HLE are off the mark at Worlds. Hanwha Life Esports needed just 23 minutes and 51 seconds to beat TOP ESPORTS in their Swiss stage opener on October 23, a best-of-one that left little doubt about which side looked more settled on day one.

The scoreline barely captures it. HLE finished 24 kills to 7 with a gold lead of roughly 15,700, and TES didn't take a single tower while the red side knocked down nine. Add a Baron and a 2-1 dragon count, and it's hard to find a column on the stat sheet where TES came out ahead.

Kanavi everywhere

The headline name is Kanavi. The jungler finished 17/1/5 on Nocturne, a hand in 92% of his team's kills, and he died just once. For a jungler to end a game with more kills than the entire opposing roster combined, more than double, says plenty about how freely HLE were able to play around him.

He was far from alone, though. Zeka went deathless at 4/0/13 on Locke and dealt 28,111 damage, the most of anyone in the game, while Gumayusi also kept a clean 1/0/16 on Jhin. Delight's Shen chipped in 17 assists, and Zeus absorbed four deaths on Ambessa but still found 13 assists of his own.

Little to build on for TES

On the TES side, the numbers point to a team that never found a foothold. Creme's Orianna was the lone bright spot in the damage charts with 22,127, yet he went 1/6/1 and was involved in just 29% of his team's kills. Zhuo and Tian also died six and five times respectively, and 369 ended 0/3/4 on K'Sante. JackeyLove was present for every one of TES's seven kills, which arguably says as much about how few there were as anything else.

Neither team's run ends here. TES are not eliminated, and in a Swiss format a single loss is a setback rather than a verdict, but they will want a far tidier showing next time out. HLE, meanwhile, bank an early win and plenty of confidence; their next opponent has yet to be set, and the question now is whether anyone in the field can slow Kanavi down.