5 October: Shinhan lead at halfway, cup rematches and the promotion races

Shinhan Gaming reach halfway unbeaten, Powing Cows remain one win behind, and 5 Ronin have recovered from their difficult opening week. Below them, the promotion races offer a mixture of clear favourites and results that defy the ratings.

The previous news report left Shinhan and Powing tied at 3–0 and Pro Week #39 waiting for its semifinals. Six league rounds and a completed cup later, here is where Season 169 stands, and what the individual performances tell us about the second half.

Division 1: a remarkably orderly first half

Position	Team	Record
1	Shinhan Gaming	9–0
2	Powing Cows	8–1
3	5 Ronin	7–2
4	Good Game	6–3
5	Trust Gaming	5–4
6	INT INC	4–5
7	AceGaming	3–6
8	Teviathan	2–7
9	Waterbear GG [AI]	1–8
10	Midlander [AI]	0–9

The striking detail is that every team has beaten every side below it and lost to every side above it. All 45 first-half results fit the current order. That makes the table unusually easy to read: nobody in the chasing group has yet taken a league win from a team above them. Standings · Results and remaining fixtures

How Shinhan won the meeting at the top

The 2 October game broke the tie. Shinhan beat Powing 31–20 in 49:55, finishing with 88,127 gold against 76,046. It was a much longer contest than many of their other league wins, but the decisive individual performances came from jungle and mid.

SHG Minhyuk's Death Reaper finished 13/0/12. SHG Acolyte's Void Walker added 11/2/17 and 441 CS, compared with 373 CS for l3rowmcow 's Evil Master. Together, Minhyuk and Acolyte accounted for 24 of Shinhan's 31 kills. Powing did have a productive jungler in l3rowjcow, whose Plague Rat went 8/6/11, but Shinhan's two principal scorers gave up only two deaths between them. [[game:88641593]]

There is still a title race. Powing have beaten the other eight opponents, and the return meeting is scheduled for 12 October, with Powing on blue side. Shinhan's current one-win lead leaves little room for an unrelated slip before that match. A Powing win would matter enormously; the first meeting shows how much they need to improve against Minhyuk and Acolyte.

Ronin recover, but the next step is harder

Ronin were 1–2 at the last report. They have since won six straight league matches, most recently beating Good Game 24–1 in 29:25 on 5 October. 5R Zeitnot's Mad Doctor went 13/0/10, 5R Naru's Mana 9/0/11, and 5R Dumbledoge's Pyro Girl participated in all 24 kills. Good Game ended almost 20,000 gold behind. [[game:88641608]]

That result establishes a clear gap between third and fourth in this particular meeting. It does not yet close Ronin's gap to the top two. Their two league defeats remain Shinhan and Powing, and the cup has supplied another direct comparison with the leaders.

Pro Week #39: another Shinhan–Ronin final, another sweep

Shinhan beat INT 3–0 in the semifinal; Ronin beat Good Game by the same margin. The final then finished 3–0 to Shinhan, while Good Game took the third-place series 3–0 against INT. Completed bracket

The consistency is more revealing than the series score alone. Shinhan finished every game at least 10,000 gold ahead, including the middle game from purple side. SHG Rozen played Barbarian King throughout and totalled 12/1/28 across the final. Minhyuk's Death Reaper totalled 9/1/31. Neither died in the first two games.

Ronin made the third game more competitive in kills, with Naru scoring eight on Mana. Yet the final gold deficit remained above 12,000. Their immediate problem against Shinhan is therefore broader than finding a few more kills: they need to reduce the resource gap that has persisted across different sides and mid-lane picks.

The next league meeting is 7 October, Ronin on blue. After six consecutive league wins, it is a useful test of whether their recovery can produce a different result against the team setting the standard.

Pro Week #40: INT and Trust produce the closest quarterfinal again

The latest quarterfinals sent Shinhan, Ronin and Good Game through with 3–0 wins over MobaManager Bot, KioTeam and Diomedea respectively. INT beat Trust 2–1, repeating their quarterfinal series result from Pro Week #39. Round-four results

Trust are above INT in the league and won their league meeting. In the cup, INT have now found a way past them twice.

All three wins came from purple side, as they did in their previous cup series. There is a specific draft detail worth following: the winning top laner had Mana in all three games. INT JGK used it in games one and three; TG SiL had it in game two. The losing top picks were Pirate King twice and Chew'Gozz once.

Those games do not establish that side or one champion caused the result. Other picks changed too. But this is a concrete pattern for their next meeting: who gets Mana, what the other top laner plays, and whether either team can win this matchup from blue.

Promoted teams: Ace win the direct comparison

Last season's unbeaten Division 2 winners have found Division 1 much harder. AceGaming are 3–6 and Teviathan 2–7. Their 4 October meeting separated them: Ace won 37–12 in 29:35, with an 18,105-gold advantage.

Atze's Mad Doctor finished 14/0/19, JackieTequila's Frost Archer 13/3/20, and Talahon's Void Walker 8/1/23. Teviathan's Tev Greda supplied eight of their 12 kills on Valkyrie Pilot, but the team could not match Ace's three scoring threats. [[game:88641603]]

Ace's wins have come against Teviathan, Waterbear and Midlander. Teviathan have beaten Waterbear and Midlander; Waterbear's one victory came against Midlander. The promoted four therefore occupy the bottom four places together. Improving within that group matters, but staying up requires taking results from the established six as well. Ace are one win behind sixth-placed INT at halfway.

Division 2: three familiar leaders and one important exception

League	Leader	Closest challengers
#1	Sfogliatella , 9–0	MobaManager GG, Diomedea and MobaManager Bot, all 7–2
#2	мεεт тʜε ѕтαяꜱ , 9–0	Loophole MC, 8–1
#3	Kingpins , 9–0	Market King, 8–1
#4	Gogogo Team [AI] , 9–0	cheryn, 8–1

Sfogliatella, Meet The Stars and Kingpins are all pursuing an immediate return after last season's relegation. Meet have already beaten their nearest challenger 35–6: sMurten went 16/0/19 on The Cane against Loophole, participating in every kill. Kingpins beat Market King 27–9, with all five players involved in all 27 kills. Those are substantial first-meeting margins despite the narrow gaps in the tables. [[game:88641767]] · [[game:88641841]]

League #4 supplies the exception. cheryn's current rating is 2,006 against Gogogo's 1,419, but their first meeting ended 41–13 to Gogogo in 28:25. Goyette Winston's Pyro Girl went 13/3/17 and Marco Swaniawski's Rocket Girl 12/3/21. This was a played victory with a 17,848-gold margin, not a forfeit. [[game:88641934]]

The return on 8 October is one of the most interesting fixtures below Division 1. cheryn have won their other eight league games. Gogogo have won all nine. A single rematch can bring them level on wins or put Gogogo two ahead.

Division 3: ratings alone do not decide promotion

The Wakko's remain the highest-rated team shown in Division 3 at 1,644, but sit third in League #1 at 7–2. ST Keep Carry Safe lead at 9–0, with ST Catch One 8–1. League table

The direct meeting on 2 October was emphatic: Keep Carry Safe beat Wakko's 38–14. Margret Conroy's Mana went 17/0/21, involvement in every kill, while Qgutkowski added 15 on Plague Rat. Wakko's finished more than 26,000 gold behind. Their rating advantage has not translated into control of this promotion race. [[game:88642043]]

In League #2, Howdy head the displayed table at 9–0, two wins clear of The Expendables. Undefeated Legends are 6–3 and V Esports 5–4. These newer-team tables describe the current standings; they should not automatically be read as nine matches played by a newly created manager, because teams can inherit league positions.

Players and transfers: a small but real market

The 5 October news snapshot puts all five Powing players at the top of the individual player-rating list, led by l3rowmcow at 3,672. That sits alongside a team table led by Shinhan. Individual ratings are useful context, but the head-to-head scoreboards show why they are not a substitute for team results.

Among the youth players, TG Wasp leads the same snapshot at 2,270, followed by Talahon at 2,210. JackieTequila, fifth at 2,100, has already supplied a tangible league contribution with those 13 kills against Teviathan. The younger names are part of the current competition, not only future prospects.

The transfer section records two completed deals: Zenos to Market King and leeSo to Open Market, both from V Esports for $1,000. These are modest transactions, but actual completed sales after the empty market noted in the 27 September article. It is too early to judge either move by results. Their next story is whether the buyers develop them into useful squad players. Zenos · leeSo

Fixtures to follow

• 7 October: Ronin–Shinhan. Can Ronin's league recovery survive another meeting with the leaders?
• 8 October: Gogogo–cheryn and Market King–Kingpins. Two Division 2 leaders face their closest challengers.
• 9 October: Powing–Ronin. Ronin's chance to reverse the other defeat from their first half.
• 12 October: Powing–Shinhan. The return match between the top two.

At halfway, Shinhan have the strongest set of results: a perfect league record, the direct win over Powing, and another cup. The chasing teams have clear opportunities ahead. The second half will become much more interesting if one of them can reverse a first-half result.

Checked 5 October 2026, 20:40 UTC. League records and results are from public league pages and match scoreboards; daily player rankings and completed transfers are from the dated news snapshot. Ratings can change after publication.