NA League 2026 Event #9 (Regular Season Week 7)

by YELLOW •

Every set this week could have been mistaken for a Grand Finals set in any other tournament

On Saturday, May 30th, the second-to-last Regular Season event of Nintendo’s Splatoon 3 North American League brought household names head-to-head, for set after set of matchups that could easily be—or have previously been—saved as the best for last. Next week will conclude the Regular Season of the League, and after a one week break, teams will be back for the two-day Playoffs to determine the champion.

Fortunately, there was a bigger crowd participating this week compared to last week, and the Top Cut was full of faces we’ve all seen here plenty of times before:

Cream Soda
NME
Healbook
Duck Motif
Hypernova
Content Cat
lfn
Moonlight

Nine, Mellana, and Rissa hosted the stream, which lasted just over four hours, and Power was working the spectator camera, bringing the best we’ve seen yet.

Winner’s Quarterfinals: Cream Soda vs. Moonlight (3–0)

What a treat that the Top Cut began with a matchup fit for Grand Finals! Both teams were highly anticipated to advance to the Playoffs in June. Cream Soda blazed through the Ladder Round and through the Winner’s Quarterfinals. They won all nine sets in the Ladder Round, including sets against Moonlight and four other teams present in Event #9’s Top Cut.

Their set began with Splat Zones at Robo ROM-en, which was the closest game between these teams, where Cream Soda won 95-72. Museum d’Alfonsino Rainmaker saw Cream Soda win again, 73–40. Cream Soda closed the set with a 100-to-0 knockout at MakoMart Tower Control, cementing just how locked-in the team was.

Winner’s Semifinals: NME vs. Content Cat (3–0)

In case Cream Soda vs. Moonlight wasn’t enough of a premium set to appear early on, following that was NME vs. Content Cat, a repeat of last week’s Grand Finals. NME was looking as impressive as ever, winning all eight games in the Ladder Round—six of which were against teams who made it to the Top Cut, including Content Cat.

NME started the set with a knockout victory at MakoMart Splat Zones. Content Cat put up a bigger fight at Shipshape Cargo Co. Tower Control, but NME still came out the winner, 82–55. One more knockout, at Undertow Spillway Rainmaker, sealed NME as the set victor and saw them advance to Winner’s Finals against Cream Soda.

Winner’s Finals: Cream Soda vs. NME (3–0)

Another stacked set, now between winners of NA League weekly events. NME had 3–0’d lfn and Content Cat to make it to Winner’s Finals, and Cream Soda had just come from a 3–1 win over Duck Motif. In the Loser’s Bracket, a close 3–2 win over Hypernova had Moonlight moving forward to meet Content Cat; Healbook had swept lfn 3–0 and would be facing Duck Motif.

Winner’s Finals started with Splat Zones at Undertow Spillway. Some early fights gone unfavorably left NME far behind Cream Soda’s lead of 17, but despite more often than not being at the numbers disadvantage, NME put up a strong showing to try catching up. With seconds left, one player on NME disconnected, right before Cream Soda wiped out the team and knocked out, winning game one.

Both teams brought an N-ZAP ‘85, Snipewriter 5H, and Heavy Splatling to Tower Control at Urchin Underpass. Cream Soda waited until NME was down most of their players to make a serious push, getting all the way to 56. From there, the game met in a stalemate for the next few minutes, until a delayed wipeout let Cream Soda extend their lead. NME earned their first points in the last five seconds, but only earned seven, losing the game 7–61.

NME tried an anchorless comp for Clam Blitz at Inkblot Academy, bringing two mid-range Shooters, a Custom Blaster, and Splat Dualies. Within 20 seconds, they had three players go down, and this would be a recurring pattern, giving Cream Soda the chance to score to 50 in one push. The game was brought into overtime, where NME was wiped out, resulting in a 50–0 win for Cream Soda, to advance to the Grand Finals.

After Cream Soda’s push ends, everyone moves to mid. NME makes an effort to ensure no one is sharking behind them, but Gos avoids detection and allows Xenith to jump in.

Loser’s Semifinals: Moonlight vs. Duck Motif (3–2)

Moonlight vs. Duck Motif was a commonplace matchup from the 2025 League, and one that favored Duck Motif more than the latter. Seeing these teams take one another to a game five set was a surprise to no one.

Mahi-Mahi Resort Splat Zones was a knockout for Duck Motif, where Moonlight would have been the team anticipated to win. Moonlight responded with two wins in a row; one at Museum d’Alfonsino Clam Blitz (77–43), and one at Crableg Capital Turf War (52%–45%). Duck Motif claimed the win at Undertow Spillway Rainmaker, 80–64, bringing in Tower Control at MakoMart, where Moonlight won by just one point, 61–60.

Loser’s Finals: NME vs. Moonlight (1–3)

Moonlight was also well acquainted with NME from last year’s NA League, where most of NME played under the team fofofo. They faced one another a handful of times, reaching its highest point during the Playoffs, where Moonlight beat fofofo, ending their Playoffs run in third place.

Again, Mahi-Mahi Resort Splat Zones was the choice for game one. Moonlight was in control of the zone when the water level dropped, which gave NME the space they needed to wipe Moonlight out, stopping them at 39. NME held the zone long enough to take the lead, and although they lost it again, it was only for a brief time before they made it to the knockout, claiming the first win of the set.

NME tried their anchorless Clam Blitz comp from earlier again, and again they were punished early and down three players. DATMENACE! made up for it, getting a triple and opening up a path for NME to score—only to 80, as they were wiped out afterward. Moonlight scored next, tying 80–80, and pushed back to 81 once the basket closed. Moonlight set up a Big Bubbler under the basket to safely score again, taking the lead to narrowly win the game, 32–30.

In overtime, NME groups up to make a push to the basket, led by an Ink Vac. Omega gets a triple with one dash slash, saving the game for Moonlight.

Moonlight attempted a new comp with Custom E-liter 4K and Luna Blaster Neo at Undertow Spillway Rainmaker. They ran the Rainmaker up the right-side path, taking the lead. After popping the shield, NME pressed forward, unaware of a shark behind them, which got Moonlight’s score to 41. NME cleared their own checkpoint, but could not take the Rainmaker far enough for the lead, giving Moonlight another win, 59–53.

Turf War at Inkblot Art Academy—not Tower Control—was a classic example of “only the last 30 seconds matter”. Moonlight struggled a fair amount, finding themselves down players frequently, resulting in the Danger! flag above their heads. They locked in for the last 40 seconds, taking NME down players instead, and with the clock and the odds against them, won 58.2%–37.7%.

Grand Finals: Cream Soda vs. Moonlight (3–1)

The Grand Finals set brought Event #9 to a closed circle, with the first and last set on stream being between the same two teams. Like last week, the underdog of the Grand Finals had been sent to the Loser’s Bracket round one and fought their way up the bracket. Moonlight had an exhausting journey so far, full of game five sets—would their endurance hold up against Cream Soda?

Like every other set on stream, the match started with Splat Zones, again at Robo ROM-en. Moonlight was almost a different team since the Quarterfinals, able to take and hold the lead. Consistent ability to splat enemies before they could use their special and quickly painting over specials that were used saw Moonlight win game one, 88–78.

Back to Turf War so soon, at MakoMart. Each team already had one player splatted in the first ten seconds, which was representative of the rest of the game. Most Turf War games were lighter on splats, but this one was anything but. In the last minute, Moonlight faltered and returned to having that Danger! marker overhead. Cream Soda outpainted their opponent this time, 54.3%–43.7%.

Tower Control at Crableg Capital saw Wave bring in the E-liter 4K, making a world of difference for Cream Soda. They cleared their first and second checkpoint by the halfway point; from there, they focused their efforts on keeping Moonlight locked out of mid. Overtime occurred, but there wasn’t enough time for Moonlight to get back on the tower, resulting in a 13–85 loss.

Three players on Moonlight taken down, all splatted by Wave, Cream Soda’s E-liter 4K player. Soon after, Wave completes the quad and gets the last player.

One last repeat map/mode, Rainmaker at Museum d’Alfonsino. Cream Soda kept taking Moonlight down in pairs, shutting down any openings for pushes. Within a minute, Cream Soda had their first checkpoint, and later ran the Rainmaker to 34 before Moonlight earned any points. The game went into overtime, and Cream Soda splatted the Rainmaker carrier, earning them the 66–16 win, and second Regular Season victory!

With the penultimate week of the Regular Season at a close, thoughts turned toward which teams were most likely to qualify for the Playoffs. A handful of teams playing this week earned their fourth Regular Season weekly score, making them eligible if they had enough points after the final event.

One team who has occupied everyone’s minds with thoughts about when they would return, FTWin, recently announced that they would no longer be participating in the rest of the 2026 NA League. [K]yo, the team’s captain, broke the news on social media, citing that the main reason for FTWin’s absence was due to conflicting schedules.

With or without FTWin, the climb for the lower spots in the Top 8 roster who make it to the Playoffs is more competitive than last year, with several teams able to make major waves on the leaderboard if they can get one last good placement during Event #10.

Don’t miss the conclusion of the ten-week League on June 6th!

Original Posting Date: June 2, 2026 at Splatoon Stronghold.

Written and formatted for publication by YELLOW.