Match Prediction: Hanwha Life Esports - Kwangdong Freecs | LoL

Welcome to EGamersWorld.

Slowly but surely we continue to pick apart what's going on in the professional arena of the world League of Legends. Today's roundup is South Korea.

South Korea with its LCK is the apogee of competitive League of Legends. The best teams in the world play here and the play-offs of the spring split of one of the most prestigious, if not the most prestigious, league in the world begin here.

Among the contenders for the win, and with it two slots at the Mid-Season Invitational 2024, are place Hanwha Life Esports and Kwandong Freecs. They have the honour of opening the LCK Spring 2024 main stage with their bo5 series.

We are trying to find out which of the teams will be stronger and will advance to the next stage where they will play either Gen.G or T1.

Let's go.

Hanwha Life Esports uniforms

Let's open the match analysis with an analysis of Hanwha Life Esports' form. In this match, the team is playing the number one with odds to win at around 1.06.

HLE, being a solid mid-table team, are getting to the late stages of the regular split. Moreover, this started to happen only in 2023. Before that, in the 2022 season, HLE were the worst team in the race, twice taking the top 10 in regular splits.

They managed to improve by 2023, after a major Reshuffle. Two reigning world champions joined the HLE roster, which strengthened the club considerably.

• HLE roster: Doran, Peanut, Zeka, Viper, Delight.

With the addition of Zeka and Kingen to the HLE lineup, it was clearly more vigorous. So much so that they made it to the top 4 of LCK Spring 2023. The latest addition to HLE is Grizzly, a jungler who got promoted from the academic roster.

It seems to be working out pretty well. HLE finished in the top 3 in the regular season, which with teams like Dplus, T1 and other top teams is pretty good.

In the first play-offs match HLE warmed up against DRX. Nominally reigning world champions couldn't do anything against their visions and HLE easily closed the match with the score 3-0.

Then the situation was not so rosy: HLE ran into Gen.G and fell 0-3. The favour went to the bottom set of play-offs, but it did not save them for long.

Hanwha Life Esports faced KT Rolster in the first match of the last chance grid. The pressure was too hard and HLE was washed away: 0-3 and a play-offs exit, and at the same time not a pass to Worlds 2023.

They tried to make it to the Worlds in the regional finals, but again failed. The final LCK tournament of the season finished in the top 3, having failed to use either of their two attempts to qualify for the Worlds: they lost first to KT Rolster 1-3 and then to Ledge or DPlus KIA with the same score.

The LCK Spring 2024 Hanwha Life Esports regular season is in third place with a 15-3 record. And that's one of the best HLE results in team history. It's not often you get to play a regular season on par with T1, but HLE did at LCK Spring 2024.

Hanwha Life Esports Champions

HLE utilise a wide pool of characters on the top line. The most popular are Gnar (12 matches, 75% wins), KSante (5 matches, 40% wins), Ornn (4 matches, 75% wins), and Sion (4 matches, 50% wins).

Sejuani (9 matches, 11% wins), Vi (7 matches, 85% wins), Elise (4 games, 75% wins) appear most often in the forest.

Azir (9 games, 55% wins), Sylas (5 matches, 80% wins), Kassadin (5 matches, 80% wins), Akali (4 matches, 100% wins) appear on the centre line.

Shooters are chosen as standard: Zeri (11 matches, 63% wins), Varus (7 matches, 42% wins), Caitlyn (7 games, 57% wins), Lucian (5 matches, 80% wins).

The supporting heroes are Lulu (10 games, 70% wins), Heimerdinger (7 matches, 42% wins), Lux (6 matches, 66% wins), and Nami (4 matches, 75% wins).

Kwangdom Freecs Form

We continue our match analysis with an analysis of Kwangdom Freecs form. In this match they are playing as a number two, with almost no chance to win: the odds for Freecs success are at around 7.2.

Freecs are one of the weakest teams in South Korea, although one of the oldest. They have been playing on the LCK since 2016, but they have not managed to achieve any results.

The most successful year can be called 2018, when Freecs were twice in the top 3 at LCK (2nd place LCK Spring 2023, 3rd place at LCK Summer 2018) and made it to Worlds 2018. And there managed to reach the play-offs, but Ledgeili Cloud9, finishing in the top 8.

In the following years, they managed to reach the top 4 of LCK series tournaments four times. They finished Top-4 at the 2019 LCK Regional Finals, LCK Summer 2020, Top-3 at the 2020 LCK Regional Finals, and Top-4 at the 2022 LCK Spring.

In 2023, the Freecs failed in both LCK splits. First, they finished in the top 7 at LCK Spring without making it out of the group, and then they finished in the last, 10th, place at LCK Summer 2023.

• Freecs roster: DuDu, Cuzz, BuLLDoG, Taeyoon, Andil.

Freecs in the new season decided to strengthen Cuzz. The other four played for the club last season and the season before that.

Freecs will make their debut at LCK Spring 2024 with a match against T1. Obviously, they simply have no chance of winning there. Next up is HLE. Freecs have a busy calendar, nothing to say.

However, a difficult Long Corner did not prevent Freecs from reaching the LCK Spring 2024 play-offs. It was tough, but they took 7 matches out of 18 played, finished top 6 and made it to the main stage.

Most popular Freecs champions

The most frequent guest is KSante (10 games, 8 wins). Gnar (6 matches, 50% wins), less frequently Sion (2 matches, 100% wins) and Renekton (2 matches, 50% wins) appear.

The ubiquitous Maokai is ignored in the forest (he appeared only once and lost). But Vi (6 games, 100% wins), Elise (6 games, 60% wins), Sejuani (4 games, 75% wins) get quite a lot of attention.

The centre line is occupied by Syndra (7 games, 85% wins), Ryze (4 games, 0% wins), Talliyah (3 games, 66% wins).

From shooters like Lucian (5 matches, 80% wins), Varus (4 games, 75% wins), Zeri, Sivir and Caitlyn appeared 3 times each and only Sivir didn't win a single game.

Sapports: Nami (7 matches, 85% wins), Ashe (4 matches, 50% wins), Yummi (3 matches, 33% wins).

History of head-to-head meetings Hanwha Life Esports - Kwangdom Freecs

In the season 2024 the teams played each other 5 times. The statistics, to put it mildly, is deplorable for Freecs: no wins and only 1 map in 5 Bo3 series.

Predicted result of Hanwha Life Esports vs Kwangdom Freecs at LCK Spring 2024 Playoffs

Kwangdom Freecs has almost no chance in this game. Hanwha Life Esports is simply a different level of team. Only their result in the regular season speaks directly about the potential and very likely victory of HLE in the first match of LCK Spring 2024 play-offs, and the history of confrontations against Freecs only strengthens the confidence in the easy victory of HLE.

Bottom line: 3-0 win for HLE.