"You're early?"
Lin Ran looked up and saw Song Yijin quietly push open the door and enter the training room.
"… I can't sleep." The broiler yawned with his mouth wide open. His chubby face now looked even rounder. "Damn it, Cheng Lu got up in the middle of the night and turned off the air conditioner. I almost died of heat."
After staying in China for three years, the level of swearing was getting higher and higher. It felt like it had reached the acme of perfection.
"Why did you call me?" Jiang Chenglu suddenly appeared.
"Huh?" Broiler was stunned. "I'm talking about Jiang Chenglu."
"Oh, it's Jiang Chenglu."
"…" Broiler was speechless.
Lin Yan laughed. When he saw Broiler's shocked expression, it was the same as when he first heard Jiang Chenglu's name.
"What are you playing?" Song Yijin took a bottle of ice water and sat down next to Lin Yan.
There were only four or five people in the large training room. Only Lin Yan and Broiler were awake. The others had slept late and were still asleep.
"I haven't chosen a hero yet. I just got in," Lin Yan replied.
Rookie watched helplessly as Lin Ran picked Yasuo before the Ban began.
This made the other players in the same team react very strongly.
Gene ShowMaker: [Ran!
NoYasuo！
No!]
Lin Yan typed on the keyboard.
Dan ShaFaker: [plz trust me]
Gene ShowMaker: [nikengwojibale, wan pykebuxingma?]
Broiler read ShowMaker's words out loud. "You tricked me a few times. Can't I play Parker?"
Halfway through, he stopped at Bengbu.
Lin Yan scratched his head. "No, why does he know Chinese?"
As far as he knew, ShowMaker was a native Korean player who had never played in LPL.
"Many Korean high schools offer Chinese classes, and Korean is also written in pinyin." Jiang Chenglu's voice suddenly appeared. "It's reasonable that he knows how to type in pinyin."
Just now, he had been peeping from behind. Now that he realized that Lin Yan had a question, he immediately jumped out to answer it, and at the same time, made his presence known.
After communicating with Lin Yan in Mandarin, Prankster started typing in Korean in the team chat channel.
This time, without waiting for Lin Yan to speak, Jiang Chenglu took the initiative to translate, "He's asking the other three if there's anyone who hasn't been insta-killed today, -3 to ensure safety."
"I know." Lin Yan's expression was very calm this time. He pointed to the Korean sentence and said, "I've seen this sentence dozens of times in a month. I even used Google Translate to check its meaning."
Ever since he started practicing ropes like crazy, he had seen a lot of these words. He could only say that he understood them all.
Jiang Chenglu still wanted to say something, but Broiler interrupted him.
"Deft said he did it in seconds …"
"Tarzan said he did it once as well. If he does it again, it'll be -10 points. It's not worth it."
There weren't many players like Showmaker who used their professional ID as their in-game nickname. Most professional players were the same as ordinary players, and their names were very casual.
Compared to Jiang Chenglu, the strength of the rookies was that he could match these strange Korean IDs with the names of professional players. After all, he fought in the Korean King of the Thousand Point Tournament every day and had a lot of good karma. He had a lot of friends with LCK players.
Other than the slightly strange Mandarin accent of the translator, he had no other shortcomings.
Jiang Chenglu was dumbfounded.
He didn't expect that the person who stole his job wasn't Xiba, but Rooster God.
Was there any justice in this world?
Lin Yan obviously couldn't empathize with Jiang Chenglu, nor could he understand the pain of the translator.
He was focused on waiting for the game to load.
The selection process was over. Lin Yan successfully selected Yasso. He even changed into the Evernight Bringer skin and looked very cool.
However, at the last second before the game was loaded, the client interface flashed and retreated to the queuing interface.
"F * ck …" Lin Yan was speechless. "This again?"
He wasn't surprised.
Every time the Korean Kings saw that he had selected Yasso, someone would stand up and say, "You can't do it in seconds." However, everyone else's answer was the same. "Bro, I did it in seconds today."
Lin Yan had never been afraid of using the worst of intentions to guess people's hearts. At least 80% of these answers were lies.
This was because every time it was a life and death moment before the game was loaded, someone would suddenly cancel the match.
Everyone was playing a psychological game.
This was because there was only one person who could cancel the match, and Lin Yan had four teammates.
As long as they could trick the others into canceling the match, they could save three points.
Slaves wouldn't close the client until the last moment.
This time, Lin Yan didn't have to wait for long. He was immediately queued for another match.
There were only a few people in the Korean Server's Thousand Branch in the morning. Lin Yan saw the ID GenShowMaker appear in his team's chat.
The other two players were the same. Only Mr. Dai was missing.
"Hahahaha, Hercule did it in seconds!" Broiler laughed so hard that his eyes disappeared.
The Reanimator didn't expect Lin Yan to still be on his side. According to probability, the probability of him going to the other side was higher!
He helplessly sent a string of ellipses.
[He wants to train Yasso. If you can't do it in seconds, do it in seconds.]
Tarzan's reply was very quick. [I already said that I did it in seconds in the last round.]
Everyone waited for another three minutes. Lin Yan selected Yasso and quietly watched them perform their game theory.
As expected, he was killed in seconds again.
Three minutes later, Lin Yan entered the game again.
This time, Tarzan disappeared.
Pure black humor.
However, it was replaced by Def.
KTDeft: [???]
Mr. Dai was probably a master at typing. His typing speed was incomparably fast. A string of Korean words appeared in the chat.
Broiler had been trying to hold back his laughter. Now, he finally stopped laughing.
"What's he saying?"
Hearing Lin Yan's words, Jiang Chenglu followed him like a hound and quickly responded.
This time, he rushed to take back his job before Broiler could speak.
"Def said, 'I've been waiting for six minutes. Why haven't you entered yet?'"
This time, not only Broiler, but also the surrounding staff members laughed out loud.
Lin Yan laughed out loud.
Then, the corners of his mouth slowly disappeared. He couldn't laugh anymore.
Even tears were rolling in his stomach.
"F * ck!" He was indignant. "My Yasso is really not a noob now!"
Lin Yan sighed. "The prejudice in a person's heart is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to move it …"
"What's that?" Broiler didn't understand at once.
Lin Ran had no choice but to explain, "I, Yasuo, have indeed tricked them before, especially last month. I made the Korean Server's Daegan Grimace. Now that I've practiced it, these loyal fans still think that I, Yasuo, am a scammer.
"What a pity. I originally wanted to lead them to win a game." He looked a little regretful.
"Haha." Broiler felt that Lin Yan was pretending. He always had this expression when he saw Jack bragging.
…
At one o 'clock in the afternoon, all the players and coaches of the four representative teams of the Intercontinental Tournament gathered together.
As usual, Red Rice stood in the middle of the room. As the head coach of YM, he had unknowingly become the head coach of this Intercontinental Tournament. Especially after predicting that Sword Demon would kill everyone, he now had some dignity.
"Let's make it clear in advance," he said in a deep voice. "The arrangement made by me and the other members of the coaching team is based on the LCK division as the imaginary enemy.
"Does anyone have any questions about this?"
After listening to Jiang Chenglu's translation, the twenty or so players naturally didn't have any objections.
In this regard, their views were surprisingly consistent. LMS was definitely not LCK's opponent.
Even Lightning Wolf could win a game with an explosive SEED. The remaining three noobs could also drag down the Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan teams.
Counting on the other three teams to support them?
It was very blue.
"From my personal point of view, the strength of the four teams in LCK is like this …" Red Rice turned on the projector and projected the slides he had made on the screen. "KT > KZ > AF > SKT. As you can see, this is different from their seeding order."
"The reason is very simple. The current version is different from the Spring Season. The seeding order is based on the Spring Season playoffs. Naturally, there will be changes now."
Ever since the professional level of the LPL division became higher and higher, the players rarely observed their opponents and studied their strategies. This was the job of the coaching team. The players only needed to be responsible for training well.
Therefore, Red Rice now had to explain to them bit by bit so that everyone could understand.
"We've played for three weeks in the Summer Season. Everyone should be able to feel that the mid and top lanes are becoming more and more important. The importance of the bottom lane's tactics is getting lower and lower …"
"There are many reasons. The most important ones are the River Crab and the Canyon Vanguard." Homme skipped a slide. "Now, the experience and economy provided by the River Crab is almost equivalent to a jungle camp. It also provides a vision altar. It's no exaggeration to say that the most likely point of conflict in the early stages of the game is the River Crab."
"The Swift Crab takes two minutes to respawn. At this time, the mid lane will be level two. Although the top lane is slower, it will take around two minutes and ten seconds to level two … However, the bottom lane duo will split the experience. It's impossible for them to level two before the River Crab respawns."
Red Rice took a sip of tea and continued, "Everyone is very clear that the strength of a level two hero is completely different from that of a level one hero. At this time, the top, middle, and jungle will definitely be stronger than the bottom lane duo."
"This causes the strength of the top, middle, and jungle to be more important in the first round of confrontation. After all, it's useless no matter how big your bottom lane advantage is. Unless you use Boulogne as support, two level one heroes will be a joke in the River Crab team battle."
This was very simple and easy to understand. Everyone indicated that they understood.
"The second is the Canyon Vanguard. At present, the value of the Little Dragon guarding the bottom lane is far less than it." Red Rice clicked to the next slide, which showed the respawn time and respawn time node of the Canyon Vanguard. "That's because the Vanguard's pushing ability is too terrifying in the early stages. It will bring the team more than just a one-blood tower. It will also establish the advantage of jungle resources and vision for the team."
"And the geographical position of the Vanguard means that the top, middle, and jungle will have a stronger influence on it. Moreover, the archer position's power period is relatively late. At eight minutes, it's basically an accessory. It can't deal damage or control damage. At that time, the top, middle, and jungle will have extraordinary combat ability."
Red Rice explained the two main reasons clearly. Casa sat among the RNG team members and nodded.
He was now worried.
The RNG coaches were not idiots. Naturally, they could see the changes in the version. At the beginning of the summer tournament, they pushed him to the bench and let the Spicy Saucepan return to the starting position.
In the end, which of the two junglers would be sent up depended on RNG's tactical focus.
The Spicy Saucepan had always been very loud in the early stages. Its offensive ability was very strong, and its main focus was the top half. In most cases, he did not raise Ouze in the early stages. Instead, he chose to bring Letme and Mi Dehu to lead the tempo.
Casa himself was the most typical playstyle of keeping the bottom half. When he was called the Lightning Wolf Bay Factory, other than his KDA data and escape skills that were very similar to Ancestor Savin, his playstyle was also very similar.
However, Casa's ability to seize opportunities in the early stages was better than Ghost Foot Seven's. At the same time, Blind Monk played well.
The RNG coaches had now chosen to cater to the version's playstyle. Between the two junglers, they chose the Spicy Saucepan. They tried to copy the idea of S7 and let Ouze develop steadily until the middle stage before pouring in resources.
Casa could only look at the water cooler and wait for the version to change or for the coaches to change their minds.
Red Rice was still chattering. "After determining the focus of the version, let's look at the four teams in the LCK. Then we can distinguish their strength."
"In my opinion, KT is the strongest. Smeb, Score, and the newcomer Ucal form a top, middle, and jungler. Although Deft and Mata are slightly older in the bottom lane, their abilities have not deteriorated significantly."
"In terms of the individual strength of the players, KT basically has no weaknesses. They have been known as the Galactic Battleship since they were formed last year. It is definitely not an undeserved reputation." Jiang Chenglu translated and added a Chinese idiom. "Last year, for some reasons that everyone knows, they did not enter the international tournament …"
Hearing this, the players in the training room looked at each other and laughed tacitly.
In the S7 LCK bubble competition, KT's coach showed his stubbornness. He played T0 Callista twice in a row. This godly BP was comparable to the S5 World Championship's Godfather's Iron Man. It broke the mentality of his own players, and in the end, they did not pass the three-star stage.
"Is he the coach who said 'if you lose to LPL, swim back' in the Intercontinental Tournament last year?"
Lin Weixiang suddenly thought of something. "There seems to be something wrong with this person. He's really unlucky."
The players laughed even louder.
"Last year's coach resigned after the bubble competition. Now ZanDarC is coaching KT …"
When Red Rice mentioned this name, Broiler let out a sigh. He had a nostalgic look on his face. "He's been in KT for a long time. He's been in KTA and KTB for a long time. He's very experienced."
He had also come from KT to the LPL to mine coal in S5. He had deep feelings for his old team.
"That's right. That's why we can't let our guard down. This time, KT won't make such a low-level BP mistake. They should be our strongest opponent in LPL." Red Rice knocked on the whiteboard and reminded the players. "Everyone should be able to understand the next order."
"KZ has Khan, Little Peanut, and BDD. This top, mid, and jungler combination's offensive ability is even stronger than KT's. It's just that the Xuanming Elders' strength has decreased, so I've put them in second place. AFs has Kiin, one of Korea's top top laners, and jungler Spirit. However, mid laner Kuro and bottom laner Aiming are a bit of a drag …"
"I've put SKT in last place. It's the same as their Spring Season ranking. There are no changes," Red Rice explained. "The main reason is that their top laner, Thal, is too weak."
Jiang Chenglu translated this and added a joke. "He's really that kind of … the kind that's very rare. He's a fresh and refined top laner."
Red Rice switched to another PowerPoint presentation. Now, he displayed all of Thal's data from the competition to the ranking matches.
"From the picture, it can be seen that he doesn't know how to use Camil, Kenji, Jax, Swordsister, Crocodile, and other warrior heroes that require close combat with normal attacks. The two strongest warriors are Norhand and Troll. Yes, you heard it right …"
The players below the stage sucked in a mouthful of Liangpi.
"Is he really a top laner?" Lin Yan mumbled.
"In the entire summer season, he used Norhand the most. His proficiency is indeed not bad. As for Troll … His ID means that he doesn't want to play Troll anymore. He can be considered half a Troll."
"Compared to the regular top laners, Thal is more proficient at top laners like Crow, Vampire, Ryze, and Snake Lady …" Red Rice said helplessly. "These types of heroes are very good at developing, but he often misses.
"In the first 15 minutes of the entire Spring Season, he only led his opponent in 21.9% of the matches. This is enough to prove that his basic skills in last hitting are terrible. Moreover, his awareness of defending against gank is very poor. He's basically someone who dares to grab or die."
After hearing all this, the players were disillusioned.
Normally, they did not pay much attention to the LCK league. They would only encounter SKT during mock competitions. However, since there were many strong teams in the LPL, most of them did not challenge the Korean team as crazily as they did two years ago. As a result, these players did not have much of an impression of the newbie Thal.
They would never have thought that such a noob would be able to participate in the Intercontinental Tournament.
"This guy can be a top laner in SKT?" Jin Gong sighed. "Times have changed."
When he joined Samsung as a trainee, SKT was still at its peak. They had just won the S3 World Championship, and all the young players wanted to go there. Even the selection criteria for trainees was higher than that of the average club.
However, times had changed. SKT had even fallen to the point of using a player of Thal's standard as a top laner. This made him sigh.
Red Rice waited for the players to calm down before explaining his strategy. "According to the ancient saying in China, the Intercontinental Tournament's finals are similar to Tianji's horse racing.
"It's a best-of-five format. Apart from the final match, where you can freely choose your team, every team in the remaining four matches will have to go on stage once.
"A top-notch horse against a mid-notch horse, a mid-notch horse against a low-notch horse, and a low-notch horse against a top-notch horse … I think everyone here knows this better than I do," Red Rice said.
He wrote down the four representative teams of LCK and LPL on the whiteboard.
"KT is definitely their top-notch horse. My ideal plan is to use RW to go against them …"
Hanyi's face was a little stiff.
They all knew KT's standard. Letting RW face this Galactic Battleship was equivalent to giving away points.
Doinb, who had been sitting there silently, suddenly opened his mouth. "If you need us to do that … Sure, no problem."
His gaze was firm and strong, revealing his endless desire for victory.
Doinb only wanted to win.
After leaving the secondary league, he had yet to win a single championship.
This Intercontinental Tournament was the best opportunity. If necessary, he would sacrifice himself for the team.
Red Rice nodded. "Next, I plan to let IG face SKT. This is their weakest link. As long as The Shy defeats Thal, victory will be as easy as pie."
The shy and introverted looking The Shy suddenly grinned and laughed.
He was at his peak condition. Against a top laner of Thal's standard, he did not even need to blink his eyes. He could easily kill him. In a lane battle, if he did not press for 30 hits, he would be suppressed.
"RNG will go against team Africa. The top laner will resist the pressure, and the bottom lane will be broken by Ouze."
Hearing Red Rice's arrangement, RNG's head coach Heart quickly expressed his opinion. "We can let Cass play to protect Puppy. Let him play more comfortably."
"Ah?" Cass almost exclaimed out loud. It took him a lot of effort to suppress his emotions.
Immediately, his face lit up with excitement.
Who would have thought that he would have a chance to play!
Wootz also revealed a hint of joy.
At the start of the summer tournament, the coaching staff had let Saucepan start again. He had been quite dissatisfied.
It was not because he had a problem with Saucepan, but because of the playstyle.
To Ouze, Cass was playing well. Why should he be replaced?
Ouze was very satisfied with the Lightning Wolf King, who often came to the bottom lane to help catch people.
It was mainly because he was comfortable playing.
With a jungler constantly lurking at the bottom of the map, coupled with his and Xiao Ming's strong laning ability, RNG's bottom lane could be said to be the best in the world.
When he switched to Spicy Saucepan, Ouze would always think of the days when S6 and S7 were in RNG.
No matter what the team's results were, he was really unhappy when he played. Many times, he could clearly suppress the opponent to the point that they could not finish him off, but he was forced to give up because Saucepan was roaming in the top lane.
Although the team's jungler rotation was not to his liking, Ouze did not ask the management to change their thinking.
As long as it was not a critical moment, he was still very mature.
If the coaching staff did not listen to his suggestions, then he would just continue playing.
It was the regular season, so he could tolerate it.
Now that he heard that Heart had taken the initiative to change the jungler, Ouze could not help but be happy.
Even Letme breathed a sigh of relief.
He could not wait for Cass to play.
Saucepan put too much pressure on him in the competition.
He had to listen to the instructions non-stop because Saucepan's main focus was the top lane. In the early stages, everything had to be done for the jungler.
Dealing with the minions, frequently changing the jungler to make it easier for the jungler to catch people, and following Saucepan to counter invade …
Letme did not like this very much.
If Saucepan was caught, it meant that he had to take on the heavy responsibility of carrying.
However, compared to a highly maneuverable top laner like Knife Lady, he preferred team battle utility characters like Cheyenne and Ahn.
After being taught a lesson by the Korean top laners in S7, Letme, who had entered the second half of his professional career, was able to recognize his own level.
His position was to develop in the lane, provide stable control in the team battle, and create the perfect output space for the C position.
Besides, Ouze had been strong for an entire spring. Why didn't the coaching staff protect him and had to transfer Saucepan up? Why did they want him to carry?
Once they lost the game, they would be criticized for things like, "Why did you have to play a carry hero?", "Can't you just take a jungler?", and "You can just protect Ouze. Does the team need you as a C?".
Other than Spicy Saucepan, who was a little depressed when he heard about the personnel arrangement, the other RNG players did not think that it was a bad thing.
When Red Rice saw that Heart was so cooperative and was even willing to change the jungler rotation to ensure their victory in the LPL, his tone became much more cheerful.
In his opinion, this year's LPL region was definitely ahead of LCK. As long as there were no accidents, it would not be a problem for them to win the Intercontinental Championship.
"The last one is YM. Under normal circumstances, we can guarantee a win against any team. Even if there is a deviation in the plan, we just need to win one game and drag it to the fifth game. We can still make the final decision."
Red Rice was very confident.
The surrounding contestants also revealed smiles on their faces.
YM was like a strong backing for the entire region. They stood firm and unshakable.
This feeling was indescribable, but it was very reassuring.
Even if they lost the game, there would not be too much of a psychological burden.
After all, YM was still there.
"That …" Ah Guang hesitated for a moment and raised his arm. "I have a question."
"Hmm?"
"How can we guarantee that each team will meet the expected opponents?" Ah Guang still did not understand this.
"That's a good question …" Red Rice listened to the translation and pondered for two seconds. "I don't know the answer either."
"What?!" This time, everyone was stunned.
"Game theory is very complicated. It's impossible to bet 100%. We can only guess the possible order of the opponent's team," Red Rice continued.
Red Rice continued, "I plan to let YM go on stage first and give everyone a good start to build confidence and increase the margin for error."
"I think it's okay." Hanyi agreed with Red Rice.
If YM won the first game, LPL would only need to win one of the next three games to drag the game to the final game. At that time, they could use YM again.
It was a good idea.
The coaches of the other two teams exchanged opinions and did not raise any objections.
"Then it's decided!"
Red Rice clapped his hands. After talking for so long, his mouth was inevitably dry. He picked up the teacup and took a big gulp. He opened the live broadcast room.
"Let's take a look at this semifinal. Maybe LCK will expose some tactics and increase our chances of winning tomorrow's finals."
Reality proved that Red Rice was overthinking.
In the semifinals against Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, the LCK team highlighted the word 'steady'.
They had to fight steadily and surely, using standard tactics and the strength of their leading team members to win the match.
Originally, Lin Yan thought that LMS would be able to win the game with their excellent performance against Han Qixia's Lightning Wolf. However, things did not turn out as he wished.
The Lightning Wolf met KT.
In the confrontation between the strongest players of both teams, FW suffered a crushing defeat.
After being crushed in all three lanes, KT already had a 6k economic gap at the end of the 15-minute matchup period.
Mr. Dai was completely crazy. Even Ucal, who had just entered the professional scene this year, could ride on Fengtang's head.
8k in 17 minutes, 10k in 20 minutes …
The economic gap continued to widen. It was a complete crushing.
Next, KZ faced MAD. Khan's face was gloomy. He vented all his anger from losing to YM yesterday on MAD.
Jayce fully displayed the characteristics of an offensive-type top laner.
Team Africa was not to be outdone. In nearly 26 minutes, they flattened G-Rex's base.
"Congratulations to the LCK team!
If nothing goes wrong, they'll sweep LMS with a score of 3-0 and advance to the finals tomorrow! "
Hao Kai was still trying his best to liven up the atmosphere in the stadium. However, the number of spectators was too small. The scattered cheers did not cause much of a stir.
The spectators who came to watch the semi-finals were either Lightning Wolf fans or Korean fans. KT, KZ, and SKT all had popular players and a portion of die-hard fans.
However, the number of fans added together was less than the number of spectators who watched the group matches yesterday.
The scattered spectators could not even fill up one side of the stands. In addition, the semi-finals were purely a one-sided beating. Anyone with a little bit of common sense would know that there was no suspense in the outcome.
Even Hao Kai did not use an oxygen tank when he was commentating. One could only imagine how boring the competition was.
The spectators saw the expected outcome. Of course, there was no excitement.
"The LMS team's results in this year's continental competition are not ideal. Including the group matches, they have a miserable record of 0 wins and 11 losses," Hallucination said in a calm tone. "This is not a problem of one or two teams. The competitiveness of the entire division is declining!
"If this continues, they may not be able to maintain their position as one of the five divisions …"
Hallucination wanted to continue, but his partner Hao Kai quickly changed the topic.
"Tomorrow afternoon, LCK and LPL will engage in a life-and-death battle for the title of the best division in Asia and the world!"