Wayne's Xayah Turns Game 4 for Dplus Kia at WSCI 2026
Down 3,068 gold at 15 minutes and staring at elimination, Dplus Kia Challengers roared back behind Wayne's Xayah to beat DN SOOPers in Game 4.
TL;DR: Facing elimination at the 2026 World Star Challengers Invitational, Dplus Kia Challengers overturned a 3,068-gold deficit at 15 minutes and beat DN SOOPers Challengers in Game 4, with Wayne's 4/1/10 Xayah spearheading a 15-10 comeback across 30:30.
Key Takeaways
- Wayne finished 4/1/10 on Xayah, a monstrous 14.00 KDA, carrying the fights that flipped a game Dplus Kia had no business winning. - Loopy posted 15 assists on Rakan without dying once, converting every skirmish into a won teamfight for Dplus Kia. - Dplus Kia closed the kill race 15-10 and took 7 towers to DN SOOPers' 2, banking 63.6k gold against 54.4k — a 9.2k swing from a losing early game.
The Deficit
The series stakes could not have been higher. DN SOOPers Challengers held a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-five, and Dplus Kia Challengers walked into Game 4 knowing a single loss ended their tournament. So when the early game went sideways, it looked like a formality.
It went very sideways. By the 15-minute mark DN SOOPers had built a 3,068-gold advantage, with Revenge's Kalista sitting +2,001 in the bot lane and DDoiV's Hecarim up 671 in the jungle. Flip's Akali was the only member of the roster underwater, at -296. Dplus Kia had been out-farmed, out-rotated and out-fought, and the scoreboard read like a warning.
The Swing
Then the game turned — and it turned around one champion. Wayne's Xayah had been kept quiet through the lane phase, but once Dplus Kia found a fight worth taking, the feathers started landing. Solid's Nocturne used his ultimate to blind the map and engineer picks, while Loopy's Rakan chained engages that left DN SOOPers unable to answer.
The comeback was structural, not lucky. Dplus Kia's draft leaned on Nocturne and Rakan as a pair that could force fights on its own terms, and that advantage materialised exactly as intended. Every kill translated into plates, then towers, then dragons. Dplus Kia claimed 2 dragons and 2 dragons for DN SOOPers stayed level, but the map control tilted hard.
Closing the Door
The decisive blow came at Baron. Dplus Kia took the Baron — DN SOOPers took none — and used the buff to bulldoze 7 towers against their opponent's 2. Jaehyuk's Varus finished a flawless 4/0/5 on the top lane, while Garden's Viktor did the quiet work at 4/4/12, absorbing pressure and returning it double. Flip's Akali clawed her way to 6/4/3, the lone bright spot in a losing effort, but DN SOOPers never found another angle.
At 30:30, the nexus fell. Dplus Kia had 63.6k gold to 54.4k, 15 kills to 10, and a game nobody expected them to win.
Polymarket Market
The market called this one close, and it was right to. At draft close DN SOOPers sat at 53% to Dplus Kia's 47% — effectively a coin flip, a far cry from the 76% series probability Dplus Kia carried roughly 90 minutes before Game 1. The draft itself made the case for Dplus Kia: their Nocturne and Rakan pairing gave them reliable engage that DN SOOPers never neutralised, and the pre-draft warning about DN SOOPers' weak Lulu structure proved prescient. Against the odds, the favoured side survived.
FAQ
Q: How did Dplus Kia Challengers overcome a 3,068-gold deficit at 15 minutes? A: Through Solid's Nocturne and Loopy's Rakan, the pair that forced fights on Dplus Kia's terms — 15 assists and zero deaths from the support turned skirmishes into a 15-10 kill win.
Q: Did the pre-draft prediction about DN SOOPers' Lulu structure hold up?
Largely, yes. DN SOOPers never found a stable engage package, and Dplus Kia's flex-heavy pool let them answer every draft response, ending with 7 towers to 2 and the only Baron of the game.
*Odds via Polymarket, 2026-09-27 12:27 UTC.*