In the audience, the YM fans cheered and celebrated, while the RW fans were completely disheartened.
The figure of the Hegemon Swordsman seemed so powerful to them that they couldn't fight back.
"How can he be so strong?" a RW fan muttered to himself.
Doinb leaned against the back of the chair, his eyes blank.
His mind was filled with the image of the Swordsman spreading his wings and chasing after them with a heavy sword.
Ah Guang stopped laughing, and the entire RW team was crestfallen.
After the five YM players left the stage with paper cups, the rest of the RW fans came to their senses and took off their headphones to hide in the lounge.
The two casters looked at each other.
In fact, RW's defeat had been foreshadowed, so they weren't surprised.
Some teams died in seven minutes and were buried after twenty-eight minutes.
After Lin Yan led his team to trade three for four in the bottom lane, the match was actually over.
However, they didn't expect such a ridiculous Swordsman to appear.
"… This Yatokus is completely unreasonable," Remember lamented. "He has three lives and four pieces of equipment. How can he kill him?"
Ze Yuan's tone was extremely exaggerated. "After Bloody Well revives, he has half of his health bar. After he dies from a set of skills, he still has Resurrection Armor to stall for time. With the Dance of Death's [Ignore Pain] damage reduction effect, the Swordsman is no different from the God of War!"
After the match, the data panel appeared in the middle of the screen, and the audience was in an uproar.
"22443 damage!" Remember blurted out.
"The damage per minute is over 800. For a Heavy-Armored Warrior like Sword Magician, this is already very impressive …" Ze Yuan praised. "The main thing is that the last wave of damage dealt was the most damage. Ran Bro dealt thousands of damage in the group battle."
There was no doubt that Lin Yan was the MVP candidate. Everyone saw his photo!
He pointed at the two golden stars on the chest of his team uniform. The gigantic Sword Demon behind him occupied the entire screen. His pair of scarlet eyes emitted a terrifying light. The Godslaying Blade in his hand was stained with blood. He looked extremely powerful!
Su Cheng, who discovered that her boyfriend had won another MVP award, happily took a bite of the skewer and hummed, "Grilled chicken wings, my favorite …"
Si Jiayan placed the roasted mutton skewers on the top layer of the grill. Seeing Su Cheng's happy face, she asked, "Lin Yan won again?"
"Duck to duck." Su Cheng sipped a mouthful of beer. The slightly astringent taste spread in her mouth.
"How was Gongzi ge's performance?" Si Jiayan excitedly asked.
She had been a fan of Jimukong for ten years and was usually very concerned about the situation of the Xiba people.
Su Cheng recalled the last match in her mind.
What did Jin Gong choose?
I can't remember.
There didn't seem to be many scenes from the beginning to the end.
The Xi Ba players had the advantage of being invisible. He didn't ask for his performance to be outstanding. He just needed to stand out at the crucial moment.
"… It was okay," Su Cheng said against her will. "I didn't make any mistakes. It was quite perfect."
"That's great!" Being kept in the dark, Si Jiayan didn't notice. She happily asked the waiter to order more beer.
Su Cheng waved her hand to indicate that she didn't need it. She looked at her phone.
The two commentators were still talking about the MVP statistics.
"915 battle damage ratio, 801 average damage, 777 average damage …"
Every time they talked about a statistic, the YM fans in the audience cheered, while the RW supporters lowered their heads and didn't want to look.
Sword Demon's appearance made the PTSD of the RW fans almost explode. They were tortured to the point that they couldn't breathe.
The director even wanted to kill the MVP by showing the replay of Sword Demon's last team battle. It was a heavy blow to the RW fans' hearts.
The scene of Sword Demon's Q3E flashing and killing the Clockwork Devil was made into a 3D perspective, allowing everyone to see this cruel scene.
The bullet screen was noisy. YM and RW's first appearance after the Intercontinental Cup attracted a lot of viewers.
[Don't mess with the corpse. Wuwuwu]
[From the red buff camp to the RW tower, Sword Demon's eyes are dry from all the killing.]
[The last time I saw Sword Demon was so fierce was last time.]
[He just ate all the crowd control. He didn't even need to do anything. He just blindly beta-pressed his skills. I can do that too.]
[Oh, you're Wang Sicong, right? You go out with a four-piece set?]
On the other side of the ocean, in Santa Monica, Los Angeles.
Fist's head of numerical analysis, Blaustoise, walked out of the bathroom with a towel draped over his body. He scratched his head. The dark circles under his eyes, coupled with his Caucasian skin, made him look like a panda.
It was already three o 'clock in the morning in the US. His head was dizzy and he felt weak. His limbs were cold, and his spirit was low.
Kidney deficiency, sometimes after overwork.
Sitting on the ergonomic chair, Blaustoise gasped for breath. He used a hairdryer to dry his wet hair, which showed that he was slowly becoming stronger.
He had just finished changing the data of the test suit.
Fist didn't have a clear time to clock in, nor did it have a hard KPI index. It had a standard flexible working system.
But the task given to you still had to be completed on time.
Especially for the designer team, the fixed update every two weeks was not a small amount of work.
From the test suit to the official server to the hero strength test, to a series of problems such as whether the mechanism of communicating with the hero was reasonable and feasible …
Originally, Blaustoise had adapted to this kind of work intensity and was like a fish in water. Sometimes, he could even drag his colleagues to increase their ranking points during work hours.
But since the end of the mid-season competition, he had been responsible for an extremely difficult task.
Weaken YM.
This work had started since the end of S6, but it hadn't yielded much results. Chun Li and the others focused more on the changes in the gameplay of Summoner's Canyon.
From the early stages of S7's emphasis on all-out melee combat, to the mid-stages where Fawang and Xialuo took off, to the Censer Monster in the bottom lane during the World Championship, the game environment changed three times a year, trying to make YM unable to adapt in this respect.
Unexpectedly, YM performed quite well. On the contrary, it was the other teams that pulled them down and couldn't keep up with the rhythm of Fist's changing version. Other than the three-star team, YM didn't even meet an opponent who perfectly understood the World Championship version.
After Chun Li and the others left, Blaustoise took over this work.
He rejected the direction of the previous team's changes and set up his own set of weakening principles — in a game environment that was guaranteed to develop in reverse with YM's tactics, he focused on weakening the heroes commonly used by YM players.
Since YM's main focus was the Nakano Assist Combo, and the late stage output was based on the two Cs, he adjusted the price of the ADC's equipment so that the archer couldn't take over the game too early.
At the same time, he communicated with his colleagues in charge of the map design of Summoner's Canyon to move important neutral resources to the upper half.
In this way, a world where only the ADC was injured was completed.
After that, he changed the hero values, and cut whatever YM was good at.
He felt that this method of weakening was very suitable for the river.
The most important thing was that there wouldn't be any major changes in the version. Everything was based on the core gameplay of the upper half. The only difference was that the strength of some heroes had changed.
This was completely different from the S7 season.
The frequent changes in the game last year had caused many teams to be unable to adapt. Dragon Ball was one of them. In August, they crushed SKT to become the summer champion. Less than two months later, they were swept out of the top eight by YM. They were only one step away from success.
Blaustoise's method of weakening the game environment could ensure that the version's environment was relatively stable, allowing other teams to adapt.
He knew that YM's coaching team was very strong. The analysts and coaches would allow a team to adapt to a new environment as quickly as possible.
Then he might as well not change it.
He would just weaken your heroes.
However, the numerous changes to the hero values had increased the pressure on Blaustoise, the game's head of numerical analysis.
A few days ago, he had added a bunch of new things to the testing server. He had cut all of YM's familiar heroes, led by Knife Girl. Now that the side effects had appeared, there was a lot of work to be done.
After all, players were the core of the game. The design team could not only consider the professional scene when making changes.
Blaustoise was very worried that too many changes to the heroes would cause a sudden change in the rankings and the matching ecosystem.
If some characters were weakened too much, they would disappear from the game. This was not something that he and his colleagues wanted to see. When Tsar was killed, his appearance rate in the random game plummeted by dozens of times. He was once in a predicament where no one cared about him.
Therefore, he had to keep a close eye on the testing server's data to prevent similar situations from happening.
His job tonight was to fine-tune the hero values. One of the characters was the Sword Demon.
After cutting Dark-Robed Sword Demon's multiple attributes, he realized that Atokus's win rate in the testing server had greatly decreased. He felt that he had cut too much, so he adjusted the armor and basic health back.
It was three o 'clock in the morning.
Blaustoise let out a long sigh of relief. Fortunately, he didn't have to work tomorrow. Otherwise, he was worried that he would suddenly die one day.
After drying his hair, he lay on the bed and dimmed the lights. He picked up his tablet and planned to watch a video before going to bed.
However, he realized that the LPL live broadcast was at the top of the Mouse Channel's homepage.
Due to the three consecutive championships of S3-S5, the Korean League was originally more popular. However, with YM's consecutive championships on the international stage, the LPL gradually attracted the attention of the Western audience.
Coupled with the gradual improvement of the English commentary channel and the logistics system, the LPL was now more popular than the LCK.
Blaustoise was also very interested in the Eastern division. After all, the LPL gathered the big boss TX and the biggest target of the nerfs, YM. Other than the fact that the Western time was not very friendly during the live broadcast, everything else was pretty good.
Now that he was working overtime, he could actually watch the live broadcast at three o 'clock in the morning.
He clicked on it and realized that the first round of YM versus RW had already ended. The highlights of the previous round were being played.
When he saw Lin Yan pulling Doinb in the mid lane for a solo kill, he sucked in a breath of Liangpi. He felt that this person's strength could only be described as terrifying.
Bro, you're a mid lane player. How can you pull someone like that with a melee hero?
Blaustoise was a platinum player. He couldn't understand the psychological game between the two mid laners.
However, he was greatly shocked.
Then, at the seven minute mark, YM launched a four-man tower jump. He didn't pay attention to the passionate fights between the other heroes. His gaze was fixed on Lin Yan's Sword Demon.
On the tablet, when Yatoku used Q2 to successfully predict Blade Maiden's Blade Rush, he raised his eyebrows slightly.
It had to be said that Lin Yan's play was almost beyond his understanding.
It was thinner than a toothpick.
Blaustoise rubbed his hair, which wasn't much to begin with.
Fortunately, he had weakened Yatoku's skill. Otherwise, with Lin Yan's proficiency in Sword Demon, wouldn't the international competition be sky high?
He originally thought that the bottom lane team battle would end after Liu Qingsong and Doinb died. He didn't expect Xiao Fu to come up again with the Predator.
Then, it was Lin Yan's' drag, drag 'segment. He used his health and the passive lifesteal provided by E [Shadow Charge] to resist the damage of three people for six seconds, allowing Jack to successfully replace Xiao Fu.
When Blaustoise saw this scene, he cursed angrily.
His curse words echoed in the bedroom.
He couldn't wait to punch himself.
Today, when he saw that Sword Demon's win rate in the testing server had decreased, why did he have to be so kind and adjust his basic health and armor back?
Was he waiting to see Lin Yan continue to use his body to stall for time for his teammates?
How could he let that happen?
Blaustoise was forced to get up and turn on the computer. He planned to endure for a while longer, and once today's matter was over, he would reduce all of Sword Demon's stats.
The tablet was placed to the side, and the tournament highlights were still playing.
After a few rounds of killing, it was time for the 28-minute team battle.
When the sound of Cataclysm and Sakura Blade's special effects rang out, Blaustoise's attention shifted from the laptop.
Sword Demon, with the thick white shield provided by Shen, wantonly slashed through the RW crowd!
When he saw Yatoku raise his epee and use Q3E to kill Clockwork, Blaustoise's mouth opened wide.
When he saw Yatoku use his body to take all of the crowd control and damage, and then use Blood Well and Revival Armor to return to the battlefield, his eyes were filled with disbelief.
When he saw that the team battle had ended, and that only Xiao Fu was left of the RW team and escaped back to the spring with the Predator, Blaustoise began to doubt his life.
What did I just see?
Sword Demon used three lives, changed his blood type, and used the most reckless and violent method to destroy RW in the opponent's formation!
Are you still human?
Blaustoise glanced at Sword Demon's adjusted text, and only felt disheartened.
I've shaved a J beta!
He pushed the laptop away and rubbed his hair into a messy bird's nest.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Blaustoise roared.
After a while, he raised his head, his eyes filled with endless fighting spirit. He clenched his teeth and tapped on the laptop keyboard.
"Let's see if you can still play as the Three-Life Sword Demon this time!"
…
"Welcome back to Zhengda Square!"
After a break, Zeyuan was now full of energy. "The upcoming match is the sixth week of the regular season, the second small game between YM and RW. YM has a temporary lead of 1-0!"
"I think if the Chivalrous Team can't deal with Sword Demon, we should just buy him a house in the ban position." He remembered that he was still thinking about Sword Demon in the previous game and tried to give advice to RW, who was at a disadvantage. "Or we can steal from the blue side in this game."
The two discussed for a moment, and the BP panel opened again!
"RW chose the blue side for himself in this game and took the lead in banning Sword Demon!"
The YM fans in the audience burst into laughter. They loved this kind of script where they could only send the hero to the ban position because they couldn't do anything about it.
Red Rice flipped through the laptop and directed Jin Gong to ban Qing Gang Yin, a typical example of a gambler who gambled with his life.
In the previous game, Xiao Fu Wine Barrel's two mad dog-like captures in the early stage of the game had brought a lot of hidden dangers to YM. If they got Qing Gang Yin, who knew what would happen?
Hanyi continued to follow up and ban Zooey. While Doinb's hero pool brought new tactics to the team, it also had some hidden dangers. As long as Zooey was strong, they had to ban her.
"YM's second move is to ban the captain again … They really don't want Ah Guang to get a convenient carry hero!"
Hanyi paced behind the player's seat. After thinking for a moment, she chose to ban Troll's King.
It had to be said that this was indeed a difficult problem for YM.
If Red Rice banned Yasso as usual, RW would have to steal Crow first. Without Troll and Karma, it would be very difficult for the team to restrict Swain.
If Redmi sent Crow to the ban position, then he would have to consider Yasuo's problem.
Homme made the decision without much thought. He couldn't help but let the opponent choose first and ban Death Song himself.
Between Swain and Yasso, the blue side could only take one anyway.
"Yasuo has been released!" Roland blurted out. "That's rare!"
Ze Yuan chimed in. "Ever since Infinity Blade was revamped, Yasuo has been living in YM's ban position. There are only a few matches that have been released!"
"But RW doesn't plan to steal it first. They got Swain and threw this problem to YM!" Remember was not surprised. "Let's see if Brother Ran will take it!"
Red Rice still didn't plan to let Lin Yan steal Yasso.
In fact, he had practiced several sets of Yasso's system for the team before, and the results of the mock competition with the youth team were good.
But he still had to hide his moves.
In all fairness, there were very few hidden moves in the League of Legends professional scene, and people often ridiculed him for hiding them until next year.
This was because the version changed very quickly. Often, the characters that could still be considered OP last week would be cut to the point that they couldn't be used this week. Therefore, there was not much need to hide their moves. At most, they could hide some big moves in cup competitions that were determined to not change the version, such as the World Championship and the mid-season competition.
But this time was different.
He knew that Fist's main weakness was YM. As long as Lin Yan didn't use Yasso in the professional scene, the designers would think that Lin Yan wouldn't use this hero.
With the idea of weakening him, Windbreaker could naturally continue to be strong and would never be weakened.
Therefore, it was necessary to hide this Yasso.
He would use it at the critical moment to surprise the opponent and Fist.
Red Rice chose to steal Windbreaker's good partner, Wine Barrel. Now that Troll and Qing Gang Yin were all banned, there were very few heroes that could match Yasso.
"Let's get Sindra," he said to Jack. "Mainly let you play the backhand."
"… Okay," Shiba Inu thought for a moment. "Then I'll be the secondary E?"
"Well, secondary E, don't let the crow enter the game easily," Lin Yan responded.
He remembered that he was still staring at the BP panel. "Rock Sparrow and Crocodile, RW's second and third picks are very strong!"
"This Crocodile should be used for the doinb," Ze Yuan guessed reasonably. "After all, RW's main early game must be the midlaner, not the upland!"
"And as the midlaner with the fastest pace in the early game, getting a strong combination will also be a great help to the team!"
Lin Yan wiped his gold-rimmed glasses with a piece of tissue paper and squinted at his monitor. Red Rice behind him was still thinking about which hero to use to face Desert Sparrow and the rogue midlaner.
As long as Crocodile came up, W [Grim Hunt] would stun the enemy, and Talia's Rock Spikes would definitely hit.
This combination was as disgusting as Desert Spiders.
When the final choice was made, the character that appeared in Lin Yan's hero selection box surprised the two commentators.
"Morgana?!"
Ze Yuan and Remember shouted in unison.
Then Remember sorted out his thoughts and analyzed, "This pick for Morgana is really good!"
"If she goes in the mid lane, Magic Aegis can make Crocodile's Grim Hunt unable to control herself, and then she can dodge Talia's Rock Spikes!"
Ze Yuan said, "But Morgana has been away from the mid lane for a long time, and the strength of her solo lane is a very important problem."
Hanyi was stunned for a moment.
He had thought that his Crocodile and Rock Sparrow midlaner would be a sure-kill.
He did not expect YM to have Morgana as well.
"Don't worry, Morgana can only defend if she goes in the mid lane. I'll push her minions and then move to the side with Rock Sparrow. The effect will be the same." Doinb patted his chest confidently.
He liked mid-game warriors like Crocodile who were tanky and had high damage output. He felt that victory was in his hands.
Hanyi nodded to indicate that he had heard. Seeing that Red Rice had banned Cheyenne, he also sent Swordsister to the ban position to prevent Jin Gong from picking her.
"For the last ban position, YM has given Big Bug, and RW has blocked Aoun!"
For the fourth pick, Red Rice chose Dan Nar first.
"RW has Bull's Head, Warchief, and Shen!"
Ze Yuan was still analyzing. "This lineup is very good at rushing, and they have crowd control in all three lanes. With Rock Sparrow, it's very easy to catch people."
"Sparrow." Remember agreed with his partner. "Their ability to take lane control is also quite good. This game, RW has made space for Fu to play. Let's see how much advantage he can gain for the team in the early and mid game."
"Let's look at YM's last pick …"
As soon as he finished speaking, YM confirmed their last pick!
"… Olaf!"
Amidst the endless cheers from the audience, Remember reacted quickly. "YM wants Morgana to support, and the berserker, Olaf, will be the mid lane to deal with Crocodile!"
"My Old Swan!"
[What kind of trick is this?]
[Yup, the wavering Morgana who has been showing for so long is a support in the end?]
[Who the hell is Olaf?
Can he play mid lane?]
[To be honest, Olaf is good at fighting Crocodile, and after level 6, he won't be too afraid of Rock Sparrow coming to catch him.]
The bullet screen was full of discussion, and RW was at a loss!
"Wow, is this for real …" Doinb was a little nervous.
If Morgana went mid lane, he could still accept it.
But if a brute came, how could he fight?
"… You must stay calm and wait for the jungler." Hanyi was still reminding him. "Fu, before Olaf reaches level 6, you must grab the mid lane and help Doinb gain an advantage."
"I understand."
Flawless knew very well that if they wanted to catch Olaf, they had to do it before he reached level 6. Otherwise, it would be difficult to deal with him once he had a big move.
The lineups of both sides were confirmed.
Blue RW: Top Lane Shen, Jungler Rock Sparrow, Mid Lane Crocodile, Bottom Lane Crow + Bull's Head.
Red YM: Top Lane Nar, Jungler Wine Barrel, Mid Lane Olaf, Bottom Lane Sindra + Morgana.
The loading screen ended, and Summoner's Canyon appeared on the big screen!