S16 Swiss Stage Round 3 Concludes: AL Eliminated 0-3, Worst-Ever Result for an LPL First Seed, and a Round 4 Preview#

By Long Zhuiri (NTGame Editor-in-Chief)

Hello everyone, I’m Long Zhuiri. When I wrote the Day 3 recap, iG had just crushed HLE 1-0 and the LPL had finally broken its winless streak against the LCK — the sound of relief in the editorial room had not yet faded. Then, on the night of October 27 Beijing Time, the four games of the Round 3 closing day of the League of Legends 2026 World Championship Swiss Stage finished, and that breath came back up short: LPL first seed AL lost 0-2 to TLAW, exiting in the top 16 with an 0-3 match record and 0-4 game record at this Worlds. From worrying about the first seed’s draw luck in the Swiss Stage draw preview, to watching AL fall into the 0-2 group on Round 2’s doomsday, to today’s match settling it completely — this installment of the serial covers two things: first, a clear recap of the Round 3 closing day, then a breakdown of the Round 4 matchups that resume on October 29. AL’s three-match collapse is the focus of this piece; the LPL qualification picture in Round 4 is the suspense.

The quick overview goes up front. Readers in a hurry only need these six lines:

• Four matches on the Round 3 closing day: T1 1-0 CFO, BLG 1-0 KC, LOS 2-0 TSW, TLAW 2-0 AL. TSW was eliminated at 0-3, becoming the first team confirmed out of this event; AL followed right behind.
• AL ends this Worlds at 0-3 in matches and 0-4 in games, becoming the first LPL first seed in history to go winless at Worlds, games included; under media framing, this is also the worst result by a first seed from either the LPL or the LCK at Worlds.
• The three defeats in order: 0-1 to KC (Karmine Corp) on October 24, 0-1 to TES on October 25, 0-2 to LCS first seed TLAW (TL, Team Liquid) on October 27 — never once facing an LCK team.
• TLAW’s 2-0 over AL ended the LCS region’s 12-game losing streak against the LPL (per the League of Legends official site recap framing).
• The picture after Round 3: GEN and DK have advanced to the quarterfinals first; the 2-1 group is MKOI, LYON, iG, TES, T1, BLG; the 1-2 group is HLE, G2, CFO, KC, LOS, TLAW; eliminated are TSW and AL.
• October 28 is a rest day. Round 4 resumes on October 29 with six BO3s: in the 2-1 group, TES versus BLG (an LPL civil war), iG versus LYON, MKOI versus T1; in the 1-2 group, KC versus CFO, TLAW versus LOS, HLE versus G2. The civil war guarantees one LPL team in the quarterfinals, and if iG gets past LYON, the LPL will have two teams locked in early.

I. Round 3 Closing Day Recap: Four Matches, Two Teams Going Home#

Nail down the results first. Round 3 of the Swiss Stage spans two competition days, October 26 and October 27, with eight matches in total — the first day’s four were broken down match by match in the Day 3 recap. This piece focuses on the closing day, but let me first assemble all eight into one panoramic table so the logic of the group shifts reads completely:

Under the Swiss format, three wins advance you to the quarterfinals and three losses eliminate you — in the two 0-2-group BO3s on October 27, whoever lost was packing immediately. Below, I go through the four matches in the day’s order.

T1 1-0 CFO: The Old Powerhouse Holds Its Position#

T1 versus CFO, a BO1, was the day’s opener. T1 took it 1-0 and rose to the 2-1 group, where they will fight MKOI in Round 4 for a quarterfinal ticket; CFO dropped into the 1-2 group and will face KC in Round 4, one match deciding whether they stay. The officially announced starting lineups for this match — T1: Doran, Oner, Faker, Peyz, Keria; CFO: Rest, Shad0w, POUT, Doggo, Kino. For T1, the meaning of this BO1 lay not in the process but in the position: win it and they still hold the initiative, without having to wade into the murky waters of the 1-2 group.

BLG 1-0 KC: Knight Warms Up, BLG Claims 2-1#

The second BO1 saw BLG beat KC 1-0, also rising to the 2-1 group. The weight of this win has to be read against KC’s record: KC is a team that swept MVK 3-0 in the play-in and fought its way into the Swiss Stage, and knocked over AL in the opening round. To pin a team like that in the 1-2 group means BLG’s form is recovering. Media singled out two players after this round: mid laner Knight’s form rebounding, and top laner Bin’s lane dominance on Ambessa and Camille being mentioned repeatedly. BLG’s starting five here were Bin, Xun, Knight, Viper, ON; KC’s were Canna, Yike, kyeahoo, Caliste, Busio.

LOS 2-0 TSW: The Event’s First Eliminated Team#

The third match was a 0-2-group BO3 do-or-die: LOS swept TSW 2-0. TSW went out at three losses, becoming the first team confirmed eliminated from this World Championship; LOS escaped with their lives and rose to the 1-2 group. TSW’s starters here were Pun, Hizto, Dire, Eddie, Bie; LOS’s were Zest, Curse, Feisty, Duduhh, Ackerman. The cruelty of the Swiss format shows most plainly in this match — no chance to review and fight again; a 0-2-group BO3 is an elimination match.

TLAW 2-0 AL: The Night the 12-Game Streak Ended#

In the final match, LCS first seed TLAW beat AL 2-0. Both layers of meaning here are historic: first, AL exits at 0-3 in matches and 0-4 in games, the LPL first seed saying goodbye to Worlds in the most glaring way possible; second, per the League of Legends official site’s event recap framing, this victory ended the LCS region’s 12-game losing streak against the LPL. TLAW’s starters were Morgan, Josedeodo, Quid, Yeon, CoreJJ; AL’s were Breathe, Tarzan, Shanks, Hope, Kael. The flow of this match and the underlying sickness deserve a section of their own — which is the next one.

II. AL’s 0-3 Exit, Reviewed: The First Seed’s Wound#

Timeline of the Three Defeats#

Zero wins and three losses in matches, zero wins and four losses in games — the numbers sit there, more glaring than any adjective.

Four Records, Four Levels of Problem#

On the night of the exit, media compiled a string of records for AL. I have broken them out by level:

• The first LPL first seed in history to go winless at Worlds, games included — this is the hardest one, and the one that cuts deepest.
• Under media framing, the worst result by a first seed from either the LPL or the LCK at Worlds — note that this is a media statistical expression; no official cross-region complete historical comparison of first seeds has been provided. Take it as directionally right rather than settled: a first seed posting an 0-4 game record is something neither region has seen before.
• The fourth LPL first seed in history to miss the quarterfinals — per the League of Legends official site’s recap tally, the previous three were LGD in 2015, EDG in 2017, and BLG at S15 in 2025.
• The first LPL team to lose a BO3 to an LCS region team in official international competition, and the first LPL team to fail to win a single game in international matches outside its own region — these two stack into the same point: the ability to fight foreign opposition has bottomed out.

Four records, corresponding to different facets of regional competitiveness, patch understanding, and composure under pressure. Any one of them pulled out alone is enough to keep the editorial desk arguing all night.

On “the fourth first seed to miss the quarterfinals,” the official site recap tallied the three prior cases. Listed together with this year:

The editions and outcomes of the first three come from the League of Legends official site recap tally; the specific results of those years are not expanded on here. Looking only at the “how they went out” column, AL’s 0-4 in games is in a class of its own even among these four.

Collapse Breakdown, Match by Match: They Could Claw Back, They Could Not Close It Out#

Per the League of Legends official site recap framing, the key moments of the three games assemble into a progressive falling curve:

• vs KC (0-1): where the unexpected upset began. Canna’s Jax took a quadra kill and knocked over the first seed — a Round 1 BO1, lost cleanly, with no window for AL to adjust at all.
• vs TES (0-1): the closest they came to winning. At 23 minutes AL traded 1 for 4 and had the game in their hands; then 369’s Wolfmother landed two consecutive ultimates locking down Hope, and the game flipped. A lead game thrown away — what was lost was not strength, it was the ability to close.
• vs TLAW (0-2): the most fatal one. Game one got pushed flat at 33 minutes; in game two, AL traded 0 for 5 at 19 minutes and 0 for 2 again at 21, seemingly about to claw the game back, only to be finished at 47:29 by a triple kill from Yeon’s Xayah. Able to chase back, unable to hold the game — that is the most typical portrait of this AL at Worlds.

The three games assemble into a conclusion that is not hard to read: against KC they were unprepared, against TES they could not close it out, against TLAW they could chase but could not close. The sickness runs one layer deeper each time.

Three Structural Facts: Never Facing an LCK Team, Two Straight Years of a Coaching Question, and the Patch Gap#

Beyond the match-by-match details, three more things deserve laying out:

• No LCK opponent all tournament. AL’s three opponents — KC, TES, TLAW — did not include a single LCK team. A first seed goes out without ever playing a China-Korea match. That fact stands out sharply against the backdrop of this Worlds, where the LPL had to wait until Round 3 for its first win over the LCK.
• Coaching continuity. AL head coach Bigwei has coached a different first seed in two consecutive years — BLG at S15 and AL at S16 — and both stopped at the Swiss Stage top 16, both eliminated without facing a Korean team. To be clear, his patch understanding and in-match adjustments have drawn public criticism; that is media and fan evaluation framing, not an official conclusion. But two consecutive years of first seeds going out the same way is itself a sample worth discussing.
• The gap from Summer champion to zero wins at Worlds. Not long before Worlds began, AL beat BLG 3-1 to take the LPL Summer title — the same BLG that now sits at 2-1 alive in the advancement group, while AL goes home at 0-3. Domestic dominance failed to convert into international wins; how a patch switch and the regional environment recoil against a first seed is the heaviest question this AL leaves the LPL.

The Post-Match Apology#

After the exit, AL’s League of Legends division posted an apology on its official Weibo. One line was widely shared: “We don’t want to fob this off with ‘we already did our best,’ and we don’t want to dress this loss up as ’the price of growth.’ This time, we simply didn’t do well.” A statement that neither shifts blame nor looks for excuses earned considerable approval in public discourse — for a team that just posted its worst-ever record, attitude is the only part still within their own control.

III. The Quarterfinal Picture and the Full Group Panorama#

With Round 3 complete, the situation of all sixteen teams is as follows:

GEN and DK locked in quarterfinal spots on earlier competition days — DK swept MKOI 2-0 to become the first quarterfinal team of this event, and GEN came from behind to reverse LYON 2-1 and take the second ticket. Details are in the Day 3 recap and are not repeated here.

What remains follows the format: the six 2-1 teams pair off in Round 4, and the three BO3 winners advance directly at 3-1 while the losers drop to 2-2 and fall into the Round 5 do-or-die; the six 1-2 teams likewise fight pairwise, with the three BO3 losers eliminated at 1-3 and the winners surviving at 2-2 into Round 5. Round 5 then has the 2-2 teams (merged with the loser produced by the civil war) playing the final quarterfinal ticket matches. In other words, Round 4 is a double round of “one step to heaven” and “one step to the abyss” — when the six matches finish, the quarterfinal list gains three seats and the elimination list gains three teams.

IV. Round 4 Match-by-Match Preview and the LPL Qualification Picture#

Full Schedule#

The Round 4 draw is out; all six matches are BO3. The Beijing Time schedule is as follows (matches beginning with “approx.” are estimated windows given by media; the exact start times depend on the official final schedule):

October 28 is a rest day, giving every team a rare preparation window. Below, I break the matches down by group.

The Three 2-1 Matches: Fights for Quarterfinal Tickets#

MKOI vs T1 (October 29, 04:00). MKOI’s start in this event has been something close to miraculous — they knocked over BLG in a Round 1 BO1 and now sit in the advancement group at 2-1. On the T1 side, a 1-0 over CFO in Round 3 with the five-man lineup of Doran, Oner, Faker, Peyz, Keria intact. This match matters enormously to the LCK: if T1 wins, the LCK locks three teams — GEN, DK, T1 — into the quarterfinals, and even if HLE climbs out of the 1-2 group, the region’s ceiling rises; if T1 loses, they drop into the 2-2 Round 5, and expectations for the LCK’s quarterfinal count compress immediately. Under BO3, MKOI’s chances of repeating a Round 1 upset steepen — the randomness of a BO1 gets diluted across three games of sample, which is exactly why the Swiss Stage switched its key matches to BO3.

LYON vs iG (October 29, approx. 07:00). LYON are no pushovers — on Day 3 they took the first game off GEN and pushed them to the brink before being reversed 2-1, so their competitiveness over the first two games of a BO3 is real. On the iG side, the 1-0 dismantling of HLE in Round 3 is still warm: TheShy’s Kled stood out, and combined with the earlier highlight of JiaQi’s quadra kill on Yunara, this team’s Worlds curve is rising. This match is one of the key variables in the LPL’s qualification picture: if iG wins, the LPL locks two teams into the quarterfinals early; if iG loses, they drop into the 2-2 group and face a do-or-die in Round 5. For LYON, BO3 means they get to use targeted preparation across multiple games to grind down iG’s form — iG needs to be ready with a plan for being studied continuously.

BLG vs TES (October 30, approx. 07:00). The draw has put the second LPL civil war on the table — Round 2’s TES versus AL civil war just passed, and now it is TES versus BLG. For LPL viewers this is the most complicated one: the winner goes straight to the quarterfinals, the loser drops into the 2-2 group and has to play another do-or-die round. On form, TES top laner 369’s Ambessa has carried twice already, steady from beating AL in the civil war through beating G2; BLG have Knight’s form rebounding and Bin’s Ambessa and Camille lane dominance singled out by media — both teams’ cores are in form, and the quality of this civil war will not be low. The biggest difference between a BO3 civil war and a BO1 civil war is the depth of the contest: two teams who know each other inside out playing three games is a contest of champion pool depth and the nerve to switch setups on the fly. The one-shot civil war script of Round 2’s TES versus AL will not repeat here.

The Three 1-2 Matches: Do-or-Die for the Loser#

KC vs CFO (October 30, 04:00). KC’s script this event has been legendary enough — sweeping MVK 3-0 in the play-in to reach the Swiss Stage, then knocking over AL in the opening round — but after falling to BLG in Round 3 they have sunk into the 1-2 mire. CFO are the team T1 dragged down. Two 1-2 teams meet, and the loser goes home directly. KC’s biggest card is the upset pedigree they have already proven at this Worlds; what CFO must do is convert their review of the T1 match into targeted preparation inside a BO3.

TLAW vs LOS (October 31, 04:00). TLAW just sent AL packing 2-0 and ended the LCS’s 12-game losing streak to the LPL along the way — morale and confidence are both high; LOS are the team that climbed out after eliminating TSW 2-0, carrying the same momentum of a win. In this BO3, the pressure of having no way back is symmetrical; what is being compared is whose winning inertia lasts longer.

G2 vs HLE (October 31, approx. 07:00). This is the heaviest match in the 1-2 group: G2 and HLE, one the face of the LEC, the other the LCK’s second seed, now fighting over the last life in a do-or-die. HLE’s curve this event points downward all the way — after beating TES in the opening round, they were knocked over 0-1 by iG in Round 3, with TheShy’s Kled becoming their nightmare; G2 lost 0-1 to TES in Round 3. This match also moves the LCK’s quarterfinal ledger: if HLE falls, the LCK’s locked quarterfinalists are only GEN and DK, and the pressure on T1 versus MKOI magnifies accordingly.

LPL Qualification Variables Table#

Laying out the situations of the three surviving LPL teams as a table:

Broken into scenarios, there are three lines:

• Floor line: whoever wins the TES versus BLG civil war, the LPL has one team advancing directly to the quarterfinals — a number locked in before Round 4 even begins.
• Upside line: if iG gets past LYON, the LPL will have two teams locked into the quarterfinals early — the most ideal Round 4 outcome for the LPL at this Worlds.
• Abyss line: both the civil war loser and iG (if they lose) drop into the 2-2 group’s Round 5 do-or-die. In the extreme case, if both LPL teams at 2-2 lose in Round 5, the LPL’s quarterfinal presence shrinks to just the civil war winner; conversely, if iG goes straight through and the civil war loser then wins in Round 5, the LPL could reach three teams in the quarterfinals.

One sentence sums it up: the range for the LPL’s quarterfinal count is 1 to 3, and the two foreign matches in Round 4 decide which end of that range it lands on.

From BO1 to BO3: The Strategic Variables Have Changed#

The biggest difference between Round 4 and the first three rounds is the format switching fully from BO1 to BO3 — a change with major impact on the LPL’s survival matches. Look back at AL’s three losses: the opening round against KC and the second round against TES were both BO1, where one mistake meant no second chance, and even the good 1-for-4 fight against TES bought nothing; by the Round 3 BO3 against TLAW, AL finally had an adjustment window, and the game-two 0-for-5 counterattack at 19 minutes proved they could fix problems between games — but per the recap framing, the recovered momentum never converted into a game win. BO3 gives slow-starting teams room for error and gives leading teams room to be studied. All the LPL-relevant teams in Round 4 (TES, BLG, iG) have to recalibrate their preparation lists under these rules: draft depth, between-game adjustment, and management of the cards you hold back after the opponent has watched you for three straight games.

V. Serial Retrospective: From Draw Night to Closing Night#

This is the fourth installment in our Swiss Stage serial for S16 Worlds. From the various worries on draw night to today’s worst-ever exit, every node across eleven days is on record. One look back shows clearly which calls were right and which were wrong:

• October 19, draw preview: the play-in concluded and Round 1 Swiss matchups were announced — AL vs KC, BLG vs MKOI, TES vs HLE, iG vs GEN, with two China-Korea matches in the same round. We broke down the dangerous scenarios for AL’s opener and explained the rule change lifting same-region protection from Round 2 onward.
• October 25, Round 2 doomsday: the historic pattern landed, with all four LPL teams losing in Round 1 and all four LCK teams winning; TES beat AL in the civil war for their first win, and AL fell into the 0-2 group — the line written then, “one more loss means three losses and a stop at the top 16,” came true ten days later word for word.
• October 27, Day 3 recap: iG crushed HLE 1-0 and the LPL took its first win over the LCK at this event; DK and GEN locked quarterfinal spots first. The four closing matches on October 27 previewed at the end of that piece named AL versus TLAW as “the LPL’s true do-or-die today” — that one also came true.
• October 28, this piece: AL’s 0-3 exit sets multiple worst-ever records; the three surviving LPL teams — TES, BLG, iG — enter Round 4, and the quarterfinal ledger has only two remaining suspense points: the second direct-advance slot beyond the civil war floor, and the 2-2 group’s Round 5 do-or-die.

Read all four together and both the upward and downward curves of the LPL at this Worlds are in there. As the schedule advances, this serial will keep following Round 4 results and the quarterfinal lineup.

Conclusion#

Writing to here, AL’s 0-3 is settled fact and the six Round 4 matchups sit in front of us. Honestly, I stopped for a long time after finishing section two — the team that beat BLG 3-1 for the Summer title one month ago goes out at Worlds 0-4 in games without ever facing a single LCK team. A gap like that cannot be lightly waved off with “the patch changed”; it deserves the whole LPL offseason to take apart. What can be done right now is to watch TES, BLG, and iG fight the rest of their matches well: at 04:00 Beijing Time on October 29, MKOI versus T1 opens Round 4, and around 07:00 LYON face iG — that one may well be one of the answers to how many LPL teams reach the quarterfinals. See you on the Rift.

— Long Zhuiri, NTGame Editor-in-Chief