If you’re a League of Legends player who’s already planning on watching the Mid-Season Invitational competition next week, you’ve got an opportunity coming up to earn some in-game loot during those days and during the weeks afterwards. Riot Games announced this week its plans to bring back two different kinds of rewards – Watch Rewards and Drops – for the duration of the next esports event. The rewards can still be earned by watching VODs of the matches as well, so even if you’re not able to tune into the live games, you can still come away with some extra loot.
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These kinds of rewards have been given away before, but don’t confuse them with Twitch Drops or similar rewards given away only through Twitch. They work similarly to those, but to earn these, you have to be logged into the lolesports.com site and watch the games there. Doing so will ensure that the rewards are dropped right into whatever account is linked to the info you put in, so you should have your loot quickly once it’s distributed.
The two kinds of loot being given away also function differently from each other with one of them just requiring players to watch games while the other is a bit more circumstantial. To earn Watch Rewards, you simply log into your account through the site listed above and watch either the live games or the VODs from past matches. You’ll get Blue Essence, a Hextech Chest and Key, and an emote for your troubles with those rewards spread out across three missions. Watching 10 games from MSI will net you all three rewards, and you’ve got until May 29th to get it done which means the promotion extends beyond the MSI tournament itself which ends with the Finals on May 23rd.
Drops, however, can only be earned from watching live games, and they’re only triggered by actions that happen in-game. Things like a Baron steal or other game-changing moments have triggered Drops in the past, though there’s not a set list that’s been made public of everything to look for. Whenever something happens in the game that triggers a Drop, however, players will know thanks to a notification that appears over their player.
Blue Essence and capsules filled with items and shards made up the bulk of the past Drops, but Riot appears to be doing a bit more with the system this time. Four different MSI-exclusive emotes are being given away as well as rare content and “surprise rewards.”
“Additionally, every day we’ll be dropping some in-game content that you have a chance to get!” said Riot Games. “These drops will be flagged as Rare or Hyper-Rare and you’ll get some additional callouts when you get it! All of this plus surprise rewards from our partners, such as sweepstakes entries, rare branded Hextech Chests, discounts, and chances to get exclusive content!”
MSI starts on May 6th and continues afterwards until May 23rd throughout different stages. You can see the full schedule here.
