T1 vs. Hanwha Life Esports Prediction on July 20, 2024

Match info

The League of Legends matches for the inaugural Esports World Cup concluded last weekend with T1 emerging victorious. Now, to restart its play in LCK Summer 2024 (League of Legends Champions Korea Summer 2024), officially the best team in the world is headed back home.

Week 5 (Matchday 4) of the Group Stage schedule features a match between T1 and Hanwha Life Esports, among a few other encounters. This duel promises to be highly entertaining, as HLE is a formidable opponent and has a higher ranking in the standings than T1. Let's try to determine who’ll be stronger in the match on Saturday, July 20, at 2 p.m. local time and gain extra points before the play-offs.

Meeting statistics

The current form of T1

T1 was put in the role of a favorite by blockchain bookmakers for the upcoming duel.

T1 placed second in three straight events in 2022: MSI, LCK Summer, and Worlds, after winning in LCK Spring 2022. Such a “top-2 curse” continued throughout the 2023 campaign. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok and teammates placed second in LCK Spring 2023 and third at MSI 2023.

For T1, LCK Summer 2023 posed a significant obstacle. Though it was difficult, they managed to qualify for the playoffs. Faker, the main man, was having issues. The renowned mid-laner sustained a hand injury, which clearly had an impact on T1’s overall playing conditions. However, Faker rejoined the team in time for the postseason, in which his side reached the grand final. They lost it crushingly, 0-3, to their archenemy Gen.G.

At Worlds 2023, T1 accomplished a feat never before accomplished by any team in the history of eSports. T1 advanced to the most significant League of Legends tournament’s grand finals for the sixth time and went on to win it for the fourth time—a record in both competitive League of Legends and eSports overall.

T1 had some difficulties during the LCK Spring 2024 regular season, placing third with a 15-3 record. Surprisingly, after showing no proper resistance in the game against Hanwha Life Esports (0-3), T1 got off to a bad start in the championship playoffs. With two wins in the lower playoffs, T1 placed in the top two and became the second, and also the last, Korean team at MSI 2024. T1 easily made it to the bracket stage of the Mid-Season Invitational 2024 Play-In, where they had a 3-2.

T1 ended their run at LCK Summer 2024, where they had a 5-1 record, to compete at the Esports World Cup 2024. So they visited Riyadh in between regional competition matches, where they won the inaugural event and took home a $500,000 reward, defeating TOP Esports in the championship match.

The current form of Hanwha Life Esports

Hanwha Life Esports is the underdog in this game. It’s a strong mid-table squad that’s always near the very end of regular splits. However, it wasn’t until 2023 that this began to occur. HLE was the poorest team in the race before then, during the 2022 season.

They had a significant restructuring and were able to improve by 2023. The Hanwha Life Esports roster gained two current world champions, Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo and Hwang “Kingen” Seong-hoon, which significantly bolstered the squad, so much so that they made it to the top 4 of LCK Spring 2023. Because of the intense pressure, HLE were unable to get a ticket to the 2023 Worlds. They once more failed in their attempt to qualify for the Worlds in the regional finals. In the LCK Spring 2024 season, Hanwha Life Esports were among the top three. They missed out on qualifying for the international LAN event by one series once more. HLE are 7-2 at this LCK Summer.

Head-to-head

The teams have faced off against one another multiple times. There were four matches in 2024 alone, with a 2-2 outcome.

Match analytics

We anticipate a stunning play from both teams in this encounter and the victory to T1, but it might end up being a full-fledged Bo3, which means that we pick a total of over 2.5 maps. SportBet values this line 1.96.

Results of the forecast

Forecast failed. T1 vs. Hanwha Life Esports 0:2