This Sunday, Dplus KIA have locked in the fourth and final LCK ticket to the Esports World Cup 2026 in Paris, completing Korea’s representation alongside T1, Hanwha Life Esports, and reigning champions .
The slot was secured not through a Dplus win but through last weekend’s of LCK Regular Season before Road to MSI. With both T1 and HLE — the two teams who had previously claimed Korea’s EWC slots via the EWC Qualifier Korea — finishing first and second in the regular season and taking the top one Road to MSI seeds, the final EWC ticket automatically reverted to the third-placed team at the qualifier: Dplus KIA.
The mechanism was set in advance in every region: the LCK’s last EWC spot was reserved for the winner of the Road to MSI, but with a clause that if that winner happened to be a team already qualified, the slot would default to whoever finished third in the EWC Korea Qualifier. Given that T1 or HLE are now guaranteed to take the LCK first seed at MSI, the fallback to Dplus is effectively locked in. Gen.G, have entered directly as defending EWC LoL champions.
The four LCK representatives at EWC 2026 are therefore set: T1, HLE, Gen.G, and Dplus KIA. The tournament will run this summer in Paris, with sixteen teams competing for one of the most lucrative prize pools in the LoL calendar.
