Riot revives pickems for 2026 League of Legends MSI

Riot Games has relaunched pickems for the 2026 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational. The pickems run from June 17 to July 1 and are available now, split into Play-In and main-event brackets.

The Play-In bracket lists teams including T1, KC, Team Liquid and Revolve Deep Cross Gaming. Only one Play-In team will advance to the main stage. Knockout-stage pickems and the main-event bracket open on June 30, after the Play-In winner is decided and tournament brackets are drawn.

Riot tied pickem performance to in-game rewards. Players in the top 50 percent of pickem participants will receive a profile icon, and the top 25 percent will earn the “Clean Up” emote. Users who record a perfect pickem will receive Jhin with the ‘Broken Covenant’ skin. Riot confirmed the top 100 players on a separate points leaderboard will also receive the same Jhin skin. The skin was released at 1,350 RP.

Riot introduced a points-based scoring system linked to extra prediction bets. Crystal Ball predictions allow players to wager points on items such as most-played champion, highest and lowest champion win rates, most kills, highest professional KDA, highest creep score, most First Bloods, highest damage per game, shortest team wins, and counts of Elder Dragons and Barons. Each Crystal Ball prediction is worth between 50 and 100 points and contributes to the points leaderboard.

Community leaderboards return, permitting regional competition alongside global standings. Riot used similar leaderboards at last year’s Worlds 25 event. The 2026 pickems offer a larger number and wider variety of matchups and prediction types than last year, reflecting changes to MSI’s tournament format.