Hanwha Life Esports (HLE) is a South Korean

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

organization based in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

, owned by

Hanwha Life Insurance Hanwha Life Insurance Co., Ltd. () is a life insurance company in South Korea. It is part of the Hanwha Group. Hanwha Life Insurance is South Korea's second largest life insurance company with assets of 81 trillion won as of November 2013. It e ...

. It has teams competing in ''

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...

'' and ''

Kart Rider ''Crazyracing KartRider'' ( ko, 크레이지레이싱 카트라이더) is an online multiplayer racing game developed by Nexon Korea Corporation. It is part of the ''Crazy Arcade'' franchise. It earns revenue by selling virtual items within the i ...

'', with the former competing in the

LCK Lck (or lymphocyte-specific protein tyrosine kinase) is a 56 kDa protein that is found inside specialized cells of the immune system called lymphocytes. The Lck is a member of Src kinase family (SFK), it is important for the activation of the T ...

, South Korea's top level professional league for the game. In middle 2018, HLE acquired the League of Legends team and LCK spot of Tigers. At the 2015 ''League of Legends'' World Championship, the team (as KOO Tigers) placed second in their preliminary group before beating

KT Rolster kt Rolster is a South Korean multi-gaming organization founded in 1999 with Korean Telecom as the head sponsor. A member of the Korean e-Sports Association, KT Rolster holds one of the richest and most successful ''StarCraft'' teams in the worl ...

and

Fnatic Fnatic (pronounced "fanatic"; also stylized as fnatic or FNATIC) is a professional esports organization headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Founded 23 July 2004, the team has players from around the world, across a variety of games, such ...

in the bracket stage. The team finished as runner-ups after facing

SK Telecom T1 T1 (previously known as SK Telecom T1 or SKT T1) is a South Korean esports organization operated by the T1 Entertainment & Sports, a joint venture between SK Telecom and Comcast Spectacor. At the end of 2003, SK Telecom took the StarCraft Team ...

in the finals in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, Germany. The team (as ROX Tigers) won their first LCK title after winning the

2016 Summer League of Legends Champions Korea 2016 Summer League of Legends Champions Korea (2016 Summer LCK) is part of the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK), the top level of ''League of Legends'' play in Korea. Matches are played at the Seoul OGN e-Stadium in Mapo-gu, Seoul Se ...

playoffs. At the 2016 ''League of Legends'' World Championship, team finished as third place after lost again to

2–3, although leaded the series 2–1.

History

Tigers era

2014

Tigers was founded in November 2014 by Chinese

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

site YY. YY's parent company Guongzhou Huaduo Network Technology, LLC. (Duowan Inc.) hoped to promote their newly renamed streaming site, HUYA.com, in South Korea by creating a team built around well-known Korean players. The team was registered under Duowan's Korean subsidiary GE Entertainment. The initial roster, announced under the name HUYA Tigers, included former members of NaJin Sword, NaJin Shield, and Incredible Miracle 1: top laner Smeb, jungler Lee, mid laner KurO, AD carry PraY, and support GorillA comprised the initial lineup, with NoFe as head coach. Shortly after its formation, the team qualified for the ''League of Legends'' Champions Korea Spring Qualifiers, placing first in the group stage over Team Avalanche. They went 2–1 in the final stage and qualified for SBENU Champions Spring 2015. In the Champions Spring pre-season, HUYA Tigers finished tied for third place with

, each with 7 points. They renamed to GE Tigers at the start of the Spring Season.

2015

The GE Tigers started out as the top team in Korea in their first season in the LCK, in first place with a 7–0 match record and a 14–2 game record at the end of week 6 of the Spring season. This placement earned them an invitation to the

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in March. However, after defeating

Cloud9 Cloud9 Esports, Inc., or simply Cloud9 (C9), is an American professional esports company based in Santa Monica, California. The company was originally founded as a professional ''League of Legends'' team by Jack and Paullie Etienne in May 2013 ...

and

SK Gaming SK Gaming is a professional esports organization based in Germany that has teams across the world competing in different titles. SK is particularly known for their success in ''Counter-Strike'' (CS) tournaments. SK's Brazilian ''CS'' team won ...

to win their group, they lost in the semifinals 2–1 to

Team WE Team WE, formerly known as World Elite, is a Chinese esports organisation based in Xi'an. It is one of the oldest esports organisations in China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the ...

– who entered the competition as the 12th-place team in the Chinese ''League of Legends'' Pro League (LPL). This led many casters and analysts to label it the biggest upset to date in the entire history of competitive ''League of Legends''. After their return to Korea, the GE Tigers' record worsened, and they dropped sets to both KT Rolster and to

. They still finished first in the round robin with a 12–2 record, but in the playoffs they lost to SKT and missed out on the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational. Prior to the start of SBENU Champions Summer 2015, the GE Tigers were sponsored by streaming company KooTV and changed their name to the KOO Tigers. KOO ended the regular season of Champions Summer in 4th place. They beat

NaJin e-mFire Rajin-guyŏk () is a North Korean district on Rason in the Sea of Japan (East Sea of Korea) in the North Pacific Ocean on the northeast tip of North Korea. It is in the Kwanbuk region and location in the south of Rason. North of it lies the North ...

2–1 and

CJ Entus OGN Entus is a South Korean esports organization with teams competing in '' Clash Royale'' and '' PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds''. It formerly had teams competing in ''League of Legends'', '' StarCraft II'', ''Warcraft 3'' and ''Special Force 2 ...

3–0 to advance to the semi-finals where they played a close series with KT Rolster but lost 3–2, ultimately ending in third place. Because SKT won the finals, KOO automatically qualified for the 2015 ''League of Legends'' World Championship as the second seed from Korea with the most circuit points. At the World Championship, KOO Tigers finished 2nd in their group with a 4–2 record and advanced to the bracket round. They defeated KT Rolster 3 to 1 in the quarter-finals. On 24 October 2015 they made a clean sweep, 3 to 0, against

in the semi-finals. The team finished second after losing with a 1–3 record to

in the final on 31 October 2015. KooTV dropped their sponsorship of the team in November, reverting the name to just Tigers. In January 2016, the team once again changed their name, this time to ROX Tigers.

2016

In the LCK Champions spring season, ROX Tigers finished in 1st, and met SKT T1 in the final. ROX Tigers impressed the world with their domination of Korea and their near perfect play in the regular season. Unfortunately, in final the match against SKT T1, ROX Tigers lost 3–1 finishing the LCK playoffs in 2nd place. However, ROX Tigers have the honor of boasting the highest team KDA in this season. Top laner

Smeb Song Kyung-ho ( ko, 송경호; born June 30, 1995), better known as Smeb, is a South Korean former professional ''League of Legends'' player. Career Song began competing in ''League of Legends'' in 2012. He joined the Tigers in 2014, upon the ...

was named MVP of the spring split and summer split.

HLE era

2018

In middle 2018,

acquired the League of Legends team rosters and LCK spot of ROX Tigers. The team also was renamed to ''Hanwha Life Esports'' (HLE). They had finished at 6th place of regular summer season and couldn't qualify for Play-off stage.

Roster

Tournament results

As KOO Tigers

* 2nd –

2015 League of Legends World Championship The 2015 ''League of Legends'' World Championship was an esports tournament for the multiplayer online battle arena video game ''League of Legends''. It was the fifth iteration of the ''League of Legends'' World Championship, an annual internati ...

As ROX Tigers

* 1st – 2016 Spring League of Legends Champions Korea season * 2nd – 2016 Spring League of Legends Champions Korea playoffs * 1st –

season * 1st –

playoffs * 3rd–4th –

2016 League of Legends World Championship The 2016 ''League of Legends'' World Championship was an esports tournament for the multiplayer online battle arena video game ''League of Legends''. It was the sixth iteration of the ''League of Legends'' World Championship, an annual inter ...

* 1st – 2016 Kespa Cup

Notes

References

{{CCBYSASource, sourcepath=http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/KOO_Tigers, sourcearticle=KOO Tigers 2014 establishments in South Korea Esports teams based in South Korea Esports teams established in 2014 League of Legends Champions Korea teams