LYON crowned 2026 LCS Lock-In champion

Mexican esports organisation LYON pulled off an impressive lower bracket run to become the 2026 LCS Lock-In champions.

After finishing only fifth at the end of the regular season, LYON took down all of the top teams, with jungler Kacper ‘Inspired‘ Słoma becoming the Finals MVP.

As a result, it will be the LCS representative for the first global event of the 2026 season, First Stand, starting on March 16 in São Paulo, Brazil.

After a slow start to the season, which saw LYON facing a last-minute roster change and visa issues, the team ramped up heavily in Playoffs.

In the final series against Cloud9 (C9), which had dominated the entire split up until that point, LYON was considered the underdog. But despite losing the first game of the series, it was clear that the team had all the elements needed to take up the challenge.

The turning point came in the second and third games of the best-of-five series, where LYON’s jungle-mid duo of Inspired and Kang ‘Saint‘ Sung-in took the spotlight. The Korean mid laner found key solo kills against his lane opponent, Eain ‘APA‘ Stearns, snowballing his lead while Inspired started dominating the skirmishes on Aatrox and Trundle.

While the jungle-mid duo was hard carrying the early game, LYON looked more composed than C9 in teamfights, with ADC Kim ‘Berserker‘ Min-cheol finding great plays in Game 3 and Game 4. Top laner Niship ‘Dhokla‘ Doshi withheld the pressure in most of the games, giving only a few opportunities for C9 to punish him.

For C9, this was another disappointing end to a tournament. The team looked in great form after a strong performance at the KeSPA Cup and a dominating regular season, but it wasn’t enough to stop LYON’s momentum.

As a result, the team continues to miss out on Riot-hosted global events, with the last appearance dating back to Worlds 2023, although the team did take part in the 2025 Esports World Cup when it comes to international tournaments.

Nonetheless, C9 will now have a chance in the newly-announced Americas Cup, which puts Riot-offered bootcamps on the line for the Mid-Season Invitational in South Korea. The team will join Sentinels, Red Canids, and FURIA in Brazil, competing from March 4th to March 8th.

LYON, meanwhile, will wait until mid-March before fighting the top teams from other regions at First Stand. Aside from China’s LPL, which will determine its teams on March 8, the other regions have already confirmed their respective representatives: