LCK: HLE denies the golden road to GENG for the LCK Title

Jeong "Chovy" Ji-hoon's 4-title streak in his domestic league has been shattered. Hanwha Life Esports, led by Kim "Zeka" Geon-woo and Park "Viper" Do-hyeon, two players who despite having Worlds in their trophy case had never put their hand on the LCK, gave us a 5 games BO5 to take down GEN G and be the first non GEN-T1 LCK winner since 2021.

These LCK playoffs have paved a clear hierarchy in the LCK this season : HLE and GEN G stand far above everyone else, despite T1 and Damwon (the 3rd and 4th seed) themselves being clearly above KT and FearX. After a Winner's finals that saw HLE being short of solution to deal with Kim "Peyz" Su-hwan, HLE had the chance to warm up for GEN G against a much weaker T1 that barely avoided the sweep and was undoubtedly weaker both in the macro game and in every teamfight set up. A different approach allowed Viper to take the best upon Peyz.

Macro of both HLE and GEN has reached impressive heights, so much that both teams truly neutralized each other in that aspect and were condemned to win through sheer 5v5 teamfight. The early game turned into a support fight between Son "Lehends" Si-woo and Yoo "Delight" Hwan-joong to decide whoever of the two would be able to bring more impact to the map in the middle of numerous lane swaps. Neither of them could really take over during the BO5, although Lehends showed he was more at ease in the early game, Delight had more opportunities to shine later on, and even offered a masterclass at the moment it mattered the most : game 5.

Surprisingly, the matchup between Kim "Canyon" Geon-bu and Han "Peanut" Wang-ho didn't particularly strike as crucial in the BO5 even though both players delivered today. Peanut was however able to showcase his cold blood in the crucial teamfights in game 4 and 5 and was specifically key to HLE's dominant 2nd win in game 4 on his signature Maokai.

It is of course not the first time Zeka and Chovy faced off, however, the two korean midlaners have rarely fought over an elimination match since Zeka failed to reach finals since his god run in Worlds 2022. So far, Zeka has maintained his 100% Finals Win streak, and has repeated the 2022 semi-finals match against Chovy, where despite the latter's wonderful season, he couldn't show up when it mattered the most. Game 1 saw Chovy's Smolder losing on the edge to Zeka's Tristana in very late game (Viper also deserves huge credit for this last teamfight).

Game 2 was the occasion for Chovy to take his revenge on an Azir-Corki matchup he knows too well, but that was the only game where GEN G's midlaner was able to truly dominate Zeka. After that, it was either even between the two men, or largely in favour of Zeka. Chovy's last two games resembled his dark hours of choking in Worlds as he completely vanished, especially in game 5 when he had little to no impact outside of farming sidelanes.

Still, Chovy was at the centre of GEN G's masterful macro game that forced HLE into unreal teamfight performances to win the BO5. Kim "Kiin" Gi-in also had his share of highlights in the toplane, and was alongside Chovy to put on an excellent sidelaning presence, considerably extending the duration of games, which in game 2 and 3 was the crucial part of GEN's scaling plan that HLE had immense trouble dealing with.

Nonetheless, the teamfights were overall at the advantage of Hanwa Life. Viper completely took over every 5v5 and reminded Peyz that he had won worlds before he had his first ever LCK game. HLE were also able to be more decisive in their engages and had much better timings when it came to "pulling the trigger", something largely due to dive champions being more frequently picked, peaking at the Vi-Yone duo locked in game 5.