What is the game change that appeared in the first stand of this year's first international competition?
Mar 16, 2025
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Hanwha Life Insurance, which represents Korea, won the group stage, and also shut down LPL's TES 3-0 in the semifinals on the 15th, lightly confirming its run to the finals. Earlier in the semifinals, Carmine Cope won the final match of Hanwha Life after a full set battle with CFO, who represented the LCP (Asia-Pacific).
The first 'First Stand' held this year was clearly different from the previous international competition.
Although Hanwha Life Insurance was considered the strongest, it dominated the semifinals without any crisis, while Asia-Pacific, which integrated the league with Korea's archrival, the Chinese team, and the European team's re-emergence, remained strong, but the Americas still failed to recover their competitiveness.
First of all, the biggest reason for this is considered to be 'Peerless Draft'. For the first time, the Banpick method, which cannot utilize the champions used in the previous set, began to be hired in earnest at international competitions, and as a result, many champions who had rarely appeared in practice appeared, and the team's strength in preparation for this was a natural result at a time when there were many variables to respond to.
In the case of Hanwha Life Insurance, it showed a tremendous background of beating rival teams such as T1, Gen.G., and D-Plus Kia 3-2 after a full set battle in the LCK Cup Playoff, a kickoff competition before the opening of the regular league, and through this, it is analyzed that it continued to dominate other regional teams because it participated in the competition with its champion utilization and anti-pic tactics in the most important practice.
It is also expected that the adoption of the peerless draft will reduce preference for the blue camp, which is generally ahead of the winning rate, and that the balance with the red camp will naturally continue in the future. Unlike in the early stages, many teams with camp choices often choose red camps themselves to select champs who will respond appropriately according to the opponent's champion's choice, showing this trend.
In addition, the fact that many teams have only about two months to match their hands and feet by replacing a large number of lineup also greatly affected their performance. Hanwha Life Insurance is a member of the team that the other four players, except for the top position 'Zeus', have already worked together last year, and Choi Woo-je, who was recruited as an FA, is also a world-class player who has been proven to lead the LOL World Cup to its second consecutive victory in T1. On the other hand, in the case of TES, Seo Jin-hyuk of 'Canabi' and Liu Ching-song of 'Crisp' are new members, so they still lack teamwork, which is only 4th place with 1 win and 3 losses in the group stage This was the reason why they were completely defeated by Hanwha Life Insurance in the semifinals.
Carmine Koff beat the regional rival G2 e-sports, making it to the finals for the first time in international competitions, heralding European teams' strength this season. CFO, who was the representative of LCP, which integrated Southeast Asia such as Taiwan and Vietnam, also showed that regional competitiveness was recovering with an unexpected performance of defeating all regional teams except Hanwha Life Insurance in the group stage. On the other hand, LTA's representative team Liquid, which includes all regional leagues such as North America, Latin America, and Brazil, still failed to make up for its weakness in recent years, as it failed to reach the semifinals at the bottom of the group stage.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
