Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 257 A packed schedule, a battle between heroes and dogs!
The schedule for the League of Legends playoffs was announced immediately after the regular season ended.

The first match was the quarterfinals, between the third-place team in the West and the fourth-place team in the East, followed by the third-place team in the East and the fourth-place team in the West.

After the winners are determined, they will compete against the second-place team from the opposing zone.

After the winner is determined again, they will play against the top seed in the West and the top seed in the East.

After this match, the highly anticipated Summer Split playoffs final will take place. Whoever wins first place in the Summer Split will directly qualify for the World Championship.

In S8, with only 3 slots available for the LPL, the qualification criteria for qualifying for the S-level World Championship were:

Summer Championship Winner: No. 1 Seed

The second-place team in the combined Spring and Summer Split standings: Seed #2

Of the top 5 teams in the standings, the two teams that have already qualified will participate in the gauntlet to compete for the No. 3 seed.

Judging from the current points and records, apart from RNG, which can easily secure a spot, teams like IG and RW, which have the potential to win the championship, have their sights set on the title.

In the qualifying tournament, EDG and JDG are the two teams with the best chance of winning a ticket to the S8 World Championship.

Stealing a moment from my busy schedule, I took Xiangguo and Xiaotian along for a three-person trip to watch the playoffs.

This is a match between Top Esports and IG, the winners of the semifinals in the playoffs.

The winner will advance to the LPL semifinals and face RNG.

After four intense matches, TOP team ultimately lost to IG with a score of 3-1.

On the other side, EDG and JDG went to a best-of-five series, and JDG, relying on their resilience, managed to defeat the veteran powerhouse EDG.

In the semifinals, they will face Rw, the top team in the Western Conference.

"As expected," Li Luo shrugged after watching the match for a while. This result was not unexpected.

Riot's nerfs to the carry potential of the bot lane have had the biggest impact on all LPL teams, particularly RNG, which revolves around Uzi.

Secondly, there's Rw, with Ma Ge at its core.

As soon as JD Gaming finished their match, the odds for IG and RW were immediately set at 1.18 for IG and 1.37 for RW.

The odds for RNG and JD.com are RNG 1.09 and JD.com 1.25.

Although Kanavi, the star player from the previous generation, has not yet returned to the top spot, he has been replaced by Clid, a jungler with considerable strength.

Top lane: Zoom, Mid lane: Toothpaste, Bottom lane: Loken, Support: Green Hair.

The reason why IG's odds are more attractive is because Ma Ge's individual ability has been severely weakened by the version. The current Ma Ge is simply a replica of TheShy in the future. He dares to gank and die. In just one summer split, he had 7 famous moments of dying.

Rw's top laner remains the same unpredictable, inconsistent player they always are.

You might say that A-Guang wouldn't step up, but he can still save the day at crucial moments. You might say that he could step up, but at crucial moments, A-Guang inexplicably went shopping, and even with an 8000-point advantage, they suffered a complete rout.

In this version where things are all about the top half of the bracket, Rw's weaknesses are magnified.

Due to the version, with one less carry and one more potential liability, if it weren't for Doinb, the "orphanage director," who, under RNG's leadership, developed the playstyle he used with FPX in S9 ahead of time and used his roaming to lift the team up, RW wouldn't have been able to sit on the top spot in the West.

The phone rang, and the official match schedules for both sides were released.

RNG's opponent in the semifinals has also been officially confirmed.

It turned out to be the dark horse JD Gaming team.

September 9th, Double Ninth Festival, sunny.

For many people, today is Saturday, a weekend, and with the Double Ninth Festival, it's a rare day of leisure.

But for League of Legends players who are keen on the competition, today presents a semi-final match that they cannot miss.

RNG vs JDG.

During the regular season of the 2018 LPL Summer Split, RW had a win rate of 69%, while JDG had 60%. Of course, the overall level of the West is not as good as that of the East, but most of RW's players are veterans with a lot of experience in major competitions. RW seems to be more stable and confident, but in fact, JDG's strength should not be underestimated.

Zoom was probably the biggest surprise for JDG and even the LPL in 2018. His top lane performance was characterized by "stability". In the BO5 against Edg, Zoom used three damage-dealing champions and performed very consistently. He completed his tasks of pushing lanes, supporting, and split pushing perfectly.

Furthermore, Zoom's skill in playing front-line tanks is quite high, with a 77.5% win rate for Ornn in the Summer Split, which is even higher than Letme's 75% win rate, who is the main champion of Ornn.

Clid's ganking rhythm control should be in the LPL T1 tier. In this qualifying tournament, the other teams' strength was not enough to effectively reflect Clid's efficiency.

Looking back at the five major matches against EDG, Clid basically guessed Karsa's general movements correctly. In particular, his counter-ganks in games 2 and 4 caused EDG a lot of trouble. Even in the smaller games they lost, he had figured out the general direction, but his response to the details was not good, which led to gaps in his strategy.

Moreover, JDG is the only team in the LPL that has not yet used any substitutes and has had all five players play the entire summer split.

A stable top laner, an engine-like jungler, an assassin-like mid laner, an explosive AD carry, and a brilliant support. Moreover, the five players are very evenly matched; in a winning game, you could almost certainly award the MVP to any one of them. Does this description sound familiar?

Anyone who has watched the old version of the competition can recognize at a glance that this team is a complete copy of the S4 champion Samsung White.

When Homme, the coach who won the S4 championship, came to JDG, he brought his knowledge and understanding to the team.

The battle between established powerhouses and emerging dark horses always attracts a lot of attention.

But the result was both unexpected and expected.

With a clean and decisive 3-0 victory, JD Gaming fell helplessly to RNG.

In professional competitions, only success and honor matter. The championship trophy will never be awarded to you just because you work hard or have many fans.

"Rng's performance today was truly unexpected."

Colonel Guan, who was in charge of today's commentary, remarked:
"It feels like they've shaken off their slump at the start of the regular season, gradually refined their team tactics, and found a completely new style of play that suits them."

"Yes"

I remember the teacher nodding:
"I think anyone who watched today's match will know that RNG's dominance from the Spring Split is back! Especially their decisive victory in the third game, which undoubtedly shows that RNG has once again become a towering force in the LPL."

"Whether IG wins the next match or RW wins, they will face an insurmountable gap."

RNG's return to dominance has left all LPL teams somewhat helpless.

With such a team, LPL doesn't have to worry about not having a strong presence at the World Championship, but winning the league championship has become just as difficult as winning the S-series championship.

As the world's most complete esports market for League of Legends, it boasts the largest number of game users and viewership, and its commercialization is also the fastest and best-developed market in Riot Games' strategy.

Riot Games places great importance on the LPL market, so naturally, their designers were watching this match as well. But now, everyone is feeling a bit disheartened.

RNG, who dominated the field in the first half of the year, achieved a nineteen-game winning streak in the Spring Split. After finally weakening to the level of an average strong team, the incredibly troublesome RNG is back again.
Is Uzi still the same Uzi?

Is Rng still the same Rng?

Should we revise the version again?
For example, could we nerf all ADCs again, buff each assassin one by one, or even introduce some other mechanics into the bot lane?
"No, we've already announced that patch 8.19 is the World Championship patch."

To repeatedly weaken a professional team is not only a slap in the face for themselves, but also unfair to RNG.

If it incurs the wrath of all the teams, it would be a case of more harm than good.

"Oh well, it looks like this is all we can do this year."

In the end, it was Riot Games CEO Jayce who discussed it with Tryndamere and then spoke up:
"We've done so much, we've already done so much. If other teams still can't beat RNG and win the championship, they can only blame their lack of skill. We are the designers of the game, not the controllers of victory or defeat."

"The world championship should belong to the strongest team, not the team we think is the 'strongest'!"

With that, Tryndamere stood up and stared sharply at all the designers.

Riot Games can accept two consecutive championships, but if RNG had won three consecutive championships in S8, Riot Games certainly wouldn't have let RNG pass so easily.

The next day.

The semi-final between Ig and Rw has begun.

Rw's outstanding performance in the Spring Split earned the team a lot of popularity, and before the S8 Spring Split, they were even hailed as the "Galactic Battleship".

During Rw's slump in the Spring Split, many fans who still had high hopes for the "Galactic Battleship" team almost verbally abused them to death on forums, Weibo, and other platforms.

However, with RNG's resurgence in the Summer Split, Rw also showed promise, following in RNG's footsteps and securing the top spot in the Western Conference.

Looking at the player lineups alone, IG and RW's rosters are indeed a clash of titans.

In Li Luo's view, even before he traveled back in time, RNG would have had a very difficult time winning against these two teams in the current version. It was highly likely that the best-of-five series would go the distance, and the team in better form would win.

It is common knowledge that the performance ceiling of a multi-core system is much higher than that of a single-core system.

In the semifinals, both Rw and IG showed amazing strength. In the first game, Rw was caught off guard by IG and gained a 6800 gold advantage in less than 20 minutes. After a series of back-and-forth battles, IG easily won the first game of the BO5 series.

But in the second game, Rw pulled off a surprise attack: Kled mid lane paired with Haro's Rammus jungle. With constant pressure on the top lane, the tide turned again. Rw secured Baron Nashor around the 20-minute mark, gaining a gold advantage of over 6,000 and winning the second game.

The close match between the two teams was something many people didn't expect before the game. Compared to the back-and-forth maneuvering, this kind of solid fighting was even more entertaining than RNG's match.

In the third game, it was Doinb and Haro's show of skill again. Doinb directly picked Pantheon (old version) for mid lane, and not only did he play well in the laning phase, but he also gained a huge advantage in supporting the jungle and bot lane.

However, in the mid-game, thanks to TheShy's performance, IG was about to turn the tide. Unfortunately, due to Ning and Baolan's over-aggression, they gave away two kills first, and then the three IG members forced a team fight, resulting in a team wipe and losing the third game.

Rw took the first game and secured the match point, surprising many who had predicted IG's victory.

In the fourth game, under the pressure of match point, not only did Ning's mentality collapse and his operations repeatedly go awry, but TheShy in the top lane also got caught twice by Haro in his greed for an advantage. Taking advantage of the Rift Herald, Haro and A-Guang took down the top lane tower.

Without TheShy, Rookie was unable to unleash his powerful laning skills in this version because he was laning against Doinb, leaving him with no other option.

Rw advanced strongly to the finals with a score of 3:1.

Unlike Rw's historical fate, this time, RNG will face off against Rw in the 2018 Summer Playoffs to compete for the championship.

"Here it comes, here it comes! Luckily, it's different from the Spring Finale; this time it's a battle between heroes and dogs!"

"No exaggeration, these two teams have very similar tactics. They both focus on high-speed support in the early and mid-game and don't care about map resources. They're easy to beat!"

"Rw is in such good form! Facing RNG, it's impossible to predict who will win."

"Ma Ge's most promising year (funny.jpg)"

"Damn it, I can't wait! When does the finals start?"

For viewers and fans, this kind of clash between two strong teams is the most anticipated.

The players from both RNG and RW teams won over these people with their own skills.

Moreover, if Rw can win the Summer Finals, they will qualify for the S8 World Championship as the LPL's number one seed.

Similarly, RNG will represent the LPL as the second seed, representing the team with the highest points from both the Spring and Summer Splits.

In this situation, IG will have to go down to compete against other teams in the gauntlet, which is full of suspense.

In this situation, RNG fans, knowing that their team is guaranteed to enter the World Championship, are also looking forward to a thrilling and exciting final match, preferably going to five games.

"Speaking of which, since S8, RNG doesn't seem to have dragged this kind of match to a fifth game in a best-of-five series, right?"

"Holy crap, you're absolutely right! The Spring Finals, the MSI Finals, the Asian Games Finals—all clean 3-0 victories!"

"Rw can beat the current RNG in a best-of-five series? That's a joke. RNG is going to become the second team after SKT to win back-to-back championships."

"I'm afraid RNG is going to throw the game, let RW go to Worlds, and send IG to the gauntlet. If IG then crashes out and gets beaten by EDG, I declare that IG's 17 wins in the Spring Split won't get them into Worlds."

"I'm speechless. You H-fans are really good at bragging. The World Championship hasn't even started yet and you're already calling it a virtual championship? Why don't you just stop playing and keep awarding it to RNG?"

"Sending a horse against the wind?"

On days without matches, netizens can only entertain themselves by posting and discussing all sorts of topics, creating various controversies, flame wars, and constant flag-raising, leaving behind a wealth of material.

There is only a five-day break between the semi-finals and the finals, and the final will begin on September 14th.

Compared to the preparation period for the first half of the playoffs, which is between the quarterfinals and semifinals, this period is relatively short.

This is also a matter of course.

The LCK matches have ended, and the World Championship patch has been released. If the LPL teams are still playing matches from the previous patch with its long schedule, firstly, it will be detrimental to their familiarity with the World Championship patch, and secondly, it will inevitably expose their hidden strategies.

From any perspective, the final needs to be completed as soon as possible.

This year's finals will be held at the Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park Gymnasium.

Located in Pukou District, NJ City, the venue is the only newly built venue for the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games. It covers a total area of ​​approximately 101 million square meters, including a gymnasium with 21000 seats. It is one of the few venues qualified to host NBA basketball games and is also the largest gymnasium in Asia.

(End of this chapter)