Hanwha Life Esports: From the ROX Tigers to MSI Champions

In 2015, in its very first LCK season, a brand-new Korean team reached the World Championship final in Berlin. It lost 3-1 to SK Telecom T1, but the KOO Tigers had arrived. The organisation that grew out of that team is now called Hanwha Life Esports, and in July 2026 it won League's other big international event, the Mid-Season Invitational.

The route between those two points was long and strange. Here is how a team founded to promote a Chinese streaming site became one of Korea's big three.

Tigers, Tigers, Tigers

The team was founded in November 2014 by Chinese social platform YY as the HUYA Tigers, to promote its streaming service HUYA in Korea. The first line-up featured Smeb, Lee, KurO, PraY and GorillA. Over the next year the name changed with the sponsors, to GE Tigers, then KOO Tigers, then simply Tigers.

The results were excellent from the start. The team topped the 2015 spring season in its debut year and reached the 2015 Worlds final, losing to SKT. In January 2016 it became the ROX Tigers, finished first in the spring season, lost the final to SKT again, and then won the 2016 Summer LCK title, its first domestic trophy.

The insurance company and the long middle

In 2018, Hanwha Life Insurance bought the roster and LCK place and renamed the team Hanwha Life Esports, or HLE. It joined the LCK's franchise system in 2021 as one of the ten permanent partners.

For years, though, HLE was a mid-table team. Between 2019 and 2023 its best results were third place in Spring 2021 and Summer 2023, and a quarterfinal at Worlds 2021. In the 2023 off-season it tried to buy its way up, signing the core of the newly crowned world champions DRX: top laner Kingen and mid laner Zeka. It still took another year to turn talent into trophies.

The breakthrough

It finally came in Summer 2024. HLE finished second in the regular season at 14-4, beat T1 in the playoffs and then beat Gen.G in a five-game final, winning the organisation's first LCK title in the Hanwha Life era.

Then came a run of firsts. In 2025 HLE won the inaugural LCK Cup and then the inaugural First Stand international tournament, with Park "Viper" Do-hyeon in the bot lane. In 2026, with a line-up of Zeus, Kanavi, Zeka, Gumayusi and Delight under head coach Homme, it won MSI 2026 in Daejeon, coming back from the lower bracket to beat Bilibili Gaming 3-2 in the final on July 12. Zeus was MVP.

A season of near-misses in 2026

HLE's 2026 had plenty of highs. It lost the off-season KeSPA Cup final to T1 2-3, then topped the first half of the LCK at 15-3 and took the first seed at the Road to MSI in Wonju. Gumayusi, who had left T1 after more than five years, was the off-season's biggest signing.

The second half was harder. HLE finished joint top of the regular season at 19-7 but lost the season final at KSPO Dome 1-3 to Gen.G. At Worlds, it reached the decisive fifth round of the Swiss stage at 2-2 and was beaten 2-0 by Bilibili Gaming, the team it had beaten in the MSI final, finishing 2-3 and missing the knockouts.

Why it matters

HLE's story is the clearest example of what franchising was supposed to do in Korea. A corporate owner kept investing through years of mediocre results, and by 2024 that patience paid off with a title, then an international trophy, then a roster that could beat anyone on its day. The question now is whether it can turn a great 2026 into a Worlds run next year. Read the full MSI story in our MSI 2026 report.