The final day of the First Stand group stage was always going to be spicy, as teams battled for their tournament lives in a do-or-die elimination match.
G2 Esports was fresh from a painful loss against BLG, where the team wasn’t able to do practically anything. BNK FEARX, on the other hand, had their starboy Diable get another pentakill in a dominant victory over Team Secret Whales.
Over in Group B, JDG shook off their dismantling at the hands of Gen.G and beat LOUD, while LYON tasted what it’s like to go against Gen.G.
Match 1: G2 vs. BFX
Many say that a Korean team is a Korean team, and those are always favored against European or North American opposition. And while this may be true, but not when said opponent is G2 Esports. The LEC team becomes incredibly clutch in the decisive situations, and BFX ended up being on the receiving end of it.
G2 won the first game with relative ease, even though Caps wasn’t playing at his best. Instead, BrokenBlade woke up from his slumber and dominated the toplane matchup. But who really stood out was Hans Sama: he was matched against the group stage revelation in Diable, and he didn’t let him grab even an ounce of advantage.
Games 2 and 3 transpired largely in the same vein: G2 grabbed early advantages through Skewmond, allowed Hans Sama to hit his powerspikes, and shut down any attempts by the opponent’s botlane to turn the games around. The games weren’t one-sided, but at no point did it feel like BFX could have a shot at winning.
G2 completely redeemed themselves and will move on to the playoffs, where a true test awaits: the mighty and horrifying Gen.G.
Match 2: JDG vs LYON
Sometimes, when a series ends 3:1, it’s hard to call the matchup close. Yet the match between JDG and LYON was exactly that, and was very much winnable for the North American team if not for some baffling decisions made around the Dragon fights and random engages.
LYON lost, but some things became abundantly clear: Berserker and Isles are a force to be reckoned with as a duo, Inspired, while being arguably the best jungler in the West, loses smite fights under pressure, Saint is a bit too overconfident in his calculations to win duels, and Dhokla, unfortunately, does not stack up well against international competition this year.
JDG survived quite a scare, because in all three games that they won, everything could have gone differently had some of the fights gone in LYON’s favor.
The Chinese second seed will have to prepare extensively, as their semifinal opponent is BLG, the team that beat them twice in the LPL 2026 Split 1 playoffs.
First Stand, like Worlds, features no losers’ bracket in the knockout stage, so today’s semifinal matchups of BLG vs. JDG and Gen.G vs. G2 will decide the finalists who are going to play this Sunday.
