LCK regular season opening, will various variables cause a game change?
Mar 30, 2025
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With the 2025 LCK (League of Legends Champions Korea) regular season opening on April 2, players and coaches participating in the league picked Hanwha Life e-Sports as the strongest candidates.
Prior to the regular season, Hanwha Life Insurance won the LCK Cup, a kick-off competition held in January and February, and the following international competition's first stand with amazing performance. T1 and Gen.G., which formed a two-way structure for several years before the opening of the LCK Cup, were still considered favorites, but the situation has changed.
Of course, various variables influenced this, such as the change of the banpick method to the `Peerless Draft,' which naturally increased the power of the team with a wide range of champions, and the advantage of the team with strong bottom lines after the application of the patch to prevent line swaps (replaced by attack). In addition, unlike the previous year's method, which is divided into spring and summer, it will be held as a single season from this year, so it is absolutely necessary to maintain constant power.
The coaches and key players of the 10 teams who went on the regular season media day held at LCK Arena in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 26th said "The goal is to continue good performance without getting tired as long as the breathing has been prolonged."
In addition, eight of the 10 teams predicted Hanwha Life as the favorite, while D-Plus Kia and Hanwha Life ranked T1, which has a strong bottom line battle, next. There were also many evaluations that the aspect of the game has changed significantly since the application of the line swap prevention patch. Hanwha Life Jungler 'Peanut'Han Wang-ho wrote, "It feels like Jungler's movement has gone back to the past, and the possibility of intervention in the other jungle area and the diversity of movement have increased significantly."'Owner' of T1 Jungler 'Moon Hyun-jun also welcomed "The location of the opponent Jungler was obvious because the jungle movement felt restricted during the line swap strategy, but as line swaps became more difficult, much more diverse movement can be envisioned.'
Regarding the Peerless draft, it is expected that the number of users who want to play along with the fun of watching the competition will increase with the emergence of various champions, and that the red camp's advantages, which were considered relatively disadvantageous, will also have a significant impact on the regular season as well as the previous two competitions.
LCK Secretary-General Junghoon Lee said, "In line with the changes applied to LoL esports in 2025, LCK will also begin to make major changes" and "LCK in 2025 will evolve by changing the way it operates in a single season and one winning team is decided, while at the same time changing financial operations such as GRP based on digital content sales, that is, the introduction of a global sales pool system.'
The regular season will kick off with a match between Hanwha Life Insurance and Gen.G on April 2. The first and second rounds are the same as before, with all teams facing each other twice, and the third and fifth rounds following the MSI (mid-season invitational) will be divided into two groups based on their performance in the first and second rounds and compete three times in the best-of-three series per group.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
