Industry · esports
Dplus Kia First Into Worlds 2026 Quarter-Finals at 3-0. The Last Two Teams First In Did Not Win
Dplus Kia beat Movistar KOI 2-0 on 26 October (KST) to qualify first. Riot's records for 2024 and 2025 show the first team in went out in a quarter-final once and lost the final once. T1 won both years from fifth and eighth.
The table this is written from: /worlds-2026
Dplus Kia are the first team into the quarter-finals of the 2026 League of Legends World Championship. They beat Movistar KOI 2-0 in a best-of-three at 04:00 Korea time on 26 October, and finished the Swiss Stage at 3-0, without dropping a series.
Yesterday’s records put them and Gen.G one win away (round three pairings). Dplus Kia got there first.
The two games, from Riot’s live stats
| Game | Dplus Kia side | Kills | Gold | Towers | Barons |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Red | 16–8 | 79,778–69,681 | 9–2 | 2–0 |
| 2 | Blue | 17–5 | 56,758–43,670 | 9–1 | 1–0 |
In game 2 Dplus Kia also took all three dragons. Over the two games Movistar KOI destroyed three towers.
What “first in” has meant before
Riot’s schedule lets us put every Swiss Stage match in order and see when each team reached its third win. In the two Swiss Stages we could count fully, 2024 and 2025, this is how the first team in fared, and where the champion came from.
| Year | First in | Record | Went out in | Champion’s place in the order |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | LNG | 3-0 | Quarter-final | T1, fifth, at 3-1 |
| 2025 | KT Rolster | 3-0 | Final (lost to T1) | T1, eighth and last, at 3-2 |
Of the four teams that went 3-0 in those two years, two went out in the quarter-finals, one in the semi-finals and one in the final. None won the title.
This is a count, not a forecast
Two years is a very small sample. It does not say a 3-0 start is a disadvantage, and it does not say anything about Dplus Kia’s chances. It says that in the last two fields, the order in which teams qualified and the order in which they finished were different lists. The full order for both years is on our Worlds 2026 page.
Who is next
Gen.G, the other LCK team at 2-0, beat LYON 2-1 three hours later and took the second spot (the result). Hanwha Life lost to Invictus Gaming and are 1-2; T1 were 1-1 and then beat CTBC Flying Oyster on 27 October to reach 2-1.
Match results and game statistics from Riot Games’ official LoL Esports schedule and live stats feed. Times are Korea Standard Time.
Where these numbers come from
Sources
- Riot Games (LoL Esports schedule) — Official schedule (esports-api getSchedule, league 98767975604431411): every completed Swiss Stage match of 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the knockout results of 2024 and 2025. Read 26 October 2026, 06:20 KST. · https://lolesports.com/en-US/schedule
- Riot Games (LoL Esports live stats feed) — Final frames of games 1 and 2 of Movistar KOI vs Dplus Kia (game ids 115660540726095038 and 115660540726095039): kills, total gold, towers, dragons and barons. · https://lolesports.com/en-US/schedule
What we checked
- Match: Movistar KOI 0–2 Dplus Kia, best-of-three, 26 Oct 2026 04:00 KST. Game 3 marked 'unneeded'. Dplus Kia's Swiss record: 3-0.
- Game 1 (Dplus Kia red side): kills 16–8, gold 79,778–69,681, towers 9–2, barons 2–0. Game 2 (Dplus Kia blue side): kills 17–5, gold 56,758–43,670, towers 9–1, dragons 3–0.
- 2024 order of qualification: LNG 3-0 (quarter-final), Gen.G 3-0 (semi-final), TES 3-1 (QF), Hanwha Life 3-1 (QF), T1 3-1 (champion), Weibo 3-2 (SF), Bilibili 3-2 (final), FlyQuest 3-2 (QF).
- 2025 order: KT 3-0 (final), Anyone's Legend 3-0 (QF), Hanwha Life 3-1 (QF), G2 3-1 (QF), Gen.G 3-1 (SF), CTBC Flying Oyster 3-2 (QF), TES 3-2 (SF), T1 3-2 (champion).
What we left out, and why
- 2023: the official schedule feed starts part-way through that Swiss Stage, so we did not count it.
- Game length: the live stats feed's timestamps include pauses and the pre-game, so we do not report a game clock.
- Predictions. Two past years describe two past fields, not this one.
The data behind this
Written from the same data
If you work in this business
Everything on this page is measured from the same weekly Netflix lists, per market and per title. We publish the pages free; what we sell is the same measurement cut to one company's catalogue — including the figures behind /worlds-2026.
What a company sheet contains, and what it cannot tell you →
What do you make of this?
We counted it. What it means is yours to decide.