The League of Legends World Championship Swiss Stage has seen several surprising results as underdogs take on the favourites.
Pacific Powerhouse CFO Topples Defending Champions T1
The CFO by CTBC Flying Oyster (the LCP) stunned the esports community by beating defending champions T1 to book an impressive 2-0 record during the Swiss Stage.
In a pre-game decision that caught many by surprise, CFO picked their star bot laner, Doggo, on Draven this week. The pick paid off massively for the CFO. The player from Taiwan had a perfect score of 6/0/12 and achieved the first kill solely against T1’s Doran.
CFO’s victory wasn’t just about Doggo, though. Qiyana by JunJia and Ryze ult by HongQ helped the CFO to a surprising 25-11 win in just 32 minutes.
While the CFO celebrates, his fellow LCP representative in Team Secret Whales could not find the same success against KT Rolster. KT Rolster took first blood and two early dragons, but superior team fighting around the Baron pit gave the victory to the team with the last hit. The 14-11 win brought the team to a 2-0 record on the day.
PSG Talon has gotten off to an aggressive start against LCK second seed Hanwha Life Esports (HLE) in the lower bracket. However, things dramatically changed in the 22nd minute when HLE mid laner Zeka got a huge quadra kill.
European Revival as G2 Dominates LEC Rematch
After an unconvincing start to the round, G2 Esports beat MKOIs in a LEC Summer Split finals rematch.
MKOI began strongly with Elyoya securing first blood against SkewMond, and by the 9-minute mark, the Spanish organisation had claimed all three void grubs and two more kills.
Despite the situation, G2’s strong lineup with Yunara, Bard, and LeBlanc eventually took over with
Strong skirmishing. G2 scored a dominating 20-7 victory in just 28 minutes with a gold lead of over 10,000.
FlyQuest beat Vivo Keyd Stars in another regional match, in an LTA finals rematch. Due to the high performance of mid laner Quad, who registered a 9/0/9 on Viktor and jungler Inspired, who registered a 10/2/12 on Wukong, FlyQuest secured a huge 16,000 gold advantage against their opponents. Thus, the team comfortably won the game with a 26-5 score.
The losses put both MKOI and Vivo Keyd in the risky 0-2 bracket and will not eliminate them early. Fnatic suffered a disappointing blow against returning Bilibili Gaming in yet another lopsided affair.
Anyone’s Legend Shocks Tournament Favourites Gen.G
China’s Anyone’s Legend, the biggest upset of the day, defeated MSI 2025 champions Gen.G in a back-and-forth match.
The Chinese team got two dragons and was ahead on gold by a small amount. Gen.G seemed to gain the upper hand when Ruler’s Kai’Sa scored a triple kill in a battle for the third drake in the 19th minute.
But Anyone’s Legend jungler Tarzan stole that dragon, putting his team on soul point. Even though Gen.G managed to take down Atakhan, Anyone’s Legend took the Cloud Dragon Soul at the 25-minute mark to take back control of the match.
When anyone’s legend won a key battle around Elder Dragon 30 minutes into the game, it was decisive. They were able to secure victory at home. They become the second LPL team, alongside Top Esports, to achieve 2-0 in the 2023 Worlds playoffs.
Knockout Stage Berths on the Line in Round Three
In the third round of the Swiss Stage, we will see the first teams qualify for the knockout stage and get eliminated. Matches will now be best-of-three series played over three days, unlike previous editions.
CTBC Flying Oyster versus Anyone’s Legend takes place in one match, and KT Rolster versus Top Esports in another.
T1 and Gen.G will play in the other brackets of stage 1, which will capture the attention of people. A Korean clash between T1 vs Gen.G will have a must-have outcome. Next is the match between G2 Esports and Bilibili Gaming.
MKOI and Fnatic of the Western division, both 0-2, will clash in a must-win situation.
The game will be streamed on League’s official esports channels starting 17 October at 9 am BST.