Americas Cup preview: Odds, betting tips, favorites, and more

Naerlyn Published March 4, 2026

The Americas Cup is a new tournament that features the second and third best teams from the LCS and the CBLOL, while the respective first seeds head to the Mid-Season Invitational. The inaugural edition is set to take place from March 4 to 8 at the Riot Games Arena in São Paulo, Brazil.

League of Legends: Americas Cup odds

More League of Legends odds can be found here.

The four Americas Cup teams

The four teams participating are:

• 1. Cloud9 (LCS Seed #2)
• 2. Sentinels (LCS Seed #3)
• 3. RED Canids (CBLOL Seed #2)
• 4. FURIA (CBLOL Seed #3)

The Americas Cup format

The Americas Cup features a double-elimination bracket. The first two matches will be played as best-of-three series, while the next four will be a best-of-five series.

The format of the Americas Cup. Image source: Riot Games

Schedule and opening matches

• March 4 (1pm PST): Round 1 upper bracket match 1 (Cloud9 vs FURIA)
• March 4 (4pm PST): Round 1 upper bracket match 2 (RED Canids vs Sentinels)
• March 5 (1pm PST): Round 1 lower bracket
• March 6 (1pm PST): Upper finals
• March 7 (11am PST): Lower finals
• March 8 (12pm PST): Grand finals

Note: PST moves to daylight saving time on March 8th. In most of the world, the matches on Saturday and Sunday start at the same time (7pm UTC).

Americas Cup betting tips

While the CBLOL officially became a major region since the LTA split back into North and South America, this qualification exists in name only. Brazil generates far more hype than North America does, but their level is one step below that of the other major regions.

To make matters worse, all of NA’s top three have been solid this split. As such, every match between CBLOL and the LCS has the latter as a clear favorite.

Cloud9 is poised to win the tournament. North America’s oldest team was expected to win the LCS, but they were stopped in their tracks by LYON that stepped up massively as the split progressed. Before the finals, though, they had a game score of 12-1 while mostly facing the better teams in the competition.

The one worrying trend for C9 is the mistakes that they’ve displayed in their last series. APA got solokilled and fell far behind while having a counterpick, Vulcan had a very lackluster Bard performance, Blaber was in the shadow of Inspired, and Zven failed to be a carry. That said, this happened against excellent players, especially Inspired. Against weaker teams, APA and Blaber tend to show no cracks.

Sentinels, on the other hand, are a lesser version of Cloud9.

As for the Brazil representatives, RED Canids have shown consistent results this split, but in a way that doesn’t bode well for them. RED has won every match against the teams under them and lost against the stronger competition.

As such, they have already won against FURIA three times, but that puts Cloud9 and Sentinels as strong favorites.

Leveling up the competition

The Americas Cup. Image source: Riot Games

This tournament aims to maintain the healthy competition that took place between North and South America in 2025. On top of it, Riot is also using this opportunity to help the teams improve.

After the Spring Split, the third-place LCS team and the second- and third-place CBLOL teams will be provided a fully funded, two-week bootcamp in Korea during MSI 2026. The winner of the Americas Cup will join them. If the Americas Cup winner already qualifies for the bootcamp or for MSI, the fourth-place team from their league will receive this reward instead.

Read Also: Best League of Legends teams of all time: 2026 Edition

Featured Image Source: Heaven Wolf / Riot Games