The only Western representative at the upcoming Honor of Kings Invitational Season 4, the Brazilian band Loops, suddenly left the chat. The publisher of Level Infinite has already confirmed this news on X (formerly Twitter), and the situation looks, frankly, rather strange.
The Koreans from Nongshim RedForce, the current champions of KME East, immediately jumped into the vacant place.
The official statement from Level Infinite referred to some “internal circumstances,” but apparently we won’t get any details. Loops themselves generally remain deathly silent, skipping the first large—scale event of 2026 – it’s quite a shame for fans, really.
It’s worth considering that in 2025, Loops literally tore up the Brazilian scene by taking both seasons of CHOKBR, so their invite was as logical as possible.
But here’s what’s interesting: instead of giving the slot to another Brazilian team, the organizers decided to call Nongshim RedForce. As a result, worth considering, not a single team from the Western Hemisphere remained at the tournament in Jakarta — the complete dominance of the East. By the way, the same Koreans already took silver in the third season of KIS in the Philippines last year, so the replacement is, in fact, strong in all respects.
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Format and schedule of Honor of Kings Invitational Season 4
The denouement will come in Jakarta — the capital of Indonesia will host the tournament from January 31 to February 8. Eight top tags, in fact, will compete for a prize pool of $100,000.:
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Bigetron from Vitality (Indonesia) — a powerful alliance;
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Blacklist International (Philippines) — by the way, dangerous guys;
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BOOM Esports (Philippines) — always at the top;
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Dominator Esports (Indonesia);
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Kagendra (Indonesia);
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Nova Esports (Malaysia) — Legendary tag;
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Team HAQ (Malaysia);
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Nongshim Red Force (South Korea).
It will all start with the classic group stage — eight teams will be divided into two equal groups. Along the way, they will play a round-robin system to determine the seeding in the next stage. The final chord is the relegation grid, where it will be decided who will take the cup of the 4th season of KIS – tough, but fair.
The forecast for the performance of Nongshim RedForce in the fourth season
Apparently, the era of turbulence has arrived in the current Nongshim RedForce roster for LCK 2026, but writing them off is a disastrous idea. Having such titans as midlainer Scout and toplainer Kingen in the clip, the team may well throw the focus into the playoffs. In fact, if you analyze the numbers and current quotes in detail, the prospects of making it to the KIC finals and clinging to the crown look quite working, although they depend on a bunch of “ifs”.
Analysis of selected players and the composition of the Nongshim RedForce team
Scout returned to his native harbor after a nine—year business trip and immediately became the “engine” on the central line – his skill in mass brawls, let’s put it this way, often decides the outcome of the rink. On the top line, Kingen consistently “concrets” his flank and competently flies into opponents — the matches against KT Rolster clearly confirmed this.
True, the combination of Peyz and Delipan on the bot still looks a bit damp, but in the last five meetings, the guys, in general, accelerated to 60% win rate. Unexpectedly, it is the progress of this pair that is the main trigger for the forecast: if Scout catches MSI—level courage, Nongshim will fly into the top four.
KIC Finals chances and expert match analysis
In order to guarantee a ticket to the KIC finals, the organization, in fact, needs to cling to the top 3 in the regular season. Right now they are hanging in the play-in zone with a score of 4:3 against KT — the result is normal, but not perfect. Apparently, the main problem with the composition is drawdowns in the mid—game against giants like Gen.G, which, by the way, T1 recently closed with a score of 2:0.
Analysts from Bo3.gg For example, they predict a ceiling in the form of a quarterfinal, but the LCQ experience gives hope for a 25% success rate — especially if the game in the forest is tightened after Rift Legends Winter. For those who like to take risks: along the way, an interesting bet is being made on a total of more than 25 kills in the Nongshim vs HLE battle with a 1.9 coefficient — the guys have plenty of aggression, to be honest.
