Worlds 2026 Swiss Round 4, day three: Los Grandes beat Team Liquid 2–1 and Hanwha Life sweep G2 — the LCS and LEC champions are out, Round 5 deciders on Saturday from 17:00 UTC

How day seven went

Friday 30 October was the third and last day of Round 4 at the Worlds 2026 Swiss stage in Allen, Texas, and the first day with nothing but elimination series: four teams at 1–2, two best-of-threes, two teams going home. Team Liquid Alienware, the LCS champions, opened against Los Grandes, the CBLOL champions, at 20:03 UTC; G2 Esports, the LEC champions, closed the night against Hanwha Life Esports from 23:06 UTC. Both series used Fearless Draft, under which a team cannot repeat a champion it has already played in the series, and both ended with the regional champion eliminated. Riot's LoL Esports feed posted the results live; the series statistics below are from Liquipedia's match pages.

The two results

• Los Grandes 2–1 Team Liquid Alienware. Game one went to LOS in 29:52, 15 kills to 7 and 61.0K gold to 52.0K, with Curse finishing 7/0/6 on Trundle and Ackerman 0/1/11 on Seraphine. Liquid levelled in game two, 38:01 and 15–8: Josedeodo's Xin Zhao went 5/1/10 with a part in every kill, Quid's Orianna 4/0/6, and Liquid took five dragons to one and the only Baron. The decider ran 47:16. Liquid took two Barons to one and still lost it 17–5: Zest's top-lane Tristana finished 10/1/3 with the highest damage in the game, Curse's Pantheon 4/0/7 and Feisty's Taliyah 0/1/12, and the series-winning fight came in the dragon pit shortly before the 22:48 UTC finish. Liquid are out at 1–3; LOS go to 2–2.
• Hanwha Life Esports 2–0 G2 Esports. Game one lasted 28:05 and ended 22–11 with HLE 9.2K gold ahead. G2 drew first blood at 3:59 (Caps on Delight) and led 3–1 in kills at the first dragon, but a Zeus solo kill on K'Sante around 16 minutes turned it, Kanavi's Lee Sin added a triple kill around 19 minutes, and HLE won the Baron fight with an ace. Game two lasted 26:12 and ended 19–7 with HLE 7.0K ahead: G2 took a top-lane solo kill and the first tower at 12:13, then lost a river fight around 21 minutes in which HLE gave up only Zeus and aced G2, followed by Hextech soul and Baron; Gumayusi's Lucian closed it with a triple kill. HLE took all seven dragons and both Barons across the series; Kanavi (12/4/22 on Lee Sin and Jarvan IV) was the series MVP, Zeka went 9/1/15 on Syndra and Swain and Gumayusi 11/3/16. G2 are out at 1–3; HLE go to 2–2.

Where the Swiss stage stands

• Qualified for the quarter-finals (five of eight): Gen.G and Dplus KIA at 3–0, T1, Invictus Gaming and Top Esports at 3–1.
• Playing for the last three places on Saturday, all at 2–2: Movistar KOI, LYON, Bilibili Gaming, Karmine Corp, Los Grandes and Hanwha Life Esports.
• Eliminated: Team Secret Whales and Anyone's Legend at 0–3; CTBC Flying Oyster, Team Liquid Alienware and G2 Esports at 1–3.
• By league: all four LCK teams are alive, three of the four LPL teams and two of the three LEC teams, plus Los Grandes from the CBLOL and LYON; both LCP teams are gone, and the LCS champions are out at a Worlds played in the United States.

Saturday's three deciders

Round 5 was drawn live at 00:40 UTC on 31 October and the schedule followed at 01:12 UTC. Match one is an all-LEC series, Movistar KOI against Karmine Corp, at 17:00 UTC (10 am PT, 6 pm CET) — whoever wins keeps Europe in the knockouts after G2's exit. Los Grandes meet LYON at 20:00 UTC (1 pm PT, 9 pm CET), and Hanwha Life play Bilibili Gaming at 23:00 UTC (4 pm PT, midnight CET). All three are best-of-three with Fearless Draft; the winners finish 3–2 and take the sixth, seventh and eighth quarter-final places, the losers finish 2–3. Note the earlier start: match one begins three hours before the Round 4 slots did. The quarter-final draw follows Saturday's results, with the two 3–0 teams paired against two of the 3–2 qualifiers, and the best-of-five knockout stage starts on 3 November in Allen; the final is on 14 November in Brooklyn.

What it means for your climb

• The patch gap first: Worlds is played on patch 26.20, ranked runs 26.21 (Viktor nerfed, Varus adjusted mid-patch) and 26.22 arrives on 4 November with the Viktor scaling buff and the Locke, Thresh and Yasuo trims — read the pro drafts for roles and win conditions, not as a pick list.
• Fearless Draft means a team's picks across a three-game series must all be different, and Los Grandes' third set still produced a 10/1/3 Tristana top and a 4/0/7 Pantheon jungle. Ranked does not block your mains, but the lesson holds: two or three comfortable picks per role beat one.
• Early leads are not results: G2 drew first blood in game one and took the first tower in game two and lost both games inside 30 minutes; Liquid took two Barons in a 47-minute game and lost it. Objective control and one clean mid-game fight decided every game on Friday.
• Season timing: our calendar has Season 3 ending around 6 January 2027 — an estimate until Riot confirms — so about nine weeks of ranked remain. If the Worlds break has kept you off the ladder, the 4 November patch is the natural restart.

What we are watching

Saturday's three series and the quarter-final bracket drawn after them — our next item covers Round 5 and the draw. On the balance side: Riot's 26.22 notes are expected around 3 November ahead of the 4 November patch, and we keep checking the 26.21 notes for a further mid-patch change; as of 31 October the only entry is the 22 October Varus adjustment.