Dplus KIA vs Bilibili Gaming: Five Years After Reykjavík

One of these two teams goes home today. DK were the first team through the Swiss Stage, at 3-0, coming back against G2 Esports and T1 before sweeping Movistar KOI, and they have not played since 25 October. BLG needed all five rounds. They lost their opener to Movistar KOI, got reverse-swept by Top Esports, then knocked out Hanwha Life Esports 2-0 with their tournament on the line. At times they have looked like the best team in Texas, at others like a side that could have gone out on its own mistakes.

These rosters have met once this year, in the Esports World Cup quarterfinals in July, and DK won 2-1. That series only goes so far as a guide. It was played on another patch, DK were on their way to their first major international trophy in nearly six years, and BLG had lost the MSI final to Hanwha Life five days earlier.

Reykjavík, Five Years On

On 6 November 2021, DWG KIA arrived in the Worlds final as defending champions and led EDward Gaming 2-1. EDG took the last two games, and Viper, in his first Worlds final, lifted the Summoner's Cup in front of ShowMaker. It is still the last time an LPL team has won Worlds.

ShowMaker is the only player left from DK's championship years. Around him, DK have built a young roster that had won nothing together before the Esports World Cup this summer, and a semifinal on Thursday would be the organisation's first since that 2021 run.

Viper, meanwhile, joined BLG this year to chase a second title, and he now stands between ShowMaker and the semifinals once again. ShowMaker has not forgotten Reykjavík. Ahead of the series, he made that clear:

A Long Summer for BLG

BLG's year splits in two. Before July, they won First Stand, with Chen "Bin" Ze-Bin named MVP, and the first two LPL splits. After the MSI final, Bin stepped away from competition for the start of Split 3, BLG brought in two more top laners, Yang "Wenbo" Wen-Bo from the academy and Li "Flandre" Xuan-Jun, and the players have spoken about communication problems inside the team. In September, Anyone's Legend beat them 3-1 in the LPL final.

Those problems are the biggest variable of this series, and they followed BLG to Texas. After the Swiss win over Karmine Corp, Zhuo "Knight" Ding told DPM Esports that better communication had turned their tournament around. Three days later, after the defeat against Top Esports, Viper said the opposite in a post-match interview to Inven, explaining that players had stopped listening to each other and made their own calls in the deciding game, to the point where BLG's communication had become worse than useless. The 2-0 over HLE, their first series win against an LCK team since July, came two days after that. If BLG have fixed it, they are clear favourites. If not, DK have the players to make them pay quickly.

The HLE series showed how high BLG's ceiling goes. Their mid game was clean, they drafted an enchanter support around three melee champions, and they turned every lead into objectives without once accepting a fight they were going to lose. That should not erase the rest of their Swiss Stage, which was chaotic and, at times, worrying. It also fits a pattern. For the fourth year in a row, BLG reached the final round of the Swiss at 2-2, and in 2024 they went from there all the way to the final, only to lose it to T1. Second place has followed them ever since, from three MSI finals to this year's LPL final, and First Stand remains their only international title.

Dplus KIA: Clutch Over Control

DK's 3-0 hides how messy most of it was. They have controlled very few games from start to finish at this tournament, and their plans around neutral objectives have often looked unclear, with their jungler pathing away from the drake side even when DK had the tempo to contest it. What has carried them is momentum and an ability to win fights they had no business winning. Against G2 and T1, the game looked gone before one teamfight turned it, and more often than not, Oh "Career" Hyeong-seok was the one who started it.

That makes teamfighting both their strength and their risk. The plan going into a fight usually makes sense but the adjustment once it starts is slower. When an LPL team simply keeps walking forward instead of backing off, DK have not always changed how they play, and it has cost them games this year. Against a BLG side that wins by refusing bad fights, one clutch moment per game may not be enough.

Momentum is the other half of DK's story. They have not dropped a single game at Worlds, they arrived in Texas as Esports World Cup champions, and they play like a team that grows with every fight it wins. That cuts both ways in a BO5. DK have spent eleven days without an official match, and nobody yet knows how a team that runs on confidence reacts if BLG take the first game.

Mid: Duel at the Top

ShowMaker and Knight have the two best KDAs of any mid laner at this tournament. ShowMaker is unbeaten in four games with a 9.0 KDA, one death per game and 30.1% of DK's damage, and he has held DK together in their longest games, including a 41-minute win over T1 on Viktor. Knight has played twice as many games and sits at 8.4, with 77.1% kill participation and three solo kills. He has been BLG's most reliable player from one series to the next, and the one who keeps finding the play that ends games. Both lead their lane by around 400 gold at 15 (+389 for ShowMaker, +412 for Knight), but Knight adds a 475 XP lead and has been involved in first blood in 62.5% of his games. ShowMaker has yet to take part in one.

ShowMaker has stayed on control mages, with his signature Syndra twice, Viktor and Cassiopeia. Knight is 4-0 on Orianna and 1-3 on everything else, with his three defeats on Yone, LeBlanc and Akali. In a Fearless BO5, Orianna can only come out once, and Orianna and Syndra should both be gone early, one way or the other.

Top: Containing Bin

Bin has been one of BLG’s most consistent players at this tournament. He averages 1.6 deaths per game with a 4.5 KDA and three solo kills, has gone back to Ambessa three times, and has rarely given BLG a bad game.

DK can put Jeon "Siwoo" Si-woo on reactive champions such as K'Sante or Rumble, picks built to absorb pressure and neutralise Bin. That is mostly what he has played at Worlds, on Olaf, K'Sante and Ornn. He also likes his carry picks, though, and he brought one out against Movistar KOI with Irelia in game two, so DK may not settle for simply containing Bin. Across his four games he sits at a 2.6 KDA with 2.5 deaths per game, and his lane numbers hold up at +394 gold and +611 XP at 15, against -34 and -175 for Bin.

Left to themselves, both would happily settle it one on one. Bin lives on solo kills and long splits in a side lane, while Siwoo built his reputation in DK's academy as a solo-kill hunter. In Paris, Siwoo came out clearly on top, 14/11/8 to Bin's 6/10/12, but that was before Bin's break and on another patch.

Jungle: Lucid Under Pressure

Choi "Lucid" Yong-hyeok is DK's biggest question mark. Several of his Worlds games started badly, even though DK won every one of them. G2 and T1 both got ahead of him early, T1 punishing his positioning to take the first dragon, and some of his engages have cost DK more than they earned. He has not drawn a first blood at Worlds and gave one up in a quarter of his games.

Peng "Xun" Li-Xun is the opposite profile. BLG draw first blood in 87.5% of their games, and Xun has been involved in it in 75% of his, with +302 gold and +500 XP at 15 across six different champions. If Lucid starts the way he did against G2 and T1, Xun has every tool to dominate this matchup, and DK may not get the late fight they need to save it.

Vi and Nocturne should not last long in the draft. Lucid opened Worlds on Vi, and DK banned Nocturne in all three games against BLG in July and in all four of their games at Worlds.

Bot Lane: Two Duos Yet to Win a Lane

The bot lane is where DK invest most heavily. Sin “Smash” Geum-jae sits at the centre of DK’s game plan: an aggressive, resource-hungry carry who takes 25.7% of DK’s gold, the most on the team, and 29.6% of their damage. His numbers have climbed through the tournament, from a 0/1/7 Ziggs against G2 to 8/1/2 on Kai’Sa, with the first pentakill of Worlds, and 5/1/3 on Caitlyn against Movistar KOI. Overall he sits at a 10.7 KDA with 0.8 deaths per game and 696 damage per minute, even if his lane numbers (-389 gold at 15) are modest.

Viper has had a quieter start to the tournament, with 622 damage per minute, 26.9% of BLG's damage and -463 gold at 15 across six different champions. The bigger worry for BLG is next to him. Luo "ON" Wen-Jun can swing between his best and his worst from one game to the next, and he dies 3.4 times per game, the most of any player in this series. Career has the steadier numbers, with a 7.6 KDA and 75.1% kill participation.

Neither duo has won its lane at this tournament, with Smash at -389 gold at 15 and Viper at -463. That could change on Thursday. Viper and ON have not dominated a lane in the Swiss, but they have the level to, and they showed it through BLG's first half of the year. If they make the lane hard for Smash, DK lose the player their game plan is built around.

The Key: Can Lucid Hold On?

This series will be decided by the mid-jungle duos. BLG draw first blood in 87.5% of their games to DK's 50%, and that early game runs through Knight and Xun, who have been involved in first blood in 62.5% and 75% of their games respectively. On DK's side, neither ShowMaker nor Lucid has taken part in a single one at Worlds. The question is whether Xun can press on the cracks Lucid showed in the Swiss: the slow starts, the positioning T1 punished around the first dragon, the pathing that left DK's drake side open even when they had the tempo to contest it. Against G2 and T1, DK survived those starts. Against a jungler who looks for them from the first minute, they may not get the chance.

A lot of that depends on ShowMaker. If he can hold Knight in lane and keep mid priority, Lucid has cover and DK can drag the game towards the late fights they want. If Knight wins the lane, he does not stay in it. He has a hand in 77.1% of BLG's kills, follows Xun onto DK's side of the map, and that is how his impact on the rest of the game becomes immense. Both mid laners come out of lane ahead on average, but Knight adds a 475 XP lead to ShowMaker's 48, and that gap is the one DK cannot afford to see today. If they get through the early game, the series opens up for them: BLG die 11 times per game to DK's 7.3 and, like several LPL teams, have struggled to manage side lanes once laning ends.

Prediction

This is the hardest quarterfinal to call, and it should swing both ways inside the same series. BLG have shown the higher ceiling, against HLE. DK have never reached that level at this tournament, but they have not sunk to BLG's lows either, and a BO5 leaves plenty of room for both. Both sides have leaned on clutch more than control in Texas, Career for DK and Knight for BLG, and the series may well come down to which of the two finds the bigger moment. If BLG play to their level and take DK seriously, they are better in almost every area of the game. DK have been one of the most clutch teams of the tournament, but they have needed that clutch to cover shaky early games, and Lucid has been at the centre of most of them. We have BLG at 55-45 so we expect Bilibili Gaming to win 3-2.

An upset is still well within DK's reach. They do not even need to be level. Against G2 and T1, they were dominated for 25 minutes, stayed just close enough, and won the game in a single fight. BLG showed against HLE that they know how to close a game, so it is a harder trick to repeat, but not an impossible one. The most likely route to an upset goes through the botlane: if they plays at the level they reached in swiss, they could win games on their own. And if BLG's communication problems resurface, DK will not need a miracle at all: they will make short work of them. 

The winner faces Karmine Corp or T1 on Sunday. For DK, it would be a first Worlds semifinal since 2021, the run that ended with Viper lifting the trophy in front of ShowMaker. For BLG, it could be the T1 matchup Knight told DPM Esports he wanted, against the team that beat them in the 2024 final.