The final day of Round 4 is shaping up to be a nail-biter. We have two elimination matches: Bilibili Gaming vs Vivo Keyd Stars, and T1 vs 100 Thieves. Winners go through to Round 5 for a last chance of survival and advancing to LoL Worlds 2025 Knockout Stage, the losers take an early flight home.

Bilibili Gaming vs Vivo Keyd Stars

BLG are looking nowhere near the form I expected to see from a title contender. Even though they had a pretty “easy” way to the Playoffs on paper, they fumbled against G2 and 100T earlier in the Swiss Stage – losses that exposed a shaky midgame coordination and pretty questionable setups around objectives. Still, this is the #1 ranked seed from the LPL, and we cannot deny that they’re stacked with talent: Bin remains as one of the best and most aggressive laners in the tournament, Knight’s consistency in the midlane is unmatched, and Elk with ON were bullying botlaners in the LPL the whole split. Considering this is their do-or-die, I expect nothing less than a stomp.

Vivo Keyd Stars are very much the underdog. Their roster is built on fighting spirit rather than being the favorites. But their path is pretty narrow – they have to find a way to force BLG into an uncomfortable territory and punish them in every situation they can, especially in the mid game, where BLG are proved to be shakiest.

Being one of the tournament favorites, BLG doesn’t even have to bring their A-game to be able to handle VKS. But past Worlds taught us that favorites with a pressure on their back are vulnerable, and Keyd Stars may bring something new to the table.

Prediction: As I said – anything less than a 2-0 in favor of BLG would be amazing to me.

T1 vs 100 Thieves

Just like the BLG vs Keyd matchup, this one’s too a do-or-die. Both teams are sitting at 1W-2L, and another loss means the run’s cut short. For T1, that’s a sentence nobody expected to hear this early into Worlds. Their lineup screams experience and pedigree, but something’s been off. They had solid starts and then lost the grip on mid-game control, almost looking like they’re second guessing themselves. Might be the pressure of doing the three-peat, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s still T1, and they can still absolutely show up and go deep in the tournament, but the margin for error is long gone.

Meanwhile, 100 Thieves already punched beyond expectations with the upset over BLG in their opening match, and who says they can’t do another one? Sure, they’re 1-2 also, but they had TES and HLE on their schedule, so no hate here. River’s early game reads have been good, and Quid held his own against elite mids – not easy when every matchup feels like a boss fight. Anyway, the rhythm of the games might decide to whom the series swing: T1 likes to build slow pressure and squeeze opponents off, 100T thrive in chaos – forcing skirmishes until one of the team cracks. And if they manage to drag T1 in a chaotic game, we might just have a series.

Prediction: T1 are fighting to save face, so I’m guessing this one won’t be pretty for 100T. T1 in 2.