Demacia Cup 2026 semifinals recap: FEARX vs WE for the title

The Demacia Cup Global Invitational 2026 has its two finalists. Ahead of Saturday’s title decider at the Beijing JD Esports Center, here is how the semifinals played out and what to expect from the Grand Final.

Semifinals recap

KT Rolster came into the semifinals as the team most expected to lift the trophy. Their quarterfinal against Team Vitality had already exposed real problems. They escaped 3-2, but their bottom lane struggled throughout the series. Against a stronger opponent, those problems only got worse.

Jeong “Jiwoo” Ji-woo was the weak link across both series. KT’s only win came in Game 2, when the whole team funnelled resources into his Xayah and he made them count. The rest of the series followed one pattern. KT’s bot lane got outplayed again and again, and a team built around that lane had little left to fall back on once it collapsed.

On the other side, Jeon “Raptor” Eo-jin was the standout. FEARX’s jungler read KT’s weaknesses early and kept steering his team towards them. He outpaced Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan across the map all series long. His Jayce in Game 3 and his Vi in the closing game were the clearest examples of the gap between the two junglers. He is our MVP of the series. The loss ends KT’s 2026 season with a 3rd-4th place finish.

Wang “Monki” Meng-Qi set the tone from the first game. His Jayce went 8/1/5 in Game 1, and Team WE’s mid-jungle duo had the upper hand over BRO’s for the entire series. WE took the first two games without much resistance. BRION found their way back by leaning on what they do best. They put Jo “Roamer” Woo-jin on more mobile mid laners and let him live up to his name, roaming across the map to pull WE’s lanes apart. It was enough to force a Game 5.

Even in those two losses, Monki made life miserable for Kim “GIDEON” Min-seong. On Poppy, he camped GIDEON’s top-side jungle for the whole game and kept invading until the Korean jungler had nowhere left to go. That pressure set up the decider. Driven by Monki’s usual chaos and aggressive playstyle, WE poured into BRION in Game 5, and BRION could not contain WE’s solo laners. Monki is our MVP of the series, and Team WE remain the last LPL team standing.

Grand Final preview: BNK FEARX vs Team WE

The Grand Final is on Saturday 17 October at the Beijing JD Esports Center. The winner takes around $89,600 from a prize pool of roughly $224,000, and the runners-up leave with around $59,800. It is also an LCK vs LPL final. Team WE are the last Chinese side left after JD Gaming and LGD Gamingwent out in the quarterfinals, while FEARX have already beaten JDG in Beijing this week and know what a hostile crowd sounds like.

The series will likely be decided in the jungle. Raptor and Monki both carried their teams through the semifinals. Whichever of the two imposes his tempo will put his team in the driver’s seat.

On paper, there is very little between the two teams, and a 3-2 in either direction would not be a surprise. If we had to pick a side, the edge goes to FEARX — they have looked the more structured team since the start of the knockout stage.