LoL MSI 2026 Play-Ins Day 2 cut the field from four teams to three. T1 swept Karmine Corp to reach the Play-Ins final, while Team Liquid Alienware ended Relove Deep Cross Gaming’s tournament with another 3-0.
That leaves the bracket in a very simple place. T1 are waiting in the final on Wednesday, July 1. Karmine Corp and Team Liquid Alienware play the lower bracket final on Tuesday, June 30, and DCG are the first team out of MSI 2026.
The scorelines were identical, but the series were not. T1 vs KC decided who got the clean route through the upper bracket. TLAW vs DCG was an elimination match, and it ended with North America still alive for at least one more day.
LoL MSI bracket after Day 2
The MSI 2026 Play-Ins are now down to T1, Karmine Corp and Team Liquid Alienware. Only one of them reaches the Bracket Stage, so T1’s unbeaten start has given them the best path, not a guaranteed spot.
| Match | Result | Bracket impact | Next match |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1 vs Karmine Corp | T1 won 3-0 | T1 advance to the Play-Ins final | T1 play on July 1 at 10:00 CEST |
| Team Liquid Alienware vs Relove Deep Cross Gaming | TLAW won 3-0 | DCG are eliminated | TLAW face KC on June 30 at 10:00 CEST |
| Karmine Corp vs Team Liquid Alienware | Not played yet | Lower bracket final | Winner faces T1 |
The official LoL MSI bracket still has one Play-Ins place open for the Bracket Stage. KC now have to recover from a hard loss, while TLAW need to carry their elimination-match form into a much tougher series.
LoL MSI schedule: what happens next in Play-Ins
Only three teams are left in the MSI 2026 Play-Ins. T1 are already waiting in the final, while Karmine Corp and Team Liquid Alienware have to play one more elimination series first.
| Date | Match | Stage | What is at stake? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, June 30 10:00 CEST | Karmine Corp vs Team Liquid Alienware | Lower bracket final | Winner plays T1. Loser is eliminated from MSI 2026. |
| Wednesday, July 1 10:00 CEST | T1 vs winner of KC/TLAW | Play-Ins final | Winner reaches the MSI 2026 Bracket Stage. Loser is eliminated. |
T1 punish Karmine Corp
T1’s 3-0 over Karmine Corp was a sweep, but not every game looked the same. Games one and three were brutal. T1 found early bot-lane windows, played through them immediately, and kept forcing KC into fights they were not ready to take.
Keria’s game-one Pyke set the tone. KC kept giving him angles, and he kept taking them. The hooks landed, Oner moved to the right side of the map, and the T1 bot lane made sure Caliste and Busio never got to play the game on comfortable terms.
Game two was the one KC will regret most. They actually built a real lead, with Kyeahoo finding strong moments into Faker and the map opening up around Busio’s roams. Then came the familiar T1 problem: one clean teamfight was enough to erase most of the good work.
That has been the hard part of playing T1 all year. Getting ahead is one thing. Turning that lead into a win is something else entirely. KC had lanes that worked, but T1 had the better fight selection, better collapses and better understanding of when the game could be broken open.
The final series numbers underline the gap. T1 finished with 71 kills, 29 towers, eight dragons and three Barons. KC had 49 kills, but only nine towers, which says a lot about how often their good moments failed to become map control.
Peyz was the clearest winner on the stat sheet, ending the series 30/8/27 with 1006 damage per minute. Caliste finished 5/16/23 on the other side. That bot-lane gap shaped the whole best-of-five, even in the game where KC looked closest to taking one.
The full series highlights show how quickly T1 turned small lane advantages into full-map pressure.
Karmine Corp’s solo lanes still gave them something to hold onto before the lower bracket final. Kyeahoo had strong laning stretches against Faker, and Canna kept several top-side matchups stable. The issue was that none of it mattered enough when T1 kept winning the moments that decided the map.
Team Liquid Alienware send DCG home
Team Liquid Alienware’s 3-0 over Relove Deep Cross Gaming was not always clean, but it was never really in doubt for long. DCG found openings in games one and three, built some early pressure, and still kept running into the same wall around objectives and teamfights.
TLAW were simply better when the game reached the parts that mattered. Quid gave them the carry threat in the middle of the map, Yeon supplied the damage, and the team did enough around Baron, dragons and base sieges to stop DCG from turning scrappy fights into a real series.
Quid finished 19/3/16 across the sweep, including a deathless Akali game to start the series. Yeon led Liquid’s damage profile with 1064 damage per minute, giving TLAW the steady late-fight threat they needed whenever DCG tried to drag the game back into chaos.
The tower difference was the clearest sign of how the series actually played out. TLAW ended with 30 towers, nine dragons and four Barons. DCG had 38 kills across the three games, but only four towers and no Barons. They could fight. They could not turn enough of those fights into anything lasting.
DCG’s base defenses deserve some credit. They kept buying time in positions where the game looked finished, and they made Liquid work harder than a clean 3-0 usually suggests. But the same problems came back every game. Too many mechanical slips, too little control after early leads, and not enough damage to finish fights when TLAW’s carries survived the first engage.
The final game was the shortest of the tournament so far at 25:13. By then, the pattern had fully set in. DCG could start a play, but TLAW were the team finishing the map.
DCG are first out after a winless LoL MSI run
For Relove Deep Cross Gaming, the loss ends MSI 2026 after just two series. They were swept by Karmine Corp on Day 1, then swept again by Team Liquid Alienware on Day 2, making them the first team eliminated from the tournament.
That sounds brutal, and on paper it was. DCG finished Play-Ins without a map win, and the gap showed most clearly in how little they could turn early fights into real map pressure. Against TLAW, they still found leads and forced messy moments, but the towers, Barons and late-game control all went Liquid’s way.
Their best trait was also the thing that kept their games watchable: they refused to die quietly. DCG defended broken bases, kept throwing bodies into fights, and made both KC and TLAW work harder than the 0-6 record suggests. The problem was that the fight back usually came too late, after the map was already gone.
For the region, it is a difficult result but not a useless one. DCG came in as underdogs and leave with a clear reminder of where the gap is at international level: cleaner objective setups, stronger bot-lane laning, and better conversion after early advantages. The aggression was there. The control was not.
Karmine Corp and Team Liquid Alienware play for the T1 rematch
The next LoL esports match is Karmine Corp vs Team Liquid Alienware on Tuesday, June 30 at 10:00 CEST. It is the lower bracket final, and the winner gets T1 on Wednesday, July 1.
For KC, the answer has to start in bot lane. Caliste and Busio do not need to dominate the series, but they cannot give TLAW the same kind of punish windows T1 found all day. KC’s solo lanes have shown enough to win games, but the map becomes unplayable if their bot side keeps collapsing early.
For TLAW, the question is whether the DCG sweep was a reset or just survival. Liquid looked better in the elimination match, especially around objective fights, but they also gave DCG openings that KC should be much more capable of using.
The broader LoL MSI schedule moves quickly from here. The Play-In Stage runs through July 1, before the Bracket Stage begins on July 3. Riot’s official LoL Esports hub lists MSI as one of the key international events of the 2026 season.
Frequently asked questions about LoL MSI Day 2
Who won on LoL MSI 2026 Play-Ins Day 2?
T1 beat Karmine Corp 3-0, and Team Liquid Alienware beat Relove Deep Cross Gaming 3-0.
Who made the LoL MSI 2026 Play-Ins final?
T1 did. The 3-0 over Karmine Corp sent them straight to the final.
Who is in the lower bracket final?
Karmine Corp vs Team Liquid Alienware is next. They play Tuesday, June 30 at 10:00 CEST, with the winner getting T1.
Who got knocked out first?
Relove Deep Cross Gaming. Their MSI run ended with a 3-0 loss to Team Liquid Alienware.
When is the Play-Ins final?
Wednesday, July 1 at 10:00 CEST.
How many Play-Ins teams reach the Bracket Stage?
Just one. That is why T1 still have one more best-of-five to win.
The Play-Ins now run through T1
MSI 2026 Play-Ins Day 2 left no extra paths. T1 are one series from the Bracket Stage, KC and Team Liquid Alienware have to fight through the lower bracket, and DCG are already gone.
Tuesday decides who gets the rematch. KC need an immediate response after being swept by T1. TLAW need to prove the DCG series was more than a cleanup job against the weakest team left in the bracket.
Photos by Liu Yicun/Riot Games.
