The sole Western team competing at the 2026 Honor of Kings Invitational Season (KIS) 4, Loops, has withdrawn from the tournament, Level Infinite announced on X (Twitter).
As a result, South Korean organisation Nongshim RedForce, the champion of the Honor of Kings Major (KME) East, will fill the vacant spot.
In its statement, Level Infinite said that Loops withdrew due to ‘internal circumstances,’ though no further details were provided. Loops has also not publicly commented on its decision of missing Honor of Kings’ first international esports event of 2026.
Loops was the most successful Brazilian Honor of Kings team of 2025 and won both seasons of the country’s championship (CHOKBR). Therefore, its invite to the Invitational was unsurprising.
However, rather than allocating the slot to another Brazilian team, Level Infinite has instead extended the invitation to Nongshim RedForce.
As a result, this edition of the KIS will not have a single team from the Western hemisphere. Notably, Nongshim RedForce was the runner-up of the KIS Season 3, held in the Philippines last year.
Honor of Kings Invitational Season 4 Kicks Off on January 31st
KIS Season 4 is set to take place in Jakarta, Indonesia, from January 31st to February 8th. The tournament will feature the following eight teams competing for a share of the $100,000 prize pool:
- Bigetron by Vitality (Indonesia)
- Blacklist International (The Philippines)
- BOOM Esports (The Philippines)
- Dominator Esports (Indonesia)
- Kagendra (Indonesia)
- Nova Esports (Malaysia)
- Team HAQ (Malaysia)
- Nongshim Red Force (South Korea)
The tournament will begin with the group stage, where the eight teams will be evenly divided into two groups. They will compete in a single round-robin format to determine the seedings for the Knockout Stage.
The organisations will then battle it out in a single-elimination bracket to determine the champion of the KIS Season 4.
