There is only one day until the 2021 League of Legends Championship Series Mid-Season Showdown, so let's delve into all facets of the tournaments to properly contextualize the competition.

Format

The LCS Mid-Season Showdown has taken the place of the LCS Spring Playoffs, but its differences begin and end with the name. The 2021 LCS Mid-Season Showdown will run on the same format as the 2020 LCS Spring Playoffs, with the winner representing North America at the Mid-Season Invitational. 

The tournament features all best-of-five matches and double elimination privileges for the upper bracket teams. The top 4 teams from the 2021 LCS Spring Split — in this instance, Cloud9, TSM, Team Liquid and 100 Thieves, respectively — are seeded into the upper bracket. The 5th and 6th place teams — Dignitas and Evil Geniuses — will enter the tournament in the lower bracket and subsequently, will be in danger of single elimination for the entirety of the tournament.

Location

The last two matches of the tournament will take place offline at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, CA, marking the first LCS matches played offline since week 7 of the 2020 LCS Spring Split. Riot games provided the following information on the offline event: 

"The first-ever Mid-Season Showdown (MSS), delivered by Grubhub, will begin this Saturday March 20 at 1pm PT and culminate with the MSS Finals Weekend at the iconic Los Angeles Greek Theatre on April 10-11. For the health and safety of our players, staff, and local residents, the Finals event will not have an audience, and we’ll be following strict COVID-19 protocols including testing before arrival and separation on site for our finalist teams."

Schedule

Every single best-of-five match in the LCS Mid-Season Showdown will begin at 1:00pm PT. The first match will be between TSM and Team Liquid, and will take place on Saturday, March 20 and Cloud9 and 100 Thieves will face off on Sunday, March 21. On Saturday, March 27, the loser of the previous match between TSM and TL will fight for survival against Evil Geniuses. On Sunday, March 28, the loser of the match between C9 and 100 will face off against Dignitas. 

On Saturday, April 3, the winners of the C9/100 and TSM/TL matches will clash in the semifinals, with the winner going straight to the LCS Mid-Season Showdown finals. The winners of the previous two losers bracket matches featuring DIG and EG will play against one another, and following the elimination of the loser from that match, only three teams will remain.

On Saturday, April 10, the survivor of the losers bracket and the loser of the semifinals will face off against one another to see who will face the semifinals winner in the finals on Sunday, April 11. The winner will qualify for MSI 2021 and head to Reykjavík, Iceland as the NA representative. 

Rosters

All six LCS organizations competing in the LCS Mid-Season Showdown have added two players from their respective academy teams for a total of seven players per roster. The rosters, with the players from the 2021 LCS Academy League italicized for clarity, are as follows:

Cloud9

Top — Ibrahim "Fudge" Allami
Jungle — Robert "Blaber" Huang
Mid — Luka "Perkz" Perković
AD carry — Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen
Support — Philippe "Vulcan" Laflamme
Top — Darshan "Darshan" Upadhyaya
AD carry — Calvin "K1ng" Truong

TSM

Top — Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon
Jungle — Mingyi "Spica" Lu
Mid — Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage
AD carry — Lawrence "Lost" Hui
Support — Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh
Jungle — Leo "Babip" Romer
AD carry — Sun "Cody Sun" Li-Yu

Team Liquid

Top — Barney "Alphari" Morris
Jungle — Lucas "Santorin" Larsen
Mid — Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen
AD carry — Edward "Tactical" Ra
Support — Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in
Jungle — Jonathan "Armao" Armao
AD Carry — Sean "Yeon" Sung

100 Thieves

Top — Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho
Jungle — Can "Closer" Çelik
Mid — Tommy "ry0ma" Le
AD carry — Victor "FBI" Huang
Support — Choi "huhi" Jae-hyun
Jungle — Shane Kenneth "Kenvi" Espinoza
Mid — Tanner "Damonte" Damonte

Dignitas

Top — Aaron "FakeGod" Lee
Jungle — Joshua "Dardoch" Hartnett
Mid — Max "Soligo" Soong
AD carry — Toàn "Neo" Trần
Support — Zaqueri "aphromoo" Black
Top — Samson "Lourlo" Jackson
Jungle — Matthew "Akaadian" Higginbotham

Evil Geniuses

Top — Jeong "Impact" Eon-young
Jungle — Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen
Mid — Daniele "Jiizuke" di Mauro
AD carry — Matthew "Deftly" Chen
Support — Lee "IgNar" Dong-geun
Jungle — Juan "Contractz" Garcia
Support — Patryk "Mystiques" Piórkowski