It’s a stage that Luo “ON” Wen-Jun is familiar with in his fourth year with one of China’s League of Legends powerhouses, Bilibili Gaming.
So, the expectations are the same when Luo and the rest of BLG take the stage on Monday for their opening round match against BNK FEARX at First Stand 2026 in São Paulo, Brazil.
Nothing short of a win will be enough.
“The target is definitely the champion for the team,” Luo said.
BLG has won practically everything there is to win when it comes to China’s League of Legends Professional League (LPL). Since Luo joined the team for the first Spring split in 2023, BLG has never finished worse than fifth in any LPL split. They’ve qualified for the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) and the World Championships throughout Luo’s time in the support role.
But while domestic success has been seemingly easy to come by, BLG has been on the precipice of winning a major international event on more than one occasion.
In three appearances, BLG has finished second twice (2023 and 2024) and fourth (2025), losing to top Korean team Gen.G (2024) and Chinese rivals JD Gaming (2023) and Anyone’s Legend (2025).
BLG has also had strong showings at the World Championships, peaking with a five-game finals loss to T1 and legendary mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok in 2024.
The run of success highlighted how much the team has grown in Luo’s three-plus years. BLG went through a culture shift, requiring the team to come together as a cohesive unit rather than an individual collection of stars. The work has paid off.
“We kind of didn’t really concentrate that much into the game, and we just played individually, like all the lanes, we just do our parts,” Luo said. “But now we realize, it’s a teamwork game. We really need to make sure all five of us are on the same page.”
Much of it has to do with Luo being a stable force in the bottom lane at support. He was named to the LPL’s All-Pro Second Team in the first split. He’s tallied approximately 8,400 assists with a kill participation rate of 70.5 percent through 824 stage matches.
He’s experimented with 44 different champions in his career, but there is something special about the game’s overall meta through one split. He’s seeing a growing importance in the bottom lane’s role.
“The bot lane played an even more important role this split,” he said. “Team synergy really counts a lot.”
One of the things that has him excited about the current state of the game: Annie’s flex pick potential. Annie, a character with powerful abilities, is mostly used in the mid lane, but Luo said there is potential for the pick to move into the support role given the aggression in the current landscape. To date, Luo has one game with Annie in a support role.
While understanding the meta is valuable, at the end of the day, execution will be needed if BLG plans to shed its lack of international trophies. BLG ranked fourth in the first World power rankings and was the highest-placed non-Korean team.
They will face the 13th-ranked team in BNK FEARX, who finished second in the last LCK split. They will need to win back-to-back matches to advance into the same bracket as Gen.G, widely considered to be the best team in the world.
Regardless of who BLG plays, Luo and his teammates will view this as an opportunity to show the world that Korea isn’t that far ahead of the LPL.
“I’m super excited that we got the chance to have matches against those very strong teams,” he said. “Hopefully we can really showcase our talents against them on the stage.”
BLG has been on this stage before. He knows what it takes to get close. The question is now whether close is finally enough.
Paul Delos Santos covers the Fighting Game Community and Riot Games ecosystem for The Sporting Tribune and Inside Esports, a newsletter publishing every Tuesday and Friday. Subscribe at insideesports.media.