LoL Worlds 2024, HLE vs BLG: The Chinese brackets formed

BLG had a somewhat shaky run in the Swiss stage of Worlds 2024. The Chinese team went through two losses — basically, Bilibili Gaming lost every time they faced someone from the LoL Pro League (LPL) and LoL Championship Korea (LCK). That can’t be too reassuring for the fans. 

Hanwha Life Esports had relatively the same experience, but they needed one match less to qualify for the Knockout stage. They still lost to Gen.G, a powerhouse from the home region.

In the Swiss stage, both teams defeated PSG and G2. HLE got a tough victory over FlyQuest. BLG destroyed MDK on the opening day of the League of Legends World Championship 2024 (LoL Worlds 2024). 

Then, it was time for HLE and BLG to take a step further in the brackets or get eliminated from the event. Hanwha Life Esports and BLG (Bilibili Gaming) played in the quarter-final — all the details are here.

The HLE vs BLG stream is embedded below on this very page. The teams played on Oct. 18.

As it’s a LoL Worlds 2024 quarter-final, the format is best-of-five (Bo3). Both Hanwha Life Esports and BLG had extra opportunities to adapt to the opponents, adjust their game plan, and win this match. 

While the match started promisingly for Hanwha Life Esports, it did not end well for the Korean team. BLG were better at this marathon. They recovered after losing Game 1. They smashed their opponents so hard in Game 2.

Both Games 3 and 4 were very close and could go both ways. HLE had really good chances to turn the direction of this match at least to the decisive game, but the right champion picks and great coordination by BLG did not allow that to happen.

BLG won the quarter-final to form the Chinese bracket in the Knockout stage of LoL Worlds 2024. They proceed to the semi-final and face WBG, who defeated LNG in their quarter-final.

After a pretty slow start, HLE earned their early massive advantage around the second set of Voidgrubs. BLG wanted all six of these creatures, but HLE attacked and killed four opponents. Still, BLG secured a Grub to have four in total and be effective at turret destruction.

The game did not fall apart for BLG after that situation. The action slew down for a while, and the BLG players used this period to recover from their gold disadvantage and even go slightly ahead.

This balance continued till a Baron fight. HLE positioned themselves perfectly to take Ahri of knight out of the equation, secure the objective, and run to safety. That Baron buff wasn’t enough to finish the game, though: HLE had an unsuccessful mid-push. But they secured one more Dragon soon and achieved an Ace in the following fight.

When BLG hoped to get themselves the next Baron, they became victims of their poor vision control. HLE jumped on the opponents out of the fog of war, killed them all, and destroyed their Nexus. Hanwha Life Esports earned one point in the LoL Worlds 2024 quarter-final.

During the draft phase, BLG banned some champions of their opponents from game 1: Poppy, Sylas, and Ezreal. Also, they picked some of their previous bans: Yone, Sejuani, and Xayah. 

The start of the game proved those were the right choices, especially Yone. BLG confronted HLE perfectly this time. Around minute 15, they got all six Voidgrubs, two Dragons, six kills, and one turret. When HLE managed to respond in fights, they were already 7k gold down. Even overstepping during a siege attempt was okay for BLG with such an advantage.

After securing the third Dragon, BLG smashed the opponents and destroyed their Nexus. The Chinese team made the score even.

As for interesting picks in game 3 between HLE and BLG at LoL Worlds 2024, we can note Zeri on Viper, which is unusual for this event, and Wukong on XUN, taken for the first time in the series (Levi from GAM is so good on the monkey).

Hanwha Life Esports secured three Voidgrubs in the classic trade for a Dragon with BLG. A bit later, they got the first two kills. The intensity faded away after that, and both teams worked hard on developing their champions — in the safest way possible.

When Herald was launched by HLE, BLG collapsed successfully, killing the creature and a few opponents. BLG liked the taste of blood, so they became more active in initiating team fights — and soon they went ahead in terms of kills.

Bin on Gnar was the biggest might for BLG. He accumulated a lot of gold and became a real threat to the opponents. The advantage of Bilibili Gaming was quite substantial. Even when HLE players positioned themselves nicely around a Dragon and secured this objective, they fell dead pretty soon, making this achievement insignificant. BLG used that moment to start Baron. And in a soon-coming team fight, BLG killed every HLE champion, marched towards their Nexus, and got a match point in this quarter-final.

HLE banned Wukong for this game, but XUN made another interesting pick and took Kindred to the jungle. HLE got Gnar back. BLG picked Galio.

The first half of this game was pretty even — in a variety of aspects. The teams just traded kills and objectives to power up their champions. When the fights finally started, BLG were simply better, even if the gold difference did not exist at that point.

One amazing team fight changed that! HLE started it, secured it, and killed all the opponents in the process. Hanwha Life Esports went out of this with a 5k gold advantage.

BLG weren’t easy victims, though. They delivered an Ace just a few minutes later. And they contested HLE in a massive super-close and chaotic fight around Baron. The Mountain Soul and Baron were another milestone for them in this game — and it led directly to HLE’s Nexus destruction.

BLG is a big player in the international LoL esports scene. The team reached second place at the Mid-Season Invitational 2024, which is a nice result even if BLG lost to Gen.G. The team was 3rd-4th at Worlds 2023 and 2nd at MSI 2023.

Hanwha Life Esports was formed from another Korean team, ROX Tigers, in 2018. HLE had a somewhat prolonged forming period, but they reached the top in 2024 by defeating Gen.G in the LCK Summer split and becoming the #1 team in Korea.

The previous big international presence for HLE was the LoL World Championship 2021, where they finished 7th-8th. The big success did not start for BLG back then, and they did not compete in that tournament.

The head-to-head record for BLG and HLE starts with their LoL World 2024 match.

There will be two more quarter-finals at the LoL Worlds 2024 Knockout stage: TES vs T1 and GEN vs FLY. After that, the tournament continues with semi-finals — on Oct. 26 and Oct. 27. For all League of Legends news and updates, stick around on esports.gg!