TL vs CFO at Worlds 2026: Friday, Oct. 23, at 6 p.m. ET, with the LCS champion in a best-of-one

North America’s champion plays its first Worlds game on home soil against the LCP’s runner-up. Here’s when TL vs CFO starts in every time zone, who plays and how both teams got to Texas.

What time is TL vs CFO?

Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at 6 p.m. ET (Oct. 24 at 7 a.m. in Seoul and Tokyo, 3:30 a.m. in India), which is 3 p.m. PT and 5 p.m. local time in Allen, Texas. Riot’s official schedule lists it as the sixth of eight Round 1 games in the Worlds 2026 Swiss Stage. G2 Esports vs. Dplus Kia comes right before it at 5 p.m. ET, and T1 vs LOS follows at 7 p.m. ET.

Each game starts when the previous one ends, so the 6 p.m. slot shifts later on a day of long games, and by the sixth game every delay of the afternoon adds up. All eight games are at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, north of Dallas, which hosts the Swiss Stage, the quarterfinals and the semifinals before the final moves to Brooklyn on Nov. 14.

TL vs CFO time around the world

For Team Liquid’s fans across the US, it’s a Friday evening game: 6 p.m. on the East Coast, 5 p.m. in Texas and Chicago, 4 p.m. in Denver and 3 p.m. on the West Coast. In Taiwan, home of CTBC Flying Oyster, the game starts at 6 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, and in Korea, home of Team Liquid’s CoreJJ, at 7 a.m. Saturday. Vietnam watches at 5 a.m.

Europe gets a late slot: 11 p.m. Friday in London and midnight in Paris and Berlin. Brazil watches at 7 p.m. Friday and Mexico City at 4 p.m. Clocks in Europe change on Oct. 25 and in the US on Nov. 1, so these times hold only for this game.

Team Liquid: the LCS champion

Team Liquid Alienware spent the first half of 2026 chasing LYON. LYON beat Team Liquid 3-1 in the playoffs on Feb. 27, beat it again 3-2 on May 24 and swept it 3-0 in the LCS final on June 14. Team Liquid still reached MSI 2026 in Daejeon, South Korea, where it swept Relove Deep Cross Gaming and Karmine Corp 3-0 each in the Play-In knockouts, but T1 beat it 3-0 twice and ended the run on July 1.

The fall belonged to Team Liquid. It swept FlyQuest 3-0 on Sept. 20, beat Cloud9 Kia 3-1 on Sept. 27 and finally beat LYON, 3-1 in the LCS final on Oct. 4, to take the LCS’s first seed. The lineup in that final was Morgan in the top lane, Josedeodo in the jungle, Quid in the mid lane, Yeon as the bot laner and CoreJJ as the support. CoreJJ won Worlds in 2017 with Samsung Galaxy, and Team Liquid was in Tier 1 of the Swiss Stage draw.

CTBC Flying Oyster: the LCP runner-up

CTBC Flying Oyster, the Taiwanese team, took the long road in the LCP. Its first two playoff runs ended early, with a 3-1 loss to Ground Zero Gaming on Feb. 13 and a 3-2 loss to MVK Esports on May 23. The third split went much better: CFO beat MVK Esports 3-2 and Team Secret Whales 3-2 in the August Play-Ins, a win over the team that took all three LCP titles of 2026.

In the playoffs, CFO swept MVK Esports 3-0 on Aug. 20, lost 3-0 to Team Secret Whales on Aug. 23, beat MVK again 3-1 on Aug. 29 and lost the final 3-0 to TSW on Aug. 30, which made it the LCP’s second seed. The lineup in that final was Rest in the top lane, Shad0w in the jungle, POUT in the mid lane, Doggo as the bot laner and Kino as the support. CFO played neither First Stand nor MSI, so Round 1 is its first game at a Riot international event in 2026.

Who wins TL vs CFO? Our pick

Our pick is Team Liquid. The LCS title came against LYON, the team that finished third at MSI and pushed the eventual champion to five games, and Team Liquid’s 3-0 sweeps of Relove Deep Cross Gaming and Karmine Corp at MSI show the roster beats international opposition outside the top tier. The draw tiers agree, with Team Liquid in Tier 1 and CFO in Tier 4, and Team Liquid plays in front of a home crowd in Texas.

CFO’s case is its August upset. A 3-2 over Team Secret Whales proves the roster has a higher ceiling than its final results show, and a best-of-one gives a prepared underdog one draft to land a plan. Both teams play on Patch 26.20, the Worlds patch, so the patch 26.21 changes stay off the stage. Our Worlds 2026 Swiss Stage page has all eight matchups and the tiers.

How to watch TL vs CFO

Riot’s official LoL Esports broadcast carries every Worlds game on Twitch, YouTube and the LoL Esports site, and official co-streams pick up the same feed. Swiss Stage Pick’Ems lock before the first game at 1 p.m. ET on Oct. 23, five hours before TL vs CFO, as our Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems page explains.

The winner goes 1-0 and plays another 1-0 team in Round 2 on Saturday, Oct. 24, also a best-of-one, while the loser drops into the 0-1 pool. Three match wins sends a team to the quarterfinals, and three losses sends it home. The day ends with LYON vs. Team Secret Whales at 8 p.m. ET, a rematch of their MSI series. For every match and result, see our Worlds 2026 schedule.

This page is updated as soon as TL vs CFO ends, with the result and the winner’s Round 2 opponent.