Sentinels opened the playoffs on Saturday by winning a 3-2 battle with Disguised in the upper-bracket semifinals at the League Championship Series 2026 Lock-In in Los Angeles.
Cloud9 faces FlyQuest on Sunday in the other semifinal, with the winner advancing to the upper-bracket final against Sentinels on Feb. 22.
With the loss, Disguised dropped to the lower-bracket quarterfinals against Team Liquid, while LYON awaits the loser of the second semifinal.
The six-team playoffs are double-elimination, with all matches best-of-five. The overall winner qualifies for the 2026 First Stand Tournament.
The lower-bracket semifinal is Feb. 27, and the lower-bracket final is Feb. 28. The grand final is scheduled for March 1.
Diguised won the opening map on Saturday in 33 minutes on red, then Sentinels drew even in 35 minutes on blue. The back-and-forth match continued with Disguised winning in 36 minutes on red, and Sentinels victorious in 32 minutes on blue.
Sentinels took the decisive map in 33 minutes on blue.
Ham “HamBak” Yoo-jin of South Korea paced Sentinels with a 21/15/42 kill-death-assist ratio, teammate Isaac “DarkWings” Chou of the United States posted a 20/10/29 K-D-A, and Jeong “Impact” Eon-young of South Korea had a 13/7/32 ratio.
Cho “Castle” Hyeon-seong of South Korea led Disguised with a 19/21/23 K-D-A, Sajed “sajed” Ziade of the United States had an 18/11/20 K-D-A and Christian “KryRa” Rahaian of Canada recorded a 6/12/39 ratio.
Match most valuable players were “HamBak,” “KryRa” and “Castle.”
The playoffs followed the Swiss stage featuring eight teams over three rounds of best-of-three matches, except the last-chance tiebreaker as a best-of-one. Dignitas and Shopify Rebellion were eliminated by finishing seventh and eighth in the standings.
2026 Lock-In at Los Angeles prize pool
1. TBD, qualifies for First Stand Tournament
2. TBD, qualifies for America’s Cup
3. TBD, qualifies for America’s Cup
4. TBD
5. TBD
6. TBD
7. Dignitas
8. Shopify Rebellion
–Field Level Media