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Photo by Christina Oh/Riot Games
Korean esports organisation Hanwha Life Esports (HLE) have won the very first edition of First Stand, the new international League of Legends tournament.
They defeated French organisation Karmine Corp (KC) 3-1 in the best-of-five grand final match today.
It was KC who took the first game, and for a moment, made Europe believe they could be in for a surprise victory, with Canna, Yike, Vladi, Caliste and Targamas all performing well to take the game.
However, HLE turned up the heat and took three straight games in quick succession, in just 29 minutes, 27 minutes and 35 minutes.
There were some perfect KDAs in game two in particular, with Peanut, Zeka and Viper going 0/0/9, 6/0/2 and 3/0/5 respectively. HLE players Delight and Zeus were also strong throughout the series, with the latter top-laner joining from T1 last year after T1 won Worlds 2024 in London.
Karmine Corp did well to reach the final, considering they only just scraped through in the group stage based on other results (they won one, against Top Esports, and lost three games themselves). They then beat CTBC 3-2 in the semi-final to book the match vs HLE.
Riot officially announced new LoL tournament First Stand back at the Worlds 2024 finals media day in London. The $1m tournament took place from March 10th to 16th at LoL Park in Seoul, Korea.
The tournament featured a fearless draft, where once a champion is selected, it will become unavailable for both teams for the remainder of the series.
The five teams taking part were HLE (from the Korean LCK), Chinese LPL (Top Esports), European LEC (Karmine Corp), North American LTA (Team Liquid) and APAC LCP (CTBC Flying Oyster).
‘I will come back to Europe even more confident’ – Caliste on reaching the First Stand final with KC
French rising star KC ADC Caliste said: “I think I played pretty good against [my opponents], mainly against Viper and Jackylove. They are for sure still better than me and I still have a lot to learn to be better than them and beat them every time.
“For my first international event and playing against these two players, I thought I did pretty well.
“Skill-wise I think I will learn a lot, and from each game I am getting better individually, better at the laning phase, more confident and learning new stuff. I think I learned a lot of things about specific match-ups and also ways of playing the mid-game.
“When I will come back to Europe I will be more confident and able to play more aggressive, and be myself and play my way, I would say, and being more confident in my individual skills. Viper and Jackylove are confident, and I tried to show up against them and show my individual skill. I think I’ll do this in Europe when I come back, and it will probably be easier.”
“I’m happy to be able to be able to play here against the best players, this early [in my career], and keep improving.”
Caliste also said he would like to play against Elk in the future.
Zeus on First Stand 2025 victory with HLE
HLE Korean top-laner Zeus said: “I think we’re just getting a really good start to the season, and I’m so happy that we were able to secure another title.
“I had a good feeling I would be able to keep it going. I always have a good feeling every time I come to a finals.
“Karmine Corp had underperformed before, but they were arriving as the underdogs. I expected game one wouldn’t be easy – we didn’t dwell too much on [the first game loss]. We just wanted to focus on the upcoming games.
“My goal next is to win as many titles as possible this year.”
First Stand comes after KC win Winter 2025 LEC
Today’s result of course comes after Karmine Corp made history by winning their first European LEC title during the Winter 2025 season.
They finished second in the regular season, with six wins and three losses, behind Fnatic with eight wins and one loss.
KC lost 3-1 to G2 in the upper bracket final, before beating Fnatic 3-2 in the lower bracket final and 3-0 in the grand final.
The future certainly looks bright for KC and also Caliste.
When Karmine Corp joined the LEC a year and a half ago, they said their goal was not victory in the LEC, but to aim for the World Championship in 5 to 10 years’.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
