Knight LoL: Career, Champions and Worlds 2026

Zhuo Ding, known in pro play as Knight, is the mid laner for Bilibili Gaming in China’s LPL and one of the most decorated mid laners in League of Legends (LoL). He is known for a pool that covers control mages and assassins alike, with Ahri, Ryze, Orianna, Syndra and Akali among his signature champions, and for titles won with three different organizations: Top Esports, JD Gaming and Bilibili Gaming. His 2026 has been his most successful year yet on paper, with First Stand, an LPL title in every split and second place at MSI.

Knight’s 2026 is a clear step up on 2025 by almost every measure. Last season he played 180 games at a 61.7% win rate with a 5.13 KDA; this year he is carrying a similar workload, winning a clearly higher share of those games and dying less often, which pushes his KDA well above last year’s.

The interesting part is where the improvement comes from. His share of the team’s damage has held steady, so he is not taking more of the map’s resources than before. Instead his CS/min, gold/min and damage/min have all risen while his deaths have fallen, which points to cleaner laning and safer positioning rather than a change in role inside the team.

His kill participation has dipped slightly compared with 2025, and his pool is narrower than the 28 champions he played last season. Both fit a mid laner who wins lane, holds side waves and lets the rest of the map come to him, rather than one who has to roam to create leads.

Ryze is Knight’s most played champion in 2026 and also one of his most reliable, a rare combination at the top of a pro mid laner’s pool. Orianna and Syndra sit just behind it and have delivered on real samples, so Bilibili Gaming can draft any of the three as a blind or flex pick without giving up a lane.

Akali and Annie are the other picks that work on a meaningful number of games. Akali gives him a skirmish-heavy assassin option when the draft needs a carry, while Annie is the engage mage he reaches for when the team wants a quick, decisive teamfight. Cassiopeia and LeBlanc round out the winning side of the pool, though LeBlanc has not appeared since late May.

Not every pick has paid off. Aurora has been one of his busiest champions this year but has been far less convincing than his mage core, and Viktor and Ahri sit closer to even than his headline picks. Azir has gone badly over a small sample and has been shelved since April. Twisted Fate and Galio are pocket picks with too few games to judge.

If you want to try these picks yourself, the champion pages cover runes, builds and matchups for every one of them.

Across his career, Orianna, Taliyah, Ryze, Aurora and Ahri are the champions he has leaned on most, a list that shows how long control mages have been the base of his game.

Knight’s builds say he wants long games where his champion gets stronger every minute. On Ryze, Rod of Ages and Seraph’s Embrace are the fixed core, usually followed by Actualizer, with Chainlaced Crushers as his preferred boots. That is a scaling, mana-heavy setup that turns Ryze into a durable frontline mage by the mid game rather than an early skirmisher.

His Ryze rune page runs Deathfire Touch with Manaflow Band and Scorch, paired with Flash and Ghost. Ghost is the telling choice: it gives Ryze the movement to reach side waves and fights before his ultimate is up, and it lets him kite in teamfights where Teleport would be wasted.

On Orianna, Mejai’s Soulstealer is his most common pickup, a bet that he will stay alive and keep stacks through the game. Hextech Rocketbelt and Shadowflame give the champion the burst and reach to land her ultimate on engage. His Summon Aery page takes Second Wind and Overgrowth from Resolve, a sign he values lane sustain over early kill pressure on this champion.

Syndra is the most aggressive of the three. Blackfire Torch is his usual first item, and Arcane Comet with Triple Tonic and Cosmic Insight from Inspiration gives him poke and cooldowns for repeated stun windows. The rune pages come from fewer games than the item data, so treat them as his recent preference rather than a fixed rule. Items move with every patch, so check the patch notes before you copy a build.

Knight’s latest games come from the LPL 2026 Grand Finals against Team WE and Anyone’s Legend. Across those series he went wide in champion select, mixing his core mages Orianna, Ryze and Syndra with Akali, Annie, Aurora and Ahri, and adding Anivia and Locke as picks outside his regular season pool.

Watch his best Ryze, Orianna and Syndra games from this season below.

Knight’s career started with short stints before he found a long-term home. He debuted with Young Miracles in May 2017 for only a couple of weeks, then played for Suning from 26 December 2017 to 8 April 2018 and for Topsports Gaming from 20 December 2018 to 21 April 2019.

His breakout came at Top Esports, where he played from 21 December 2019 to 5 November 2022. In his first season there he won the Mid-Season Cup 2020 and the LPL 2020 Summer split and playoffs, then reached the semifinals (3rd–4th) at Worlds 2020. He added the LPL 2022 Summer title before leaving the organization.

He moved to JD Gaming for 2023, from 14 January to 19 November, and that single year produced the LPL 2023 Spring split and playoffs, the LPL 2023 Summer Playoffs, MSI 2023 and another Worlds semifinal. He joined Bilibili Gaming on 25 December 2023 and has stayed there since, winning LPL titles every year and reaching international finals in 2024 and 2026.

Knight’s record puts him among the most successful mid laners the LPL has produced. MSI 2023 with JD Gaming and First Stand 2026 with Bilibili Gaming are his international titles at Riot’s mid-season events, alongside the Mid-Season Cup 2020 with Top Esports.

Worlds is the gap. He has reached the semifinals three times and the final once, with 3rd–4th at Worlds 2020 and Worlds 2023 and 2nd at Worlds 2024, but the achievements list has no world title. Second places at MSI 2024 and MSI 2026 tell the same story: Bilibili Gaming under Knight routinely reaches the last match of an international event without closing it.

Domestically the picture is the opposite. Since joining Bilibili Gaming he has won the LPL 2024 Spring and Summer splits and both playoffs, the LPL 2025 Grand Finals and, in 2026, the Split 1 Playoffs, Split 2 and its playoffs, and Split 3.

Knight is at Worlds 2026 with Bilibili Gaming, which qualified as China #2. The team goes straight into the Main Event and starts in the Swiss stage on 23 October 2026, with the Knockouts to follow for the teams that advance.

Follow every stage on the Worlds 2026 hub.