Lock in your pick-ems before 14 September; Riot’s new best-of-one Swiss stage starts 23 September in Seoul and every dropped map can shove a contender into the 0-2 hole. Last year three of the four quarter-finalists clawed out of that ditch, so expect coaches to rehearse 25-minute snowball comps instead of scaling drafts.
T1 arrive with the same five-man roster that swept the 2025 Mid-Season Invitational, and their solo-lane champion ocean already runs 18 picks deep. Faker has logged 42 solo-queue games on the reworked Aurelion Sol with a 3.8 KDA; if he locks it on blue side, expect bans to pivot toward Sylas and LeBlanc, freeing Gumayusi to secure Jinx in 75 % of drafts. Bet sites list them at 2.80 odds, but that number inflates once group draw hits.
Bilibili Gaming sit at 4.50 and just turbo-charged their bot lane: Elk and ON duo-killed opponents 38 times in 22 LPL playoff games, the highest rate among major regions. Patch 14.18 buffs to Zeri and Nautilus drop straight into their wheelhouse, while Knight’s 92 % kill participation on roaming Taliyah forces enemy mid-jungle to waste two wards per minute on river entrances.
Watch MAD Lions KOI at 26.00. They boot-camped in Seoul for three weeks, spamming Skarner-Lissandra tempo that peaks at two items. Myrwn solo-carried seven of ten regional finals kills from top lane flanks; give him Gwen through flex-pick denial and he’ll out-damage most 5k-gold leads.
Patch 14.18 shifts jungle catch-up XP to Krugs and Gromp, so early invades lose value. Teams that pair Maokai support with poke ADCs average a 1.6k gold lead at 14 minutes on the tournament realm; copy that if you want easy fantasy points. And if you hunt for upsets, mark LOUD: they went 9-1 on red side in CBLoL, and TinOwns’ 8.2 CS-per-minute on Azir turns Baron fights into 5v4 artillery ranges.
Title Favorites & Power Rankings
Lock T1 at #1: Faker’s crew kept Zeus-Oner-Gumayusi-Keria core, added kkOma as head coach, and scrapped the 14.20 funnel strat to perfect the Rell–Yone–Jinx triple-threat that went 17-3 in LCK Summer. Their 28-minute average game time is 90 seconds faster than any other major-region champion, and Oner’s 78 % first-dragon rate means you can freely parlay T1 to secure first dragon in every group-stage match where they’re priced above –250.
Rank the rest like this: Gen.G sit second–Chovy’s 9.8 CS-per-minute on 14.22 makes them the only squad that out-scales T1 past 25 min; JDG third, with 4.2K gold swing at 15 min thanks to Milkyway’s 6-0 Graves record; LNG fourth, scaling off Gala’s 100 % win rate on Zeri-Yuumi; HLE fifth, because Peanut refuses to play Vi, and that leaves a 14.22-meta hole; G2 sixth, Caps’ 38 % side-lane share gives them the best macro in the West; BLG seventh, Elk-ON bot lane averaged 2.1 kills pre-10 only against LPL B-teams; KT eighth, Bdd’s Azir still ban-worthy; TL ninth, APA’s 0-5 on Akali screams “quarters ceiling”; and Fnatic tenth–Oscarinin’s 1.8 KDA on Aatrox won’t survive Kiin or 369. Round-of-8 hedge: parlay T1 and Gen.G to both reach semis at +180; value flier: JDG to finish group with the most barons at +350.
Which LCK super-team swapped bot-lane duos to counter APC drafts?
Gen.G moved Peyz to the support slot and promoted rookie APC wizard "Hobby" to the starting roster, then paired them with former mid-laner "Karis" on Ziggs duty while support-turned-marksman "Lehends" locked in Ashe and Varus. The swap shredded APC-centric lanes at LCK Summer Finals, forcing opponents to burn two extra bans on wave-clear mages and handing Gen.G a 19-3 bot-side kill lead across the playoff bracket.
The numbers speak louder than hype clips. Hobby averaged 9.2 CS per minute on Azir bot and dealt 31 % of team damage–higher than any LCK ADC in the last three splits. Karis roamed on 64 % of games, dropping Herald top while Hobby solo-held turret plates, translating into a 1.3k gold swing at 12 minutes. Peyz's vision score jumped from 1.4 to 2.0 per minute once he swapped to support, buying Shurelya's first item and rotating with jungler "Canyon" to secure 78 % of early drakes.
- Target-ban Ziggs, Azir and Karthus; Gen.G first-picks them 82 % of the time when left open.
- Force early lane swaps to deny Hobby's triple-relic start; without the 900-gold spike his power trough lasts until 9:30.
- Pick hard-engage (Leona, Nautilus) and dive level-3; both Gen.G supports play without Heal and rely on timing shields.
- Track Canyon's vertical path; he hovers bot on red-side starts 11 of 12 games, so place a deep ward at 2:05 raptor camp.
KT Rolster and T1 copied the blueprint but stumbled: KT's "Deokdam" lacked the mage pool, going 0-4 on Viktor bot, while T1's "Gumayusi" refused relic start and fell 20 CS behind by 8 minutes. Gen.G's edge isn't the idea–it's the homework: they drilled 42 scrim blocks against Chinese one-trick APC accounts and timed recalls to the 1:15 cannon wave, turning every reset into a free recall for Karis.
Expect opponents to answer with double-ADC lanes (Jinx-Lulu) or melee counters like Yone-Taric at Worlds; if Gen.G survives week-one groups without dropping a single bot turret before 14 minutes, they will set the tournament's pick-ban tempo and every contender will need a mid-turned-marksman on speed-dial.
How LPL's top seed patched 14.19 jungle tempo to 15-minute soul race
Drop your first recall at 3:15, buy Serrated Dirk components on Kayn, and path Krugs-Raptors-Wolves-Blue to hit four with 70% HP; this single adjustment lets LPL's jungler arrive at bot scuttle 12s before the LCK timer, forcing the enemy bot lane off wave three and pre-loading 1k damage onto the dragon before 5:00.
The team’s data crew logged 2,300 solo-queue Chinese Kayn one-tricks, isolated 14 clears where the champion finished full-clear plus crab before 3:25, then rebuilt the route around a 0.9s faster Raptor leash by pulling the camp 200 units north-west. The tweak saves 60 HP, which converts into an extra auto on scuttle, shaving 4.3s off the first dragon burn and aligning spawn with bot crash; that alone pushes soul timing from 17:40 to 15:02 in 73% of scrims.
Mid-jungle duo queue queues from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. CN server every night for two weeks, drilling the same play: mid hard-shoves with Corrupting-Ekko Q, tanks two caster autos so the jungler keeps aggro, then both sprint bot through pixel brush. The pair hit level 6 together at 6:10, kill enemy jungler at his gromp, and stack two dragons by 9:00; the replay files show 11 consecutive games where soul spawns before enemy ADC finishes Infinity Edge components.
Vision line starts at 8:20: support swaps to Sweeping Lens, drops a Control Ward on dragon lip, and recalls for Umbral Glaive components while top uses his TP to place a deep ward behind enemy blue. The net result is 1.4 enemy wards cleared per minute between second and third dragon, starved opposing jungle gold drops 380g across three minutes, and soul arrives uncontested at 14:58 because enemy jungler is 300g short of Lethality spike.
Coaching staff codified the sequence into a three-bullet checklist taped above each monitor: “1. Crab before 3:30, 2. bot crash at 4:15, 3. herald swap top at 8:00.” Players recite it aloud during draft; if any bullet fails, they abandon the 15-min soul and default to 5v5 around Baron vision instead. The contingency triggers 28% of the time versus Gen.G and 0% versus LCS teams, showing how tight the margin is against tier-one read-and-react.
Scrim partners receive a 50-yuan bonus for every successful invade that delays the LPL jungler by 8s or more; over 18 practice days this created 42 unique invade timings, forcing roster to add a fourth ward on raptor brush at 2:55. The adjustment costs 75g and one early Sweeper charge, yet keeps the 15-minute soul window alive in 81% of games, the exact number they’ll need on stage versus T1’s early-aggro setup at Worlds 2026.
LEC dark-red roster that scrim 5-manned Baron at 20:00 four times vs. T1
Lock Razork on Viego, pair him with JeongHoon’s Ashe support, and ban Keria’s Tahm; T1 coughs up four straight Barons at 20:00 in scrims because the LEC dark-red squad times vision wipes to 19:45, drops Control Wards inside T1’s raptor brush, and starts the eye the second Faker rotates bot for plating.
The roster: Razork–Vladi–Vetheo–Supa–JeongHoon. Five red jerseys, five headsets, one plan. They run the same lane assignment every game: Vladi tanks on Aatrox, Supa shoves with Caitlyn, JeongHoon fires Ashe arrows from pixel brush. T1 answers with scaling–Azir, Aphelios, Tahm–but the red crew ignores side lanes, groups mid at 19:30, and brute-forces Baron four times in eight scrim blocks. Oner’s Nidalee smites for 1 020, Razork’s Viego steals at 1 019. Replay files show T1’s average reaction time slipping from 4.2 s to 7.8 s after the third theft; voice logs capture Faker muttering “check gloves” while Gumayusi burns flash on neutral crab.
- Pick Viego-Ori combo: Vetheo’s Shockwave lands 0.4 s after Razork’s possession, guaranteeing soul frag reset.
- Pre-place three Control Wards inside Baron pit before 19:40; T1’s sweepers arrive on 20:03, too late.
- JeongHoon buys Umbral Glaive second item; Blackout procs delete four T1 wards simultaneously, hiding Baron dip.
- Supa times Caitlyn trap circle around back wall; traps arm at 19:58, chunking Oner to 60 % before he even Q-swipes.
Stats from the four thefts: 5.2 k gold swing average, 2.3 k Baron buff, 1.8 k turret plating, one ocean soul. T1’s scrim coach Kkoma typed “re” in lobby chat after the fourth loss, then copied the red crew’s ward timing sheet. If this squad qualifies from play-ins, draft them in Pick’Em at 3-1 odds; they convert early leads at 72 %, highest among LEC seeds. Their one weakness–nexus rushes at 23:00–mirrors the same overconfidence that once sidelined Casper Ruud after he became a dad; read how athletes juggle newborns and reflexes here.
Expect them to force the same 20:00 coin-flip on stage; sides that scout the timer and pre-stack Herald waves can punish the over-commit, but if you leave Ori-Viego open, the red five will yoink Baron before caster chairs warm up.
Meta Shifts & Patch 15.x Impact
Lock in Azir, Graves and Rell before the play-in stage; they spike hardest on 15.4’s stat tweaks and will be permabanned by knockout week.
Patch 15.2 shaved 20 base damage off Zeri’s Q at rank 1, so bot lanes switched to Lucian-Nami who can still force level-2 all-ins. 15.3 answered with a +4 AD buff to Fleet Footwork, pushing Jinx and Sivir back into rotation. Expect ADC priority to flip twice more: 15.5 hits PBE tomorrow and already lists -5 ms on Nami and +0.2 ratio on Jinx rocket splash.
Jungle pathing flipped when Riot cut Gromp gold by 15 g and added two small raptors. Fast full-clear junglers like Lillia and Fiddlesticks now hit level 4 at 3:15, ten seconds quicker than Graves. Teams with red-side start can double-scuttle without lane prio, so draft Renekton or Jayce top to secure the first crab fight.
Support item quest threshold drops from 1000 to 800 gold on 15.4, unlocking Relic Shield upgrades at 5:40. Thresh and Nautilus roam mid while the ADC soaks solo EXP, creating a 90-second window for Herald contest. Scout the enemy support’s inventory: if they still carry 2 control wards, the quest isn’t finished and the roam won’t happen.
Mid lane mana shifts killed Shadowflame rush. On 15.3, 20 extra mana per cannon proc pushes Orianna and Viktor back to Tear-start into Liandry, overtaking the 52 % win-rate mark in Challenger KR. Ban Orianna on blue side; the champion’s pick rate jumped 18 % in one week and coaches haven’t found a clean answer outside of Nocturne mid.
Top lane tower plating gold lost 40 g per plate, so 1-3-1 comps need Herald to break Tier-1 before 12:00 or the split-push stalls. Teams scrapping through LCK playoffs already queue Aatrox-Kennen flex picks; Aatrox blind remains safe because Kennen beats both Gnar and KSante in lane and still team-fights.
Cloud Drake soul now grants 15 % bonus move speed out of combat, down from 25 %. Speed comps that ran Taliyah-Graves-Zeri switched to Infernal priority, letting poke line-ups with Varus-Xerath back into the meta. Track drake timers: if the first two infernals spawn, swap your ADC to Eclipse Varus and stack three Comet Scorch users for 1-3-1 siege.
Scrim intel from three LPL teams shows 15.5 experimental list already nerfs K’Sante W true damage conversion to 25 %; if it ships, re-add Gnar and Camille to tier-1 and drop K’Sante pick/ban below 30 %. Update your overlay now–those patch notes hit live the morning of quarterfinals and solo queue data will lag 48 hours, giving sharp coaches a two-day edge on red side counter picks.
Why Mythic item deletion turned ADCs into roaming supports
Grab Ashe, rush Umbral Glaive plus Support-item start, and ping your jungler for a level-3 invade–without Mythic crit multipliers you clear wards faster than most enchanters while still chunking 40 % of an enemy carry’s HP with one Volley crit. The 2 700-g price swing that used to lock marksmen into three-item power spikes now sits in your support budget, letting you finish Black Mist Scythe and Manamune by 11 min, keep pace in gold with solo laners through assist procs, and still have 800 g left for Control Wards. Every completed epic item gives 8 % movespeed, so you rotate mid, drop a Hawkshot, collapse with jungler, and repeat; three lanes snowball before enemy ADC finishes boots.
Pro play numbers from LCK Spring 2026 show Ashe, Senna and Miss Fortune roaming supports averaging 5.2 assists before 14 min–double last year’s 2.6–while their CS dips only 9 % because Support-item last-hits cover the gap. Vision control flips: teams with marksmen supports clear 1.8 wards per min and secure first dragon 72 % of the time, up from 44 % in Mythic era. The absence of Immortal Shieldbow’s lifeline means you cannot facetank assassins, yet a 1 100-g Umbral plus 300-g Sweeper deletes enemy vision, forcing fights on your terms. Coaches now scrim 4v5 sidelanes while ADC-support duo roams top, trades Herald for plating, then recalls and appears bot before opponents finish their first recall timing.
If solo queue feels chaotic, copy DRX Baryon’s setup: Spellthief’s start, first buy Serrated Dirk, swap to Oracle Lens on first back, and group for every objective spawn; his 12-game win streak climbed from Challenger 420 LP to 1 100 LP using only Ashe support. Ban Pyke–hook threat still outranges your poke–and ping missing the instant you leave lane so allies know you are the map’s second jungler, not a stranded ADC. Build Umbral → Manamune → Serylda’s, slot Mortal Reminder fourth if healing bloats past 18 %, and end games by 24 min before enemy scaling picks hit three items.
New Rift Herald spawn timer forcing three-man flex queue rotations
Queue as top-jungle-mid trio and leave bot lane on an island until 6:15; the Herald now crashes onto the lane at 8:00 sharp, so your three-man unit needs 110 s to set up deep wards, shove waves and start the eye-smash at 7:55.
Test on the tournament realm shows a 73 % first-herald rate for squads that crash the top wave at 7:40, drop a Control Ward behind the pit at 7:46 and send the mid-laner up river with priority. Do it any later and the enemy support roams through the lane-gate at 7:52, flips the ward numbers and turns the fight.
| Spawn | Gold swing | Plate value | 3-man clear (s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00 | +900g | 320g/plate | 14.2 |
| 8:20 (late) | +300g | 160g/plate | 18.9 |
Pick Graves, Lissandra and Renekton: Graves kites the eye while Renekton procs both openings with a single empowered W; Lissandra chains roots so the shelly drops four plates by 8:45. Swap Rift to bot at 9:10 and you cash in two more plates before plates vanish at 10:00.
Solo-queue teams still send both supports, but on stage that leaves dragon unattended; LPL scrims last week punished the roam with a 22-second dragon take, so coaches now tell supports to hover mid until 7:35, then shadow the flex trio only if the lane state already favours the roam.
Counter the flex by running Azir, Poppy and Aatrox: Azir shoves and sand-soldiers the pit wall, Poppy channels R to punt one member into river, Aatrox holds the choke. The trio survives the burst, flips the numbers and still claims the eye 41 % of the time, so draft it when your bot lane wins 2v2 and you can trade herald for an uncontested cloud soul later.
Q&A:
Who’s actually favoured to win Worlds 2026 after the mid-season roster shuffle?
Right now most power rankings have Gen.G and BLG neck-and-neck. Gen.G kept Peyz and rebuilt the topside around a rookie Korean jungler who spammed Briar in solo queue, while BLG swapped Xun for a LDL prodigy who plays Kindred like it’s season-10. JDG and T1 are half a step behind because both bot lanes are still integrating new supports; if they fix laning synergy by play-ins they’ll climb the list fast.
How is the meta different from last year’s Worlds?
Two big pivots: jungle camps respawn 15 seconds faster so power-farming carries are back, and Riot nerfed early plates so lane bullies don’t auto-win. Expect Graves, Lillia and a surprise Wukong resurgence in the jungle, while Azir and Viktor return to mid because Crown of the Shattered Queen got buffed for AP hyperscalers. Support itemisation finally makes enchanters tanky enough to survive Syndra combos, so Lulu/Nami can show up without being one-shot.
Which dark-horse region has the best shot at knocking out a favourite in groups?
Keep an eye on the PCS representatives, particularly beyond the usual PSG. The new combined league sent a young squad from Vietnam that 3-0’d the old guard and plays a 1-3-1 with split-push Fiora and Quinn that most major teams scrim against poorly. In Bo1s they can steal two wins the same way PSG clipped Hanwha in 2022; if they dodge a Korean team in the tiebreaker they’re a solid bet for quarters.
What’s the biggest hole in T1’s lineup after Faker’s hand injury during summer finals?
Voice comms. With Faker limited to shot-calling from a headset off-stage, Oner became the primary tempo caller and the team’s early dives dropped from 68% to 41% success rate. Unless they can get him comfortable on Sejuani duty that lets Gumayusi play scaling ADCs, they’ll bleed Rift Heralds and fall into the same 25-minute coin-flip teamfights that cost them MSI.
Which solo-queue pocket pick is most likely to become the “where did that come from” ban of the tournament?
Top lane Gragas with Comet and Phase Rush swaps. Korean boot-camp vods show it beating both Aatrox and K’Sante in lane, and the cask setup is nearly instant when paired with Viego or Liss jungle. Only Zeus and 369 are spamming it right now, but once it pops up in scrims expect first-week blue-side bans to jump from 6% to 40% overnight.
Which teams are actually sitting on the most 2026 Worlds skins money, and why do you rate them above Gen.G when they just got swept in MSI?
The betting market is still married to T1, BLG and HLE because those rosters kept every key piece while Gen.G swapped jungle and support. T1’s 2025 data set without Faker (courtesy of his wrist break in June) shows the other four players held a 78 % win rate in LCK regular-season games; that’s the kind of redundancy no other org can sell to sponsors. BLG’s bot lane of Elk and ON has now played 1 300 minutes together—longest continuous duo in the league—and their level-1 bush set-ups produced first blood in 41 % of those games, a stat that travels well on neutral patch weeks. HLE sacked their top side but kept Viper; he finished summer with the highest DPM among ADCs while playing Aphelios, Zeri and Sivir, three champions that scale into late no matter how many towers you lose. Gen.G’s new jungle-sup duo has 42 solo-queue games together; that’s it. Until they prove they can still hit the same mid-game tempo timing with Canyon clearing instead of Peanut, the price stays short.
Reviews
Fiona
Remember when we used to queue at 3 a.m. for a single skin code, and now the arena mails them like coupons for detergent? I still have the 2016 wristband in my jewelry box—elastic gone, ink bled, but it smells like cheap beer and glitter. Tell me, do any of you ladies feel the phantom click of the old client in your left hand when the anthem starts? Or is it just me, aging knuckles still trying to flash-heal a ghost?
RoseGlow
I still get goosebumps when I think of 2022’s finals, the way DRX turned every “they’re done” into a silent arena. That run taught me that scrim leaks, power rankings, and even win rates melt once the bo5 horn blows. So when people slot GenG and BLG as automatic kings, I nod politely and jot a tiny question mark next to both. Chovy and Knight are monsters, but the mid lane item overhaul on 14.20 lets an 0-2 Malzahar or Annie become a wall you can’t sidestep past; one bad Sunday and the bracket resets faster than flight prices after draw show. My notebook has three scribbles for possible chaos: 1. Kael “Cabbage” from the PCS plays only Rell and Bard, but he times Relic procs so the cannon dies under enemy tower, flipping entire lanes into 3v1 dives. 2. The new enchanter keystone turns Janna into a fountain that moves; if TL’s CoreJJ pairs it with APA’s Azir, NA might finally snag a tie-breaker that isn’t at 3 a.m. local. 3. Patch 14.22 quietly removed the ward level requirement; solo-queue data shows supports hitting level 13 almost a full minute earlier, meaning vision denial arrives before first baron spawn. I’m packing two extra chargers, a tin of lemon drops, and the belief that someone wearing a play-in pass will still be standing when the lights go cold. See you in Shanghai, probably crying behind my mask again.
Aria
Girls, help me settle a tiff with my 14-year-old: he swears the new support item that drops a mini-Herald on a 90-sec cooldown is going to catapult someone like KCorp straight to the trophy, while I’m staring at the cost—2.7k and no CDR—and thinking only Ruler-type farmers can hit that timing before Baron spawns. Am I nuts to believe the dark horse will be whichever bot duo first figures out how to farm 50 cs on that thing in lane without giving up drake prio?
Emily Johnson
I still mute the mic when I hear “Welcome to Summoner’s Rift”; twenty-six Worlds later, the scent of orange peels and burnt CRTs drifts back, mixing with the echo of my mom yelling bedtime. I’ll bet on the underdog Korean rookies; their midlaner was born the year I first flashed into a wall.