EU climbs while NA and APAC crumble at Demacia Cup in Round 2

The second round of the 2026 Demacia Cup Global Invitational has concluded, and the standings are becoming clearer by the day. While the tournament got off to a slow start for Western teams, Europe has now firmly established itself above its Western counterparts, with both and defeating their respective opponents and advancing to a potential qualification round. On the other hand, things are looking bleak for the LCS representatives, who now find themselves with their backs against the wall.

In the coming days, , , and will face off in a single round-robin group stage to determine which team will get one more shot at reaching the Swiss Stage and joining the teams already bound for the knockout stage: , , and , who all finished the first two rounds with a 2-0 record.

0/4 in the early game, Vitality’s botlane gave quite the fright to European fans. Overall, the match was quite messy, despite ending in a 2-0 score for the European representatives. If anything, ’s Bard has to be commended, and the Vietnamese representatives surely put up a valiant fight in both games, though it ultimately was not enough.

For Europe, in particular showed one of the biggest differentials, utterly destroying his lane opponent and ending the best-of-three at 15/4/13 overall. The question is, will Vitality be able to clean up their play and show this same proficiency in their upcoming qualification match? While the score may look good, much remains to be proven.

If I had to pick a word to describe FlyQuest’s performance, it would be “criminal”. In both games, the North American team demonstrated clear and better laning as well as early-game decision-making, only to utterly fall apart come the mid-to-late game and crumble in on itself. Their worst opponent this match was themselves, and they should have won 2-0, but ended up being unable to close out either game against a shaky Natus Vincere.

Game one in particular was especially egregious, as FLY had an 8k gold lead and soul at around 26 minutes, yet ended up throwing three fights in a row despite having every tool needed to win. Game two was much the same, as the team had accrued a large lead through their Mel and Pyke bot lane, only to not know how to close out the game and eventually get outscaled.

With this loss, FLY are now playing for a last shot, while NAVI advance to the 1-1 round, one match away from the knockouts.

There is sadly not much to say about this match. The first game in particular was nothing but a snoozefest, demonstrating the utter difference in individual level, as every single lane found themselves at a 30-40 CS deficit. At 20 minutes, the game had only two kills, and SR were already at a 5k gold deficit. Overall, Shopify Rebellion simply did not show up and attempted no plays throughout the match until it was too late to do anything.

Game two at least saw some fight in the early-game jungle, with SR almost getting some leads, but it ended up being nowhere near enough to contend with the LPL’s JDG.

Tomorrow, NAVI will take on , while JDG faces , and Vitality takes on , who defeated NAVI on Day One.

Overall, NAVI gets the hardest draw on paper, though a win against the LCK’s lowest-seeded team could prove to be a major statement for the LEC’s fourth seed.

Vitality, on the other hand, will have to avenge the humiliation of Day One by beating the Brazilians and reclaiming European honor.

Meanwhile, the LPL will sadly have to fight amongst themselves, sending one of the two teams into the fourth-round last-chance match and creating a difficult opponent for whoever ends up facing them in the final round.