The LCK’s Hanwha Life Esports beat a short-handed Fnatic today in a well-fought 32-minute match to continue their winning streak at the 2021 League of Legends World Championship through the first day of the main event’s group stage.
Hanwha Life came into the day with plenty of confidence following their dominant showing in the play-in stage of the tournament. They only dropped one game against LNG Esports and then dominated Beyond Gaming in the team’s first best-of-five series. Chovy and Deft have looked great so far and didn’t slow down at all today.
Fnatic, on the other hand, were coming into the day a bit short-handed. The team recently announced that they’d be kicking off the group stage without their starting marksman, Upset. The 21-year-old was forced to return home following a family emergency, which led the roster to field Fnatic Academy bot laner Bean as a substitute.
The early game of today’s showdown looked pretty competitive from Fnatic, with Bwipo stealing multiple jungle camps from Hanwha Life’s Willer. Meanwhile, Adam grabbed a kill in the mid lane with a great early roam from the top side.
As the match moved into the later stages, however, Hanwha Life found multiple great skirmishes to keep the gold lead relatively close. Eventually, the game was blown open with a four-for-none teamfight in favor of Hanwha, which spelled doom for the European squad.
With another win under their belts, Hanwha Life will look to ride this wave of success into their next match against PSG Talon. The top PCS team are coming off of a one-sided loss against Royal Never Give Up, which could prove to be big in terms of momentum.
Even though Fnatic lost today, they showed some promise with their strong early start against a tough opponent. Losing Upset will be a tough mountain to climb since he was one of the best ADCs in the region and provided the team with some much-needed late-game insurance. Fnatic will look to bounce back tomorrow when they take on RNG on day two.
You can catch all the action when Worlds continues tomorrow at 6am CT.
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Published: Oct 11, 2021 10:14 am