The South Korean region enters a turbulent zone. There are 4 teams left in the chase for the championship, $287,000 and two berths to the Mid-Season Invitational 2023, and after this bout they are already 3.
KT Rolster and Hanwha Life Esports will battle it out for the top 3. The duel, at first glance, should not bring any revelations: it seems that the outsiders simply have no chance to win.
KT Rolster came into the play-offs from third place in the group stage. The team finished the regular season 13-5, one point short of the top 2.
Hanwha Life Esports played the group stage with a score of 10-8, which gave them the right to qualify for the play-offs. Here, they repeated the path of KT Rolster, with a few caveats.
Let's sort out who the Underpassdogs of the tournament will qualify for the top 3, where they will face off against the loser of the T1 match, Gen.G, in their next match.
KT Rolster form
Let's start the match review with an analysis of KT Rolster's playing form. In this match, they will have to play in the status of the favourite, which is quite logical.
The bookmakers in this match put KT Rolster as the future winner of the match. The odds on KT Rolster's success are at 1.3.
Arguing with such a statement is rather difficult. KT Rolster proved their worth in the regular season, and then established themselves as a strong participant in the South Korean division.
KT Rolster roster
KT Rolster roster is very solid, despite the hard times before the LCK Spring 2023. The result is a very stable and combative squad.
KT Rolster players
The names are all good, and the execution is on a level. Again, go back to KT Rolster's results during the regular season and all questions will fall away.
The best KT Rolster performer over the course of the tournament is topper Kiin. He became the MVP of the regular season 7 times during the regular season and also took two MVP titles during the play-offs.
Everybody was marked. Aiming and Bdd have been MVP 6 times, Lehends 5 times and Cuzz 4 times. Cuzz, as well as Kiin, was marked twice in the play-offs, and Bdd once.
KT Rolster's performance
Last season, still with a slightly modified line-up, the squad took the top 4 at the LCK Regional Finals 2022. That time they were beaten by DRX.
In the new year, KT Rolster had a very confident run through the LCK regular season. The team won 13 series and lost 5 games: a 28-15 performance on the cards.
KT Rolster Long has been in the play-offs since the first round of the main stage. The first opponent was SANDBOX Gaming, whom KT Rolster predictably shut out 3-1, and the best player of the match was the "engine" KT Cuzz.
In the next round, KT Rolster played against a global powerhouse and the menace of South Korea, T1. The encounter, surprisingly, proved to be extremely close and ended only 51 minutes into the match with T1 winning.
KT Rolster champions
KT Rolster's favourite top line champion is Jax (7 matches, 100% wins). Camile (5 matches, 40% wins), KSante (4 matches, 25% wins), Renekton (4 matches, 75% wins), Gnar (3 matches, 33% wins) are still coming up.
There's much less variety in the woods. The most popular are Wukong (12 matches, 41% wins), Sejuani (11 matches, 63% wins). There's also Vi (5 games, 60% wins).
The centre line is all by the meteor. The most popular: Ryze (5 games, 40% wins), Azir (5 games, 80% wins), Syndra (4 games, 25% wins), Yone (4 games, 100% wins), Twister Fate (3 games, 100% wins), Taliyah (3 games, 66% wins).
The preferred shooters are Zeri (10 games, 70% wins), Ezreal (7 games, 100% wins), Lucian (5 games, 0% wins), Varus (5 games, 60% wins).
Karma (10 games, 80% wins), Lulu (7 games, 71% wins), Nami (6 games, 16% wins) appear the most often on support.
Hanwha Life Esports uniforms
Let's move on to a review of Hanwha Life Esports' game uniforms. In this match, they are playing in catch-up status.
The bookmakers do not believe in the success of HLE. The odds on their win are in the region of 3.
You look at the number and it looks like HLE have a good chance of success. Digging deeper, you realize that this is unlikely to affect the bottom line.
Hanwha Life Esports line-up
In terms of names, HLE does not Ledgeaat KT Rolster in terms of recognition and "name calling". At Reshuffle before the 2023 season, the team was strengthened by two 2022 World Champions.
Hanwha Life Esports players
The incoming players helped HLE qualify for the tournament play-offs, and by a large margin. All thanks to top performers.
The most successful regular season LCK Spring 2023 player was Viper who won 8 MVP titles. Zeka who was brought in at the beginning of the season, has also shown a good game. He's been MVP for 7 times and Clid for 5 times.
Kingen was also noted with 4 MVPs, however the play-offs were a much more important point. There, the most effective player was Zeka, who showed a benchmark game against Dplus, and also in the match against Gen.G, where mid laner HLE showed a top performance in a completely lost match.
Hanwha Life Esports performance
Hanwha Life Esports finished the LCK Spring 2023 group stage in 5th place in the standings. The team finished it with a stage of 10-8 and 24-21 on the cards.
In the first round of play-offs, HLE played against DPlus where they had less chance of winning due to their opponent's big name roster, but no such luck. HLE literally closed the game in class with a score of 3-1.
Next they met Gen.G. It seemed that after a successful debut against an equally high-profile tag, HLE could "slam" Gen.G as well, but it didn't work out: the LCK Summer 2022 champions outplayed Hanwha Life Esports 3-1.
Hanwha Life Esports champions.
HLE use 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), 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 games, 80% wins), Kassadin (5 games, 80% wins), Akali (4 games, 100% wins) appear on the centre line.
Of the shooters they choose: Zeri (11 matches, 63% wins), Varus (7 matches, 42% wins), Caitlyn (7 matches, 57% wins), Lucian (5 matches, 80% wins).
Of the supporting heroes are Lulu (10 games, 70% wins), Heimerdinger (7 matches, 42% wins), Lux (6 matches, 66% wins) and also Nami (4 matches, 75% wins).
History of head-to-head encounters
The teams have played each other in the group stage of LCK Spring 2023. KT Rolster have outplayed HLE twice, only giving up a card once.
The outcome of the match
I don't expect a competitive matchup in this one. While HLE is attractive to me, I don't see how they will outplay KT Rolster.
KTR were better in the regular season, played better in the play-offs. Let alone if KT Rolster played 2-3 against T1, and that's already an indicator.
Bottom line: a win for KT.
LGD Gaming
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