watched tournaments in recent years, fans of the game are divided over how much that actually matters. In a thread posted to the official League subreddit, players debated how important it is for the game’s esports scene to experience some sort of growth, even years after its initial surge in popularity in the mid-to-late 2010s.

The big distinction that MSI 2024 took home was the title of most-watched non-Worlds League tournament of all time. The event peaked at just under three million attendees, according to viewership site Esports Charts, maintained a consistent average of over one million, and was supported by more than half a dozen co-streamers around the world. “The ‘League is dying’ crowd has been awfully quiet lately,” a user named Liewvkoinsoedt said on Reddit.