The LCK is finally booting back up for the 2021 season, starting out with an exciting match between T1 and Hanwha Life on the first day of the regular split.Â
It will be an intense match when T1 and Hanwha Life kick off the split. The match is looking to be a battle between two of the best mid laners in the league when T1’s Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok takes on the young star Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon who recently joined Hanwha Life.Â
Fans have already seen Hanwha Life in action since its roster revamp during the offseason. Hanwha Life participated in the KeSPA Cup 2020, where the team was knocked out of the semifinals by world champions DAMWON who went on to win the cup. Hanwha Life was the only team to take a game off of DAMWON and definitely showed some promising signs.Â
With the former DRX duo of mid laner Chovy and bot laner Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu on the roster, Hanwha Life has a great core to develop a competitive team. Playing alongside the two stars are some younger players, who will hopefully learn a lot from two proven stars. Right from the get-go, these players might struggle against top teams like T1 so Hanwha Life will likely spend some of the spring split to develop as a team.Â
For T1, this will be the first game in a long time. T1 fielded its Academy team at the KeSPA Cup 2020, giving the main roster a longer break before heading into a long 2021 season. T1 had a relatively disappointing 2020, as the team missed out on qualifying for the 2020 World Championship.Â
In 2021, Faker and the rest of T1 are back to get revenge, and beating Hanwha Life would be a great start to reclaiming the LCK throne. T1 hasn’t made many changes in the offseason, with the one addition being new starting support Ryu “Keria” min-seok. This change alone seems like one of the best pick-ups for any team in the LCK, giving T1 fans renewed hope for success.Â
Keria has proved himself as one of the best support in the region at just 18 years old. He is very versatile and could synergize very well with T1 bot laner Park “Teddy” Jin-seong.
A match between T1 and Hanwha Life will automatically put a lot of focus towards the mid lane. Faker versus Chovy is always a nail-biting matchup and a battle between the greatest of all time and one of the biggest upcoming talents. As of 2020, Chovy was without a doubt the best performer of the two but Faker should never be underestimated.Â
T1
Hanwha Life
The first match of the season is always hard for fans and experts to predict, but the bookmakers give T1 a big advantage this time around. T1 has a solid team like last year, with several talented young players that can step in if the veterans are underperforming. Hanwha Life has some great players as well, but the team is very new and will likely need some time to build up synergy.Â
This is why the lines have T1 at 1.31 while Hanwha Life is at 3.15. The match is a best-of-three so a lot will have to go right for Hanwha Life to pull off a win.Â
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