Every team has faced one another in this year's League of Legends LCK Spring, with Wednesday marking the start of Week Six in the split.
Five weeks have already passed by in the LCK Spring - the first split of the season in South Korea's top regional division - and after the first round-robin, it has become clear which sides are challenging for glory and which are merely making up the numbers.
At the halfway stage in the LCK Spring, T1 are unsurprising leaders with nine wins from their ten matches, while strong starts have also been made by Gen.G Esports, KT Rolster and Liiv SANDBOX.
At the other end of the standings, Nongshim RedForce are propping up the standings with a 1-10 record while DRX, whose roster was pulled apart in the wake of their League of Legends World Championship triumph in 2022, have also picked up just the one victory.
But there is still time for a lot to change with six of the ten teams competing in the LCK Spring regular season set to qualify for the LCK Spring playoffs.
On Thursday, there are two more matches in the LCK Spring as week six gathers pace with a fluctuating Hanwha Life Esports taking on BRION, and T1 looking to build on their remarkable start against Liiv SANDBOX.
What | Hanwha Life Esports v BRION |
Where | South Korea |
When | 08.00, Thursday 23rd February |
How to watch | bet365 Sports Live Streaming, LCK Twitch & Youtube channels |
Odds | Hanwha Life Esports 2/7, BRION 5/2 |
It was clear Hanwha Life Esports meant business coming into the LCK Spring 2023 season, drafting in DRX Worlds-winning pair Kim "Zeka" Geon-woo and Hwang "Kingen" Seong-hoon during the offseason.
But those Hanwha Life Esports fans who expected their sharp recruitment to immediately translate into results were given a bit of a shock at the start of the LCK Spring as their side lost three of their first four matches in the opening two weeks of the split.
With the LCK considered the strongest League of Legends regional division on the planet, having produced three of the four semi-finalists at last year's Worlds, it was always going to be asking a lot of Hanwha Life Esports to make an immediate impact but they have now started to find their mojo.
Week three proved to be a turning point as they became the first team in this year's LCK Spring to defeat T1 before following up with a win over Worlds defending champions DRX.
They finished week five with a 6-4 win-loss record and appear to have turned a corner, so it is no surprise to see them priced at 2/7 to defeat BRION on Thursday.
That said, BRION are not far behind them with a 4-6 record and are averaging a map win per match, so it could be worth backing Hanwha Life Esports to edge this one 2-1 at 21/10.
Esports: Wednesday ESL Pro League preview
What | T1 vs Liiv SANDBOX, LCK Spring |
Where | South Korea |
When | 10.30, Thursday 23rd February |
How to watch | bet365 Sports Live Streaming, LCK Twitch & Youtube channels |
Odds | T1 2/5, Liiv SANDBOX 7/4 |
T1 and Liiv SANDBOX only met last week in the LCK Spring and already the teams are set to reconvene on Thursday.
T1 were quite the force in last year's LCK Spring regular season, winning all 18 of their matches before the playoffs, and they have made a similarly lightning start this year with a 9-1 win-loss record to their name at the halfway point.
They are on a five-match winning streak and such is their winning mentality that anything less than winning the LCK Spring would be considered a failure.
But, while T1 remain genuine competitors in every event they enter, they did not have things all their own way against Liiv SANDBOX in week five with the match having gone to three maps.
T1 prevailed 2-1 in the end but Liiv SANBOX have proven to be a tough nut to crack this year with seven wins picked up from their ten matches.
Their ten assignments have also produced 27 maps in total, so it is fair to say their matches are not short of entertainment and a bet on this encounter to once again produce over 2.5 maps is tempting at 1/1.
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