T1 vs Hanwha Life Esports: The Korean derby for the Worlds 2021 semi-finals

The first game day of the decisive playoff stage of LoL’s major tournament of the year, the World Championship 2021, will take place on Friday, October 22. T1 and Hanwha Life Esports will compete for the semi-finals.

The World Championship 2021 is the premier tournament in the eSports discipline, League of Legends. The 2021 edition of the premier international LAN tournament takes place in Iceland and features 22 teams from around the world. The tournament takes place from October 05 to November 06, 2021, and has a prize pool of $2,225,000.

T1 is a Korean eSports team run by T1 Entertainment & Sports, a joint venture between SK Telecom and Comcast Spectacor, formed from SK Telecom T1 K and SK Telecom T1 S. They were previously known as SK Telecom T1.

In an attempt to develop a young squad before the 2021 season, T1 managed to sign Keriya from DRX, replacing Eforth. This squad finished 4th in the Korean Championship in the spring of 2021, with T1 being heavily criticised for many player replacements during the regular season. In the summer of 2021, coaches Daeny and Zefa were fired from the team, right in the middle of the split, with Stardust and Moment becoming interim coaches. This team finished second in the summer split, losing to DAMWON Gaming in the final, but Team T1 managed to secure a trip to Worlds 2021 by beating Hanwha Life Esports 3-2 in the regional final.

At Worlds 2021, the Korean team started straight from the group stage. They qualified to Group B, which they won comfortably after losing only one BO1 match out of six. T1’s opponents in the group were Chinese EDward Gaming (who upset T1 once in the second round), Americans from 100 Thieves, and the obvious outsider of the tournament, Japanese DetonatioN FocusMe. It was very important to take first place in this group to avoid meeting with the giants in the quarterfinals. HLE is no gift, but the T1 boys have managed to beat them in their domestic championship more than once.

Hanwha Life Esports is a Korean eSports organisation.

Ahead of 2021, the Korean LCK Championship was announced to move to a franchise league format, with Hanwha Life Esports becoming one of 10 teams to compete. Ahead of the regular season, the 2020 KeSPA Cup allowed the team to showcase their new line-up for the first time, consisting of Morgan, Arthur, Chovy, Deft, and Vsta. The team qualified for the playoffs by going 2/-/2 in the group stage and beat Gen.G Esports in round 6. In the semi-finals, they lost to champions DAMWON Gaming. This squad exceeded expectations in the spring, finishing 3rd in the regular season, ahead of even T1. The line-up remained the same in the summer, but Arthur was replaced by Wheeler mid-season. The Hanwha Life Esports team finished 8th in the summer season with a 7/-/11 result. Despite this, they qualified for the regional finals thanks to their place in the spring, and thanks to victories over SANDBOX Gaming and Nongshim RedForce, Hanwha Life Esports was able to qualify for Worlds 2021.

This Korean team started only from the Play-In round, where they had no particular problems. However, they had some difficulties with the Chinese LNG Esports, who defeated the Koreans in the first round of their subgroup A and sent the HLE team to the mini-playoff for the last two permits to the group stage. Hanwha Life Esports defeated resistance from Beyond Gaming (3-0) and quietly qualified for the group stage.

More often than not, it is difficult for Play-In stage outfits to compete for the World Championship playoffs, but Hanwha Life Esports surpassed all expectations. The boys finished second in Group C, only losing to Royal Never Give Up in the tiebreak. Behind them were serious teams such as PSG Talon and Fnatic. Can these Koreans make it to the semi-finals of Worlds 2021? T1 has already been beaten many times. Tiredness is out of the question. The breaks between stages are decent, so there is enough time to prepare for the quarterfinals, and what is there to study? The opponents in the Korean championship are well known.

The Koreans from T1 will get the first map, so I suggest betting on their Handicap (-5.5) frags for 1.83.

Overall, the exact score of the match will be 3-1 in favour of T1; odds on that are 2.85.