Esports club Natus Vincere had a disappointing start at the international League of Legends tournament, Demacia Cup Global Invitational 2026. In their opening best-of-1 match, the European region (LEC) representatives suffered a devastating loss to the Brazilian team RED Canids. The game ended at the 34-minute mark with a convincing 16-3 kill score in favor of the Brazilians. Throughout the match, NAVI managed to destroy only one enemy tower, while RED Canids took down ten.
During the draft phase, NAVI focused on banning junglers, using their first three bans on Vi, Nocturne, and Lee Sin. This strategy was targeted at Gabriel Vinicius "Aegis" Saes de Lemos—an emergency stand-in for RED Canids who joined the team just days before the tournament due to the starting jungler's visa issues. Despite the lack of preparation time and NAVI's targeted bans, Aegis locked in Jarvan IV and helped his team completely seize the initiative. RED Canids built their lead through the laning phase and methodically destroyed Natus Vincere's base.
As a result of this defeat, NAVI fell into the 0-1 pool in the modified Swiss format. Natus Vincere's next game in the "Low (0-1)" bracket will take place on October 5 at 12:00 Kyiv time against FlyQuest. The upcoming match will be a clash between two teams fighting for their first victory after a poor start. It is worth noting that Round 2 matches for teams with a 0-1 record are not elimination games.
Regarding the overall results of the first day, teams from the South Korean LCK league demonstrated absolute dominance, winning all three of their matches (KT Rolster, BNK FEARX, HANJIN BRION). The Chinese LPL region finished the day with a 2-1 record, with JD Gaming suffering their only defeat. Meanwhile, representatives of the Western LEC and LCS leagues (including FlyQuest and Shopify Rebellion) started the tournament extremely poorly, recording a total of four losses. In the second round, the competition format will shift to best-of-3 series using the Fearless Draft system, where the six winning teams from Day 1 will fight for direct spots in the Knockout Stage.
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