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The LCK Spring 2024 group stage is heating up. We have reached the last day of the first week of battles in the most titled and strongest region of League of Legends, which means that soon we will be able to summarise the intermediate results of the events.
And closing the week will be Freecs with a match against Hanwha Life Esports. The match, let's be frank, is not the hottest, but still The International is interesting. And all because they play LCK residents, and it is the best league in the world, as we said above.
Let's try to figure out who will be stronger in this match and earn extra points in the standings ahead of the new week's Long Game, and who will have to move on to the next week of LCK Spring 2024 with an extra loss.
Let's get started.
Hanwha Life Esports.
We start the match analysis by analysing Hanwha Life Esports' form. In this match the team will play as favourites, with odds to win at around 1.1.
HLE, being a solid mid-table side, can make it to the late stages of the regular split. And it only started to happen in 2023. Before that, in the 2022 season, HLE were the worst team in the race, twice finishing in the top 10 in regular splits.
They managed to improve by 2023, after a major Reshuffle. Two reigning world champions joined the HLE roster, which strengthened the club considerably.
- HLE roster: Doran, Peanut, Zeka, Viper, Delight.
With the addition of Zeka and Kingen to the HLE lineup, it was clearly more vigorous. So much so that they made it to the top 4 of LCK Spring 2023. The latest addition to HLE is Grizzly, a jungler who got promoted from the academic roster.
It seems to be working out pretty well. HLE finished in the top 3 in the regular season, which with teams like Dplus, T1 and other top teams is pretty good.
In the first play-offs match HLE warmed up against DRX. Nominally reigning world champions couldn't do anything against their visions and HLE easily closed the match with the score 3-0.
Then the situation was not so rosy: HLE ran into Gen.G and fell 0-3. The favour went to the bottom set of play-offs, but it did not save them for long.
Hanwha Life Esports faced KT Rolster in the first match of the last chance grid. The pressure was too hard and HLE was washed away: 0-3 and a play-offs exit, and at the same time not a pass to Worlds 2023.
They tried to make it to the Worlds in the regional finals, but again failed. The final LCK tournament of the season finished in the top 3, having failed to use either of the two attempts to qualify for the Worlds: they lost first to KT Rolster with a 1-3 score and then to Ledge or DPlus KIA with the same score.
HLE will start their LCK Spring 2024 journey with a match against DRX. They should have no problems there.
Champions Hanwha Life Esports
HLE utilise a wide pool of characters for the top line. The most popular are Gnar (12 matches, 75% wins), KSante (5 matches, 40% wins), Ornn (4 matches, 75% wins), and Sion (4 matches, 50% wins).
Sejuani (9 matches, 11% wins), Vi (7 matches, 85% wins), Elise (4 games, 75% wins) appear most often in the forest.
Azir (9 games, 55% wins), Sylas (5 matches, 80% wins), Kassadin (5 matches, 80% wins), Akali (4 matches, 100% wins) appear on the centre line.
Shooters are chosen as standard: Zeri (11 matches, 63% wins), Varus (7 matches, 42% wins), Caitlyn (7 games, 57% wins), Lucian (5 matches, 80% wins).
The supporting heroes are Lulu (10 games, 70% wins), Heimerdinger (7 matches, 42% wins), Lux (6 matches, 66% wins), and Nami (4 matches, 75% wins).
Freecs Form
We continue the match analysis with an analysis of the Freecs form. In this match they will play as Underpassdogs, with odds to win at around 6.5.
Freecs are one of the weakest teams in South Korea, although they are one of the oldest. They have been playing on the LCK since 2016, but they have failed to achieve any kind of performance.
The most successful year can be called 2018, when Freecs were twice in the top 3 at LCK (2nd place LCK Spring 2023, 3rd place at LCK Summer 2018) and made it to Worlds 2018. And there managed to reach the play-offs, but Ledgeili Cloud9, finishing in the top 8.
In the following years, they managed to reach the top 4 of LCK series tournaments four times. They finished Top-4 at the 2019 LCK Regional Finals, LCK Summer 2020, Top-3 at the 2020 LCK Regional Finals, and Top-4 at the 2022 LCK Spring.
In 2023, the Freecs failed in both LCK splits. First, they finished in the top 7 at LCK Spring without making it out of the group, and then they finished in the last, 10th, place at LCK Summer 2023.
- Freecs roster: DuDu, Cuzz, BuLLDoG, Taeyoon, Andil.
Freecs in the new season decided to strengthen Cuzz. The other four played for the club last season and the season before that.
Freecs will make their debut at LCK Spring 2024 with a match against T1. Obviously, they simply have no chance of winning there.
Freecs' most popular champions
The most frequent guest is KSante (10 games, 8 wins). Gnar (6 matches, 50% wins), less frequently Sion (2 matches, 100% wins) and Renekton (2 matches, 50% wins) appear.
The ubiquitous Maokai is ignored in the forest (he appeared only once and lost). But Vi (6 games, 100% wins), Elise (6 games, 60% wins), Sejuani (4 games, 75% wins) get quite a lot of attention.
The centre line is occupied by Syndra (7 games, 85% wins), Ryze (4 games, 0% wins), Talliyah (3 games, 66% wins).
From shooters like Lucian (5 matches, 80% wins), Varus (4 games, 75% wins), Zeri, Sivir and Caitlyn appeared 3 times each and only Sivir didn't win a single game.
Sapports: Nami (7 matches, 85% wins), Ashe (4 matches, 50% wins), Yummi (3 matches, 33% wins).
History of head-to-head meetings Freecs - Hanwha Life Esports
The teams have previously played each other 4 times during the 13 competitive season. Freecs have not won a single match.
Predicted result of Hanwha Life Esports vs Freecs at LCK Spring 2024
In this match, everything is very simple and pretty straightforward. Freecs are in danger of becoming one of the worst teams at the end of the season, and at the Long Run of the LCK regular season their opponents will be T1 and then Hanwha Life Esports. Both matches would end disappointingly for the Freecs and the team would go into the second week 0-4.
The result: a 2-0 win for HLE.
