The Play-In stage kicked off this September 3 in the LCK, featuring the last-place team from the Legend group, Nongshim RedForce, alongside the top three from the Rise group: Dplus KIA, BNK FearX, and OKSavingsBank BRION. Today’s series saw NS face off against BRO in a double-elimination bracket, and Nongshim managed to secure a hard-fought 3-2 victory, finally putting an end to their 14-series losing streak. With this win, they advance to Round 2, where they will play their qualification match against the winner of FEARX vs Dplus.

BRO are not out just yet, as they drop to the lower bracket where they will face the loser of the other series on September 6 in a do-or-die match. Nongshim’s split was long and grueling, but months of training and competing against Korea’s best are starting to pay off. As for BRO, which only secured their spot on the very last day of the regular season against DRX, they will need to step up next Saturday to keep their playoff hopes alive.

A reverse sweep cut short

The best-of-five started brilliantly for Nongshim on red side, where they drafted a Miss Fortune–Neeko botlane and gave Hwang "Kingen" Seong-hoon his signature Ornn top. In Game 2, BRION tried their hand on red side but couldn’t make it work either, as Kingen once again stood out — this time on the champion that has defined him since Worlds 2022, Aatrox. It was the only game of the series to go past 30 minutes.

On match point, BRION’s jungler Kim "Croco" Dong-beom pulled out Olaf, reminiscent of Wang "Monki" Meng-Qi’s performance for Team WE against Bilibili Gaming. The pick paid off as BRO stomped the game, carrying their momentum into Game 4. Determined to tie the series, Park "Morgan" Ru-han locked in Jax while Jung "Jiwoo" Ji-woo piloted Viktor alongside Son "Lehends" Si-woo’s Blitzcrank. The combo never really came together, and after already faltering earlier on Elise, Lehends now fell short again on Blitzcrank, sending the series to a decisive Game 5.

The final game featured yet another rare pick from Lehends — Taric, a clever answer to Leona and a champion recently seen in the LPL with Sun "Jwei" Jun-Wei. This time, the support was outstanding: he was involved in 19 of his team’s 22 kills and didn’t die once. With that performance, Nongshim closed out the series and shut down BRO’s reverse sweep attempt. Lehends received the MVP of the BO5.