The 2023 Mid-Season Invitational is the first international League of Legends event of the year, taking place in London, United Kingdom, from May 2 to 21, at Copper Box Arena. Two days before the event’s start, the LEC Twitter account posted the official EMEA co-streamer list for MSI 2023, shocking fans with one major change. Marc “Caedrel” Lamont, color caster and analyst of the LEC, is stepping down from the MSI broadcast team, now listed as an official co-streamer for the event.
The decision came to the shock of many fans and spectators after the initial broadcast talent announcement on April 22, which included Caedrel in the lineup. This will be the first international event that Caedrel will not be on the main broadcast, ever since his transition to the analyst desk in LEC Summer 2020. For the first time in League history, MSI will feature 30 co-streamers, a major upgrade from Worlds 2022’s five partnered co-streams.
Caedrel later clarified that moving from the main broadcast team to co-streaming was entirely his own decision and that he plans to cover the entire event on his Twitch channel. Caedrel’s only departing for the duration of MSI and will return to the regular broadcast team for LEC Summer 2023.
Fans in the past were worried about the quality of co-streamers at past League events, such as Worlds 2022, which included non-League content creators, such as Sykkuno. Riot’s decision to bring in outside viewership was met with widespread backlash from the community, snubbing seasoned League streamers such as LS and IWDominate, who consistently covered past international events.
Heading into 2023, Riot has now properly recognized the value of co-streamers in their other games, such as VALORANT. At LOCK//IN Sao Paulo, the kickoff event for VCT 2023, Sentinels content creator Tarik pulled the highest viewership out of all VALORANT channels, amassing 2.81 million hours watched and doubling the number of English viewers for the broadcast. The official VALORANT channel only pulled in 2.47 million hours, while the hometown Brazilian broadcast amassed 890,000 hours.
Caedrel’s departure from the broadcast team will sting many viewers, but his knowledge about League and the teams attending MSI will cater to new and old viewers, providing a solid stream alternative to the main broadcast.
MSI 2023 will run from May 2 to May 21, featuring the top 13 teams from all international leagues competing in a new two-stage format, featuring double elimination for the play-ins and bracket stage. Fans can follow the action on the Riot Games Twitch stream, the LoL Esports Youtube channel, or on any of the partnered co-streamer broadcasts, such as Caedrel.
