One of the most impressive teams so far in the LCK Spring 2024 has to be Kwangdong Freecs. Not only have they improved from their performance in the LCK Summer 2023 (where KDF ranked 8th with a record of 4 wins and 14 losses), but KDF has also defeated several “giants” like KT Rolster and Dplus KIA. Although they are still in the middle of the standings, and the LCK Spring 2024 has taken a break for the Lunar New Year, the effort and performance of KDF’s players are commendable.
Of course, alongside the effort and desire to showcase their skills from the young players, there is another crucial factor: KDF has been significantly sharpened throughout the period from after the LCK Summer 2023 ended to the beginning of this season. Unlike the top 4 teams that had to attend the 2023 World Championship, or the mid and lower table teams, KDF is the team that has been revealed to have scrimmed the most with T1 during the recent World Championship. Currently, T1 is the “new king” of the LoL scene, after a highly successful World Championship season.
The practice and scrimming together among teams in the professional LoL scene is not uncommon. However, for many major teams, it can be very difficult to schedule scrims with them. This is because the schedules of these teams are very strict, and they also have their own opponent preferences. Especially, as is known, major teams often tend to choose significantly weaker teams. This is generally understandable, as major teams only need “practice dummies” to test strategies. However, in the case of KDF, it can be seen that not only T1 benefits, but the underdog of the LCK Spring 2024 has also reaped many rewards.
When practicing with strong teams, weaker teams like KDF can learn strategies that players like T1 use. Of course, assembling champions together is not difficult at all. But the skills of T1 players are top-notch, allowing them to utilize many combos together. And skills can definitely be trained. KDF players themselves have shown that they possess high skills, notably Bull, who was just promoted from the Challengers team.
In addition, an even more valuable factor is the mentality from the top teams. This, of course, also depends on how well KDF’s star players and smaller teams in general can absorb. But clearly, KDF, despite being young, has shown much more maturity compared to their performance last season. With the addition of an experienced player like Cuzz, who is currently leading, it is not surprising but reasonable that KDF has had some outstanding matches.
Nevertheless, KDF’s journey ahead in the LCK Spring 2024 is still long. After the Lunar New Year, whether they can maintain their peak performance remains a big question. But with what they have shown, it is entirely reasonable to trust that KDF will accomplish great things this season.