Weibo Gaming's Demacia Cup Win Ends a 1,076-Day Wait for China
For Chinese League of Legends fans, the number that mattered on October 15 was not the 3-2 scoreline but the 1,076 days that preceded it. Team WE, one of China’s oldest and most storied organizations, beat Korea’s BRO in a five-game Demacia Cup semifinal, and in doing so became the first Chinese team other than Bilibili Gaming to win a best-of-five series against a Korean opponent in nearly three years. The last such result came on November 4, 2023, when JDG beat KT 3-1 in the quarterfinals of the S13 World Championship.
The Demacia Cup is China’s long-running domestic cup competition, held in the local offseason and traditionally used by teams to test new rosters. This year’s edition has drawn unusual attention because Korean squads have been invited to the international bracket, turning what is normally a low-stakes tune-up into something closer to a regional measuring stick. Earlier results in the tournament had gone badly for the home sides, which is part of why WE’s win landed so hard.
The series itself had everything a neutral fan could want. WE built a 2-0 lead, then watched BRO claw back two games to force a decider. Former WE star Ruo Feng, one of the most recognizable names in the club’s history, wrote afterward that being pulled back to 2-2 was frightening to watch, but that WE’s game-five macro play was so clean it came as a genuine surprise. Chinese broadcasters reacted in similar fashion, describing the win as inflicting a painfully slow defeat on the Korean side.
WE’s top laner Cube was blunt in his post-match interview. He said the team only needs to avoid mistakes to win comfortably, and directed a playful message at his opposite number, saying it was time for that rivalry to end here. In-game voice communications released by the club showed the same confidence in the moment: one player insisted the team had to keep making plays rather than give ground, warning that conceding would mean losing.
The human side of the result was just as memorable. Footage from the venue showed a young WE fan in the crowd crying and covering her face after the final game, a reaction that spread quickly across Chinese social platforms. It was the kind of moment that explains why this competition matters to the people in the building even when the stakes are officially low.
The win sends WE into the final of the Demacia Cup international invitational. It also hands Chinese fans a rare piece of evidence that the gap at the top of the regional pyramid may be narrower than recent international results have suggested. For a club with WE’s history, the result is a reminder of why it still commands one of the loudest fanbases in the country.
Korea’s teams remain the benchmark in most global rankings, and one cup semifinal does not rewrite that. But streaks have a psychological weight of their own, and 1,076 days is a long time to carry one. WE will now try to finish the job in the final, with a fanbase that has already shown how much it wants this.