Now, YM's popularity swept through the entire LPL. Whenever there was a YM match, the live stream's popularity would be twice as high as usual.
In this kind of team, the players naturally received a lot of attention. In Tieba, they were like the permanent experience books of pigs and dogs.
Xiao Tian was lost in the two group matches. Many viewers started to talk about him on Tieba.
[If you don't understand, just ask. YM is struggling because of this jungler, right?
Isn't the management preparing a substitute?]
[I've said it before. If it wasn't for Ran protecting him, Tian would be nothing. Now, he won't be able to control the tempo. He's forcing Ran to play the late game. Compared to before, there's no entertainment value at all. Every match is dragged to 35 minutes!]
Some people started to talk about him, while others couldn't stand watching and defended Xiao Tian.
[Two matches, right?
I didn't see you jump out during last year's international tournament and this year's mid-season tournament.]
[I'm dying of laughter. People who don't know would think that YM is in last place. Look at the group rankings and you realize that they're in first place?]
[At most, they won't catch people. I don't see Xiao Tian giving up his life, right?]
[Keyboard warriors, can't you wait for them to lose a group match before coming out?]
Although the viewers had their own opinions, there was one point that they all agreed on:
From the beginning of the summer tournament until now, Xiao Tian's performance was indeed very average.
Originally, before the theory of economic suppression in the jungle appeared, Xiao Tian's early performance was not bad. It was just that after the 10-minute canyon vanguard was spawned, his rhythm was broken and he was lost along with the team.
But now, Xiao Tian didn't know how to farm, and his gank count was dropping like a cliff.
Suddenly, Xiao Tian went from being the omnipotent wild father in the hearts of many fans to the number one jungler who couldn't do anything.
Some people even linked him to the recently popular Wuhu Da Sima and uploaded a spoof video on Bilibili — "Da Sima Forcefully Logs into Tian's Jungler Account, Helps YM!"
The video was edited from Da Sima's Wine Barrel livestream to Xiao Tian's match. From the square jungler, to the thousand-layer cake, to the collapse, all the elements were present.
The person who edited the video was also a genius. Da Sima's every word could correspond to Xiao Tian's movements on the court. It could only be described as "Perfect Match."
In just two days, the number of views of the parody video had exceeded the million mark.
However, Xiao Tian, who was at the center of the storm, did not feel good.
His Weibo was flooded with private messages every day due to his poor performance.
Although the proportion of trolls was small, YM's attention was too high. The number of trolls was definitely not small.
And Xiao Tian cared a lot about the negative opinions of others, so this scolding made him feel autistic.
Soon, it was June 17th. YM versus JDG.
As the number two yin coin after Lin Yan, JD mid laner doinb also understood that YM's current playstyle was going through a difficult transition period. He knew that Xiao Tian's sense of rhythm had deteriorated, so he decisively brought out the big core carry game in the late game.
In the first game, Xiao Tian was still confused. Although he did not give out a big rhythm, he did not drive the team to attack either.
The key was that YM used an early and mid-game lineup. They did not gain enough advantages during the strong lineup period. In the late game, they were defeated by doinb Kassadin, who killed one player with a kick. There was no suspense.
In the second game, the remaining four teammates worked together and used their strength to destroy JD's third string. There were seven solo kills in one game, and the overall score was 26: 4. It could be said to be extremely fierce.
In reality, there was a gap in strength between the two sides. Lin Yan was not worried about the outcome of the third game at all.
When they played LGD and SNG before, didn't they also drag it out until the final game to win the game?
However, Lin Yan did not expect the prophet to suddenly act up.
The JD team led by doinb not only had himself and the Korean support clid, who was good at bullying rookies, but also the support lvmao.
The prophet's soft support was directly destroyed by the opponent's Sun Lady. In 10 minutes, they started the game 0-5. If they were not dying, they were on their way to death.
Jack also started to get carried away. Xiao Tian's condition was obviously not right after the autistic period. Even his signature spider did not do anything.
Lin Yan's plane had not even spawned out of the mountains. JD's bottom lane was almost godly, using W's [Biochemical Bullet Screen] to kill crazily.
Although Lin Yan used explosives to end the two mouths, it still could not change the situation of the opponent's equipment being formed in advance.
In addition to doinb's ryze, JD's two carries exploded, and they won the final game.
Doinb was so excited that he clenched his fists and his face was red. It looked like he was going to bury his head and cry in the next second.
After they were bought, they lost three big games and six small games in a row. They did not expect that as the last place, they would win the group's first place, YM.
After the game, League of Legends' official Weibo posted:
[The end of the top league winning streak record: Tonight, YM lost the match against JDG. The unprecedented winning streak record set by the YM youngsters is set at 35 …]
Many viewers commented on YM's official Weibo. In just an hour, the number of comments exceeded 10,000. In the regular season, where the number of people following the match was not high, this number of comments was quite shocking.
However, most of the comments were encouraging, and there were few personal attacks in the criticism. Most of them were reminding the team and the coaching staff to prepare for the summer competition.
To be honest, 35 consecutive wins was terrifying for a top league team. Even SKT at their peak could not achieve such a long and dominant performance.
The fans were content. They also knew that this kind of record would be broken sooner or later. Losing now was a relief for the team members. This way, they would not have to worry every day about losing the match and destroying the record.
However, while the fans were being comforted, the small number of trolls were not idle.
Lin Yan logged into his Weibo account at the club's request and posted a fan activity document. He realized that the ones who had arrived earlier than the fans were actually keyboard warriors.
After winning the mid-season championship, he had deliberately set his profile to only receive private messages from his followers.
If the trolls wanted to find him, they would have to come to the Weibo comment section.
Lin Yan did not like to post on Weibo. His account was full of forwarded club activities and advertising documents.
He did not expect that there would actually be people waiting under his Weibo, waiting for Lin Yan to post a few words.
He did not know why the trolls were so free. However, Lin Yan did not even have much time to date. He did not have the time to study the psychology of these people.
He was not afraid. He replied to all of them with "Thank you for taking the time to comment in your busy schedule. You arrived earlier than my fans. It's been hard on you." He had learned to be sarcastic.
However, just because he could withstand it did not mean that everyone could withstand the firepower of the trolls.
Two days after losing to JDG, in the wee hours of the morning, the fans realized that Phyllostachys Pubescens' original YMTIAN9 Weibo name had been changed to TTTian9.
The team name prefix was gone.
This time, it really blew up.
The fans thought that Xiao Tian was going to be dragged to the water cooler by the club. There were people on the Tieba who were helping to find a new jungler for YM. There were also extreme fans on Weibo who were looking for a new team for Mongoose …
All kinds of comments fermented in the middle of the night. It even rushed to the top of Weibo's trending searches.
If it were not for the club's night shift staff immediately informing the manager, Guo Hao, he would have to wake up in the morning to find out what had happened.
Because everyone was not in good condition, Guo Hao simply gave the club members a day off. He was not at the base at the time.
Guo Hao anxiously called Lin Yan.
Lin Yan, who was used to sleeping and waking up early, was already asleep. He was in a bad mood when he was woken up by the ringtone. However, when he saw the caller ID, he managed to control his temper in time.
"What's the matter?" he asked in a daze. He curled up in bed and did not want to move.
After all, there was nothing more comfortable than sleeping with the air conditioner on in the summer.
"Ask Xiao Tian what's going on first. I'll drive back to the base immediately." Guo Hao tried to calm down his tone.
Lin Yan was puzzled. "What do you mean what's going on …"
Guo Hao tried to explain the matter as briefly as possible and then hung up the phone.
Lin Yan turned his head to look at the bed next to him.
Phyllostachys Pubescens was curled up in the corner. The entire blanket wrapped him up like a cocoon. He could still see the faint light from the phone.
Lin Yan rolled out of bed and sat on Xiao Tian's bed. He patted his butt through the blanket.
"Hey, get up," he said unhappily.
The cocoon turned over.
"Hmm?" Xiao Tian's voice was weak.
Lin Yan picked up the remote control and turned up the temperature of the air conditioner.
Then he lifted Xiao Tian's blanket.
The 169.5cm tall Phyllostachys Pubescens weighed only 40kg, which was even lighter than Su Cheng. Lin Yan lifted Xiao Tian up easily and then grabbed the back of Phyllostachys Pubescens' neck.
"F * ck!" Xiao Tian screamed like a pig being slaughtered. "The team tyrant hit me!"
"Wu Suiwei, go ahead and scream. Wake everyone up." Lin Yan did not care.
Phyllostachys Pubescens shut up decisively.
Lin Yan picked up Xiao Tian's phone. "What are you looking at?
Why did you change your Weibo name? "
Mongoose quickly snatched it back.
His phone was still off. Lin Yan glanced at it and saw the Weibo private message interface.
Lin Ran raised his phone up high and looked up at the contents of the phone.
[Stinky dog, why aren't you retiring?
Are you staying to screw over your teammates?
Qiuqiu, get lost.]
He was silent.
Xiao Tian stood on the bed and tiptoed to snatch the phone away when he was not paying attention.
"… Don't look at the private messages."
Phyllostachys Pubescens sat on the bed with his head down and did not say a word. His fingers unconsciously swiped and private messages appeared one after another. The veins on his skinny arms bulged.
Lin Yan finally figured out the reason — Xiao Tian was scolded so badly that he changed his Weibo name.
He sent the results of his investigation to Guo Hao in private.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
Lin Yan thought it was the manager. When he opened the door, he saw a group of people outside.
All the team members were there. They were all disheveled in their pajamas.
"Ah Xiba …" Jin Gong's voice came out of his mouth. "What are you doing, son of a b * tch?"
"I'm still playing ranked. I hung up on Faker to accompany you." Jin Gong stepped forward and pinched Xiao Tian's neck. "You have to compensate me!"
Nowadays, Fist was very strict with professional players. Most of the players who were caught hanging up would be fined 10,000 yuan.
"Don't talk nonsense." Xiao Tian's face was pale. "I didn't ask you to come."
Jack flicked the light on, and the whole room became bright again.
He put his hands on Xiao Tian's shoulders and pressed his big head on Phyllostachys Pubescens' collarbone. His eyes were fixed on Xiao Tian's phone.
"No way, little bastard." He pretended to be surprised. "Even a 10% discount can break your defense?
Do you want me to show you the private messages in my phone? "
"F * ck off!" Xiao Tian was very impatient. "Do you want to crush me?"
Lin Weixiang raised his eyebrows. "Gao Tianliang, what are you doing?
Mr. Tear and I faced a lot more online violence than you. "
After he and Liu Qingsong had demoted Team Valiant, the boss Dong Xiaosa had posted a long post. The team members had also suffered a lot at the time.
"And your private messages didn't have that many people spamming you." Jack found a blind spot. "Out of the ten comments, two of them were female moms telling you to eat more, seven of them were male moms telling you to train hard and not care about anything else, and the last comment was from a troll …"
"You're selectively blind to find troll private messages, right?"
Liu Qingsong rolled his eyes impatiently. He looked at Xiao Tian's phone screen and pulled it over to stop Xiao Tian from looking at it.
"Here …" The prophet poured a glass of warm water. "If you can't sleep, have some melatonin. I have some in my room."
White Crescent and Guo Hao rushed over while Xiao Tian was drinking the water.
"Xiao Tian, why are you looking at private messages for no reason?" Guo Hao drove over and his anger had mostly dissipated. He stepped forward and patted Xiao Tian on the head.
"I said at the time that it was useless to look at this stuff, but Yu Wenbo insisted that you look at it … Do you have the ability to withstand pressure like him?"
Jack was shocked. "I'm taking the blame for this too?"
"Who doesn't lose a game?" Lin Weixiang said from the side. "He's not a god."
Jin Gong was overjoyed. "It's just a group match and he's already crying. His ability to withstand pressure is too weak, right?"
"Let's go see a counselor tomorrow morning?"
Guo Hao suggested. "Remove Weibo and Tieba during this period of time. Train hard and don't look at the comments."
YM Club wasn't short of money now, so they were naturally equipped with counselors. They were afraid that these kids who had just stepped into society would have psychological problems in a high-pressure environment.
However, no one usually used YM. Lin Yan, Jin Gong, Jack, Lin Weixiang, and Liu Qingsong were all masters of coping with pressure. Only the prophet would go there for no reason.
Now that this incident had happened, it was likely that the psychological counselor would come in handy.
"There's no need to worry about public opinion," Lin Yan advised. "As long as you can win the game, no one will criticize you."
"Who said that?" Jack immediately retorted. "I surf every day. Many people will criticize you even if they win, okay?"
Lin Yan hit him. "You talk too much!"
The two of them bickered. Xiao Tian sat on the bed with the Wonderful Frog Seed doll in his arms.
Lin Weixiang and Liu Qingsong sandwiched him in the middle like the left and right door gods. Jin Gong and the prophet sat behind him. The four of them surrounded him in the middle.
Xiao Tian didn't know if it was because of the warm bodies of his teammates or because of the raised temperature in the room, but he felt his face turn a little red. Even his heart was rippling with warmth.
He grinned.
Guo Hao knew that it was no big deal for the time being. "Let's go back …"
None of the team members listened. Liu Qingsong ran to the bathroom to relieve himself and saw Lin Yan's skincare products.
"Brother Ran, these things …" Liu Qingsong seemed to have discovered a new world. He was just about to come out and ask when he heard Guo Hao shouting.
"You're not going to rest now. Are you planning to catch up on sleep during the day?
I'm telling you, this is the only day off before the Intercontinental Championship! "
Hearing this, everyone immediately scattered like birds and beasts.
Guo Hao watched as Xiao Tian drank the melatonin with water and prepared to leave with White Crescent.
"I'll change my Weibo name back," Phyllostachys Pubescens said softly.
"Sure, it'll help me relieve some of the pressure," Guo Hao said half-jokingly. "Otherwise, you'll be torturing the manager if you lose the game."
White Crescent turned off the lights before leaving. The room was once again shrouded in darkness.
The next morning, the viewers who wanted to see the trending topics on Weibo found that Mongoose's Weibo name was still YM.
It was rare for Weibo to be reviewed so quickly.
At the same time, YM's official Weibo posted an article against online violence. League of Legends' official Weibo reposted it immediately.
Lin Yan also made a Weibo post, which was rare.
[I'm not changing junglers. Don't spread rumors.
PS: I don't know Shadow Clone Technique. The person who told me to kick out all four of my teammates should take a break. Are you going to bring me into the Intercontinental Championship if they're all gone?]
This Weibo post calmed down a lot of fans.
Phyllostachys Pubescens, who had uninstalled Weibo, went to the psychologist's office for the whole morning. When he came back, he was full of energy and started to rank up.
Su Cheng also hurried over after her morning class.
"I'm sorry, Xiao Tian. It's all my fault for my messed up tactics …" She was apologetic.
This morning, she found out about Xiao Tian's situation from Lin Yan.
Su Cheng felt that she was to blame for this. She felt that if she didn't mention this strategy, Xiao Tian wouldn't have gotten lost in the early game and wouldn't have been scolded like this.
"Stop messing around, Sister Su." Xiao Tian smiled. "I know that your strategy is very feasible. It's my fault."
"And I haven't apologized to you yet," he said again. "If I played a little better, you wouldn't have been scolded so badly."
？？？
"Someone is scolding Su Cheng?" Lin Yan, who was sitting on the side, turned his head and asked. He thought he heard wrong.
"Don't listen to his nonsense. It's not true." Su Cheng waved her hand.
"What's going on?" Lin Yan looked at Xiao Tian.
Phyllostachys Pubescens realized that he had said something wrong and immediately shut up.
Lin Yan and his girlfriend looked at each other. Su Cheng knew that she couldn't hide it from her, so she explained, "A lot of people are saying that the coach and analyst are not good enough and they need Hao to strengthen them …"
She hurriedly said, "You know, out of ten comments, there are always a few that are not very friendly …"
"Delete it, delete it. Don't look at these things." Lin Yan frowned.
It was okay to use these comments on social media as entertainment, but it was not a good thing to look at them every day.
Su Cheng glared at Xiao Tian. She couldn't argue with Lin Yan, so she took out her phone.
Lin Yan used his thumb to unlock his fingerprint and wanted to delete all the e-sports forums on Su Cheng's phone.
However, Su Cheng's surfing props were more than he had imagined.
Fighting bar, Pot bar, Weibo, Tiger Pounce, NGA, all of them. He could be called a fancy surfer.
"Good fellow," he praised inwardly.
She was like Big Head Jack 2!
Su Cheng took back her phone, which was missing a bunch of apps, and continued with a bitter face.
"But we don't really need that jungle economy suppression tactic anymore …"
"The new version 7.12 is out. It will be released next week."
(In reality, version 7.12 will be released in the third week of the summer tournament. It matches the timeline in the article.)
Su Cheng was well prepared. She even finished the version analysis report.
"[Kike's Aggregation]'s original magic power has been changed to armor. The new skill effects and attributes are more suitable for hard supports …"
Lin Yan looked at the analysis report and realized that it was not only Kike's Aggregation that had been changed.
The bird shield [Steel Sun Casket] was more suitable for hard supports with higher tankiness.
[Knight's Oath] also changed the basic health recovery to cooldown reduction. It could be said that it had been greatly improved.
The changes to the three pieces of equipment announced the return of hard supports to the stage.
(See the changes in this chapter.)
"Hard supports are out." Su Cheng was very excited. "The Nakano trio's teamwork is going to be mainstream again!"
"We can let the support rush over when the vanguard in the canyon is about to respawn. We have more people, and with the hard support's ability to find opportunities to get the Dragon's vision, we have the initiative."
Su Cheng drew a circle and was going to calculate when the support needed to go to the top half of the map.
"This way, we don't need to use the jungle economy suppression tactic. We can use the vision advantage to force the canyon team …"
Before she finished, Xiao Tian suddenly said, "But this way, isn't the jungle economy suppression tactic very suitable for hard supports?"
"After all, hard supports have good control and are very good at roaming. They can suppress the opposing jungler."
Lin Yan didn't expect Xiao Tian to say something like that. "Haven't you been criticized enough?
You still want to use this tactic? "
Xiao Tian waved his hand. "Brother Ran, let me ask you something."
"What?"
"Are you going to change junglers?"
Lin Yan didn't expect Xiao Tian to ask such a question. He answered truthfully, "I haven't thought about it yet."
"If your condition didn't change too much, I wouldn't change junglers," Lin Yan said sincerely.
He really couldn't leave Xiao Tian.
This was related to the jungler's ability.
In fact, the audience's judgment of junglers was very intuitive.
Either they gank crazily to catch people, and the world focuses on your mad dog style jungler. The representative of this playstyle was Spicy Saucepan.
Otherwise, they would silently make a fortune. Three lines of minions, red and blue. Lonely Charui was a type C jungler, and the representative player was Vietnam's captain, Levi.
Then there were the map control players who were more inclined to protect the father and control the dragons. The representative players were Dumb Chicken and Ghost Foot Seven.
These three paths corresponded to the three most basic functions of junglers: gank, develop, and map control.
In fact, the general direction of this understanding was correct, but the problem couldn't be generalized.
That was because as the version continued to change, the team's playstyle continued to evolve. Junglers rarely went all the way.
For example, Phyllostachys Pubescens.
Just as he said in an interview after defeating ROX in the semi-finals last year, "When I was in China, I often saw people say that my playstyle was like a certain jungler, but I have to say that my playstyle is completely different from theirs."
It was indeed different.
Gank, develop, and map control were the three basic abilities of junglers. Xiao Tian didn't max out any of them. Instead, he took all of them equally.
Every single one of his abilities was not bad, but they were not at the top of the abnormally strong list.
However, Lin Yan was like a huge buff. His existence made Xiao Tian's ability points increase crazily on the field.
If the full score of the three abilities was 10, and Xiao Tian's ability points in gank and map control were 7, coupled with Lin Yan's buff, his ability points would reach or even break through the full value.
When using gank heroes like Blind Monk and Spider, there would be a mid laner who could support at any time behind them. Lin Yan would make up for the damage and control abilities. The success rate of gank would definitely be guaranteed.
When using heroes like Pig Sis and Olaf who were more inclined towards map control, Lin Yan's control of the middle lane could radiate to the jungle, allowing Xiao Tian to easily set up his vision and control the map's resources.
It could be said that Lin Yan made Xiao Tian, and Xiao Tian made Lin Yan.
With their playstyle, the power of the junglers would be greatly reduced if they didn't fight alone.
It was difficult for Lin Yan to find such an extremely suitable jungler, and Xiao Tian couldn't find a mid laner who could perfectly control the line and was willing to support the jungle.
Therefore, unless there were special circumstances, Lin Yan wouldn't change junglers.
After Su Cheng proposed the theory of economic restrictions in the jungle, YM's problem now was that Xiao Tian couldn't completely implement the idea of anti-jungler development.
In fact, Lin Yan's control of the line was very helpful in anti-jungler development. He could provide support immediately, and the range of his influence was wider than the opponent's mid laner.
Logically speaking, his' buff booster 'could also help Xiao Tian complete the jungle playstyle. However, Phyllostachys Pubescens had a problem.
Just like last year's Nanqiang Panther Lady, he still couldn't adapt to the idea of developing the jungle.
However, the current Xiao Tian was full of confidence after eliminating his negative emotions. "I must practice this playstyle. Believe me!"