No Kennen in the RQ Los Angeles Top 8: two Irelia, two Azir
Swiss at the Los Angeles Regional Qualifier wrapped after 13 rounds, and the Top 8 bracket contains not a single Kennen. What made it through instead: two Irelia, two Azir and two Rengar, plus one Master Yi and one Ornn. It is the sharpest turnaround of the weekend, because as late as Saturday night Kennen owned the highest win rate in the room. Italy’s best finisher, JustSR, ends Swiss in 53rd on a 10-3-0 record.
The bracketWho made it through
The bracket shown on the event broadcast and reshared on r/riftboundtcg lists all eight qualifiers with their seed, their Legend and their Swiss record. The top three — Xeno, DSG Prismaticism and TM2 — all finish 11-0-2, undefeated with two draws; the other five sit at 11-1-1. Those are the same figures carried by the public UVS Games standings that feed our live tracker, which is why the bracket can be treated as reliable even ahead of any press release.
| Seed | Player | Legend | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Xeno | Irelia | 11-0-2 |
| 2 | DSG Prismaticism | Rengar | 11-0-2 |
| 3 | TM2 | Irelia | 11-0-2 |
| 4 | SWAGALISK | Master Yi | 11-1-1 |
| 5 | MICE Squirtle | Azir | 11-1-1 |
| 6 | NRW Rocklho | Azir | 11-1-1 |
| 7 | HXN TEMPETE | Rengar | 11-1-1 |
| 8 | MICE TheManLand | Ornn | 11-1-1 |
The quarterfinals pair Xeno with MICE TheManLand, SWAGALISK with MICE Squirtle, TM2 with NRW Rocklho, and DSG Prismaticism with HXN TEMPETE. In the bracket now circulating the result boxes are still blank: as we write, the single-elimination stage has not been played yet.
The numberKennen wins a lot and still goes home
This is the part that makes the bracket a story. In the community counts posted to r/riftboundtcg during the event, Kennen closed day 1 with a win rate around 60%, the best in the field, and converted roughly 38% of its pilots into day 2. Those are numbers that usually forecast a finals appearance. Instead the deck is nowhere to be found at the last cut, and neither is Jayce, the other pre-tournament favourite.
Two things are worth keeping apart here, because they get blurred constantly. A win rate measures how often a deck wins individual games across the whole field, bottom tables included; a Top 8 measures who survives thirteen consecutive rounds against steadily stronger opposition. A deck can be the best in the room on average and still vanish in the final stretch, especially when the lists built to beat it cluster at the top tables. One event proves nothing on its own, but the signal is there and it is legible.
The metaThree pairs and two singles
The shape of this bracket is unusually tidy: three Legends appear twice (Irelia, Azir, Rengar) and two appear once (Master Yi and Ornn). Five different Legends across eight slots points to an open format rather than a one-deck meta, and it is the first wide snapshot we have of the game since the ban list took effect on September 18.
5 Legends, 8 slots
Irelia, Azir and Rengar on two copies each; Master Yi and Ornn on one. Nothing repeats beyond a pair.
Kennen and Jayce at zero
The two most-discussed decks going in put nobody at all into the single-elimination stage.
Why it matters to us. Los Angeles is the first heavyweight Regional Qualifier played under the September ban list, and the decks coming out of this bracket are the ones that will land in our organised play nights and in the European events of the next few weeks. The practical message for anyone in Italy who was building or buying into Kennen: do not trust the raw win rate on its own, because at the top tables that deck hit a wall. On the home front, neither of the two Italian entrants reached the Top 8, with JustSR stopping in 53rd out of more than 2,100 ranked players — a solid run at a 2,370-entrant event, but a first Italian Regional Top 8 is still waiting to happen.
The short version
- Swiss closed after 13 rounds: three players at 11-0-2, five at 11-1-1.
- The Top 8 holds two Irelia, two Azir, two Rengar, one Master Yi, one Ornn.
- Kennen and Jayce qualify nobody, despite Kennen posting the best day 1 win rate.
- Best Italian is JustSR, 53rd at 10-3-0; no Italian in the final bracket.
Source: u/Penguin_Quinn on r/riftboundtcg, with records cross-checked against the public UVS Games standings. Images: Riot Games.
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