The first week of LoL Esports in 2025 was an exciting start to the year!
The first week of the League of Legends (LoL) competitive scenario is already over, but many interesting and funny things happened. Let's walk through the highlights of the #1 week of Split 1. Every week from now on, esports.gg will be giving weekly highlights of the major events of the pro play scene.
Weibo's double victory on the LPL
Not many different things happened in the LPL this week. However, we have to highlight the huge start of Weibo Gaming with two victories: one against OMG and the other against UP. They weren't a surprise to a team like Weibo. But LNG, on the other side, ended up losing against TT when everyone thought that was very unlikely. You can check all the match schedules and results here.
The Chinese league also had an incredible moment with Kim "Doinb" Tae-sang, a very popular Chinese player who took a career break and is now back on the competitive scene. His team, Ninjas in Pyjamas, won against Invictus Gaming, which also returned Kang "TheShy" Seung-lok. The moment was marked with a huge celebration of Doinb which showed fans how happy he is to return to the competitive scene.
Los Ratones' winning debut on the NLC
Even though it's not a major league, it's important to highlight the debut match of Los Ratones with a great performance and victory against NORD Esports. It's a great start for the team and one of the LoL highlights of the week. Not only did Los Ratones make a huge debut, but also coach Caedrel's stream had a peak of 160k views at their debut match. This broke the league's previous viewership record by over 1000%.
Ruler vs Viper on the LCK Cup
One of the most amazing LoL highlights of the week was the comeback match of Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk in the LCK. The old "battle" between Ruler and Park "Viper" Do-hyeon surfaced on the first week of the LCK Cup 2025. With an amazing performance against HLE, Gen.G won one of the most anticipated matches of the week. Ruler proved his very integrated on the Gen.G team like he never left.
Another huge moment of the LCK Cup was the first-ever non-Korean player winning his debut match. DRX Trần "LazyFeel" Bảo Minh, a 17-year-old LoL player from Vietnam, had his debut on the major tier with an incredible performance that led his team to victory. It's important to remind you that LazyFeel was called last minute to replace Teddy who had flu. LazyFeel, as a Vietnamese, has also some difficulties communicating in Korean, but even despite all odds, he managed to make great games.
On the remaining matches, T1 ended up losing their first match to Dplus KIA but redeemed themselves by winning against DRX.
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Karmine Corp destroys G2 Esports
The LEC started on January 18 with one of the best games of the next weeks: Karmine Corp against G2 Esports. With Caliste "Caliste" Henry-Hennebertand and Martin "Yike" Sundelin (ex-G2 Esports jungler), KC was not the easy target that could have been years ago. People were excited about this match between beasts since Caliste had been called the next prodigy of League of Legends. Against many odds, G2 Esports ended up losing the game with a diabolical Karmine Corp.
They came thirsty for blood and they got what they wanted: victory. It was an amazing game from KC and one of the LoL highlights of the week. We can't wait to see how is this team potentially leading them. Karmine Corp also won their second match of the week against Movistar KOI. G2 Esports lost their second match of the week, showing a bad start on the season from one of the favorite European teams.
Levi ran away from retirement
The LCP is back with a great championship. This is also an important tournament because of Đỗ "Levi" Duy Khánh, one of the most iconic Vietnamese players in the world. During his participation in the LoL Worlds 2024, his retirement resurged as a probable thing to happen after the tournament. However, at 27 years old, Levi ran away from retirement and resigned for another year. It's still GAM time!
GAM Esports won their first match against Fukuoka SoftBank HAWKS (SHG) by 2-1. They ended up losing the second match against MGN Vikings Esports by 2-0.
Major leagues' match schedules
Here are all the schedules for the major LoL leagues.
That's all for now. Stick around for more League of Legends news and updates on esports.gg.
