After all four South Korean representatives, all three Chinese representatives, and the home team advanced from their respective groups, the eight teams that advanced from the 2026
League of Legends Esports World Cup (
EWC) Group Stage are ready to brawl it out during the
Playoffs Stage.
The draw would pair the high seeds,
, , and
against the lower seeds,
, , , and
. The rules of the draw stated that two teams from the same group can’t be paired against each other, or placed on the same side of the bracket.
Two legends of the West, Marcin “Jankos" Jankowski and Yiliang “Doublelift" Peng, were in charge of drawing the teams and creating the bracket. It’s safe to say both of their draws delivered.
The road to be crowned the EWC’s second-ever champion will look like this:
- Hanhwa Life Esports vs T1
- AG.AL versus Karmine Corp
- Gen.G versus JD Gaming
- Bilibili Gaming versus Dplus KIA
Rivalries and First encounters
Out of the four matches, two will be the second edition of the match in the 2026 season, and the remaining two have never happened before in the history of competitive LoL.
Following their
2026 LCK Road to MSI match, the 2026 EWC quarterfinals will be the stage for another page of HLE and T1’s blooming rivalry. The explosive roster of
LPL's
JDG will look to improve from the defeat suffered at the hands of Gen.G during the
2026 First Stand Group Stage.
The rest of the quarterfinals are never-before-seen matches. The first quarterfinal will pair AL.AG,
the Chinese Qualifier winner, against the last hope of the West, and the hometown team, Karmine Corp. Will KC get an upset victory, extend EMEA’s streak against Asian teams by using the rowdy French fans to stun the Pandas, or will status quo reign supreme as AG.AL advance and look to win the tournament they barely lost in 2025?
BLG, the
2026 MSI runners-up, will face Dplus KIA for the first time in each team’s history, but there’s animosity between both teams. When Dplus won the 2020 World Championship under the name DAMWON, Heo “
" Su and his team did it by beating Chen “
" Ze-Bin’s Suning.
The Hope of the West crushed?
The Group Stage carried over several interesting storylines from the recent conclusion of the 2026 MSI, plus the addition of a couple of underdog teams that qualified through their region’s Online Qualifier but did not feature at MSI.
Though the seven Asian representatives breezed past the Group Stage, there was one massive upset:
clean-swept MSI’s third-place,
. The Mexican organization was outplayed and outfought by the Brazilian squad, adding another chapter of CBLoL dominance over the LCS in 2026.
G2 Esports probably have mixed feelings after their 2026 MSI performance. During the event in South Korea, they added T1 and TES to the list of Asian teams they’ve beaten in a best-of-five in 2026, before losing against LYON in the Loser’s Semifinals. Fate wasn’t on their side during the 2026 EWC Group Stage, as they were unable to beat AG.AL and Dplus KIA, in a best-of-one and best-of-three, respectively.
