For Sentinels and FURIA, the Americas Cup Is About More Than Winning

The 2025 League of the Americas – the joint league that briefly brought North America’s League Championship Series and Brazil’s Campeonato Brasileiro de League of Legends teams together for cross-regional seasons – may not have lasted more than a year, but its impact will be felt this year and in future iterations with the Americas Cup, the long remnant of the 2025 season.

The event started Wednesday in São Paulo, Brazil.

The Americas Cup is a cross-regional competition featuring the second- and third-place finishers from the LCS and CBLOL.

While not on the same stage as the other international events, winning the Americas Cup carries multiple prizes. The first is regional bragging rights — a declaration of which American region performed better in the first split of the year.

The second prize, more importantly, can have a long-term effect, as the tournament winner earns a training trip to South Korea, home to some of the most competitive solo queue environments in the sport.

For most of the Sentinels roster, the trip would be a return visit. For American-born mid laner Isaac “DARKWINGS” Chou, it would be a first.

Chou is in his first full season as a mid laner, a position that requires individual skill, game-wide awareness, and the ability to influence other areas of the map. He established himself as one of the more stable players at his position during Split 1.

After the split wrapped up Saturday, Chou was direct about what he wants out of Brazil.

“We definitely do want to go to the Korea bootcamp,” he said. “That is like a priority. And I do really want to go as well.”

His case for the trip goes beyond personal development.

Sentinels coach Greyson “GoldenGlue” Gilmer noted that Chou stands to benefit specifically from the caliber of competition in Korean solo queue.

“The mid laners in Korean solo queue are honestly really good in lane,” Gilmer said after Sentinels’ win over Brazilian squad Red Canids on Wednesday. “It could definitely help improve his lane phase.”

Sentinels are not alone in wanting the trip. Fellow LCS qualifier Cloud9 Kia remains a threat in the lower bracket, and Red Canids could also rise from the lower bracket to claim the Americas Cup.

But Sentinels will not look that far ahead. They face FURIA on Friday, where a win would put them one match away from the trip.

FURIA Looks to Make Brazil Proud

There was an aura of disappointment when FURIA failed to secure a spot at First Stand, but instead of lingering on the defeat and leaving their fans disappointed, FURIA rose to the occasion against Cloud9, sweeping the second-place LCS finisher 2-0.

Arthur “Tutsz” Machado said the team came into Brazil wanting to restore confidence and show their fans they belonged on this stage.

Machado said the LTA benefitted Brazilian teams even as North American squads dominated early on. By the end of the experiment, the gap had closed enough that a true cross-regional final was within reach.

Gilmer also agreed that the CBLOL play quality has improved, and when combined with a weaker LCS region, makes for compelling games.

Machado pointed to FURIA’s early-game aggression as the key factor in the win over Cloud9. Gilmer said he had spotted that tendency in his scouting and watched it play out in real time.

“Watching the games with Cloud9 earlier [Wednesday] and watching them pick out stuff like Yasuo, Malphite, kind of cool picks, that was pretty fun to watch,” he said. “I still think though the same focus is still there, like very aggressive, and they like to play kind of like teamfight compositions.”

FURIA finished third in CBLOL, just as Sentinels did in the LCS, and Machado said having never played the team fueled his desire to face them. He had Sentinels circled as the opponent he wanted in the upper-bracket final — and Friday he gets his wish.

For Both Teams, Korea Means Something Different

Either FURIA or Sentinels will be one win away from the Korea trip after Friday, and both teams were honest about their desire to head to the global hub of League of Legends.

FURIA made a Korea trip in November 2025 but went short-handed. Support Gabriel “JoJo” Dzelme could not attend due to financial reasons, leaving the team to navigate the experience as a group of four and playing mostly solo queue games.

Winning the Americas Cup would send FURIA to Korea in June, timed around Mid-Season Invitational, where they could scrim against the world’s top teams, who will be there for the event. Machado logged roughly 500 solo queue games during the November trip, reaching the challenger tier — the highest rank available.

Even with those memories, Machado said winning the Americas Cup would simply guarantee the full team gets to go together and get quality games in as a unit in Korea.

“It’s a safety net,” Machado said.

For Sentinels, the prize carries a different kind of weight. A win would give Chou his first taste of the toughest solo queue environment in the world, while also giving the roster’s four Korean players — Eon-young “Impact” Jeong, Yoo-jin “HamBak” Ham, Min-seong “Rahel” Cho, and Jae-hyun “huhi” Choi — a trip home.

“They can show us around, we’ll get some good food,” Gilmer said. “It’ll be a really good team experience.”

Paul Delos Santos covers the Fighting Game Community and Riot Games ecosystem for The Sporting Tribune and Inside Esports, a newsletter publishing every Tuesday and Friday. Subscribe at insideesports.media.