Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 262, Page 259: Customized Theme Song

To put it bluntly, LCP's current achievements and its nominal title as the number one region are entirely due to Yuna Shimamura.

With Shimamura Yuna gone, does their current strength qualify them as the top division?
All I can say is that the audience knows what's going on.

If a team like this could defeat T1, it would truly be a shock to everyone's understanding.

There's no doubt that many people just want to see this spectacle.

Five-time world champion and two-time champion Faker died in the play-in stage.

This is really a big joke.

While anticipating the birth of new legends, netizens also always look forward to seeing giants fall – it's their instinct to find amusement in watching others' misfortunes.

Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that some people simply hate T1.

After all, T1 basically accounts for more than 7% of the popularity of League of Legends in LCK and even the world. For other LCK teams, T1 is really the biggest competitor that takes away all their share of the pie.

For example, GENG would definitely be hoping that T1 would die in the play-in stage.

If the other team in the play-in stage is an LPL team, they would not hesitate to play scrims against that team.

But now it seems unnecessary.

The LCP's fourth seed is so bad that even if they practiced their magic, they wouldn't make a splash.

This year's S-series is divided into three stages.

The qualifying rounds, the Swiss system, and the knockout rounds.

Since the qualifying rounds were pretty much a foregone conclusion, everyone's expectations naturally fell on the subsequent Swiss rounds and knockout stages.

According to the rules, this year's Swiss round will be held in Beijing.

The rules are actually very simple.

The first team to secure three victories will qualify for the quarterfinals.

If you suffer three defeats, you will be eliminated.

Then, perhaps to increase the possibility of upsets, the first two rounds of the Swiss rounds adopted a BO1 format.

In other words, the game is decided in one round.

A best-of-three (BO3) match will only be played when a team is about to advance or be eliminated, which is a do-or-die situation.

Such a competition format naturally carries significant risks.

After all, even the strongest team can lose a BO1 match.

Perhaps due to information asymmetry, being cheated in a single game can put you in a disadvantageous position.

But this is exactly the result Riot wanted.

Riot Games' ideas about the World Championship are rather strange.

The selection of teams and the scale of the competition demonstrate that Riot Games values ​​the prestige of the event.

They wanted to create the impression of a gathering of heroes, a contest among powerful figures.

The goal is to make the world's audience feel that no matter how well a team performs before the World Championship, for them, victory or defeat hinges on this one match.
The World Championship (S-Series) is the most important, perhaps even the only important, competition.

This is the "S-rank only" mentality promoted by Riot's marketing.

But precisely in this atmosphere where only the World Championship matters, Riot is intentionally increasing the element of chance in the World Championship.

Their goal is not to select an absolute powerhouse team through a rigorous competition system.

Their goal is to make the game seem newsworthy.

From process to result, everything is topical.

Whether a strong team falters or a dark horse wins the championship, these are the kinds of scenes Riot wants to see.

They don't want to select the "strongest team" in a very rigorous way at all.

They just need a game that can generate buzz.

This can also be seen from the arrangements made in the subsequent knockout stage.

Yes
In the quarterfinals, the single-elimination format, a tradition inherited from League of Legends, was still used.

Regarding this competition format, people have been saying for a long time that it is too unpredictable and that some teams may be eliminated if they are not in good form. They say that such a competition format may not be very rigorous.

There have been ongoing calls for Riot to adopt the winners' bracket system used in other esports competitions.

However, Riot Games dragged its feet for several years and refused to change the tournament format.

They finally managed to change it, but it only changed the group stage to a Swiss system, and the quarterfinals were still a single-elimination tournament.

For fists, this is the ancestral law.

This competition format is designed to make the championship more suspenseful.

This is to allow for the possible occurrence of unexpected events.

Riot is the world's most hype-savvy gaming company; they understand better than anyone how to generate buzz for their matches.

This is why League of Legends is the most successful esports event in the world.

Even League of Legends may be the most commercially successful multiplayer online game of all time.

Despite ongoing controversy surrounding this single-elimination format, with some even criticizing Riot Games as a company that prioritizes commercial success over prestige, the tournament has remained controversial.

However, Shimamura Yuna didn't seem to care much about it.

She firmly believed in one thing.
Regardless of the competition format, the team that wins the final championship is always the strongest team of that year.

Any assumptions such as "what if it were a double loss" or "what if the draws were different" are just excuses made by the losers.

Perhaps in some alternate timeline, a team that was temporarily in poor form might actually return from hell under a double-elimination format.

In fact, the format may not have changed at all, but simply because the timeline is different, some teams can have a completely different fate than in the past.

However, since there is no double-elimination format, and since Riot Games is intentionally depriving strong teams of the possibility of adjusting their form and making a comeback.

Then we can only say that existence is its own justification.

In a sense, this is what is meant by "the unpredictable stage of fate".

Yuna Shimamura has high hopes for this.

In the time leading up to the official start of the match, Riot also conducted a lot of pre-match activities.

Among them were some interview videos recorded by the contestants.

For example, one of the GENG players was asked, "Who are you looking forward to facing in this World Championship?"

Unsurprisingly, it was WBG.

Chovy's answer was as follows: "Well, first of all, I already lost to CFO at MSI last time, and out of a desire for revenge, I felt there was a reason to face Shimamura again."

Shimamura may appear to be a top laner, but she can also play mid lane effectively and at a top level. Many people also say that her style is very similar to mine.

I'm very interested in such an interesting player, so I hope to play against WBG.

Ruler replied, "Because I lost to Shimamura last time, I want revenge."

Everyone says that after joining WBG, Shimamura Yuna's team became stronger than the CFO's.

But we in GENG are also confident; we're stronger than before. Therefore, we hope to exact revenge this time.

Aside from GENG, almost every well-known team, when giving pre-match interviews or similar interviews, has to mention WBG, or more precisely, Shimamura Yuna.

Many believe that WBG is currently the most likely team to win this year's World Championship, bar none. After all, CFO and the others are essentially wildcard entrants.

Regardless of their actual strength, in the public eye, it's Shimamura Yuna who led them into the world championship and helped them win the title.

Everyone felt that without Shimamura Yuna, the CFO position or the LCP position wouldn't matter.

Yuna Shimamura is the only valuable player on the entire team.

Perhaps that's not the case.

Actually, both HongQ and Junjia have performed exceptionally well this year.

But this is the stereotype people have about the wildcard region.

People would rather believe that Shimamura Yuna alone boosted the fighting power of a wildcard team tenfold than believe that this wildcard team was barely competitive after Shimamura Yuna left.

Since Shimamura Yuna is so central and crucial.
If she can lead even a wildcard team like CFO to the World Championship, then WBG is even more capable.

Apart from KaiDeng, all the members of WBG have either won the World Championship or the MSI Championship.

People still believe that these individuals have a limit to their abilities.

Even if he's not at his peak, he's still stronger and more trustworthy than those CFOs.

On this basis, the fact that WBG won the LPL championship with an overwhelming victory further convinced people of this.
Today's WBG is essentially a high-spec version of the CFO from the first and second stages.

Since even a low-spec version of CFO can win the Vanguard Tournament and MSI championship.

Therefore, as a high-spec version of WBG, there is no reason why they cannot win the championship.

Now, almost everyone considers WBG to be the biggest favorite to win the championship.

Judging from the odds on some websites, people are even more optimistic about them than about T1 and GENG.

This was quite a novel experience for the WBG team members.
Well, how should I put it?
'Are we still the biggest favorites to win the championship?'

This feeling was quite new to them.

These former world champions have now declined in skill and have been languishing for who knows how many years.

They either crawl into the World Championship as low-ranking seeds, or they don't even make it to the World Championship at all.

Although Xiaohu won the World Runner-up title at WBG, many people said that they were lucky runners-up that year.

Judging from the results, the gap between them and the champion T1 of that year was indeed huge, the kind of team that they probably couldn't beat even if they played 10 more best-of-five series.

These people define themselves as "creeping".

But now the result is that it's not moving anymore.

Not only is it not moving, but it is also the LPL's number one seed and the hope of the LPL.

This made the group of old Dengs quite happy.

The atmosphere at the base has been incredibly lively lately.

They were clearly training normally.

But as she was training, she suddenly heard people behind her talking about some crazy topics.

"Holy crap, we're really going to beat LCK and LEC this year! We're the number one team in the world this year!"

"Holy crap, what kind of trash is Faker? I feel like Tiger could easily crush him, and Shimamura could crush him too. We two mid laners could easily beat him."

"Chovy is no good either, he's not as good as Shimamura-nee. Shimamura-nee can teach him a lesson with either a flick of her wrist!"

"Kiin is trash, Doran is trash, sigh, they're all trash. With Shimamura-san here, we're unstoppable!"

Of course, there was more of a joking element to it, and to some extent, it was also because these veterans lacked confidence in their own abilities, so they used this humorous way to mock themselves.

While Shimamura Yuna found the atmosphere interesting, she also felt a little out of place.

She is a rather introverted person, and it takes her a lot of time to get to know her new teammates in a new environment.

It took me two or three months to go from being strangers to being able to communicate with my CFO teammate.

It wasn't until she was about to leave the team that she realized she could truly call those people her friends.

At this moment, she has joined a new team and has to start all over again to get along with people and build relationships. For her, this seems to be more difficult than playing well in the competition.

She had discussed this topic with Akari Kujo before.

At the time, Akari Kujo told her: 'Making friends with people isn't that difficult.'
To become best friends, to become more significant people in each other's lives, such a deeper friendship naturally requires more time spent together.

But if both parties simply harbor good intentions and want to become friends, showing each other kindness, it should be a very simple matter.

The implication of Kujo Akari's words is that making friends with people is actually a very simple and inexpensive thing.

People can become friends as long as there is a reason and necessity for them to communicate with each other.

The word "friend" doesn't carry as much weight as one might imagine.

Yuna Shimamura was able to understand what Akira Kujo was trying to express.

Furthermore, she also agrees with what Kujo Akira wants to express.

But
I just feel that it would be a bit difficult for me to implement.

However, she is no longer so anxious about such things.

Although I'm still a little reserved and not quite used to it yet.

But
"Once you've been through something together, you should be able to understand each other quickly."

Yuna Shimamura believes that sharing joys and sorrows with others is the best bridge to building friendships.

Regardless, she and the people at WBG are now bound by a shared destiny.

We will share joy and sorrow, darkness and brilliance, because of victory and defeat.

The upcoming S-series tournament will be a great opportunity to strengthen relationships with everyone.

that's enough.

Thinking about this, Shimamura Yuna became even more excited for the upcoming matches.

Just as she was slumped over the table, lost in thought, Liu Qingsong suddenly shouted in the training room, "Holy crap, the S-series theme song has been released, did you guys know?"

"Did they really send out a fake one?"

"real."

"And I took a look, and it seems like everyone in the comments section is saying that Shimamura is the main character in this year's music video."

"What? Really? Let me see."

With this commotion, almost everyone in the training room who wasn't playing games went to Liu Qingsong's computer to watch.

Although Shimamura Yuna did not go to join in the fun.

But she was still somewhat curious.

after all
'A music video featuring me?'

She had actually heard some rumors beforehand that Riot Games would be going all out to promote her this year.

At the time, she never expected that the hype would extend to the point where even the World Championship theme song would feature her as the main character.

This is the same treatment as Uzi in S8.
Thinking of this, she silently canceled the ranked match and opened a video website, intending to find out what was going on.

(End of this chapter)