The intense rivalry between the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) in North America and the Brazilian League of Legends Championship (CBLOL) in South America takes center stage at First Stand.
The two teams have traded wins and losses in five games, with Lyon beating LOUD 3-2 on Tuesday at the Riot Games Arena in Sao Paulo. Let’s dig into some statistics, provided by Oracle’s Elixir.
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The series passes through the middle
When fans look back on this series, they should start in the middle. In each of Lyon’s wins, “The Saint” Kang Sungin has a KDA of 11.0. In both of LOUD’s wins, Bruno “Envy” Farias was perfectly matched. The middle didn’t just impact this series. It reflects it.
Farias has been outstanding in every win. In Game 2, he had 8 kills, 2 deaths, and 1 assist in 10 minutes (8/2/1), 1,585 more gold medals than Saint. In Game 4, he went 7/0/6 and maintained the same structural advantage. Both times, LOUD turned mid-lane control into map control, and map control into victory.
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Kang, meanwhile, responded every time Lyon needed him. Games 1, 3, and 5 all ended with Kang on the right side of the KDA ledger, with a 5/0/8 performance in the tiebreaker effectively closing the door on the LOUD Championship.
The Edge tells real stories
Gold charts don’t lie. Lyon leads the way with an average of 12,767 gold medals per win. LOUD’s two wins averaged +8,950. The series was close in terms of wins. The winning ways in these games are not close.
The first game set the tone. Lyon built a lead of over 17,100 in 27 minutes in what was their most dominant single-game performance of the series. Game 5 follows suit at +12,200. When LYON takes control of the situation, LOUD can’t find a way back. When LOUD took control, LYON at least stayed competitive. That’s why Lyon advanced.
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no moral victory
While gold medal differentials varied across the five games, there was no moral victory in terms of kill differentials.
Lyon has a 46-13 kill differential in three wins, while LOUD has a 36-20 margin in two wins. So while LOUD won by a smaller margin for gold, every game was decisive.
When Ayers is right, Lyons is right
No one-liner captured Lyon’s series better than Jonah “Isles” Rosario, who is supporting him in his first international tournament since 2020. In the two games Lyon lost, his KDA was 1.9. That number peaked at 20 in the three games they won. He finished the first and third games with zero deaths and contributed 12 and 7 assists respectively.
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“I still need a lot of time,” he said during the Asset Day event. These numbers show both sides of the coin: the struggle when you lose and the ceiling when you win.
The blueprint is there
LOUD did not allow Lyon to win. They fight with passion. Ygor “RedBert” Freitas, LOUD’s veteran support, was the stealth engine in the two games they won – zero kills, but 23 assists and a 3.3 KDA in those games.
He soaked up punishment so Farias and Ko “YoungJae” Yeong-jae could make plays in the backline. When LOUD showed up, Ko quietly became one of the best performers in the series, posting a 4.7 KDA in wins and a kill participation rate of 77.8%.
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For years, CBLOL has accepted the narrative that it wasn’t growing fast enough internationally. Freitas pushed back on that before the series.
“I feel like we’re growing as a league every year,” he said. “This is our chance to prove them wrong.”
Two wins over Lyon in the opening five-match series was not the result they wanted, but it proved the gap was closing.
The road gets harder
Both teams stayed in the tournament, but both paths got easier.
LYON faced Gen.G, a favorite in the Korean League of Legends Championship (LCK), while LOUD faced off against Beijing JDG Esports, also in the League of Legends Professional League (LPL). If either team wants to beat the team at the top of League of Legends’ competitive ecosystem, both teams will need to play better.
Paul Delos Santos covers esports for The Sports Tribune and publishes Inside Esports at insideesports.media, a newsletter covering the fighting game community and the Riot Games ecosystem.
