LCK Summer 2024, T1 vs HLE: Fundamentals win against risks

The Korean Summer split comes to an end with banger matches! On September 7, 2024, the current World Champions, T1, played against Hanwha Life Esports in the lower-bracket final.

Considering that the future opponents, Gen.G Esports, have already qualified for the Worlds 2024, winning here means claiming one of the World Championship slots for LCK. Still, the T1 vs HLE result is not as predictable as you might think.

Here are all the details of the LCK Summer 2024 lower-bracket final between T1 and Hanwha Life Esports: the stream, live score, a brief match recap, and some extra details.

The YouTube channel LCK Global and the LCK Twitch channel streamed the LCK Summer 2024 lower-bracket final. The T1 vs HLE stream is also right here, embedded below.

This League of Legends esports match is of the Bo5 format. Both T1 and Hanwha Life Esports needed to secure three games to win here.

The LCK Summer 2024 lower-bracket final between T1 and Hanwha Life Esports demonstrated two generally different approaches of these teams. It felt like T1 players decided to go for various creative risks in their play, pushing in at various moments. HLE stuck to the classic fundamentals: sometimes they were aggressive in the early games, other times they were slow, but they always played carefully and thoughtfully. This brought success to Hanwha Life Esports.

While HLE looked simply strong in every game, T1 made plenty of mistakes and oversteps. They needed to respond to the actions of their opponents. The only game they won in this series wasn’t their domination as well, and it could go both ways. When Hanwha Life Esports celebrated a game victory (especially in g3), they were overpowered, unstoppable.

This feels like a well-deserved victory for Hanwha Life Esports. They are an interesting team to follow at the LCK Summer 2024 grand final and the League of Legends World Championship 2024.

T1 is not out of Worlds yet. They have a pretty good chance to qualify from the LCK Regional Finals 2024: T1 is in the upper bracket, and they need only one win against Dplus (the match is on Sept. 12).

HLE had a good start in game 1, with some mistakes from T1 helping them earn kills and a small gold advantage. After some very good offensive moves and a successful team fight, T1 secured Baron. But then, instead of resetting, they interfered with a Dragon fight, started by HLE. It turned out to be a disaster for T1, and their massive Baron win just evaporated. On their side, Hanwha Life Esports did not let this boost fade away without consequences. They won one more team fight and destroyed the Mid turret and Inhibitor. It looked like the game was already over. And that actually happened in just a few minutes, after another one-sided fight won by HLE.

Hanwha Life Esports got one point in the match score vs T1.

The first half of game 2 was much closer and had significantly less action. T1 had pretty good moments, but HLE supported this level with their well-planned responses. T1 were better at turret destruction (a lot thanks to their Ziggs pick). HLE were pretty dangerous in fights, and they started developing their kills advantage.

At around minute 27, T1 kind of misplayed their team attack. They pressed HLE to the wall and T1’s side of the map. But the opponents managed to run away, almost miraculously. This situation still turned out to be a win for T1, as they used it to secure Baron.

HLE were still strongly ahead in terms of kills, while T1 got around a 3k gold lead. The later-game team fights were insane! It looked like HLE would win in the beginning, but T1 did not give up and pushed their opponents pretty successfully (even with numbers disadvantage), finally closing the kills gap.

Then a massive team fight came, HLE overstepped a bit, and they paid dearly for this mistake. A good positioning from T1 let them eliminate the opponents, rush towards their base, destroy turrets with Nexus, and win the game.

T1 made the score even in the LCK Summer 2024 lower final.

Both teams were notably more active in this game. And HLE players got some success with their early offense. They were ahead with kills and gold. Zeka looked especially great with his Smolder! Faker on the other hand struggled with his Corki peak (Caps’ style did not work too well here) — and he got many deaths.

At some point, it became obvious that Hanwha Life Esports are super tanky in team fights, and T1 could do nothing about that. HLE were snowballing their success with impressive speed. After a great team fight on Mid, they just invaded T1’s base and tore it apart.

It’s a match point for Hanwha Life Esports!

Choosing the blue side theoretically could give some advantage to T1 and demonstrate their power in this series. But in fact, they weren’t just as powerless as in game 3. At least in the beginning, the battle was rather even, with good moments for both teams.

Closer to the mid-game, T1 started establishing their advantage — with some good kills and proper development of their champions. The teams traded turrets, and even if HLE were somewhat better at securing objectives, T1 looked somewhat better at other aspects. After a pretty good Dragon fight, HLE just couldn’t reset and T1 got two kills from that.

Still, the decisions of T1 were somewhat questionable, like starting Baron with not enough tanky power to defend from five players of HLE. 

Hanwha Life Esports with their objective hunting looked more solid. This was the power of a fundamental strategy against a risky creative play.

Another push for Baron did not work for T1 too, and HLE got their base smashed by HLE as a consequence of that move. They thoroughly destroyed T1’s Inhibitors and stepped back for a while, prolonging the desperate situation for their opponents. 

A ray of hope appeared for T1 in the following team fight, but the kills they got weren’t enough. A couple of surviving HLE players were enough to seal the deal with the Nexus.

Hanwha Life Esports win against T1, get their Worlds qualification, and a chance to face Gen.G in the LCK Summer 2024 grand final.

At first sight, it seems like T1 are the favorites in this match. They are the LoL World Champions 2023, and this certainly is the level to reckon with. In 2024, T1 were 3rd at the Mid-Season Invitational after losing twice to Bilibili Gaming. Also, T1 are the winners of the Esports World Cup 2024 — after defeating the Chinese team Top Esports, who previously eliminated Gen.G from the tournament.

Then, if you look closer, this previous experience doesn’t feel too relevant for the current situation. The period of shaky experience started for T1 right after EWC. Faker got into emotional troubles at some point, and that immediately was reflected in the team’s results.

During the LCK Summer 2024 Group Stage, T1 lost three matches: vs Gen.G, Hanwha Life Esports, and KT Rolster. They actually avenged KT Rolster in the opening Playoff match. But then, in the upper-bracket semi-final, T1 lost to Hanwha Life Esports again.

Now, they have a chance to prove themselves in the lower-bracket final against the same opponents — and then play Gen.G in the grand final. Could T1 overcome all their demons?

Considering the previous competitive experience of Hanwha Life Esports, this team was an underdog in their match vs T1.

The Playoff brackets from LCK Spring 2024 pretty much repeat the current situation. HLE defeated T1 back then in the semi, lost to Gen.G in the upper-bracket final, and then lost to T1 in the lower-bracket final. Still, this scenario did repeat itself?

Hanwha Life Esports still have been on the rise recently. From finishing regional splits 10th in 2022, they are 4th and 3rd (and 2nd) in 2023 and 2024. There is plenty of motivation to grow further.

As for a look into the future, the winners of the match between T1 and Hanwha Life Esports face Gen.G in the LCK Summer 2024 grand final, hoping for the ultimate victory in this split.

But the stakes are even higher. LCK has one World Championship 2024 slot for the Summer split. It should go to the winner. Considering that Gen.G is already in the Worlds after their MSI 2024 victory, anyone entering the grand final wins this qualification.

After that, two more LCK teams will qualify for the League of Legends World Championship 2024: LCK Regional Finals Winner and Runner-up. T1 are among the contenders there.

The LCK Summer grand final happens on September 7, 2024. The LoL World Championship 2024 starts on September 25. For League of Legends news and updates, stick around on esports.gg!