Hanwha Life Esports Roster, History and Worlds 2026

Hanwha Life Esports (HLE) is a Korean organization in the LCK and the reigning MSI champion after winning MSI 2026 on 12 July 2026. The current Hanwha Life Esports roster of Zeus, Kanavi, Zeka, Gumayusi and Delight has qualified for the Main Event of Worlds 2026.

The lineup is a settled five: Zeus in the top lane, Kanavi in the jungle, Zeka in mid, Gumayusi on bot and Delight at support. The coaching staff of Sin, Mowgli and Homme runs the team from the side of the stage.

The starting five played almost every game of the year, which matters for how you read the stats below. Bluffing covered a small share of games at support, and a second group of players (Panther, Jackal, Cracker and Pyeonsik) appears in only a handful of games, so their lines carry little weight.

Hanwha Life’s 2026 season is a winning one by a wide margin: they have taken well over twice as many series as they have dropped, and the game record tells the same story. This is a team that closes out series rather than one that scrapes through deciders.

The side split is the detail worth noticing. Hanwha Life wins more reliably on blue side, even though they have played more of their games on red, which suggests their drafts lean on securing a first-pick priority champion. Their games tend to finish a little past the half-hour mark, so they are neither a pure early-game stomp team nor one that waits for the late game.

Zeka carries the cleanest stat line on the team: the best KDA among the starters and the fewest deaths, which is what you want from a mid laner who has to stay alive for a team built around controlled fights. Delight’s game is assists, as you would expect from an engage-minded support, while Kanavi absorbs the most deaths of the five, the usual cost of a jungler who starts the fights.

Gumayusi and Zeus post steady, low-risk lines rather than flashy ones. The five starters share the same win rate because they played the same games together, so compare them on KDA and kill participation, not on wins.

Hanwha Life drafts around engage junglers and control mages. Jarvan IV is their most-picked champion, with Vi close behind, and the rest of the list fills with mid-lane and utility picks such as Ziggs, Ryze, Aurora and Orianna, plus Bard and Seraphine for the bot side.

Volume and success do not line up perfectly. Jarvan IV is their go-to jungle pick but returns below an even win rate, while Vi wins far more often in fewer games. Jhin is the other comfort pick that has underdelivered, so do not read their most-picked list as a list of their best champions.

Ezreal is the champion banned most often in Hanwha Life’s games, ahead of Orianna and Bard. Orianna and Bard sit on both the pick and ban lists, which makes them the contested champions of this team’s drafts: when one slips through the first ban phase, Hanwha Life tends to take it, and their record on both is strong.

If you want to try their core picks yourself, our champion pages show how Vi, Orianna and Bard perform in ranked.

Hanwha Life’s recent form splits cleanly by opponent: they beat T1 repeatedly and keep losing to Gen.G. In the LCK 2026 Season Playoffs they took two best-of-five series from T1, one of them a full five-game series, and dropped both of their best-of-fives against Gen.G, including the last series of their playoff run.

The regular season leading into it looked similar. In LCK Rounds 3–4 they swept T1 and Dplus Kia and edged KT Rolster, but lost to Gen.G. They did beat Gen.G in a best-of-three at the KeSPA Cup 2026, before falling to DN SOOPers in the next series of that event.

The takeaway is simple: against most of Korea, this roster wins, and Gen.G is the matchup it has not solved in the second half of the year. Every game of the playoff run is linked below if you want to study how those series turned.

Hanwha Life’s modern era starts with the LCK 2024 Summer Playoffs, which they won in September 2024. That domestic title marked the organization as a genuine contender in Korea rather than a playoff regular.

The following year added more silverware. Hanwha Life won the LCK Cup 2025 in February and First Stand 2025 in March, an international title that put them on the world stage early in the season.

2026 is the peak so far. The team won LCK 2026 Rounds 1–2 in May, the LCK 2026 Road to MSI in June and then MSI 2026 in July, a run that makes them one of the favorites in any conversation about the strongest teams of the year. The full list of titles and top-four finishes sits below.

Hanwha Life Esports has qualified for Worlds 2026 as Korea’s second seed. That seed places them directly in the Main Event, where they start in the Swiss stage on 23 October 2026, with the Knockouts to follow for the teams that advance. Follow every stage on the Worlds 2026 hub.