Movistar KOI clinch final EMEA ticket to EWC 2026 after Karmine Corp's lower bracket win

Movistar KOI have secured the LEC's third and final slot at the Esports World Cup 2026, qualifying through a rolldown triggered by Karmine Corp's lower bracket win on Monday. By beating GIANTX, KC joined MKOI in the lower bracket final and reduced the LEC Spring Split title race to three possible winners: G2 Esports, Karmine Corp and MKOI — and all three are now bound for the EWC.

The mechanism mirrors the one that handed Dplus KIA a spot for Korea earlier. The LEC's final EWC ticket was reserved for the playoff winner, but with a fallback clause: if that winner was a team already qualified through the EWC Qualifier, the slot would default to whoever finished third at the qualifier. With G2 and Karmine Corp already qualified via the qualifier and MKOI sitting third behind them, the moment the grand final was guaranteed to feature two of those three, MKOI's EWC spot was locked in.

The three EMEA representatives at EWC 2026 are therefore set: G2 Esports, Karmine Corp, and Movistar KOI.

Attention now turns to Saturday, when Karmine Corp and MKOI face off in the lower bracket final. The winner secures both a place in the LEC Spring grand final against G2 and the second European ticket to the MSI in Daejeon.