Karmine Corp made quick work of it. The Play-In Knockouts best-of-five against Relove Deep Cross Gaming ended 3–0, and across the three games KC held a 79 to 29 edge in kills and a 27 to 5 edge in towers.

DCG did have their chances on paper. They took a Baron in both the opener and the closer and finished game three within roughly 7,900 gold. But KC still won that game with a 10 to 2 tower count. Holding the more valuable objective and still losing twice points to how far apart the sides were everywhere else.

Caliste and the backline hold firm

The clearest gap sat in KC's carries. Caliste died six times in the entire series. His Zeri in game two went 13/1/9, and his Caitlyn in the opener put out 37,379 damage, comfortably the most of anyone in that game. kyeahoo was even harder to pin down: four deaths in three games, none of them on his Cassiopeia.

Game two was the outlier, and it wasn't pretty for DCG. KC won it in 25:54 with 31 kills to 3, a gold lead of nearly 21,000 and all four dragons. Busio finished that one 2/0/21 on Rell, and not a single KC player died more than once.

Yike closes it out

When DCG pushed back in game three, the series' longest at 33:30, it was Yike who carried the load. His Wukong went 10/2/10 with 34,016 damage, more than any other player on the map. HongSuo's Ryze did push his lane past kyeahoo's in farm, 325 CS to 278, but it wasn't enough to swing the game.

For DCG, the numbers make for uncomfortable reading. Pop9 finished the three games with 17 deaths, and ShiauC also died 17 times. Feng's 22,838 damage on Ezreal in game one was a rare bright spot that didn't turn into a win.

KC will take a clean sweep into whatever comes next at MSI. On this evidence, their carries and their discipline in fights look like the parts of the team other contenders will need to solve. Whether a stronger opponent can force them into the kind of messy games DCG couldn't is the open question.