You promised a top lane tutorial, but you're just using Worlds as material for your videos?

Chapter 222 MSI, Off to Brazil!

When the entire LGD team returned to the hotel, it was almost 10 p.m.

This time of day is perfect for a late-night snack.

After putting away their belongings, everyone from the LGD club who had come to Nanjing for the finals left the hotel together for a meal.

They ate and drank until 1 a.m. before finally finishing their late-night snack and returning to the hotel.

By noon the next day, all the LGD players had gradually gotten up.

Fortunately, Nanjing, the venue for this final, is not too far from Shanghai, where the club's base is located.

Therefore, there was no need to buy tickets in advance to restrict the itinerary, and everyone was able to sleep soundly until noon.

In the afternoon, the team leader called a bus, and everyone from LGD got on.

As evening approached, the LGD team returned to their team base.

That evening, the club owner treated everyone to a meal to celebrate the team winning the 2017 LPL Spring Championship.

LGD's staff, naturally, spent the whole night eating, drinking, and having fun.

The Spring Split Finals were held on April 29th. By the time Zhou Dian and his teammates finally had some time to relax, it was already May 1st, and the May Day holiday had already begun.

Of course, the LGD players do not have a holiday at this time.

For esports players, apart from the fixed holiday during the Spring Festival, there is no concept of statutory holidays at other times.

Professional players' vacations are all tied to their tournament schedules.

When there are matches scheduled, you have to train and play; once the season ends, you naturally get a break.

However, even though LGD's Spring Split has completely ended, they have no vacation time yet.

The main reason is that the LPL Spring Split ended a bit late this year, and it was too close to the start time of the MSI Mid-Season Invitational.

As early as April 29th, the day of the LPL Spring Split finals, the MSI qualifying rounds had already begun.

The Play-In Stage is a new tournament officially introduced by Riot Games.

Their goal, of course, is to play more matches, increase their exposure worldwide, and earn more money.

Starting this year, the MSI Mid-Season Invitational and the World Championship (S-series) will have a Play-In Stage before the main event.

This year's MSI features six teams participating in the main event.

Among the five major regions, the LPL, LCK, and the European region's spring split champions directly qualify for the MSI main event.

The spring champions of the North American region and the LMS region (Taiwan region) will need to participate in the play-in stage, competing with a bunch of wildcard regions for the remaining three MSI main event spots.

The main event of this year's MSI will begin on May 11th.

LGD team plans to depart for Brazil, the host country of this year's MSI, on May 4th.

Departing a week in advance is naturally to better adapt to the local time difference, diet, and training environment.

Moreover, Brazil is so far away from my country that even if we travel by plane the whole way, it would take a whole day and night to get there, so we had to set off as soon as possible.

In other words, after the LPL Spring Split ended and the championship celebrations were over, the LGD players only had three days to truly relax and rest.

These three days will also require time to process the visa.

Therefore, the LGD players naturally ignored the calls from many LGD fans for more live streams after the matches.

In the past few days, the entire LGD team, including Wei Shen who streams the most, has only streamed for a total of four or five hours.

During the live stream, when the chat was filled with comments like "We want to see you play Tianya Mingyue Dao" and "What champion skin should you choose this year?", Wei Shen just smiled and didn't respond.

It seems that this time he has truly matured and stopped being arrogant.

Indeed, times have changed. In the past two years, the LPL region has been repeatedly defeated on the world stage.

Therefore, even the current LPL champions have no reason to be arrogant.

On May 4th, the LGD team boarded a plane to Brazil.

Before boarding, Imp bombarded Deft with messages.

Although many messages were sent, they all basically conveyed the same meaning.

That is, "I'm going to Brazil for MSI, where are you, Daipute?"

After a full day of travel, the LGD team finally landed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro, or Rio for short, is the host city of last year's Olympic Games and this year's League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational (MSI).

The name Rio de Janeiro comes from Portuguese and means "River of January," named after the Portuguese who sailed there in January 1505.

Rio de Janeiro is Brazil's second-largest city, boasting a wealth of natural and cultural attractions.

But it is also Brazil's most dangerous city, rife with gangs and frequent gunfights, earning it the infamous title of "Sin City".

However, in order to successfully host the Olympics last year, the Brazilian government cracked down on all the gangs, big and small, in Rio, which greatly improved the city's security.

Less than a year after the Rio Olympics, Rio's security situation has not deteriorated again, which is one of the main reasons why Riot Games dared to hold this year's MSI in Rio.

After arriving at the hotel, the LGD team immediately took a long nap to adjust to the time difference.

After more than a day, Zhou Dian and his teammates had roughly adapted to the living and training environment in Rio.

On May 6th, the LGD team visited Rio's most famous landmark—the Christ the Redeemer statue—and also toured other famous attractions in Rio.

On May 7th, the entire LGD team went to the venue to watch the final match of this year's MSI Play-In Stage.

This match is a best-of-five series, with GAM from the Vietnam region and SUP from the Türkiye region facing off.

The winner of this best-of-five series will secure the final spot in the MSI main event.

The first two qualifying spots have already been secured by TSM and Flash Wolves (FW).

These two teams are, after all, the spring season champions of major regions, so they should have no problem beating teams from wildcard regions.

In the end, GAM defeated SUP with a score of 3 to 1, securing the last spot to qualify for the MSI main event.

Levi, the jungler for the GAM team, left a very deep impression in this match.

Graves and Kha'Zix are carry every game!

While the relative weakness of the opponent certainly played a role, Levi's performance was equally impressive.

After watching the match, Zhou Dian had only one feeling: Vietnam is quite good at producing junglers, with Sofm first and Levi later.

If Levi performs exceptionally well at this MSI, and given the precedent set by fellow Vietnamese jungler Sofm, some LPL teams might consider signing him.

With GAM's advancement, the six teams participating in the main stage of this MSI have now been confirmed.

They are LGD from the LPL region;

SKT, the three-time world champions from the LCK region;

G2, from the European region, has already won three consecutive EU region championships;

TSM from the North American region;

Flash Wolves (FW) from the Taiwan region;

And the last one is GAM from the Vietnam region.

Among them, apart from G2, which was only established in 2015, the others are all veteran teams in their respective regions.

However, since joining the top league in the EU region in the spring of 2016, G2 Esports has never let the EU league championship slip away, and has already won three consecutive championships.

This led to G2 being ranked as the second favorite to win the MSI Mid-Season Invitational, ahead of LGD.

After all, the European region's performance in the World Championship over the past two years has been significantly better than that of the LPL. It's understandable that outside of the LPL, people are more optimistic about the European region's chances of a three-time champion.

As for the top favorite in this MSI Mid-Season Invitational, it is undoubtedly the three-time champion SKT.

In the past two years, SKT has achieved a three-peat in major tournaments: 2015 World Championship, 2016 MSI, and 2016 World Championship.

On the world stage, the current SKT team is so powerful that it's breathtaking.

After watching the last match of the MSI Play-In Stage, the pre-tournament relaxation time is over.

Back at the hotel, Zhou Dian and his teammates immediately threw themselves into intensive pre-match preparations.

The schedule for the MSI main event has been released, and LGD's first group stage opponent is Flash Wolves.

For LPL viewers, Flash Wolves is a familiar face.

After all, the Flash Wolves have basically monopolized the LMS championship for the past two years.

Therefore, Flash Wolves have participated in every MSI and World Championship in the past two years.

Furthermore, the Flash Wolves have upset SKT in BO1 matches more than once in the past two years, making them even more impressive.

After studying some of Flash Wolves' matches in depth, Dgc was amused.

He is full of confidence in LGD's prospects in the first group stage match.

After studying Flash Wolves, Dgc discovered that the team's mid-jungle duo of Maple and Karsa, as well as their bot lane duo of Betty and SwordArt, were indeed very strong.

However, Flash Wolves' top laner, MimiD, seems to be a bit of a noob.

This somewhat unskilled top laner ended up in Zhou Dian's hands.
Dgc can't even imagine how ruthless that scene must have been.

As time goes by, the start of this year's MSI main event is getting closer and closer.

In his spare time, Zhou Dian would check the private messages on his D-site account, 【上单老祖】.

He receives many private messages from fans, and the content of these messages covers a wide range of topics.

Of course, the most frequently mentioned thing was wanting to see Zhou Dian create tutorial videos using materials at MSI.

So Zhou Dian simply launched a poll to see which contestant fans would most like to see as an opponent in his material.

Without a doubt, SKT's top laner Huni is currently receiving the most votes.

The vote share even exceeded 80%.

Speaking of which, LPL played a significant role in Huni being scouted by SKT after Duke left the team.

To be more specific, Huni's market value is largely due to his performance against LPL teams at the S5 World Championship.

To be more specific, it was achieved by playing against IG!

To be more specific, it's about striking a pose!

The date is May 11th, Thursday.

It was 3 p.m. local time in Rio, which was 2 a.m. in China.

The main event of this year's MSI has officially begun.

Even though it was 2 a.m. on a weekday, the chat was still incredibly dense in the official live stream rooms of domestic esports platforms.

This clearly shows that there are a huge number of viewers watching the live stream, and their enthusiasm for watching the game is extremely high.

After all, SKT played in the first group stage match today, and LGD played in the second.

For domestic viewers, these first two group stage matches are quite exciting and worth staying up late for.

Rio de Janeiro, Olympic Stadium.

This is the venue for this year's MSI Mid-Season Invitational.

Half an hour earlier, all the staff from the six participating teams had already arrived at the venue.

A brief opening ceremony was held before the first group stage match.

On the main stage, dozens of dark-skinned locals came up first, each with a drum hanging from their waist.

Once they came up, dozens of people started beating drums.

Accompanied by continuous drumbeats, a short MSI promotional video began playing on the large screen at the venue.

After the promotional video finished playing, the lights and live camera shone on the audience.

At this moment, the players and head coaches of the five teams LGD, G2, TSM, FW, and GAM stood in five directions along the five aisles of the stands.

The emcee, speaking with a thick Portuguese accent, would shine a light on the heads of the team members as they were introduced, guiding them to the dimly lit center of the stage.

After all five teams came down from the audience seats and onto the center of the stage, the host began to introduce SKT.

After the introduction was finished, a beam of light was projected from directly above the stage, illuminating the center of the stage.

There stood the SKT players and SKT's head coach, KkOma.

Unlike the other five participating teams, they didn't come down from the audience; they stood in the center of the stage the whole time.

Faker stood in the very center of the SKT group, holding up the MSI championship trophy with one hand.

As soon as this scene appeared, the live stream chat for the domestic competition immediately became incredibly dense with comments.

Wow, Brother Li is really something!

[Haha, this trophy seems pretty heavy; Brother Li is having a hard time lifting it with one hand!]

What does this mean? Is this an early award ceremony for SKT?

[What kind of award is this?! Faker is holding last year's MSI championship trophy. It's time to return the trophy this year!]

[Damn, do we have to return the trophy?]

Of course they should return it! There's only one genuine trophy! The trophies the winning team kept were all replicas!

[Damn it, SKT is getting special treatment, isn't they?!]

There's nothing we can do; they're SKT, after all!

[This has nothing to do with him being from SKT, okay? He was the last to perform; it's just because they're the defending champions, that's all!]

[That's all? You guys are so sour! If you're so capable, why don't your team become the defending champions too? Then your team can stand in the middle!]

[Korean sympathizers, shut up! If you can't speak properly, don't try to disgust me!]

【.】

As SKT made their appearance and the trophy was returned, the continuous drumming in the arena became increasingly rapid, reaching a climax.

Then, the drumming stopped abruptly.

With the opening ceremony over, the 2017 MSI Mid-Season Invitational main event has officially begun!
In the live stream, the camera switched from showing the scene to a short video.

The short video features players from six participating teams sharing their outlook and expectations for this year's MSI.

The short video ended, and the competition venue reappeared on the live broadcast screen.

Of course, the camera was focused on the LPL commentary booth at the scene.

"Okay, after watching the opening ceremony and the speeches from the players of each team, you can feel their determination and perseverance!"

The first sound that came was that of the long-haired man.

As a veteran of the LPL, Changmao is almost always present in the LPL commentary booth on the first day of every major tournament.

(End of this chapter)