The Piltover Post

After a rocky debut season in the LTA North, Disguised found themselves competing to keep their spot in tier 1 against blood thirsty tier 2 hopefuls. Regardless of the challenges they faced, the provisional guest spot team was victorious and can happily say they are returning for the 2026 return of the heavily adored LCS. With their spot in tier 1 safe, the team reflected on their path in the LCS 2026 Promotion Tournament and what they plan to do during the off-season. Spoiler alert: their path to promotion involved a lot of food.

Q: Going into the LTA North promotional tournament, who did you feel was your toughest opponent and why? How did you prepare for them?

Castle: Obviously, LG was the hardest opponent. We tried to figure out what their weaker parts were and use that against them.

Exyu: Definitely LG. We didn’t do anything too special to prepare. Honestly, we just reviewed their VODs and looked at their champion pool.

Darkwings: LG because it seemed like they played a bit differently from the meta. We mostly watched their games and tried to play consistently ourselves.

Rahel: LG. I watched their VODs a lot.

Huhi: LG for sure. We mainly watched their games to prepare for their tendencies.

Q: With the tournament having a rocky start due to DDOS attacks, how do you think that affected your momentum and mentality? It can’t be easy to deal with incredibly long pauses only to have to postpone until the next day.

Castle: The DDOS attack was tough. If we played more after such long pauses, that would be way harder. At least Riot let us play the next day after they tried to fix it. Also, we just tried to keep our focus level. It’s hard, but that’s our job.

Exyu: It was definitely a bit annoying, especially because we lost a game to EST, but I think the team did a good job of staying focused and not getting too bored during the pauses.

Darkwings: The DDOS attacks were momentum-killing for both sides. It was annoying, but there was not much we could do other than make sure we showed up with the same mindset.

Rahel: Honestly, it was very hard to hold a good mentality. I just tried to be calm.

Huhi: Just doing our best to stay centered and focused. I tried to use that as an advantage vs the other team since they are also dealing with the same issue, trying to be more sane.

Q: What was your favorite food while you were in Toronto?

Castle: I like most of the Asian food we had there, but my favorite one was the Mexican place!

Exyu: Hello Nori, hands down.

Darkwings: The one shawarma place we went to was really good and really exceeded my expectations.

Rahel: The ramen place we went to was my favorite.

Huhi: Their Dubai chocolate ice cream was delicious.

Q: You were fortunate to travel to Mexico City for the finals! Have you ever visited the city? What was something specific you were hoping to see?

Castle: We didn’t really visit the city, but every food that we had there was sooooo good. Also, I don’t think that schedule was easy for us. Unfortunately, we flew 5 hours to get there and play the next day. That was pretty tough.

Exyu: This was my first time there, and I thought it was pretty cool. We didn’t really have time to explore, but there was a volcano that we could see that looked really cool.

Darkwings: I have never been to Mexico City, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I mostly wanted to try authentic Mexican food while I was there.

Rahel: No. I just hoped to have a taco!

Huhi: It was my first time visiting. I wish I had tried more tacos, but one taco place we tried was amazing.

Q: Instead of Korean BBQ, the esports victory dinner tradition, where did you find yourselves celebrating?

Castle: Mostly our celebration dinners are KBBQ, so not really much to say. I like to have steak too after a win.

Exyu: We got Brazilian barbecue after we won the promotional tournament!

Darkwings: After our series against LG, we celebrated with Brazilian BBQ instead to suit the occasion.

Rahel: We went out to Brazilian.

Huhi: Keeping up with the BBQ victory theme, we went out for Brazilian.

Q: With Rahel and DARKWINGS being brought in for the last split, was it hard to form a cohesive unit? How did you find yourselves bonding with each other, despite language barriers?

Castle: I don’t think any language barriers affect my ability to connect with our team. I’ve been playing with Exyu all year, and just one more English speaker didn’t really change anything. Those two (Rahel and Darkwings) were really easy to deal with anything. They were always ready to get any feedback and learn from it. It wasn’t that hard to play with them.

Exyu: I think it went pretty smoothly. Darkwings and I have already played together in the past and were friends, so that was easy. Honestly, Rahel is one of the easiest teammates I’ve ever worked with, so there wasn’t much difficulty with the changes.

Darkwings: I had a lot of fun doing board games and group activities with the team and got to know them better as people that way. The Korean conversations were hard to follow, but it didn’t affect me as much as I would have thought.

Rahel: We got closer while playing games together, naturally, and all the team members were so nice.

Huhi: It wasn’t that hard to mesh well with each other because everyone was friendly. The language barrier wasn’t too big for me at least, because I speak both languages but Exyu and Darkwings probably had a harder time.

Q: With your season officially over for the year, how do you plan to wind down the rest of the year? What are you looking forward to the most in 2026?

Castle: We didn’t really have enough time to think about our break. I have to figure it out now. Most likely, I’m just going to take a rest. It’s been a long year. I want to try and focus on myself and play some other games. It’s too early to talk about next year. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. The only thing I can guarantee is I’ll do my best!

Exyu: I’m gonna go to China and Japan with my girlfriend and then probably just relax and try to read more. I’m looking forward to seeing how the off-season plays out for everyone, and hopefully I’ll be a part of a Worlds qualifying roster.

Darkwings: I plan to spend quality time at home for a bit to refresh myself. I’m hoping for more stage games in the future!

Rahel: I will be chilling at home and playing some solo queue. I am looking forward to qualifying for international matches.

Huhi: Just chilling at home and cleaning my house for now. I can’t wait to see how LCS will be in 2026. I am very excited to see and play next year!