The Worlds Swiss Stage got going in Allen, Texas. Three days in, two teams are through, four more play for their tournament lives today, and the region that looked finished on Friday has two teams at 2-1.
The one that mattered
Dplus KIA beat Movistar KOI 2-0 on Sunday, October 25, and became the first team at Worlds 2026 to qualify for the Knockout Stage. Three matches, three wins. They beat G2 Esports in round one, T1 in round two, and then MKOI, also 2-0 at that point, in a Bo3.
The T1 win took nerve. DK came from behind in that one, which is why the 3-0 reads as resilient rather than routine.
Against MKOI there was nothing to come back from. Game 1 went 16-8 to DK, and Smash scored a pentakill on Kai'Sa. Game 2 was 17-5, with ShowMaker on Syndra finishing 9/0/2. Two games, 33 kills to 13, against an unbeaten team. Nobody made a louder statement this week. Their next match is a quarterfinal, from November 3.
Three results that moved the board
- October 23, Movistar KOI 1-0 Bilibili Gaming (round one, Bo1). One of the LPL's strongest teams lost on the opening day to a European side. MKOI won the kills 18-14, took both Barons, and rode that start all the way to 2-0 with a win over CTBC Flying Oyster.
- October 25, Invictus Gaming 1-0 Hanwha Life Esports (round three, Bo1). IG opened the week with a loss to Gen.G and have won twice since, with JiaQi on Yunara in this one. Hanwha Life drop to 1-2, one more loss from going home.
- October 25, Gen.G 2-1 LYON (round three, Bo3). LYON took Game 1 with a 10-4 kill lead, two Barons, three dragons and nine towers. Gen.G levelled it, then closed Game 3 15-7 to become the second team through at 3-0. LYON fall to 2-1 and stay alive.
The number of the week
Zero. That's how many matches the LPL won on the opening day. All four Chinese teams lost on Friday, October 23, and all four LCK teams won.
Look closer, though. Korea and China only met twice that day: Gen.G beat IG and Hanwha Life beat TES. The other two LPL losses came against teams from outside Korea, Bilibili Gaming to Movistar KOI and Anyone's Legend to Karmine Corp. A bad day for China and a good one for Korea, then, but not a 4-0 head-to-head.
And it didn't last. The LPL won three times on Day 2 (one of those was guaranteed, since TES played Anyone's Legend), and by the end of Day 3 IG and TES were both 2-1. Across the three LCK vs LPL matches so far, the LCK leads 2-1.
Who to watch
Karmine Corp. They play Bilibili Gaming today, Monday, October 26, at 18:00 UTC in Allen, a Bo1 in the round three 1-1 pool. The winner moves to 2-1. The loser drops to 1-2 and plays every remaining match with no margin left.
KC are the only team in the Swiss Stage that came through the Play-In, and they did it with a 9-2 record in games: 3-2 over Cloud9 from 0-2 down, then 3-0 and 3-0 over MVK Esports. In the Swiss they beat Anyone's Legend, then lost to LYON.
BLG arrive by a similar road in reverse. They lost the opener to MKOI and answered with a win over Team Liquid Alienware. Both teams have had one good day and one bad one here. On Monday, one of them gets a second.
What's next
All times are UTC and come from Riot's official schedule. Monday, October 26:
- 17:00: CTBC Flying Oyster vs T1, round three 1-1 pool, Bo1
- 18:00: Bilibili Gaming vs Karmine Corp, round three 1-1 pool, Bo1
- 19:00: LOS vs Team Secret Whales, Bo3, the loser goes home
- 22:00: Team Liquid Alienware vs Anyone's Legend, Bo3, the loser goes home
Tuesday is a rest day. The Swiss Stage resumes on Wednesday, October 28 and wraps up on Saturday, October 31, with every match a Bo3. The quarterfinals start on Tuesday, November 3 at 22:00, all Bo5, and the final is on November 14 at 19:00 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Two of the eight quarterfinal places are taken: Dplus KIA and Gen.G.
One for the comments. Day 1 had the LCK at 4-0 and the LPL at 0-4. Three days later IG had beaten Hanwha Life and two LPL teams sat at 2-1. Was the opening day a verdict or a false alarm?