2019 Play-In Profile: Hong Kong Attitude (HKA)

Hong Kong Attitude returns to the World Championship stage, their first qualification since 2017, and second qualification ever. The road to get here has not been easy, though. HKA enters as the LMS third seed, behind J Team and AHQ. HKA qualified by winning the LMS Regional Qualifier in convincing fashion, with 3-0 victories over G-Rex and Flash Wolves. However, they only had a 50 percent win rate in the regular season, and lost 2-3 to AHQ in the playoff semifinals. 

Spring Split was considerably worse for HKA, as they finished fifth place out of eight and missed playoffs. The roster rotated Junglers, Mid Laners and Bottom Laners, but decided for Summer Split they would stick mostly to Chen “3z” Han, Lee “Crash” Dong-woo, Chen “M1ssion” Hsiao-Hsien, Wong “Unified” Chun Kit and Ling “Kaiwing” Kai Wing. Wong “MnM” Ka Chun is still a substitute ADC. He even played most of the playoffs, despite Unified starting most of the regular season. 

3z, Crash and M1ssion have played professionally since 2015. Other than Rift Rivals, 3z has no international experience. Crash went to Worlds in 2017 with 1907 Fenerbahce of the TCL, and Rift Rivals with Machi of the LMS. A Korean player, Crash has also played in the LCK and LSPL. M1ssion has been on HKA for the last three years. He was part of the 2017 roster to make Worlds. Unified and Kaiwing were also part of that roster, but have only played professionally since 2016. MnM is the least experienced player, joining HKA last year. 

This iteration of HKA plays mostly meta compositions, with some skirmish-heavy elements. Renekton, Elise, Gragas, Qiyana and Jinx are higher priority champions for HKA than most major regions. They prioritized more assistant supports Braum and Yuumi for most of the year, before opting for Volibear, Rakan and Tahm Kench. Otherwise, HKA still drafts Aatrox, Sejuani, Xayah, Sivir, and Kai’Sa spikes in priority when MnM is starting. 

Last year, G-Rex (the LMS third seed) won their Play-In group 4-0, then beat SuperMassive 3-1 to qualify to the Main event. Once at the Main Event, G-Rex and MAD Team finished last in their respective groups with 0-6 records, while Flash Wolves finished 3-3 and lost the tiebreaker to G2. The year before that, HKA did not make it out of Play-Ins, because they lost the tiebreaker to 1907 Fenerbahce. Meanwhile, in the Main Event, AHQ and Flash Wolves finished at the bottom of their respective groups. At this year’s Worlds, HKA gets another shot to make it to the Main event. Assuming Damwon, Splyce and Clutch Gaming take three of the slots, HKA will be battling Lowkey Gaming and the minor regions’ best for that fourth slot. 

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