Hong Kong Attitude

Hong Kong Attitude (HKA) is a professional esports organisation based in Hong Kong. Its parent company is Hong Kong Esports, and all of its teams were formerly known by that name from October 2014 to 16 May 2017.

Hong Kong Attitude
Short nameHKA
DivisionsArena of Valor
League of Legends
Overwatch (disbanded)[1]
Founded22 March 2013 (2013-03-22)
LeaguePacific Championship Series
Based inHong Kong
OwnerDerek Cheung
Parent groupHong Kong Esports
Hong Kong Attitude
Traditional Chinese香港態度
Simplified Chinese香港态度

Hong Kong Attitude's League of Legends team competes in the Pacific Championship Series, the highest level of professional play for the game in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia. The team qualified for the League of Legends World Championship in 2017 and 2019 after winning those years' LMS regional finals.[2]

League of Legends

2013–2014

Hong Kong Attitude (HKA) was founded on 22 March 2013 with a tentative roster consisting of top laner Kan "MyticQ" Ho-man (now known as Kabe), jungler Cheng "Fai" Hiu-fai, and bot laner Lee "Owl" Yiu-shin.[3] They were later joined by mid laner Lo "PaSa" Hung-sing and top laner Siu "ReD" Hin-lee in April. On 30 June 2013, HKA finished first in the Cyber Games Arena 2013 Hong Kong Tournament, with the organisation's manager Derek Cheung as a temporary substitute.

Bot laner Fok "Nogod" Ching-chun and support Lee "Wind" Chi-wa joined the team in August 2013. On 4 September 2013, HKA Mage and HKA Priest were created as sister teams to compete in the League of Legends Nova League (LNL), the highest level of competitive play in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau at the time. In late October 2013, HKA acquired bot laner Yeung "Yau" Chin-yau and support Tam "Perhapstky" Kwun-yeung, while Owl left the team and Wind became inactive.[4] HKA participated in its first major international tournament when it attended IEM Season VIII - Singapore, which was held from 28 November to 1 December 2013.

For much of the latter half of 2013 and early half of 2014, HKA maintained a consistent roster with MyticQ, Fai, and PaSa, while the bottom lane saw a few roster changes and experimentations with players' roles being swapped. However in May 2014, nearly all of HKA's players were replaced by the roster of YouCantStopMe, another LNL team, which stayed with the organisation until August. In late October 2014 the team rebranded under the name of its parent organisation, Hong Kong Esports.

2017–present

All of Hong Kong Esports' sponsored teams had their names changed back to Hong Kong Attitude on 16 May 2017. For the 2017 LMS Summer Split, HKA fielded a main roster consisting of top laner Baek "Riris" Seung-min, junglers Cheung "GodKwai" Ho-wan and Huang "Gemini" Chu-xuan, mid laner Chen "M1ssion" Hsiao-hsien, bot laner Wong "Unified" Chun-kit, and support Ling "Kaiwing" Kai-wing. The team placed sixth in the regular season with a 7–7 record,[5] qualifying them for that year's LMS Regional Finals, which determines the third seed from the LMS at the 2017 World Championship, but not for playoffs. In the LMS Regional Finals, HKA took convincing wins over J Team and Raise Gaming, beating them 3–1 and 3–0 respectively[6] and qualifying for the play-in stage of the 2017 World Championship.[7][8]

HKA was placed in Group D of the 2017 World Championship play-in stage, along with Turkish team 1907 Fenerbahçe and Japanese team Rampage. The team placed second in their group with a 3–1 record after losing a tiebreaker match to Fenerbahçe.[9] HKA was unable to qualify for the main event after losing 0–3 to Fnatic in the play-in knockout stage.[10][11]

GodKwai and M1ssion left HKA in the offseason before the 2018 LMS Spring Split, and were replaced by jungler Kim "Nova" Dong-hyeon and mid laners Wong "Chawy" Xing Lei and Lam "Gear" Kwok-wa. Support Lee "Destiny" Jae-hoon also joined the team, but was released from his contract four weeks into the regular season because he refused to role-swap to jungle following disappointing results.[12] HKA placed seventh with a 3–11 record, failing to qualify for playoffs but avoiding the relegation tournament.[13]

In preparation for the 2018 LMS Summer Split, HKA acquired top laner Jeon "erssu" Ik-soo and mid laner Yu "cyeol" Chung-yeol, and released Riris, Nova, and Gear from their contracts.[14] HKA placed fourth in the regular season with a 8–6 record,[15] qualifying them for playoffs, where they placed fourth after losing to J Team 1–3 in the first round.[16] Their overall placement in the summer split guaranteed them a spot in the 2018 LMS Regional Finals and a chance to qualify for the 2018 World Championship. However, HKA failed to qualify for the World Championship after losing to G-Rex 1–3 in the first round.[17]

Following the 2018 LMS Regional Finals, erssu and cyeol departed from the team, and Chawy moved to a coaching role. On 27 December 2018, HKA acquired top laner Chen "3z" Han and mid laner Sit "Error" Chong Fai from Machi E-Sports and Kowloon Esports respectively. M1sson also rejoined HKA on the same day, while bot laner Wong "MnM" Ka-chun was promoted to the main roster from a trainee position.[18]

HKA placed fifth in the 2019 LMS Spring regular season with a 7–7 record, failing to qualify for playoffs.[19] In the 2019 LMS Summer regular season HKA placed third with a 6–6 record, qualifying for playoffs, where they lost 2–3 to ahq eSports Club in the second round. HKA's overall placement once again qualified them for the regional finals, where they swept both Flash Wolves and G-Rex to qualify for the 2019 World Championship.[20]

At the 2019 World Championship, HKA was placed in Group C of the first round of the play-in stage, along with Vietnamese team Lowkey Esports and Thai team MEGA. HKA secured first in their group with a 3–1 record,[21] qualifying for the second round, where they defeated Latin American team Isurus Gaming[22] 3–1 to qualify for the main event.[23][24][25]

Riot Games announced on 19 December 2019 that HKA would be one of ten teams participating in the newly created Pacific Championship Series.[26] HKA placed eighth in the 2020 PCS Spring regular season after winning a tiebreaker match against Liyab Esports and losing one afterwards to J Team. This placement earned the team a spot in the first round of playoffs in the losers' bracket.[27] HKA's playoff run ended in the third round after they were swept by ahq eSports Club, and the team finished fourth overall.

Name censorship controversy

During the 2019 World Championship, members of Riot Games' official broadcasting team seemingly avoided the use of the team's full name and instead opted to use their abbreviation, HKA. M1ssion's post-match interview after his team's victory over Isurus Gaming was also delayed in the English broadcast. This caused much speculation amongst the League of Legends community outside of China as it was done amidst pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, leading some fans to believe that Riot was censoring the word "Hong Kong" due to the company's ownership by Chinese conglomerate Tencent.[28] Riot's communications lead Ryan Rigney later addressed the controversy, saying, "We refer to their team interchangeably by both their full name and their tricode abbreviation HKA, as we routinely do with all of the teams in our ecosystem. [...] To make this as explicit as possible, we aren't telling anyone to avoid saying 'Hong Kong'. We'd just rather the team be referred to by its full name. There's been some confusion internally about this as well and we're working to correct it."[29]

Roster
Hong Kong Attitude roster
PlayersCoaches
RoleHandleNameNationality
Top Rock  Tsai Chung-ting  Taiwan 
Jungle Kycz  Liu Hsuan  Taiwan 
Mid Biven  Wu Hao-wei  Taiwan 
Bot MnM  Wong Ka-chun  Hong Kong 
Support Wing  Lam Wing-chun  Hong Kong 
Head coach

Wong "Chawy" Xing Lei

Legend
  • (2W) Two-way player
  • (I) Inactive
  • (S) Suspended
  • Substitute player
  • Injury/Illness

Latest roster transaction: 3 December 2020.

Arena of Valor

Roster
Nat. ID Name Role Date of birth Joined
Outcast Chen Wei-ting (陳威廷) Side Lane 17 October 2000 13 April 2018
XiaoLin Cai You-lin (蔡侑霖) Jungle 22 November 1998 17 January 2019
EZ Chang Chih-ying (張致穎) Mid 23 July 1996 30 July 2017
TheMan Yu Hon-lai (余翰禮) Side Lane 2 November 1999 17 January 2019
Abao Wei Guan-qun (韋冠羣) Support 20 February 1994 17 January 2019

Overwatch

History

Hong Kong Attitude disbanded its Overwatch team on 25 January 2019.[30]

Final roster
Hong Kong Attitude roster
PlayersCoaches
RoleHandleNameNationality
Damage ShaiuLin  Lin Keng-yu  Taiwan 
Damage PERFACT  An Ye-seung  South Korea 
Tank ATing  Chen Shao-hua  Taiwan 
Support CQB  Yang Hao-cheng  Taiwan 
Support ManGoJai (C)  Wong Kin-long  Hong Kong 
Flex vKei  Ju Seung-jun  South Korea 
Head coach

Chen "GOIN" Po-lin

Assistant coach(es)

Wang "inin77" Qi-hong

Legend
  • (C) Team captain
  • (2W) Two-way player
  • (I) Inactive
  • (S) Suspended
  • Injury/Illness

References
  1. Chen, Yao-Zong (27 February 2019). "《鬥陣特攻》Restya接NovaMs教練 前HKA隊長MangoJai赴上海龍學院隊". Yahoo Esports Taiwan (in Chinese). Retrieved 9 June 2019.
  2. Erzberger, Tyler; Moser, Kelsey; Rand, Emily; Dun, Peter; Torres, Xander (13 September 2017). "League of Legends World Championship power rankings". ESPN. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
  3. "Hong Kong Esports Limited's Facebook post". www.facebook.com (in Chinese). Hong Kong Esports. Retrieved 11 July 2019.
  4. "Hong Kong Attitude's Facebook post". www.facebook.com (in Chinese). Hong Kong Attitude. Retrieved 11 July 2019.
  5. "LMS/2017 Season/Summer Season". Leaguepedia. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  6. "2017 Season Taiwan Regional Finals". Leaguepedia. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  7. "HK team makes it to League of Legends world championship". EJ Insight. 31 August 2017. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  8. Rosen, Daniel (4 September 2017). "Samsung Galaxy, Team WE among latest 6 teams to qualify for Worlds". theScore esports. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  9. "2017 Season World Championship". Leaguepedia. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  10. Lyles, Wyatt (25 September 2017). "LoL Worlds: Fnatic, 1907 came to play". ESPN. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
  11. Waltzer, Noah (28 September 2017). "Fnatic sweeps Hong Kong Attitude to advance in Worlds". ESPN. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  12. Yi, Ceng (7 February 2018). "HKA 韓援待一個月遭解僱抱怨：你想讓韓援來就來、想開除就開除". Yahoo Esports Taiwan (in Chinese). Retrieved 9 June 2019.
  13. "LMS/2018 Season/Spring Season". Leaguepedia. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  14. "2018 LMS 職業聯賽". 《英雄聯盟 LoL》官方網站 - 全球第一多人連線遊戲，挑戰你的電子競技夢想！ (in Chinese). Retrieved 20 March 2019.
  15. "LMS/2018 Season/Summer Season". Leaguepedia. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  16. "LMS/2018 Season/Summer Playoffs". Leaguepedia. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  17. Torres, Xander (22 September 2018). "G-Rex Qualifies for the 2018 World Championship". VPEsports. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
  18. Shan, Dian (27 December 2018). "HKA S9新陣容揭曉！前M17 3Z報到、Chawy 執教再出發". Yahoo Esports Taiwan (in Chinese). Retrieved 9 June 2019.
  19. "LMS/2019 Season/Spring Season". Leaguepedia. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  20. Jessica (8 September 2019). "《英雄聯盟》2019 LMS 區域選拔賽隊伍 HKA 大勝 GRX 拿下世界大賽第三張門票". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站 (in Chinese). Retrieved 8 September 2019.
  21. Juras, Marta (6 October 2019). "Teams qualified for Worlds 2019 play-in knockout stage". Dot Esports. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  22. Geracie, Nick (5 October 2019). "League of Legends: The 2019 World Championship Play-In Knockout Stage bracket has been set". Inven Global. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  23. Li, Xing (8 October 2019). "Hong Kong Attitude backdoor Isurus Gaming to qualify for the Worlds main event". Dot Esports. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  24. Ousley, Parkes (8 October 2019). "Hong Kong Attitude advance to the Group Stage in a 3-1 victory over Isurus Gaming". Inven Global. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  25. Kolev, Radoslav (8 October 2019). "Hong Kong attitude cruise past Isurus Gaming to qualify for Worlds 2019 main event". VPEsports. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  26. Tuting, Kristine (19 December 2019). "Here are the teams for the League of Legends Pacific Championship Series (PCS) 2020". ONE Esports. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  27. Tan, Amanda (9 April 2020). "PCS 2020 Spring Playoffs: Everything You Need To Know". ONE Esports. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  28. Endres, Elena (9 October 2019). "Riot appears to censor "Hong Kong" during Worlds 2019 broadcasts". Dot Esports. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  29. Cooney, Bill (10 October 2019). "Riot Games address alleged Hong Kong censorship at Worlds 2019". Dexerto. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  30. "HKEsports' post on Facebook". www.facebook.com (in Cantonese). HKEsports via Facebook. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
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