The 2025 LCK season resumes with rounds one and two of the regular season coming into play soon. Hanwha Life will step onto the stage once again after successfully winning the first League of Legends international event of the year, First Stand. Now, the eyes return towards South Korea as the LCK 2025 season resumes.

The big talking point moving into this split from a gameplay perspective is that the rest of the 2025 season will be played under fearless draft rules, which apply to the remaining two international events, those being MSI 2025 and the League of Legends World Championship. But which teams will be representing the LCK at these events? Stay tuned as we preview the upcoming rounds in the 2025 LCK season. From the favorites to the dark horses, to the teams struggling to keep up. 

Who can stop the reigning champions?

Hanwha Life are by far and away the best team at the world at the moment in competitive League of Legends. The back to back champions were playing with their food for the majority of the tournament, and even after they suffered defeat in game one against Karmine Corp, the LCK juggernauts came back with a venegance and obliterated the competition. Zeus continued to show why he is one of the powerhouses in League of Legends and T1 fans will be angered at the sight of their former top laner doing so well. Zeus was pulling out some spicy picks at First Stand from Vladimir to Quinn, Zeus really was a cut above the rest.

The chasing pack

Three teams are the other teams capable of competing for the LCK title and that's T1, Gen.G, and DPlus KIA. Let's start with the reigning world champions. All is not rosy in the T1 garden at the moment, with the fanbase in turmoil regarding the recent drama involving Gumayusi, Smash, the T1 management, and the T1 CEO Joe Marsh. Where we are at in the present day is that Gumayusi will be starting the season, which has caused a storm online. Judging their actual performance in the LCK Cup, T1 were inches away from taking down Hanwha Life, and it was ultimately down to them only having one life based on how the format played out.

Out of all of the teams that are capable of beating Hanwha Life, it's likely Gen.G The former LCK champions came within inches of taking down Hanwha Life twice in the LCK Cup. One in the upper bracket, and the second in the grand finals. Gen.G lost to Hanwha Life twice in the playoffs, with both of them going the full five games. No team outside of Hanwha Life had a more impressive early game than Gen.G, It'll likely just take them some time to get used to the new roster before they can really topple Hanwha Life esports.

Don't count out this LCK roster

One of the surprises of the LCK Cup was DPlus KIA, who, like the other teams mentioned above, were able to take Hanwha Life to all five games, highlighting the current strength of the LCK with a very strong top half of the league. It started in the group stage portion of the LCK Cup, where DPlus KIA were able to secure first place in their group. Not only that, they were the only undefeated team in the league, taking down T1 and Hanwha Life in best-of-threes to secure a solid playoff seeding. 

It was great to see ShowMaker, who was once one of the best players in the world, return to form and smile again after some dissapointing international results for the organization as of late. Now that we're moving into a more traditional format, it'll be interesting to see how Dplus KIA gets on over a long-winded season as opposed to the fast paced action of the group stage format. Dplus KIA should make it to the Road to MSI tournament, and could even be one of the higher seeds if they remain close to the form they showcased in the LCK Cup. 

The LCK returns April 2, 2025, with one of the biggest games of the season in Hanwha Life taking on Gen.G.