Team Liquid Alienware are still alive at Worlds 2026. Anyone’s Legend aren’t.
Liquid beat AL in a Round three elimination series in the Swiss stage. AL leave the tournament without a single game win.
Teams need three series wins to reach the knockout stage. Three series losses mean elimination.
Teams with the same record face each other. Matches that decide who advances or goes home are best-of-three. All other matches are best-of-one.
AL’s earlier losses came against Karmine Corp and Top Esports. Liquid became the last team to beat them.
Liquid took the opening game. AL’s draft took a lot of the blame, as it let Liquid lock in the champions they wanted.
Game two started well for Liquid. They built a lead of around 4,500 gold by the 15-minute mark.
Yeon’s Xayah ran away with the bot lane. At one point he reportedly had more experience than AL’s Olaf.
Then Liquid lost control. A series of midgame mistakes gave most of the lead away, and AL suddenly had a real way back into the game.
Liquid didn’t panic. They steadied themselves, won the late game, and closed out the series.
AL fight back but fall short
AL didn’t go down quietly. Kael on Tahm Kench was their best player in Game two and led the push to come back.
Hope had a rougher series, with his execution in fights drawing criticism.
The loss sends one of China’s biggest hopes home early. It also gives Liquid a rare series win over an LPL team. Liquid famously beat world champions Invictus Gaming 3-1 in the 2019 MSI semifinals, but wins like that have been hard to find for North American teams since then.
