Hanwha Life Esports manage to take down KT Rolster and avoid the trap set by Gwak "Bdd" Bo-sung and his team this Thursday, August 21. The First Stand champions temporarily hold second place, which T1 could tie if they clean sweep Nongshim RedForce tomorrow. Choi "Zeus" Woo-je takes MVP of the series, his first of the Summer Split.

KT took the first game of the series, with Seo "deokdam" Dae-gil delivering a huge performance on Corki. Bdd on Ryze was nearly flawless, with clutch calls, involvement in 21 of the 27 kills, and strong leadership both in-game and on voice. The second game was mostly dominated by HLE, except in mid where Bdd on Orianna looked unstoppable early but struggled to have an impact later. HLE repeatedly dove Lee "PerfecT" Seung-min on cooldown, and taking advantage of the recent Experimental Hexplate buff, Park "Viper" Do-hyeon on Zeri pushed KT back and secured the win.

KT so close, yet so far

The final game was a rollercoaster. Han "Peanut" Wang-ho played the first Ivern of the Summer Split, and HLE dominated until a miraculous KT comeback. At the drake fight, Moon "Cuzz" Woo-chan used Trundle’s pillar perfectly, giving KT a lead of over 4,000 gold. A midlane fight then started with PerfecT getting caught, and HLE ran with it, narrowly avoiding a loss in the series and keeping second place—likely to be shared tomorrow with T1, who face NS. KT Rolster still haven’t beaten the top three of the Legend Group but will likely make playoffs after beating Nongshim twice, leaving the fifth-place team to go through the Play-In.

Tomorrow, August 22, in the LCK, Nongshim, who still haven’t won this Summer, will face T1 and Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, who are fighting to stay in contention for the crucial second place in the playoff seeding. Later, DRX will try to stay in the top three of the Rise Group, but it won’t be an easy task against Dplus KIA, which don’t want to suffer a second loss in a row after falling to OKSavingsBank BRION.