Chapter 30: The Quarterfinals of the Post-Season!
Three days later, LCD Club.
In the second-floor conference room, Bai Yueye was sitting in front of a giant screen with 5 teammates watching the LPL Spring Quarterfinals, which is W1 vs EDC's semifinals!
Although the regular season of the spring season ended a month ago, due to ONG and W1 representing China in the All-Star Game, the playoffs were postponed for several days until now.
As one of the participating teams in the LPL league, although LCD did not make it to the playoffs, their attention to important events is still very high, especially since the two teams that participated today are among the top teams in the LPL, namely EDC, which ranked second in the regular season, and W1 esports team, which ranked third!
These two teams, filled with entanglements of love and hate, will fight to the death in the next two hours for the last ticket to enter the final!
In the previous match, regular season fourth-place IC team unexpectedly defeated league leader ONG 2-1, becoming the first team to advance to the finals!
That is to say, W1 and EDC will compete in the next match, whoever wins will face IC team in a BO5 final, and the winner will be crowned directly and win the spring championship trophy!
Compared to the previous IG match, it's not hard to see that this match has a much higher audience attendance and enthusiasm, which can be seen from the crowded stands and the occasional cheers and screams coming from the scene!
W1VSEDC！
Needless to say, this is absolutely the most eye-catching game for domestic players since the start of the spring season. The orthodox team VS the traitor team, just thinking about it makes people feel passionate!
Especially the "traitor team" representative EDC war team mid laner U, before the game even posted a micro blog saying "I and W1 ten zero open", which made many fans who think they represent the orthodox W1 fans furious, in micro blogs and post bars, this high-profile guy was sprayed to pieces, even family members were all questioned, the match had not yet begun, the silent smoke had already spread throughout the entire arena!
How could such a showdown between "justice" and "evil" not draw attention?
Taking advantage of the fact that the game had not yet begun, Hoshino Aoba, sitting alongside Shirakawa Kuroko, was the first to break the silence: "Coach, who do you think will win today's match between these two teams?"
"June 4th is coming, EDC 6, W1 4!" The white crescent moon spoke succinctly.
"Are you opening 64? Coach, you're being a bit too conservative, aren't you?" Xiaoxing leaned in, not quite agreeing with White Moon's opinion. "If I had to say, W1 basically has no hope, EDC is way stronger than them, can't you see that from their performance in the regular season?"
"Not bad, in the regular season, EDC and W1 played a total of four games, with a record of three wins and one loss!" Hifumi Ayaka nodded in agreement. "And besides, the reason why EDC lost that fourth game was because they were intentionally throwing it away. If they wanted to win, they wouldn't have come up with such an absurd lineup like Piglet playing Jax ADC. It's clear they were just mocking W1 and treating it as a joke match. Didn't the team owner and NaMe get fined by the league for 'negative play' after that game?"
"Yes, the captain is indeed the captain. Choosing a pig girl to play wild is already something, but actually using her butt to jump and dance in front of the paralyzed team during the match, it's too domineering! It's said that after that game, the entire face of the paralyzed team turned green!" Taobao Fist chimed in with vivid descriptions. The "paralyzed team" he mentioned is none other than W1's current captain Smiley, an existence once known as the "ADC textbook"!
Of course, that was a long time ago. Since S3 season, this former world's number one ADC has been declining step by step due to various reasons and has already been surpassed by many new top-notch ADCs!
China is rich in ADC, which is recognized by League of Legends players all over the world!
"It's indeed unbearable for anyone to be mocked like that, right?" Xi Qian also watched that match. "However, Smiley also brought out the killing knife and even managed to stack it up to 20 layers, which is enough to make up for it."
"Cut, you don't understand this, do you? That kind of meaningless kill has no value?" Taobao Fist snorted. "The second place in the EDC regular season is already stable, even if I let W1 win a game, they can only honestly stay in third place. The boss is telling those idol fans of W1 that based on their strength, they are not worthy of being my opponent at all, do you understand?"
Xi Qian was a bit stunned. With his limited life experience, how could he see so many twists and turns from just one game?
"Ah, after all, they were once old teammates. The factory head was indeed a bit too much that time." Captain Kinnikuman said with emotion. "However, we are not the parties involved and do not know how many hardships and difficulties the factory head and Akuma went through from leaving W1 to forming a new team and returning to the league to prove themselves. After all, being called 'traitors' by so many fans who did not understand the truth and carrying such infamy, they must have felt very bad in their hearts..."
LOL esports' most sensational transfer was when veteran team W1's jungler Chang and support player Juan terminated their contracts with the team due to dissatisfaction with the team's poor performance, eventually gaining their freedom after paying a hefty compensation fee, and then joined the rising team EDC from scratch!
It was also because of this transfer door that the domestic team with the largest reputation, the most fans, and the only one that has won the LOL World Championship, W1, almost collapsed and faced dissolution!
Former team captain, Nofeng, also announced his retirement during this period and joined the commentary industry. He opened a Taobao store selling meat floss pancakes and withdrew from the e-sports circle, no longer paying attention to worldly affairs!
This is also the reason why many players turned from fans to haters. The team is in a critical situation, and as the captain, you abandoned the team at the last minute, how can you not be hated?
Fortunately, the remaining two players, Strawberry and Smiling, withstood the pressure at this time and stood out in the club's most difficult moment, helping the club recruit new team members to reorganize the W1 team. Otherwise, it would be hard to say whether we could still see the shadow of this fan-filled glorious team on the field today!
It's precisely because of this that many W1 fans are filled with hostility towards the EDC team, which has accepted the factory owner and the curly-haired player. Some radical fans even call them the "Traitor Team", believing that the players on this team don't deserve to set foot on the domestic top league of League of Legends!
Ge Dapao is a living example!
"Alright, let's put the discussion on hold for now, the match is about to start. Let's take a look at the BAN picks of these two teams!" Coach White Moonlight instructed, holding a notebook in one hand and pointing at the large screen on the wall with the other.
In order to better help the team discuss tactics and learn from strong teams' playstyles, the club spared no expense in building this small conference room and purchasing a 60-inch LCD screen, specifically for the coaches and players!
At this time, the big screen live W1 against EDC BO3 first game has entered the BAN pick phase!
As the higher-ranked side, EDC has the advantage of banning first and picking second, so they were assigned to the blue side.
First BAN, EDC directly BANNED the cunning witch girl Lufuran!
LeBlanc in this version is indeed too OP, no team dares to let her out easily, and the two practice matches between LCD and SKT T1 also banned her without exception!
In the second ban, W1 chose to ban away the hero Weaver. It was clear to everyone that this was aimed at EDC's top laner Korol, nicknamed "Koro1s", whose Weaver pick had a set of skills that allowed him to quickly scale up even in the face of an early game collapse and help his team successfully turn the tide in the late game.
Then, the one who got banned was Pantheon, also known as the King of War, and one of the most popular junglers in the country. In the recent All-Star Game, ONG's jungler Yuzu used Pantheon in two out of three games! Although his Pantheon play was really hard to watch, he even successfully led a team collapse on the third game against SKT, which made him get roasted by millions of domestic players, earning him nicknames like "Yuzu", "King of Blame" and "Invincible 4th-level Pantheon". This also shows how popular and highly-regarded Pantheon is among domestic players!
When it was W1's turn to ban in the second round, they didn't hesitate to ban Cassiopeia, who has been one of the strongest champions since her rework. Their tactical analyst must have warned them that EDC's mid laner U had used Cassiopeia in several games and achieved very good results with a high win rate, making her an absolute must-ban champion!
Next, the last two BAN slots were given to the currently popular ADC hero Twitch and the jungler champion Kha'Zix!
The mouse and mantis in the mouths of players!
After the ban phase ended, it quickly entered the hero selection phase. After a while, the lineup of both sides was determined!
Blue Team EDC: Top lane Dragon Girl + Jungle Spider + Mid lane Cannon + AD Policewoman + Support Hammerstone.
Purple Team W1: Top Lane Nami + Jungle Widowmaker + Mid Lane Cinderella + AD Obama + Support Namie.
Against expectations, in the case of the blind monk being released, neither side actively chose this jungler with the most GANK ability and watchability at the beginning of the game. If it were a Korean team, this would be unimaginable!
"Seeing this, which side do you think has the upper hand in BAN selection?" Coach White Moon turned his head to look at the team members beside him. For a professional esports team, whether they can win a match or not, BAN selection accounts for at least 30% of the factors.
Especially for two teams with a small gap in strength, lineup is crucial!
"If I had to say, W1 should have a slight advantage." Captain Hana thought for a moment before saying. "Regardless of whether it's Nami, Cinderella or Obama, they all belong to the line-dominating heroes with extremely strong lane ability. On the other hand, EDC has Dragon Girl and Female Police who are both late-game heroes. If they don't handle the early game well, they might get snowballed infinitely and at least before 20 minutes, this lineup is absolutely unable to put pressure on WE. More importantly, this EDC lineup lacks sufficient burst damage. Once Soraka, known as the human flesh milk machine, gets going, it's really hard for them to win team fights against W1."
He paused for a moment, and then Hana continued: "However, even so, I still think EDC has a greater chance of winning. After all, their vision control and team fight coordination are top-notch in the LPL, and their ability to drag out games is also one of the strongest domestically. This late-game lineup is also more suited to their style... In comparison, although W1 has many impressive aspects, they still fall short by a hair. What do you guys think?"
"Not bad, I also think W1 can't beat EDC!" Little Star nodded in agreement.
"I hope EDC wins and gives W1 and those brain-dead 60Es a bloody lesson!" Taobao Fist is even more straightforward.
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PS: As expected, not asking for votes doesn't work, does it? After a few days of not asking for votes, I found that the number of recommendation votes has drastically decreased. Considering LGD's team in the real world finally won a game after 9 consecutive losses in the playoffs, can you guys spare some recommendation votes to show your support?
