?Dplus KIA and Hanwha Life Esports will clash on Thursday, March 23, in the first round of LoL Champions Korea (LCK) 2023 Spring Playoffs. Dplus are the clear favourites to advance into the next round, but HLE are no pushovers and should give us something to look forward to.

Dplus KIA finished the regular season in fourth place, which is nothing to sneeze at, but they’ve just barely outperformed Hanwha Life Esports, who landed in fifth, following a shaky 1-3 run across the final two weeks. Still, this is a solid team, and they’ve proven it this split, with strong showings against the elite Korean LoL esport squads.

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A big reason why Dplus KIA are priced as such massive favourites is their 2-0 sweep of Hanwha Life Esports at the end of Week 7. But we must consider Dplus’ concerning run in the final week when they lost against Gen.G (0-2) and T1 (0-2). This might not seem important considering T1 and Gen.G are the clear strongest teams in the league; however, T1 provided us and HLE with a clear blueprint to beat Dplus KIA.

The question now is whether Hwang “Kingen” Seong-hoon can execute the plan against Kim “Canna” Chang-dong. And while the answer is probably not, things could look much different if Park “Viper” Do-hyeon gets ahead and force Dplus to focus more on the bot side.

A lot will also come down to the draft phase and whether HLE will allow Dplus to get the champions they want – which happened in their last meeting.

Hanwha Life Esports can win, but it’s unlikely since a lot will have to go their way. HLE are objectively a weaker team, and only conditionally can you consider them as strong as Dplus KIA, who already smashed Hanwha Life Esports and only looked shaky against T1 and Gen.G.

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