The age-old rivalry of the LPL vs. the LCK kicked off the 2021 League of Legends World Championship today in the form of LNG Esports thwarting and responding accordingly to every attempt at a play that Hanwha Life Esports made. Top laner Ale produced a 6/0/8 scoreline on Jax, while ADC Light went 7/2/6 in LNG’s 41-minute victory.
Both LNG and Hanwha are the clear favorites to make it out of the play-in stage’s Group A, which means that whoever won this match took the first game of the tournament and set the tone for how the group could look moving forward.
The match started off fairly slow with Hanwha showcasing the desire to get Morgan ahead in the Irelia vs. Jax matchup with multiple plays on the top side. But LNG thwarted each and every one of their attempts while also responding accordingly across the rest of the map, giving them a solid lead.
This showed early indications of a possible one-sided beatdown to start Worlds. That wasn’t the case right away, though. With clever plays and responses to LNG’s initiatives—particularly in the bottom lane—Hanwha got themselves back on track.
Once that happened, fights between the two teams started to finally take place across Summoner’s Rift and LNG’s superior teamfighting showed up. Hanwha mid laner Chovy’s Tryndamere quickly proved to be unable to function in fights and LNG managed to combat the new meta pick by clumping up for every engage. The early one-sided beatdown indications were right.
Thanks to LNG’s refusal to give Hanwha more than an inch on the top side, and their countermeasures for Chovy in teamfights, the LPL team captured the tournament’s first win and have now set the tone of what to expect from them in their future matches.
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