Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 293 The Beginning of the Finals, a Milestone in Popularity

According to what Li Luo knew, RNG's situation was somewhat different from that of other teams, so Bai Xing's concerns were not unfounded.

He's heard a lot of rumors and seen a lot of gossip about the soaring value of Xiangguo and Letme. Especially recently, not only them, but he's also received a lot of messages trying to find out if he's interested in transferring.

When joking in private, the two would tacitly keep quiet whenever the topic of transfers or offers from other players came up.

It's clear that neither Xiangguo nor Yan Junze has agreed nor refused; the most likely scenario is that they'll discuss it after the S8 tournament.

If RNG can win the S8 championship again, then it's highly likely that the two players will not stay.

Not everyone has the same ambition as the factory manager, constantly striving for the ultimate championship.

Even compared to the factory manager, Yan Junze and Xiangguo are the ones who truly understand and live authentically.

Just like how Skt always lost players after winning a championship, staying with RNG not only means immense pressure and little rest time that could jeopardize their careers, but also living in Uzi's shadow.

Back then, the entire SKT team was overshadowed by Faker's reign, and the same was true for those who stayed with RNG.

Once they fail, their market value plummets, and their professional career is essentially over.

If Li Luo weren't RNG's owner and were just an ordinary player, he wouldn't care about these post-match disputes. He would focus all his energy on the finals, winning his second trophy, which would belong to him and RNG, and taking steps towards building a dynasty.

This was his original intention in coming into this world, and it was also the puppy's wish.

Despite SKT's performance in S8, even after coming back from a 0-2 deficit to defeat FNC 3-2, their chances of winning against RNG in the finals are only 70-30, or even lower.

But just think about it: after their defeat in S8, IG, having learned from their mistakes, will be at their full strength in S9, or even RW after their reinforcements, or even DWG from the LCK, or FNC or G2 from the EU who might be rebuilt. These teams are all formidable opponents on the road to a third championship. RNG must make some moves before the finals.

Otherwise, when all the teams know that RNG is short of top laners and junglers, and that a player who could have been sold to you for 10 million might be offered for 30 million or 50 million, and everyone knows that you have money and that you are short of players, would you buy him or not?

Capitalists are all shrewd and cunning, including Shirahoshi.

"How's your research on the people on the list I gave you coming along?"

"That's about it. I've been building our youth training system all year, so don't worry about that. Just focus on playing well in the upcoming matches. Everything is proceeding as planned."

Hearing Bai Xing's confident answer, Li Luo's somewhat restless heart calmed down.

To challenge for a dynasty, a comprehensive youth training system is essential. In addition, with the roster of players he provided, it's been a full year. Since Bai Xing said so, there must have been results.

After speaking with Bai Xing, RNG held their final mobilization meeting. Following this, the RNG members began packing their belongings and heading to the final venue for the S-series finals.
Incheon!

Training before the finals has gradually been reduced. Basically, we play two or three ranked games a day to warm up, and then play a best-of-three series with a team to maintain our competitive state. At this time, what is more important is adjusting our mentality and understanding the tactics.

After a full week of rest, the RNG players have reached their peak performance of the season in terms of both individual skill and form.

The invincible spirit accumulated from a year of victories in S8 is now coming into play!
There's absolutely no need for a mental health counselor; in this version, every player in RNG believes they are the strongest!

As the date drew closer, Friday saw an increasingly exaggerated surge in online players for League of Legends. Queues in the first server even exceeded three hours, while other previously deserted servers were now overflowing with players. Even though the match wasn't scheduled to start until tomorrow, the excited players couldn't resist playing a few games.

As soon as countless people entered the game, they tacitly put on the avatars that the official team had given everyone to support RNG, and arranged for RNG's dog tags to be displayed.

Everyone wants to witness RNG's back-to-back championships and the first Grand Slam achievement in League of Legends history.

And
It is possible that an undefeated record of winning the S-series championship could be created.

The time soon came to October 11st.

On this day, whether they were LPL or LCK viewers, everyone was glued to their TVs by noon, waiting for the finals to air.

The actual popularity of various live streaming rooms has reached unprecedented levels.

For example, the Xiyu platform, which signed the entire RNG team, made a fortune this time. In the official live stream room, excluding the fake accounts and fake popularity, the number of viewers suddenly exceeded eight figures, reaching a number that no one dared to imagine.

Tens of millions of people watched the match in the live stream on X-Fish.
Even the staff at X-Fish were a little stunned when they saw this data. Apart from the LOL live stream, the number of viewers in all other live streams on the platform did not reach this number. It was simply terrifying.

The situation in the Chinese server rankings is even more realistic. In the first region or the suburbs, you can still find someone to play in low-ranked games below Platinum after a few minutes of queuing. But for ranked games above Diamond, the system gives a queue time of at least 20 minutes, and the actual time may be even more exaggerated.

Early in the morning, the RNG team packed their things, adjusted their mental state, had breakfast, and headed straight to the competition venue.

Meanwhile, SKT also set off simultaneously.

The S8 World Championship was held at the Munhak Stadium in Incheon, South Korea. This is a landmark stadium in Incheon, which also hosted the World Cup that attracted worldwide attention.

When it comes to the esports atmosphere, Incheon is no less impressive than Busan. On the way to the venue, you can see local Korean esports enthusiasts spontaneously cheering for SKT everywhere. Some small shops even put up signs with "SKT will win" on their fluorescent signs today.

During the semifinals, RNG was able to get off the bus and interact with fans, but today, before even reaching the main entrance of the stadium, the fans who were stuck a kilometer away had already made traffic completely blocked. Looking out of the bus window, there were crowds of people everywhere.

The group, who had initially planned to go down and interact with fans, quickly changed their minds and, under the guidance of security guards, slowly drove the bus into the parking lot behind the stadium.

"Wow, there are so many people today. It's a bit like the Bird's Nest last year, and I even feel like there are more people now than back then. It's making me nervous," Xiangguo muttered as he got out of the car.

“There are even more people than when we were at the Bird’s Nest last year.” Chris stood on the bus and looked in the direction blocked by security guards, feeling a chill run down his spine.

“Last year, I also went to the Bird’s Nest to watch the game. At that time, most of the people who went to the venue were Chinese. Some Chinese who couldn’t get tickets would choose to watch in the live broadcast room, so there weren’t many people gathered outside the venue. But here in South Korea, their e-sports atmosphere is such that you have to gather outside the venue to watch the big screen. Plus, many Chinese people also came to support them, so there were even more people.”

Thinking back to his experience watching the game last year, Chris pushed up his glasses and said.

"I wonder if anyone will come and solo kill us this year," Xiao Tian added from behind, which earned him a beating from the crowd.

Seeing everyone's expressions, Li Luo, who was walking behind, did not stop them, but just watched them play around with a smile.

He could tell that everyone was a little nervous today, which was understandable. Aside from being professional gamers, most of the time they were just homebodies who enjoyed playing games and rarely even went out shopping.

A tournament as large-scale and prestigious as the World Championship only happens once a year. At other times, even the finals of the MSI pale in comparison. Under such pressure, if you are still trying to control yourself, it is easy to cause mental tension and poor performance.

Speaking of excitement, Li Luo was filled with mixed emotions. Last year in S7, he only played one semi-final and one final, and had not fully experienced the S-series journey. Now, in the S8 final, after walking step by step, he realized how difficult this road was.

After all, this is the final stage of the S-series. Reaching this point is the lifelong dream of 99% of the professional League of Legends players.

Only success is allowed; failure is not permitted.

After silently repeating it twice in his mind, clearing his mind of all distractions, Li Luo quickly followed.

As the RNG team entered Incheon Munhak Stadium, the outside world was far from calm.

As the time drew closer, viewers who were anxiously waiting in the live stream turned to other social media platforms to discuss the possible scores for the day.

After SKT finished the semifinals, the question about the match prediction posted on Zhihu was once again pushed to the top spot by netizens on the day of the finals. It is completely unreasonable for such an old question to reach the top spot. It just artificially boosted the popularity, as if there was a force behind it, and it was stuck in an unshakable position.

Subsequently, many trending topics on Weibo also topped the charts.

By 1 p.m., the hashtag #LeagueofLegends2018WorldChampionship# had reached an exaggerated level of popularity, with the hashtag generating nine-figure views and seven-figure discussions.

Of the total of fifty trending topics, #Rng#, #Skt#, #Fated Battle#, #Uzi Korean Server Top Spot#, #Rng Support Song#, #S-Series Live Broadcast#, #All LPL Teams Cheer for Rng#, #Second Championship#, and #Finals MV# all related to League of Legends surprisingly occupied a whopping 16 spots, which is quite remarkable.

Under such intense scrutiny, everyone has abandoned all pretense of modesty and frantically tried to capitalize on the hype.

At 11 a.m., Clearlove, who is also from Hubei like Uzi, personally logged into Weibo and wrote a long post to cheer on RNG.

After the factory manager posted, dozens of players, including Rookie, Doinb, Smlz, Jacklove, TheShy, Xiye, and 957, also posted on Weibo within the next hour, hoping that RNG could win this world championship and achieve the same back-to-back championships as SKT.

This incredible network of connections once again proves Uzi and RNG's unshakeable position in the League of Legends community.

The players' actions seemed to open Pandora's box. First, all the major teams started to repost and show their support. IG, RW, Edg, and Welpl were all included. After these teams finished posting, marketing accounts also flocked to the scene.

Even beauty bloggers, food bloggers, and pet bloggers, despite having posted thousands of Weibo posts before today that didn't mention League of Legends at all, pretended to be longtime RNG fans of ten years.

On this day, countless girls who didn't follow esports felt the full force of malice in this world.

Open Bilibili, and the homepage features official support for RNG, as well as short videos made by all members of the BLG team to cheer on RNG.

If you open Bilibili's trending topics list, at least 30 out of 50 videos are related to League of Legends, and their view counts are consistently high, with an equally impressive number of coins.

If you close Bilibili and open Douyin, the videos that your favorite content is usually pushed by big data are gone. Even if you've never watched anything related to esports before this day, you'll still receive official recommendations. The reason for this is that Douyin spent nearly nine figures to buy the prime advertising spot in the center of RNG's jersey.

There is no pure land. For esports enthusiasts, today feels like a holiday, while even those who don't like it are drawn in by curiosity and try to learn about esports.

As the buzz grew, even Korean professional players couldn't sit still this time. Piglet was the first to post a message praising Uzi as the best ADC in the world right now, delivering a fatal blow to Bang.

Of course, the clever Piglet attached his job application below, but there was no way around it, Piglet had become ridiculously bad ever since the S3 technology.

After S4's true colors were revealed, he went to North America to retire, but North American fans saw through him at a glance. At that time, TL fans wrote a petition with thousands of letters telling him to get out of there. Some people even made a compilation of pigs and sent them to the horse, where three times in a row, four teammates fought the dragon while one person was just strolling around on the dragon pit.

Seeing how shameless this person was, many well-known AD players in the LCK, such as Deft, Pray, Viper, Ruler, and Teddy, also expressed their opinions, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Although everyone's meaning was ambiguous, without exception, everyone believed that RNG would be able to steadily suppress Skt in the bottom lane matchup today.

Traffic is a huge pie. When people want to share and join, they also bring their own traffic. What was originally a carnival for a few has now evolved into a nationwide celebration.

Even though countless retired players don't have the right to broadcast the matches due to official copyright issues, every streamer with even a little bit of fame in the LoL community opened their live streams today, ready to commentate on the games.

PDD, WeiXiao, DaSiMa, RuoFeng, ShenChao, DongZhu, ZhouShuYi, XiaomiZhou, ZhiXun, YuXiaoC, Rita, men and women of varying skill levels have all joined this unprecedented event in the esports world as time and popularity have grown.

At first, people from other circles didn't care, but when countless celebrity assistants rushed into the room to tell them how terrifying this spectacle of hype was, these popular young stars were stunned.

More and more people in the entertainment industry are stepping in to show their support, with Jay Chou even personally writing a support demo to cheer on RNG.

The S-series final completely deviated from the development rhythm of the past, achieving the first milestone in esports history that everyone should remember.

(End of this chapter)