LEC Summer Roadtrip 2026: Karmine Corp sweep the Paris weekend 3-0
Photo Credit: Charles Michalet/Riot Games
The LEC Summer Split opened in Paris, not Berlin. From 24 to 26 July, Karmine Corp took the league out of its studio and into the Adidas Arena, turning their home roadtrip into a statement. For a first week the slate was heavyweight — KC, G2, Vitality and , several of the split's expected contenders, drawn straight against one another, every series in Bo3. With a Blue Wall in full voice, the weekend produced a standing with no ties in it: . Nothing is settled this early, but with the whole split seeding out of a single round robin, these were results that already shape the race.
Let's unpack what the opening weekend told us about each contender.
Karmine Corp: The momentum is real
Karmine Corp came into the weekend with a single question to answer. Could they carry the EWC momentum — a run to the final past AL and T1 — into a domestic split? In front of their own crowd, the answer was emphatic: 2-0 over Vitality, 2-0 over MKOI, 2-1 over G2, and the three best teams in the league on paper beaten in a row.
Their read on the meta was spotless. Caliste has been in imperious form on the AP carries since the EWC, Busio was let loose early, and the solo lanes have never looked better. The bigger story is the collective. All year KC's mechanical talent was beyond question, yet the side could look disjointed against a settled G2. That was gone this weekend. There is real team play on top of the hands now, and it makes them the most dominant roster in the LEC heading into the split. It also lines up the prize attached to the number-one seed — the right to pick a first-round playoff opponent, and a direct Worlds ticket if they win that series.
Photo Credit: Charles Michalet/Riot Games
The proof that this is more than a home-crowd surge came in the closer against G2. KC had not taken a series off them all year. This one delivered the best League of the weekend, objectives and kills traded at pace and teamfights breaking out everywhere, before KC closed it in a breathless game three. The composure they found against T1 surfaced again, dragging the gold back on the one fight that cracked the game open. 2-1, and the weekend sealed.
G2 Esports: Still building under Perkz
G2's international season had gone the other way to KC's — fourth at MSI with T1 knocked out along the way, then an early EWC exit in the group stage. The sharper change came in the dugout. Perkz, brought in as assistant coach at the Spring Split, has stepped up to Head Coach in place of Dylan Falco, who had run the team since 2022. A shift like that reshapes how a side works, and the G2 on show were a notch below the team that closed out Spring.
Against KC he was a different player, unable to get ahead of a composed, lane-dominant Kyeahoo who kept moving first. The meta is testing another of their stars, too. Where Caliste has slid comfortably into the bot-lane mages, Hans Sama looks unsure on them, and his Syndra against KC told the story — a curious blind spot under a coach who built his own career as a mid and ADC in exactly these metas. Even so, no one sounds the alarm with G2. They scale through every season and tend to peak once the playoffs arrive.
Team Vitality: Rescued on the final day
Vitality came in as the outsiders of the four, still carrying a flat end to Spring, with FIESTA thrown straight into the deep end — in for Humanoid in the mid lane, on enemy ground, in front of 7,000 people. For two series it showed. Against KC and G2 the Bees flickered without ever threatening the top two. Fleshy was overrun by his opposite numbers, and Lyncas kept hunting for plans that never came off. He did not hide from it, telling RFT.GG after the G2 defeat:
It's quite frustrating — two out of the four games, from a general perspective, you just can't really play.
FIESTA landed the odd solo kill but was punished too often by the enemy jungler, the mechanical slips of a rookie handed a brutal opening schedule. Beyond a Naak Nako solo kill on Canna, there was little to cling to.
Photo Credit: Charles Michalet/Riot Games
The third day changed the trip. Facing an MKOI who had also failed to trouble the top two, Vitality found the switch in game two — a Lyncas masterclass on Pantheon that turned every skirmish their way and let Carzzy run riot on Lucian, posting 1,720 damage per minute, the second-highest single-game figure in LEC history. The confidence carried into a one-sided game three, Lyncas decisive again on Naafiri (11/0/8) against a version of MKOI well below their level. Vitality leave with something real to build on, and the top four still in view.
MKOI: A team that has lost itself
MKOI came to Paris to protect a top-three standing and left looking like a side that no longer knows itself. The early games were often fine, against KC and G2 in particular, but the old KOI flaw kept surfacing: leads that evaporate. There is always a moment where someone drifts out of position and gifts the opening, and against a top two this sharp, it is fatal. The gap shows most in teamfights, and Melzhet did not dress it up, telling RFT.GG after the G2 loss:
I think we were a really good teamfighting team in the past. Now we are disgusting, to be honest.
Against Vitality, the whole thing caved in.
Photo Credit: Charles Michalet/Riot Games
There was one bright spot. Myrwn, so often flagged as the roster's weak link in recent years, had a genuinely solid weekend — steady in lane, frequently ahead, with a standout Jayce game against G2. It sits in an uneasy context. NightSlayer, the academy top laner, has joined the group in Berlin and remains a live option should MKOI want a change mid-split. And the pressure only builds. Beaten by the league's top three, KOI are one more slip from sliding out of the top four — a scenario that would keep them out of the Madrid playoffs, on what is meant to be their own roadtrip. That cannot happen.
Top & Flop
TOP — Kyeahoo
When he signed for KC, plenty wrote him off as another Korean import. That reads badly now. Kyeahoo is the form mid laner in the LEC, and the ceiling is nowhere in sight. He is strong internationally and dominant in lane, with outrageous mechanics — the Sylas play on BB — a clean side lane and clutch teamfights. The revelation of the year, no argument. The wolf is in the sheepfold.
Photo Credit: Charles Michalet/Riot Games
FLOP — MKOI's jungle-support duo
The engine room has stalled. Alvaro and Elyoya, usually the source of MKOI's best moments, never clicked across the weekend — outpaced by the meta, error-prone (Alvaro's Bard against KC), and a Yoya overrun in every matchup. The duo can no longer prise games open the way they once did, and until that partnership is rebuilt, the Spanish side will keep struggling. When the heart of the team stops beating, the rest cannot function.
