Top Esports' ZUIAN Set to Miss Worlds 2026 After Two US Visa Denials; 369 Steps Back In

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 — Top Esports is set to miss its starting top laner at the League of Legends World Championship 2026: the club announced Tuesday that Cheng "ZUIAN" Zihao was denied a United States visa after two failed interviews and is "temporarily unable to travel with the team," per TES's statement, with veteran Bai "369" Jia-Hao stepping back into the starting lineup.

Every year, it seems, some team's Worlds dreams get decided not on Summoner's Rift but in a consulate waiting room. This year it is Top Esports — and the timing could hardly be worse for the breakout top laner who carried the LPL squad to the Split 2 Grand Final and through international competition this year.

The full statement, as reported by Insider Gaming, is worth reading in full because of what it does and doesn't say:

"ZUIAN is temporarily unable to travel with the team to the host location at the earliest opportunity. 369 will join the starting lineup. At the same time, the team and ZUIAN are doing everything they can to secure a third visa interview. The club will continue to do its utmost to explore the possibility of participating in S16 together with ZUIAN, while also actively adjusting our training schedule and tactical preparations to deal with this unexpected situation."— Top Esports, via Insider Gaming

"Temporarily" is doing a lot of work there, but the door is genuinely still open: TES has not ruled ZUIAN out and is pushing for a third interview before the tournament begins. The team did not disclose why the first two applications were denied.

Who ZUIAN is — and why this stings

This would have been ZUIAN's Worlds debut, and that is what makes the timing so brutal. The young top laner moved into TES's starting lineup earlier this season and immediately became one of the LPL's breakout stories: he helped the team reach the LPL Split 2 Grand Final, made his international debut at MSI, and locked in TES's qualification for Worlds as China's third seed. For a player who spent the year building toward exactly this stage, having it hinge on a bureaucrat's stamp is the kind of gut-punch esports doesn't forget.

And let's be honest about the competitive stakes: top lane is where games at Worlds are won and lost in the current meta, and swapping your starter nine days before the Play-In Stage even begins — with the Swiss Stage starting October 23 — is a nightmare scenario for any coaching staff. TES says it is "actively adjusting" its training schedule and tactical preparations — which is club-speak for "we are rewriting the playbook with a different player and very little time."

Enter 369: the known quantity

If there is a silver lining for TES fans, it is that the replacement is not some academy gamble. 369 is 25, has played at five previous World Championships — including the last two with TES — and knows the organization's systems inside and out. This is the definition of a known quantity.

The caveat is rust. 369 hasn't played a competitive match since March, when he stepped away from competitive play for a break. Coming back cold into the highest-pressure tournament in League of Legends, against the best top laners on the planet, is an enormous ask. Experience counts for a lot at Worlds — rookies melt under the lights every year — but there is no simulating best-ofs against Gen.G or T1 in a practice room. TES will find out very quickly whether the break sharpened him or dulled him.

The coaches are stuck too

ZUIAN isn't the only one with paperwork problems. According to a report from LPL content creator Summoner Park, two of TES's coaches are also fighting visa battles: He "BoBo" Wen-Bo has reportedly failed his second interview, while Li "Leo" Yu-Ming was set to take his second interview on Thursday. Weibo posts translated by @lolvaleiker go further, claiming head coach Chang "Poppy" Po-Hao is currently the only coach to have received a visa. TES has not announced whether the coaches will be temporarily replaced, and these reports remain unconfirmed by the club — but if true, TES could be heading to Texas without its starting top laner and most of its coaching staff.

This is the part that should embarrass Riot. Back at First Stand earlier this year, Riot's global head of LoL esports Chris Greeley insisted the company would work with teams to avoid exactly this kind of disruption. And yet here we are, nine days out, with one of China's top seeds scrambling for a third interview. Visa issues are an old, ugly tradition in international esports — but "old tradition" is not the same as "acceptable," especially when the game's own leadership promised to fix it.

What happens next

The immediate question is the third interview. If ZUIAN gets it and passes, TES gets its starter back and this becomes a stressful footnote. If not, 369 starts the Swiss Stage on October 23 in Allen, Texas, and TES's Worlds run — as China's third seed, alongside Anyone's Legend, Bilibili Gaming and Invictus Gaming — gets a whole lot harder.

Either way, this is a story worth watching beyond the result. The LPL earned a fourth Worlds seed this year after Bilibili Gaming's runner-up finish at MSI 2026, and the region arrives as arguably the deepest in the tournament. Whether TES arrives whole is now up to a consulate. In esports, sometimes the hardest opponent doesn't play the game at all.

Catch up on the tournament with our Worlds 2026 countdown preview and this week's gaming roundup.