All Knights Leaving LLA

League of Legends continues to be a sport that is played around the world, and there are also some great international leagues out there. The Midseason Invitational is currently taking place in Chengdu, China, but that’s not the biggest news to start May. 

All Knights has announced that it will be leaving the Latin American League (LLA), and they are now the second team to make this announcement. The LLA is the top division of LoL Latin American competition, but it appears as if it is starting to crumble from within. 

There are now just six teams remaining in the league, and the league will stick with that number for the Closing Split. That event will take place after the conclusion of the MSI, a tournament in which this league is represented. 

Estral Esports was the winner of LLA Opening 2024, and that earned them a ticket into the big international event. That team is not expected to be a major contender, but they are a great representative of this league. 

Hard to Compete

All Knights initially started this process by reaching out to Riot Games to discuss the future of the team, and of the LLA in general. Riot Games is the developer of League of Legends and it continues to set up the formats for all of the international leagues. 

All Knights announced their departure on social media, and it made it clear that the organization would still compete in other sports. There is also a VALORANT team that competes on the international stage, and that team will continue to compete. 

This team is based out of Chile, and they just haven’t been able to be competitive enough when it comes to league action. That was the reason for departure that was highlighted in their announcement, and the organization was also worried about the future of the LLA. 

Now that this team is out of the LLA, it can lay claim to having just won title of an LLA Split. That lone title came all the way back in 2020 in the LLA Opening, and it earned All Knights a spot in the Midseason Invitational.

That event was canceled back in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and All Knights was never able to win another Split to get back to that event. All Knights has now joined Team Aze in leaving the LLA as that team officially left at the end of 2023. 

MSI Off to Great Start

The 2024 Midseason Invitational will run from May 1 through May 19 and there will be some loaded schedules every single day. It was a fast start to the action on Day 1, and the action was also a major hit with the fans. 

In the first matchup of the event, FlyQuest took down PSG Talon in what turned out to be a terrific matchup. PSG Talon was able to win the first map in that matchup, but they struggled to hold on to the momentum. 

The second matchup on the first day was not close as Estral Esports was outclassed by T1 Gaming. Even though these weren’t the best teams in the field, there were over 1.5 million peak viewers throughout the action. 

This is now a new record for peak viewers of an MSI event, and those numbers are only going to grow as the action gets more intense. Teams are currently playing in the play-in stage, but eventually bracket play will begin. 

According to a report, viewers logged 4.8 million hours watched during the first day of the MSI, as fans were wanting to see the first international event of the year.