Second day of Week 2 in the LCK Round 3-5: two BO3s on the schedule. First up, BNK FearX handed OKSavingsbank BRION their first loss of the split on Thursday. In the second match, Hanwha Life Esports took down Nongshim RedForce, who started academy AD Carry Kim "Trigger" Eui-joo in place of regular starter Jung "Jiwoo" Ji-woo.

BRO held the lead in Game 1 with over 4,000 gold ahead but ended up dropping it in a tightly contested match. A standout performance from Lee "VicLa" Dae-kwang on Azir helped FearX close it out after 40 minutes. Game 2 was much more one-sided, with top and jungle stepping up to snowball the match cleanly. With this win, FearX now sit at 8-13 and move into second place in the Rise Group.

Viper Delivers Again

During HLE’s win over KT Rolster last week, Park "Viper" Do-hyeon was named MVP of the series — and once again, he earns the honor today against Nongshim. In Game 1, HLE opened strong with a toplane dive and an early kill bot side. From there, it was classic win-lane-win-game. Kim "Zeka" Geon-woo looked dangerous on mages once again, with his Orianna setting up several key plays.

To close out the LCK morning, HLE did have a few shaky moments — largely due to a solid Azir performance from Syun "Calix" Hyun-bin, a champion every Korean midlaner seems to master if he wants to play in the LCK. But the Kai’Sa draft around Viper gave him all the tools to do what he does best: finishing the series with a monstrous 14/1/8 and 88% kill participation. HLE now move up to 16-5 in the Legend Group standings, two wins ahead of T1 but still three wins behind Gen.G. On Friday, August 1st, the Legend Group will kick off the day with Gen.G facing KT, followed by Dplus KIA — who are expected to win against DN Freecs, a team stuck at the bottom of the table with eight straight losses and a 1-19 record overall.