The 2021 League of Legends World Championship is finally under way. Here is what went down between LNG and HLE.
Worlds 2021 is finally underway, 22 of the best teams in the world will be battling it out for the summoners cup. It was a battle between two regional giants as LCK's Hanwha Life took on the LPL's LNG Esports. Here is what went down in game one of the 2021 League of Legends World Championship.
Tryndamere locked in for game one of Worlds 2021
It would not be right to not start off Worlds 2021 without a banger of a draft. Both sides have come out with some aggressive picks specifically in the solo lanes. On the side of Hanwha Life we have Irelia and one of the most popular champions in the meta right now, Tryndamere. On the side of LNG, Qiyana, and Jax, two equally strong and powerful champions have been picked.
While we are used to LNG playing at a much faster pace in the LPL, this match was more of a traditional LCK style bout. This would not favor LNG the later the game went on, however, with HLE having solid scaling in multiple areas. As expected the first blood in this game did not come until ultimates started to come online. Tarzan and LNG were able to punish the flashless Deft to secure first blood.
Despite being ahead in multiple areas on the side of HLE, LNG focussed on the bottom lane as the LPL side were three kills to the good early on. A few minutes had past and LNG was unable to accelerate the pace of the game. A team fight in the bottom lane broke out for HLE with Chovy popping off to secure a 3-1 victory. The one saving grace for LNG at this point in the game was Ale's Jax.
In what should have been a straightforward mid-game for HLE, it was flipped on its head yet again. Hanwha Life simply could not control the game despite leveling out the gold and having an even number of dragons. LNG Esports simply picked apart HLE in the latter stages of the game. Eventually, LNG Esports would go on to close out the game and move to 1-0 to kick off Worlds 2021.
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A potentially worrying trend for Hanwha Life Esports
For Cloud9 fans hoping for a chance to see themselves avoid Group A, this is the best start they could have hoped for. Hanwha Life was poor and relied on the individual brilliance of Chovy to keep them in the game. Despite being a veteran Deft was still caught out on more than one occasion and HLE was punished for it. While it is only one game against probably the best play-in team, it would not be surprising to see HLE perform similarly against the other teams in their group.
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