Recently, the LCK fan community in Vietnam was thrilled to hear that caster Hoàng Luân officially became the next name to appear on the LCK Vietnamese broadcast as the official caster for the LCK Summer 2021 tournament.
This milestone also marks the return of this veteran caster to the LCK after a 3-year absence. However, the excitement for LCK Vietnamese being led by experienced commentators like Hoàng Luân, Văn Tùng, and others is just one part. The larger reason for the warm welcome from LCK fans in Vietnam for Hoàng Luân’s return is his predictions that often turn out to be more dramatic than a tragic romance novel.
Without disappointing the fans, on his very first day back on air, caster Hoàng Luân immediately transformed into his Pelu persona with his insights during the match between T1 and Hanwha Life Esports.
Specifically, in the first game, HLE chose a “Juggermaw” composition, focusing all resources on Kog’Maw in Deft’s hands to allow this marksman to “carry the team”. In response, T1 opted for a composition that seemed to lack engagement, as both Nocturne and Leona, despite their ability to dive in, could easily be outmatched by HLE’s strong team fight champions like Lee Sin, Lulu, and Braum.
After the ban/pick phase, Hoàng Luân stated that with such a composition, T1 would have limited opportunities to engage Kog’Maw. He reiterated this point, in more detail, after Teddy unexpectedly lost his Flash early on. Hoàng Luân believed this would enable the Kog’Maw and Braum duo to push the lane stronger without facing any threats from T1.
However, the subsequent developments of the match completely contradicted this caster’s predictions. Even without Flash, T1’s bot lane duo actively engaged in continuous trades with their opponents.
As a result, in a situation where Deft and Vsta neglected a minion wave to pressure T1’s bot lane turret, they made a fatal mistake by creating space for Faker’s Nocturne to teleport behind, leading to T1 taking down Braum, leaving Kog’Maw on the brink of death and both HLE’s bot lane players losing all their summoner spells. Their bot lane advantage was thus reduced to “nothing”.
Coupled with Canna’s Gwen handling the top lane matchup against Lulu very well, T1’s two flanks proved to be overwhelmingly strong, and Faker, not facing much pressure from Chovy’s Volibear—a champion that excels in duels but struggles with wave pushing and roaming—simply kept “turning off the lights” and not allowing Deft to play the game. T1 secured a rather easy victory with their draft choices.
After the match, many LCK fans joked that the actual outcome of game 1 was determined the moment Hoàng Luân predicted T1 would struggle to reach Kog’Maw. The result was that Deft also went into “stealth mode” during the match, continuously mispositioning and getting poked out before fights by Teddy, leading to him having no impact on the overall game for his team.
Of course, the failure of HLE’s strategy stemmed from the way this team operated being problematic, combined with T1’s players delivering an excellent individual performance. Nevertheless, Hoàng Luân’s predictions before and during the match still made fans laugh out loud due to their excessive… spiritual elements.