The VCT China 2026 Stage 2 Play-Ins are over, with Titan Esports Club Titan Esports Club China Rank #11 Haodong Guo Haodong (郭浩东) lucas Yunkun Lu (路昀昆) Dynamite Zhao Zihao (赵梓浩) ra1ny Chen Baohuan (陈葆桓) Coco Ding Dajian (丁达建) , All Gamers All Gamers China Rank #8 Shr1mp Yang Yong (杨勇) K1ra Huang Zhihao (黄志豪) Bai Zhang Zeyang (张泽洋) f4ngeer Roman Smirnov iamgrq Gao Ruiqi (高锐琦) , Trace Esports Trace Esports China Rank #12 LuoK1ng Zhang Zhanpeng (张展鹏) Kai Lu Zhinan (卢智楠) FengF Song Xuefeng (宋学锋) FKEY Ke Chen deLb Delbert Tanoto , and JD Gaming JD Gaming China Rank #6 jkuro Yong Haochong (杨浩聪) zhe Niu Zhe (牛哲) Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) crownfisher Li Ao (李翱) BerLIN Zhang Bolin (張柏霖) advancing to the playoffs and continuing their hopes of qualifying for Champions Shanghai.

Here is a quick rundown of how these four teams finished in the top four at the play-ins:

Titan Esports Club fights through play-ins undefeated

Of all the possible stories in Stage 2, TEC turning around a 1-4 group stage into a 4-0 play-in run was one of the most unexpected.

This run was defined by one thing: close games. Each of TEC's four straight victories in the play-ins was a 2-1 victory, including a tight series against tier-two team KeepBest Gaming KeepBest Gaming China Rank #9 Akeman Zhang Haoran (张浩然) sibeastw0w Anton Govorukhin Tonk Ying Wang Chenxu (王晨旭) Krst1Ng . Yet, despite that first series, the next three wins were against Masters-level competition, including EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #4 ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) Jieni7 Zhang Juntai (张君泰) stew Park Young-chan (박영찬) , Dragon Ranger Gaming Dragon Ranger Gaming China Rank #14 Flex1n Lo Rui (罗瑞) Life Qu Donghao (瞿东豪) vo0kashu Ilya Ushakov Nicc Shao Yi-qun (邵逸群) Verse Zhou Zijun (周子钧) SpiritZ1 Lin Dingyu (林定宇) , and lastly, All Gamers.

There were some lows, highlighted by a 13-1 loss on Ascent against DRG, but the team always rebounded to end the series on top. The final match against All Gamers was promising, as it was also the team's best performance across all three maps. The relatively new addition of ra1ny worked well alongside the calling from Haodong and the fragging of Dynamite .

TEC starts its playoff run against TYLOO TYLOO China Rank #1 splash Moses Christophe Jonathan Scales Zhang Zhen (张震) Erv Shen Zhiwei slowly Kelun Sun (孙科伦) SiuFatBB Pong Gaa Hei (庞加曦) xihe Peng Wenbo (彭文博) , one of the strongest regional teams to end Stage 2. Both teams have struggled in previous splits, but it will be a battle testing the form of both squads.

All Gamers returns to Kickoff form to reach the playoffs

Ever since Kickoff, All Gamers just haven't looked like the same squad regionally, but the play-ins revived a team that could've missed Champions after a hot start to the year.

Unlike TEC, who started by facing a tier-two team, AG began in the upper quarterfinals with a 2-1 victory over Trace Esports. Despite the series reaching three maps, all were one-sided, leading to a quick match with two convincing map wins. The victory over JDG was a lot closer than expected, but clutch performances from playoff stars f4ngeer and Shr1mp completed the sweep.

F4ngeer led all players in the majority of play-in stats, including a 1.21 match rating, 265 ACS, 1.34 K:D, 165.5 ADR, and 0.92 KPR. Shr1mp wasn't far behind, with a 1.17 match rating and a 1.26 K:D, good enough for fourth.

Even though the team lost to TEC in the upper finals, as mentioned earlier, the series was tight. Individual skill is what led AG to an international earlier this year, and it took the team through one of two massive tournaments to end VCT China.

Now, the second tournament of Stage 2 begins, and AG will face off against Xi Lai Gaming Xi Lai Gaming China Rank #2 WsLeo Huang Pinwei (黄品维) Sharks Qiu Ge (邱戈) Lysoar Liang Youhao (梁优好) NoMan James Man Rarga Arthur Churyumov happywei Deng Minwei (邓闵维) . A tough matchup, but one that AG managed to overcome in the upper finals of Kickoff for the first time. Time will tell if the team can once again go on a run.

Trace Esports qualifies through lower bracket run

For Trace, the team has a similar tale to TEC: struggling regionally and bouncing back in play-ins. Unlike TEC, Trace does have some past regional and international experience, but the team has shifted away from players like heybay and Biank toward deLb and Abo , with Kai as the only mainstay of the old core.

Trace ended the Stage 2 group stage 0-5, but were victorious over TEC in the seeding match and swept A Team to start the play-ins. A f4ngeer masterclass led AG over Trace, but that was Trace's only loss in the tournament.

The move to the lower bracket proved beneficial for playoff qualification, as deLb stayed hot with sweep victories over FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix China Rank #16 AAAAY Zhang Yang (张杨) coconut Colin Patrick Chung (钟弘祖) Xlele Zhao Yanbo (赵炎博) Setrod Ou Taigeng (欧泰赓) and JDG. DRG proved to be the team's toughest opposition in the lowers, but Kai reminded DRG why his Jett on Ascent can be genuinely fear-inducing.

Falling to the lower bracket's qualification to the playoffs meant Trace would face Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #5 whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan yilai Gu Yiming (顾依铭) Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) bud Yang Renyu (杨韧余) FT Yan Shuaibo (闫帅博) next. BLG and Trace used to be on the same level near the top of China, but now that Trace enters this match as the true underdog, anything can happen.

JD Gaming wins two matches to keep Champs hopes alive

As the format suggested, there could be a team with only two wins that qualifies for the playoffs, and that ended up being JDG.

A close 2-1 upper quarterfinals victory over FPX was followed by a tough loss against AG, sending the squad to lowers but placing the team in a win-and-in position against EDward Gaming. The expectations of the two teams couldn't be more different, but a life game from crownfisher toppled the regional powerhouse and qualified the team for playoffs.

Out of all the JDG players, crownfisher was the most important one in this play-in run, ending it with a region-high 79% KAST. Yuicaw also improved his play for this tournament, and he knows what it's like to go on an underdog run from his Wolves Esports days.

This run has placed JDG in a tough position for the playoffs, because Nova Esports Nova Esports China Rank #3 qiutiaN Bijan Moeinzadeh (慕英毕强) cb Wang Qingchuan (王庆川) Ezeir Zhao Zejun (赵泽骏) GuanG Guang Honglin (光洪霖) swagzor Mikhail Vaniushin is up next. Nova ended its Stage 2 perfect, with only two map losses in six series wins (including the seeding match).

This could be where JDG quickly moves to the playoff lower bracket, but it also could be the start of a truly amazing underdog story toward the team's first VCT international appearance. If so, no better time than ahead of a Champions tournament in China.