A championship built on an offseason gamble

The 2026 League of Legends season delivered one of its great storylines at the Mid-Season Invitational. Hanwha Life Esports beat Bilibili Gaming 3-2 in the final on July 12, held in Daejeon, South Korea, to claim the org's first MSI title. What made it remarkable was how the roster came together.

In the 2025-26 offseason, T1's Zeus and Gumayusi both left the four-time world champions for Hanwha Life Esports, a stunning move that split up a celebrated lineup. Months later, the two helped HLE conquer the world's best, validating the gamble emphatically.

History for Zeus

The individual milestones stacked up:

Zeus won Finals MVP and became the first player ever to win all three major international titles: Worlds, MSI, and First Stand.
Teammate Zeka matched the feat on his MSI debut.
Jungler Kanavi won MSI with a second different organization.
Bilibili Gaming, who had won the season-opening First Stand tournament over G2 Esports back in March, fell just short of the Golden Road.

A reshaped competitive landscape

The roster moves rippled across the scene. T1 rebuilt around Faker, retaining Doran, Oner, and Keria while signing Peyz from Gen.G to fill the vacated ADC role, all under coach kkOma. The 2026 season also saw structural change, as the League Championship of the Americas was discontinued after 2025, with the Americas reverting to separate LCS and CBLOL regions.

MSI 2026 was the most-watched League event of the year so far, though the numbers carried an asterisk. The grand final peaked around 2.2 million viewers, but the tournament's most-watched match was actually T1 versus G2 Esports at roughly 2.32 million, making it the first MSI since 2023 where the final was not the peak. Year-over-year, viewership dipped compared with MSI 2025.

The narrative, though, was pure gold. Two stars leaving the sport's most famous org and immediately winning an international title against a juggernaut is the kind of story that transcends the game. Zeus cementing himself as the first triple-crown winner adds a historic footnote, and Kanavi and Zeka's achievements deepen the tale.

For fans, MSI 2026 reaffirmed the LCK's strength, delivered a five-game classic, and set up compelling storylines heading toward Worlds. Hanwha Life Esports were not the obvious favorites when the roster came together, which is exactly why their triumph resonates. The offseason gamble paid off in the biggest way possible, and the season's second half now carries the weight of expectation for a team that has already made history.