South Korea’s League of Legends (LoL) national team has stormed into the semifinals with a perfect 3-0 record in group play, dispatching Taiwan, India, and Hong Kong in succession. T1’s Lee Faker Sang-hyeok, a gold medalist from the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, is now just two wins away from securing his second Asian Games gold medal.
In their final group stage match on Wednesday at the Aichi Sky Expo in Tokoname, Japan, the South Korean squad dominated Hong Kong with a lopsided 21-2 kill score.
The match, originally slated for 2:00 p.m., was delayed by about 50 minutes due to player substitutions for Hong Kong and on-site issues.
South Korea’s lineup against Hong Kong featured Zeus (Choi Woo-jae) from Hanwha Life Esports, Canyon (Kim Gun-bu) from Gen.G, Zeka (Kim Geon-woo) and Gumayusi (Lee Min-hyeong) from Hanwha Life Esports, and Keria (Ryu Min-seok) from T1.
The Korean team opted for a composition of Amumu, Lee Sin, Ryze, Jhin, and Bard, while Hong Kong countered with Tristana, Trundle, Syndra, K’Sante, and Alistar. Hong Kong attempted an unorthodox strategy by swapping their bottom laner to the top lane.
However, South Korea’s dominance was evident across all lanes. They amassed a global gold lead exceeding 10,000 before the 20-minute mark and closed out the game in just 22 minutes by destroying Hong Kong’s Nexus.
With this victory, South Korea completed a clean sweep of their group stage matches, having previously defeated Taiwan and India.
In their opener against Taiwan, they secured a 20-5 kill score victory in 26 minutes. They followed this with a swift 18-minute and 46-second win over India, leading 16-5. Impressively, all three matches were decided in under 26 minutes.
Zeka took on mid lane duties against Taiwan and Hong Kong, while Faker made his tournament debut against India, piloting Cassiopeia to help secure the team’s second win.
As the top seed from their group, South Korea will face Saudi Arabia on October 1 in a best-of-three semifinal series.
This marks Faker’s third consecutive Asian Games appearance, following his silver medal performance at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games and gold medal win at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.
Should South Korea overcome Saudi Arabia, they’ll vie for back-to-back titles in the finals scheduled for October 2 at noon. For Faker, this represents a chance to add a second Asian Games gold medal to his illustrious career.
