Welcome back!
First Stand 2026 is underway in Sao Paulo, Brazil — the first international of the year. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with players from around the world throughout the event, and you can catch my other stories from the tournament on The Sporting Tribune. Links at the end.
This one is about LYON, the LCS champions. Their season didn’t start the way they wanted, but they finished with a run that earned their spot in Brazil. The story below dives into the team, their relationships, and what they’re actually trying to accomplish here.
Enjoy the read.
Paul
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LYON Gaming isn’t content with simply being the best team in the LCS. For this roster, the domestic title was never the destination. It was the ticket to get here.
That much was clear in the moments after LYON clinched their LCS championship with a remarkable run through the lower bracket. Strategic coach Han “Rigby” Earl said the goal when he, AD carry Kim “Berserker” Min-cheol, and jungler Kacper “Inspired” Słoma agreed to team up wasn’t a domestic title. The trio, along with head coach Kim “Reignover” Yeu-jin, top laner Niship “Dhokla” Doshi, support Jonah “Isles” Rosario, and mid laner Kang “Saint” Sung-in, had no desire to be “noobs” at international events.
First Stand is the first test of whether they’ve cleared that bar — or whether there’s still more work to do.
A Roster Built on Relationships
LYON’s roster resembles an NBA super team. Not necessarily in terms of individual star power, though that case could be made, but in the way previous relationships shaped how the team was built.
Berserker and Rigby had a pre-existing friendship before the season. Berserker and Inspired had history from the Impact House. Isles had played with Rigby the year prior. The through line connecting most of these relationships was Berserker, who recruited Rigby to the team.
“Rigby and I were friends before,” Berserker said. “And then Inspired — we met each other at the Impact House. So we already knew each other.”
Dhokla was the one outlier. The former 100 Thieves top laner was in limbo, in conversations with multiple LCS teams but without an offer, until LYON’s general manager Carlos “Biblos” Gibran reached out. Visa issues had prevented projected starter Frankie “Zamudo” Lin from joining, and Dhokla stepped into the vacancy weeks before the split began.
When LYON traveled to Korea for a boot camp, he wasn’t there. He arrived behind the curve, finding his footing in a new environment while the rest of the team was already gelling.
“Joining late definitely made it harder,” Dhokla said. “I needed more time to just get comfortable in a new environment.”
That discomfort showed in the Swiss phase. Dhokla finished with nine kills, 17 deaths, and 26 assists. LYON ended fifth, barely avoiding the play-in game, and used the resulting bye week to reset. It proved to be the inflection point — not just for Dhokla, but for the team.
The Reset
Fifth place and inconsistency left LYON looking for answers. The belief wasn’t shaken. It just needed adjusting.
Rigby, who had arrived in Week 3, used the break to address the team’s issues directly. The first order of business: get Dhokla talking.
“The first thing I said is that you’re not giving your opinion,” Rigby recalled. “You have eight years of experience, and a good sense of how to approach team fights, but you’re just not saying it. You were trying to fit in too much — maybe because you subbed in late.”
The conversation landed. “Hearing that assured me that I should just speak my mind and contribute more to the overall flow of the game,” Dhokla said.
Once Dhokla started contributing his voice, and with Inspired helping him understand the meta, things clicked. His champion pool opened up. He brought out Varus, Vayne, and picks that had been sitting in scrimmage reps, and he pulled them off on the biggest stages. Dhokla finished LYON’s playoff run with 42 kills, 94 assists, and 39 deaths.
Rigby’s broader philosophy reinforced it. He didn’t need his players to master a champion — one or two scrimmage games was enough to take a champion to stage. In the fearless draft format, that flexibility gave LYON multiple options each series. All five starters selected more than 10 champions across Split 1.
“Since it’s fearless, you get to play one champion per day,” Rigby said. “So I just keep saying: whatever is good, just play it. It doesn’t matter if you’re not great at the champion. If it looks good, play it.”
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The Gravitational Center
Inspired is becoming synonymous with LCS championships. After leaving FlyQuest, he became the gravitational center of LYON — not just as a player, but as a communicator and a system that causes the players around him to orbit differently. Any conversation about this team eventually circles back to him.
But what Inspired actually does is worth examining. He isn’t shot-calling in the conventional sense. Isles put it most clearly. “Inspired’s greatest strength is that he views the game through everyone’s individual lens at an insanely high level,” Isles said. “Some junglers I’ve played with just don’t view the game through the laners’ lens well enough to convince them why they should do something. Inspired understands what each laner’s purpose is, what everyone’s individual decisions mean for the entire game, and how it all ties together.”
Inspired’s ability to read the macro and then articulate it in the language of whoever he’s talking to is what separates him. He’s not issuing commands from the top down. He’s persuading. He meets laners where they are and helps them understand not just what to do, but why it matters at that exact moment. Rigby framed it plainly. “He’s strong individually. He knows how to win games, but he’s not always right. But he wants to be right,” Rigby said. “That’s why I enjoy working with him. We talk constantly about what’s the best way to win. And the team that talks about the game is the team that’s likely to win everything.”
Dhokla echoed both of them, calling Inspired a vocal leader who “understands each role and what they need to do to contribute to winning.” He’s vocal. He’s unifying. He sets a shared goal and pulls the team toward it.
The most striking evidence of that impact, according to Isles, is what Inspired did for Saint. “I think he taught Saint a lot,” Isles said. “Saint is night and day from where he was at the start of the split to where he is now.”
Rigby confirmed it from the coaching perspective. Saint had to completely reinvent how he played this season. In previous splits, he was the solo carry — a player teams built their entire game plan around. On LYON, with Berserker as the primary damage dealer, Saint became something different: a flexible piece who knew when to carry and when to facilitate. That adjustment didn’t happen overnight, and Rigby gave him the framework to navigate it.
“He had to adapt a lot,” Rigby said. “Our team has such strong individuals, there are many opinions. But I just made sure I gave him guidelines — you don’t have to care about everyone else’s opinion. You just have to care about the coach’s.”
By the finals, Saint was calmer and more decisive. Rigby told him he looked like a top-five LCK mid laner when he played on the edge, and Saint carried that belief into the playoffs. More importantly, he was handling setbacks better. Instead of unraveling, he steadied. “I just thought we’re going to win it today,” Rigby said.
That is Inspired’s effect on a team. It isn’t just the presence he creates in the jungle. It’s what his leadership builds in the players around him. None of that shows up in a stat line.
The Biggest Shoes to Fill
If any player on this roster has the most to prove at First Stand, it’s Isles. As long as Inspired is on the team, he will be measured against Inspired’s former support at FlyQuest — Alan “Busio” Cwalina.
Isles knows it and doesn’t avoid the comparison. “I still think I have really big shoes to fill, particularly the ones Busio left,” Isles said. “He did an awesome job at internationals. Winning my first split — I don’t think that’s anywhere near enough to fill them.”
Isles is playing on an international stage for the first time since 2020, when he was a rookie on Australia’s Legacy Esports at the World Championship. This is a different level. Scrimmages against LCK and LPL squads in preparation for First Stand have already shown him exactly how wide the gap is.
Rather than retreating from that, it’s pushing him forward. It helps that LYON’s culture demands accountability. On previous teams, his mistakes often went unaddressed — not by negligence, but because teammates didn’t always have the game knowledge to identify or correct them.
On LYON, every play is examined. Criticism is direct. Sometimes it stings.
“My teammates have a very blunt style,” Isles said. “And sometimes it can hurt. But honesty is important to me. Getting people to where they need to go is the ultimate goal. No need to beat around the bush.”
Rigby sees Isles’s development with clear eyes. This split has been valuable, but he’s direct about what still needs to happen. Isles needs to understand what international play actually feels like — the LCK and LPL’s habit of setting traps, manufacturing mistakes, and punishing reads that would go unpunished in NA. That’s something he’ll have to find his own way through.
First Stand is where he starts getting the data points.
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This Isn’t About Winning First Stand
Rigby does not view First Stand as a tournament to win. He describes it as a mirror — a chance to see where LYON actually stands relative to the best teams in the world, and if necessary, to get “shit on” with the intention of getting better before Worlds. “We just have to get shit on,” he said. “Then we realize how big of an ego we had and how we’re not good enough. We just have to recognize that, then solve it before Worlds.”
That self-awareness is either refreshing or alarming, depending on how you read it. But it’s a cohesive belief that runs through the entire roster. Even Berserker reiterated that the team’s biggest opponent is itself. Not LOUD. Not whoever else is in the bracket. If LYON plays their game, they believe they’ll win. If they don’t, no one else needs to do much.
The opening match against LOUD will be the first data point. LOUD carries Brazilian intensity and passion in front of a home crowd that will be loud and partisan. They’re not a team that will hand LYON anything.
But LYON’s approach doesn’t change. “I’m kind of a keep-your-head-down kind of guy,” Isles said. “I think that’s just what I’m going to continue doing until maybe once I get enough confidence from my own performance, then maybe I’ll be able to strut around and think I’m never going to lose.”
For a team that spent this entire split figuring out who they are, that might be exactly the right mindset to carry into their first real international test.
Want to read more coverage of First Stand? Check out how LOUD is viewing the LYON match as an opportunity to prove that the CBLOL is on par with the LCS.
Other stories from First Stand:
Enjoy the games. See you Friday.
Paul
Thumbnail photo by Riot Games.