LoL Worlds Swiss stage day 3: The day of unexpected champions, KT’s undefeated run and CFO’s heroic fight

Day 3 of the 2025 LoL Worlds Swiss Stage has been a blast. Full of surprises, start to finish! Let’s break down what happened and where we are now, because no one would have seen that coming.

The LoL Worlds Swiss stage day 3

The third day of the Worlds Swiss stage opposed the teams that had a 2-0 scoreline. Four teams playing one Best of 3 each, the two winners securing their playoffs spot.

These four teams were KT Rolster, Anyone’s Legend, Top Esports, and CTBC Flying Oyster. And already there, we have a problem.

AL was not in good shape at all by the end of the split, and TES choked at their past five Worlds back to back. KT is KT, they do their thing but they’ve not been a serious name in the LCK for a while. As for CFO, they’re from the LCP, a region supposedly below the major ones.

All of them are expected to solidly sit at 1-1. One of them at 2-0 through the luck of the draw, maybe two. Not all four of them.

Everyone thought GenG would be there. HLE and BLG, too. Perhaps T1, though them being 1-1 is no surprise. At least some of them, not zero.

And that would only be the start of the day…

KT Rolster’s perfect run to playoffs

Yesterday, KT faced Top Esports. TES looked absolutely impressive in their first two days. While their competition was on the easier side, they dismantled both opponents making close to zero mistakes (if we don’t count JackeyLove’s moments).

KT, on the other hand, has won games against two even easier opponents by simply not being quite as bad as them. Disastrous early games, just to play better teamfights than two teams that offered mistake after mistake. So this game was an easy 2-0 prediction in Top Esports’ favor.

And… a 2-0 it was. Only, for KT.

The worst part? KT kept only playing average. Game 1 was the same story as usual, with TES getting ahead early. KT then had better teamfights, likely thanks to TES’ three initiators failing to find any proper angles. They played well themselves by capitalizing on these mistakes, but that shouldn’t have been the story of the game.

In the second game, KT had an alright early game for once. And TES… spent the entire game not doing much. The LCK representative could easily glide through it.

And thus, KT Rolster, the least likely of all 4 Korean teams to advance to playoffs, are in quarters. Winning all 4 of their Swiss games. And showcasing a level of play that should barely make it into the current top 8.

Anyone’s Legend after their victory (Image Source: Colin Young-Wolff / Riot Games)

Anyone’s Legend’s incredible form

AL did not impress in the last split. But their form at Worlds could not be further away from that. They reached 2-0 after defeating HLE and GenG, two contenders to the title. And it was not off the back of poor play, these two matches were probably the highest quality games we’ve seen at this tournament thus far.

Right now, they look like they have an actual chance at winning the entire tournament.

They went up against CFO, who had also been surprisingly good. And once again, they played solidly!

AL gave away game 1 by missing on the execution of a riskier draft, although they still put up a fight. Afterwards, game 2 was a constant brawl. AL barely won most of the earlier fights, which eventually led CFO to try to force too hard in order to try to get back into the game. This only resulted in allowing AL to match them and seal their lead, eventually into a win.

Next up, CFO started game 3 with a commanding lead. Not everything went smoothly, but they played with creativity and confidence, and it worked out for a while. Until AL got more damage. And then, like in game 2, it seemed like they were simply better at executing later game teamfights than CFO. They turned everything around by playing brilliantly in an Atakhan fight initiated by CFO. And from that point on, it was smooth sailing and AL took the series.

While not quite looking as good as they had against HLE and GenG, Anyone’s Legend enters quarterfinals in much better standing than would have been expected.

JunJia of CTBC Flying Oyster at LoL Worlds 2025 Swiss Stage (Image Source: Yicun Liu / Riot Games)

CFO’s rise through the world

CFO was definitely the most surprising of the four teams in the 2-0 bracket. Well, they were expected to be the unexpected heroes. Just not to pull it off that well.

Winning against Fnatic, at this point, was a given. But against T1? Nowhere near.

And entering day 3, they convincingly took game 1 against AL. We know how the rest of the series went, and AL going 2-1 in that match was the prediction.

But that doesn’t take anything away from CFO still having one of the better performances at LoL Worlds 2025. As an LCP team.

Look forward to day 4 Worlds schedule, where the teams in 1-1 will battle it out in the LoL World Championship!

Featured image: KT Rolster arrive to compete at Swiss Stage (By Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)