Karmine Corp is the third LEC team to go winless against major regions at MSI

Wasif Ahmed Published 05/07/2026

With their 0-3 defeat against Team Liquid, Karmine Corp is now the third LEC team to bomb out of the Mid-Season Invitational without taking a single game off of the top four regions. Before them were MAD Lions in 2023 and G2 Esports’ infamous debut run in 2016. NA, on the other hand, has only once gone winless against major regions.

KC goes winless against major regions at MSI

Karmine Corp’s MSI 2026 run included taking down the LCP’s Deep Cross Gaming. They then lost to T1 and Team Liquid 0-3. The teams that they faced made no shortage of mistakes either, but KC never managed to find their footing.

Against both T1 and TLAW, KC failed to stick to their identity. The matches showed a combination of questionable drafts and game plans that didn’t align, disjointed team fights, and mistakes in lane. To top it off, the players regularly were either too cautious or overaggressive, which might come from nerves.

Losing to T1 wasn’t a surprise, since they are ranked highly on our MSI Power Rankings, but the manner in which it happened was underwhelming. The loss against TLAW didn’t matter much either, as they would then need to beat T1 to advance anyway. Still, that made it a second disappointment in a row.

With that result, KC now has achieved one of the worst runs for a European team at MSI. It’s the third time that an LEC team finishes without winning a single map against EU, NA, KR, or CN. It’s also the second time an EU team fails to make it out of the play-in, although this year’s format was particularly challenging.

Rank	Year	Team	Placement	Game score (against major regions)
1	2019	G2	1st	11-7 (11-5)
2	2017	G2	2nd	8-10 (7-9)
3	2024	G2	4th	8-6 (5-6)
4	2021	MAD	3rd-4th	12-9 (7-8)
5	2015	FNC	3rd-4th	4-6 (3-6)
6	2018	FNC	3rd-4th	5-9 (4-8)
7	2022	G2	3rd-4th	13-8 (8-5)
8	2023	G2	5th-6th	9-6 (5-6)
9	2025	MKOI	7th-8th	2-6 (2-6)
10	2025	G2	7th-8th	7-14 (1-10)
11	2024	FNC	7th-8th	6-8 (2-8)
12	2026	KC	10th	3-6 (0-6)
13	2016	G2	5th	2-8 (0-8)
14	2023	MAD	7th-8th	0-6 (0-6)

Notes:

Riot considers all six MSI regions as major regions, but the community doesn’t. With the LCP particularly being a gray zone, they were counted as a minor region in 2023, 2024, and 2026.
The rank is mostly based on the placement (weighted for the format), and how they played overall, meaning that this is partially subjective. The score wasn’t a factor.

The infamous G2-8 run at MSI 2016. Image credit: Riot Games

NA has only once gone winless against major regions at MSI

KC bombing out is a major underperformance. Simultaneously, it happening three times for Europe is interesting, three out of 14 is a sizable number. Especially considering that only four different teams have represented the region at MSI.

On the other hand, only one LCS team has crashed and burned. That team was TSM, in 2015, who finished 1-4 after only winning against Beşiktaş Esports. (Note: In 2023, Cloud9 also only won against Golden Guardians.)

Europe has a much higher ceiling than North America at MSI. G2 won a title, EU made it out of groups six times against NA’s three, and only Europe has reached the top four in the new format.

However, the LCS is showing to have a higher floor. The European teams are as capable of going far as they are of being irrelevant. On the other hand, NA seldom achieves much but they always do something.

Is NA > EU at MSI?

Unexpectedly, China historically outperforms South Korea at the Mid-Season Invitational. So, what about the Western rivalry?

	FNC	G2	MKOI/MAD	KC	Total
TSM	0-1	1-1			1-2
CLG		2-0			2-0
TL	4-3	1-4		3-0	8-7
C9			1-1		1-1
EG		0-6			0-6
FLY		3-0			3-0
Total (wins-losses)	4-4	11-7	1-1	0-3	16 (EU) – 15 (NA)

EU is still one win ahead at 16-15. Given that G2 Esports and LYON will start on opposite ends of the bracket, the score will likely remain unchanged until 2027.

Featured image credit: Colin Young-Wolff / Riot Games

Wasif Ahmed

About Wasif Ahmed

Wasif Ahmed is the Lead Esports Editor for WIN.gg. He has been covering esports for nearly eight years, although his gaming journey started much earlier, when he was just four years old and was introduced to Road Rash on a dusty PC. Hit him up on X to talk about esports, why partnership models are the best fit for esports games, or if Halo 7 has finally been announced.

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