Invictus Gaming Roster, History and 2026 Season

Invictus Gaming (iG) is a Chinese League of Legends organization, the 2018 world champion, and in 2026 a team built around a starting five of TheShy, Wei, Rookie, JiaQi and Meiko. The Invictus Gaming roster played the full LPL calendar this year and finished the season in the LPL 2026 Regional Finals, the last domestic step before Worlds.

The listed lineup is a veteran-heavy five with one name in every role: TheShy in top, Wei in the jungle, Rookie in mid, JiaQi in the bot lane and Meiko at support. Mid and top carry the most international experience, while the bot lane pairs a younger carry with a support who has played at the top of the LPL for years.

The coaching staff is four deep: Chengz, Helper, Fury and Kezman are all listed as coaches. None of them are part of the playing lineup.

iG’s 2026 is a season of close margins rather than collapse. The series record sits below even, but the game record is much closer to a coin flip, which tells you the team rarely got swept: it took games off most opponents and lost the deciders. That pattern points to a roster that can match anyone for a game but has struggled to close out a full series.

The side split is mild. iG has been slightly better on blue side, where the first pick lets it secure one of its comfort champions, and a touch weaker on red. Games run to roughly half an hour on average, so this is not a team that lives on early stomps or on dragging every game to soul point.

The bigger story is how many players iG used. Wei is the only constant, appearing in every game of the season. Around him, the team rotated three top laners (Soboro, Breathe and TheShy), three mids (Rookie, Renard and Nia), three bot laners (JiaQi, Photic and Assum) and two supports (Meiko and Jwei). Results tracked the lineup closely: iG won far more often with TheShy in top than with either of the other two top laners, and Meiko’s games were the better half at support.

Rookie is the steadiest line on the team, keeping his deaths among the lowest on the roster while scoring like a primary carry. Wei’s job is visible in his numbers too: high assists, controlled deaths and the full season’s workload. Meiko leads the regulars in assists, which fits a support who roams and sets up fights rather than one who sits in lane.

iG drafts around enchanters and engage in the bottom half of the map, with flexible tools up top. Lulu is the team’s most played champion, and Seraphine and Alistar both see regular use, so the support pool covers peel, poke and hard engage. Yunara is the main carry in the bot lane, while Jhin has been a weak pick for iG this year despite steady use.

In the jungle, Jarvan IV has been the standout: it is one of iG’s most picked champions and one of its best performers. Xin Zhao gets similar play but has returned much worse results, which suggests the team is better when its jungler can start fights from range with a knock-up than when it relies on a dive-and-duel pick. Rumble in top is the other comfort pick that works, and Ryze and Ambessa round out the solo-lane pool.

The ban list in iG’s games is led by Vi, Orianna, Jayce and Varus, a mix of jungle pick-off threats, control mages and poke. The telling detail is overlap: Jarvan IV and Rumble appear on both lists. They are champions iG wants and opponents know it, so when one is banned, iG has to fall back on picks that have not worked as well for it, Xin Zhao and Jhin being the clearest examples.

iG’s late-season form is better than its full-year record suggests. In LPL 2026 Split 3 the team beat LNG Esports and Weibo Gaming before dropping a series to Ninjas in Pyjamas.CN. It then strung together a run in the LPL 2026 Grand Finals, beating ThunderTalk Gaming, Top Esports, Team WE and LGD Gaming before losing a five-game series to Anyone’s Legend.

In the LPL 2026 Regional Finals, iG lost to Top Esports on 17 September 2026 and then beat JD Gaming on 19 September 2026. That is a team that wins most of its best-of-fives but has come up just short against the region’s strongest opposition. Every game of the run has its video linked in the results below.

For the international bracket and standings, follow every stage on the Worlds 2026 hub.

Invictus Gaming is one of the oldest names in Chinese League of Legends. Its first title was the China Regional Finals Season 2 in 2012, followed by LPL 2013 Spring and an international win at IEM Season 8 Singapore later in 2013. The team also won Nest in both 2016 and 2017.

2018 defines the organization. iG won LPL 2018 Spring, Rift Rivals 2018, LPL 2018 Summer and then Worlds 2018, closing the year with the Demacia Cup 2018 Winter. It was the first season in which an LPL team lifted the Summoner’s Cup, and it remains the high point of the brand.

The following two years kept iG near the top. It won the LPL 2019 Spring Playoffs, reached the top four at both MSI 2019 and Worlds 2019, and took LPL 2020 Spring. Its most recent trophy is the Demacia Cup 2025, which finished on 3 January 2026.

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