LCK Summer 2024, GEN vs HLE: Tigers destroy the golden road

The achievement of Hanwha Life Esports in the LCK Summer 2024 split was already remarkable before this match. The team defeated T1 twice in the Playoffs and reached the grand final for the first time since rebranding from ROX Tigers. Moreover, Hanwha Life Esports qualified for the LoL World Championship 2024. Could they take one more step in this series of successes and defeat Gen.G Esports in the grand final?

There was no doubt that Gen.G Esports is currently on top in Korea. They won LCK Spring 2024. They are Championship points leaders. They’ve been dominating LCK Summer 2024. Gen.G needed one more thing to cement this status — the grand final victory against Hanwha Life Esports. It could be a five LCK titles for them and one more step towards the heavenly-amazing LoL golden road.

Everything about the LCK Summer 2024 match GEN vs HLE is here: the stream, live score, a recap, and some additional details.

The stream of the GEN vs HLE LCK Summer 2024 grand final is embedded below on this very page.

The winner of the LCK Summer 2024 split have been decided in a Bo5 match. It turned out that Gen.G and HLE needed all five games to determine the best LoL team in Korea this competitive season.

The LCK Summer 2024 grand final was super important for both teams. Gen.G had a chance to continue their domestic dominance and win five titles in a row, which would be an amazing record. It also could be a golden road attempt for them, after the MSI win. Hanwha Life Esports could return to their glory after a pretty long slumber. The creation of this team out of ROX Tigers caused a drop in tournament results, which could finish here.

Game 1 showed how shaky HLE were. They won it in a crazy comeback, while Gen.G looked just more solid. That impression about Gen.G intensified in games 2 and 3, where they inevitably developed their champions to overpowered monsters. It felt like Gen.G had the title in their pockets.

But then Hanwha Life Esports responded in a style. They did not let Gen.G win team fights. They played carefully and struck effectively. Both games 4 and 5 were absolutely brilliant for HLE, and the players totally deserve this moment of stopping Gen.G and winning the grand final.

Hanwha Life Esports are champions of LCK Summer 2024!

With this victory, HLE certainly deserve some extra attention at the soon-coming LoL World 2024.

The start of the first game treated us to a lot of offensive actions. Both teams got their kills, and HLE nicely supported the pace of Gen.G. Hanwha Life Esports even managed to go ahead in terms of objectives — specifically with Voidgrubs, to threaten Gen.G’s structures. Pretty soon, HLE took down the internal Mid turret.

Such a pressuring style brought Hanwha Life Esports around a 3k gold advantage. The aggression caused some overstepping moments, and they were severely punished by Gen.G, who got more kills in the game score.

In one pretty spectacular team fight, HLE were better at positioning and coordination. They also lost players but fewer than GEN.G, which allowed Hanwha Life Esports to secure Baron. The intermediate successes made HLE overconfident. They pushed too much in the attempt to take down the Top turret and lost two team fights, one after another. That was Baron for Gen.G. They used this power to push via Top and destroy the Inhibitor. 

The situation looked desperate for HLE when Gen.G destroyed the Mid Inhibitor and went for the Top one. But then, Hanwha Life Esports players surprisingly won a massive team fight near their base, killed every opponent, and used this momentum for a counter-attack. Just two HLE players were enough to destroy the turrets. And only one of them, with a few pixels of health, was enough to take down Gen.G’s Nexus.

With an incredible clutch, Hanwha Life Esports is leading the match score!

This time, Gen.G were much more notorious in developing their advantage. They did not risk it in a variety of situations, choosing a longer but safer approach.

HLE could not respond to this strategy. They also got kills and objectives, but the opponents were a step ahead with everything.

Closer to the game end, the draft picks and thorough actions on the map totally paid off for Gen.G. They isolated HLE players one by one and eliminated them easily. They postponed Baron to go for Textech Soul and eventually got both. They were like a destructive wave that took down HLE’s base and earned one point for the general match score.

Gen.G are so much back, making a statement with this well-planned and well-executed game.

Early aggression is the name of the game here. HLE had a promising start, but then Gen.G won a great team fight around Voidgrubs, which turned out to be disastrous for Hanwha Life Esports as they all died there.

With a slight kill advantage after the lane phase, Gen.G still could get more gold. To solve this, Gen.G hunted objectives, and the game was slowed down for a while.

One successful kill for HLE led to a big mistake. They took down an opponent on Top and decided to start Baron. As a result, Gen.G waited for a moment to strike back, eliminated a few HLE players, and secured Baron for themselves.

Soon, a gold gap reached 6k, in favor of Gen.G. And their LoL champions reached the level of becoming killing machines.

The situation with Baron repeated itself, when HLE attacked the creature, risking it all. Sure, Gen.G responded, pushed the opponents away, earned the Baron buff, started their siege, and destroyed HLE’s Nexus.

The match point for Gen.G feels logical after such a game.

It was the turn of Gen.G to overstep this time. Kiin and Canyon tried to hunt Doran near HLE’s Top turret but eventually got killed. Having a 3-kill and 1k gold advantage in the beginning should feel good for Hanwha Life Esports.

HLE successfully resisted team-fight attempts by Gen.G and secured amazing solo and mass kills. Map control was the main purpose of the mid-game for HLE’s team composition. After another failed team fight initiated by Gen.G, HLE got Baron, and their gold advantage reached 6k.

The problem for GEN.G was that when they collapsed on someone, they couldn’t get a kill and were severely damaged in response. 

With all the growing power in their hands, HLE still did not risk it but patiently developed their champions. When the moment came, they attacked their opponents — to kill as many as possible. After eliminating the full Gen.G twice, HLE won and took the LCK Summer 2024 grand final to the decisive game.

The game started slowly, with minimal action during the lane stage. Both teams were focused on thorough development.

At some point, Gen.G decided to get aggressive near HLE’s Top turret. The opponents responded with such power, that Gen.G players barely fled from that danger — not everyone, though.

In general, Hanwha Life Esports played carefully. However, in proper situations, they rushed forward to kill opponents and secure objectives. They got a kill, gold, and structure advantage. Like in the previous game, HLE managed to win fights set up by Gen.G.

The gold difference wasn’t drastic at all: only around 3k in favor of HLE. Everything could go both ways at around minute 30.

After a pretty long preparation around a Dragon, HLE won that fight and got Baron as a bonus. With this buff, they started destroying Gen.G’s base. It took them one more Dragon fight to make the final push and win this tournament.

Hanwha Life Esports won game 5 and the LCK Summer 2024 grand final!

The power of Gen.G Esports makes the team one of the best in the world, not only in LCK. In 2024, the team won the Mid-Season Invitational — and thus qualified for the LoL World Championship 2024.

On the regional scene, Gen.G were unstoppable for quite a while. They won both splits in 2023 and the Spring one in 2024. Victory in LCK Summer 2024 could be a nice gem to this crown. Considering that Gen.G defeated HLE in the upper final with 3:1, their win seemed to be quite an expected result.

Was there any hope for Hanwha Life Esports before this match? Absolutely! Not only is esports unpredictable by its very nature, but also, the team is on the rise now. HLE defeated T1 twice in the Summer Playoffs — and actually took the Worlds qualification out of their hands. They’ve been improving their performance and results substantially: 10th in both splits in 2022, 4th-3rd in 2023, and 3rd in Spring 2024.

Also, let’s not forget that even Gen.G fail sometimes. They were eliminated from the Esports World Cup after the very first match vs Top Esports.

For League of Legends news and updates, stick around on esports.gg! The LoL World Championship 2024 starts on September 25, and you’ll find here the full coverage of this tournament.