According to sources from South Korean media, on September 26, all four LCK teams participating in Worlds 2021 will be flown to Iceland by a private jet from Riot Games to attend the tournament, including Hanwha Life Esports – the team that will kick off the journey to conquer the World Cup of League of Legends in Korea.
Recently, a humorous story about this team has been shared among their fans, regarding the competition uniforms for Worlds. Many Korean fans have been anxious waiting for the three teams T1, HLE, and GEN to announce their new uniforms for Worlds, leading them to message the social media administrators of these teams multiple times to urge the unveiling of the jerseys.
However, when messaging HLE, an admin from this team responded to a fan’s message, confirming that HLE will not be launching any new uniforms but will be using the jerseys from LCK Summer 2021.
This fan then took a screenshot of the message and shared it with other “fellow fans” to keep them updated and “not to waste time waiting.” But at this point, HLE’s own fans started teasing their team.
Many jokingly suggested that the reason HLE isn’t making a new uniform is simply that they couldn’t have anticipated making it to Worlds. Before the end of LCK Summer 2021, HLE was languishing in 8th place. Their fragile hopes were pinned solely on a ticket to the regional qualifiers, where many high-performing teams were still competing.
Then, by some miracle, captain Deft suddenly found his form, along with the “golden back” Chovy, leading HLE to sweep away all obstacles, transforming them from a bottom-tier team in the regional standings to the 4th seed of LCK participating in Worlds. This was something few dared to dream of, and perhaps even the HLE management felt the same way, which is why they had no plans to design a new uniform. By the time “everything was set in stone,” it was already… too late. Applying for a visa might have been timely (as all teams were required to apply for visas once they confirmed participation in the regional qualifiers), but designing a new uniform to make an impression and look sharp was impossible.
In reality, LCK teams also do not have a tradition of unveiling special uniforms for Worlds; this practice is typically only seen in the LPL, which began when Nike became the apparel sponsor for the Chinese League of Legends tournament over the past three years.
HLE fans are eager for the team to unveil a new uniform, partly because they see LPL teams and recently DWG KIA showcasing new outfits – “seeing others wear it makes them crave it,” and partly because they believe it is a significant milestone in the team’s history: their first time participating in an international tournament, hence they hoped for some grand investment. However, no new uniform isn’t the end of the world; due to the tight timeline, fans are completely understanding of this situation.
