After the first two rounds of Worlds Swiss stage, HLE and Gen.G will square off to determine the first team to advance to the top 8. Let’s see how the two squads have performed so far.
Image Credit: Tom Chansiraphet/Riot Games
HLE vs Gen.G – LCK Final rematch?
While the Worlds 2024 Swiss stage gave us a lot of surprises and a few upsets as well, the two LCK title favorites HLE and Gen.G have kept the expectations and are currently leading with a 2-0 record.
To advance, however, only one of the two teams will be able to keep their undefeated match record. Will it be the LCK Summer champion HLE or the challengers Gen.G who are looking for the revenge match? It’s time to dive deeper into the series.
Match Breakdown
With qualification matches being Bo3 instead of Bo1 in the Swiss stage, we should be able to get a better comparison of the teams’ levels and the same applies to the two LCK teams. HLE beat PSG and G2 on the first two days while Gen.G went up against WBG and TES.
The LCK summer champions are seemingly playing their usual scaling playstyle without committing to new things despite the meta shift. Playing around Viper and Zeka continues to be their main playstyle, with Peanut and Delight acting as enablers. Doran is the flexible element that can play tanks but also bruisers like Jax if the matchup is playable.
Gen.G have also been playing with a similar set up but there has been more focus around Peyz rather than the mid lane. The bot lane matchups will likely impact the whole outcome of the series, depending on who decides to commit to the stronger early-game option.
Overall, Gen.G has more potential to build leads and take control of the game while HLE plays better every time they get to the late game. So the series will likely be similar to the one seen in the LCK final: Gen.G looking to push while HLE wants to slow the game down.
Picks like Smolder, Yone, and Jhin will likely be high in priority and potentially banned but the draft will have an increasing role in the outcome of the series, especially if we were to get to game 3.
If we were to make an initial prediction, I would give the match win to HLE. The team is more comfortable when it comes to scaling team compositions and with the increased death timers early on, it’s much harder to accelerate the game unless the skirmishes are one-sided. This should allow HLE to get into a favorable position to take the series in the late stages.
Leave a Reply