Team Liquid end LYON's reign to win the LCS Summer title

Team Liquid are LCS champions. They beat LYON 3-1 in the Summer Playoffs final on 4 October, taking the title and North America's first seed for Worlds 2026.

The result ends a year of LYON dominance. Kacper "Inspired" Słoma and his teammates had lifted both previous trophies and swept this same Team Liquid side on 14 June. This time, the two teams arrived in very different shape. Team Liquid came through the upper bracket without losing a series. LYON dropped to the lower bracket after a second-round defeat to Cloud9 and had to beat them 3-1 the day before the final just to be there.

For Team Liquid, the turnaround started with that Spring defeat. In the post-final press conference, head coach Jake "Spawn" Tiberi described what the team took from it:

During split 2, we had a big awakening that on our good days, we were good enough to beat anyone.

The series itself turned on a draft decision in game one. LYON left Lee Sin open for Brandon Joel "Josedeodo" Villegas, his best champion this year: ten wins in eleven games in 2026, a 90.9% win rate. The jungler knew what it meant as soon as he locked it in, as he explained after the final:

I was given Lee Sin the first game so I was like, 'Oh, this is my moment.'

He set the pace from the opening minutes and decided the first two maps, while Park "Morgan" Ru-han won the top lane outright against Niship "Dhokla" Doshi.

LYON took a 41-minute game three behind Inspired, Kang "Saint" Sung-in and Kim "Berserker" Min-cheol. It was their only win of the night. Game four lasted 27 minutes, and Team Liquid gave up a single kill and a single turret on the way to the trophy.

Josedeodo was named Finals MVP and becomes the first South American player to win the North American title. Morgan and Lim "Quid" Hyeon-seung also lift the trophy for the first time.

Team Liquid now go to Worlds as the LCS first seed, and they go there with confidence. The mood goes beyond one roster: in the LCS, the belief that an upset against the Eastern teams is possible has rarely been stronger. Asked in the press conference whether this was the strongest the North American scene had ever been, Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in did not hesitate:

This is the strongest LCS ever.

Coach Samuel "Spookz" Broadley went one step further after the final, only half-joking:

We're gonna win Worlds.