LoL Worlds 2021 quarter-final predictions – T1 vs Hanwha Life Esports

?Two League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) teams in T1 and Hanwha Life Esports will clash on Friday, October 22, in the opening match of the LoL Worlds 2021 quarter-finals. It marks their first meeting since LCK 2021 Regional Finals, where T1 won 3-2. Even though that was a close contest, the esports betting sites have priced T1 as huge favourites for this match, and there is a good reason for that.

Hanwha Life Esports have fought their way from the play-in stage into the 2021 LoL Worlds playoffs, which is a commendable achievement; however, they haven’t convinced us. HLE lost to PSG Talon and Royal Never Give Up during the group stage, and they weren’t particularly impressive in their wins against the weakened Fnatic either.

On the other side, T1 struggled just a bit during the first round of the group stage, when they lost against EDward Gaming, but have since gone undefeated and ended the first stage of the tournament with a 5-1 record. Admittedly, their drafting is still a bit iffy, but T1 can compensate for that with individual talent.

Regional derbies are always difficult to predict, but based on what we have seen so far at the 2021 LoL Worlds, T1 are in a much better spot than Hanwha Life Esports. Much of HLE’s success comes from playing for their mid laner, Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon, but that strategy only works when their sidelanes don’t fall behind. And that is a very unlikely scenario when facing T1.

HLE might put up a fight, but they haven’t shown enough for us to believe they can win a single map, let alone cause an upset and qualify for the semi-finals.