Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 266, page 263: T1's first match in the S-series.
For both players, facing each other in the first round is definitely not a good thing.

But for the audience, it means something different.

Who wouldn't want to see a stage of fate where it's a fight to the death, where only one person can shine, and where fate is unpredictable?

Riot Games' intention to create a god-like figure like Yuna Shimamura is now quite obvious. Everyone can sense that Yuna Shimamura is very likely to be Faker's true successor.

He is different from BIN, who claims to be Faker's successor, and Chovy, who was artificially created to be Faker's successor.

Yuna Shimamura has a huge fan base, generates a lot of buzz, and possesses undeniable talent.

In China's online environment, if you say someone is Faker's successor, people will say you're spreading rumors or that you're trying to flatter him to death.

However, when people say this abroad, they are really serious.

Everyone seriously believes that Shimamura Yuna is Faker's successor.

Everyone seriously believes that Shimamura Yuna is indeed the guarantee of viewership for the next decade after Faker.

Actually, people in China think the same way, but due to the internet environment there, they don't dare to say it out loud.

Therefore, this match is essentially a battle between a newly appointed, unique god-level internet celebrity and the old-era unique god.

In terms of traffic, it can be said to be maxed out.

This is the first match of the Swiss round.

If nothing unexpected happens, this will be the most popular match in the first round of the Swiss round.

As for whether it's the most popular match in this entire Swiss round stage...
That depends on whether WBG will run into T1 again.

Before the match began, both teams' players recorded trash talk as arranged by Riot.

All of this trash talk was released on the day of the match.

On T1's side, the one responsible for trash-talking isn't Faker, but Doran.

Dolan's harsh words in front of the camera, regardless of how they sound, are certainly quite ruthless on the surface.

"Everyone says that I am far inferior to Shimamura. Everyone says that because of my presence, T1 has little chance of defeating WBG."

"During the last MSI, my personal performance was indeed not ideal, so this time, I want to redeem myself."

"I don't think I'm a worse player than Shimamura Ayana, nor do I think I'm worse than anyone else."

"Although it seems that WBG has a strategy of swapping mid and top laners, I hope that Shimamura will not avoid laning against me and will face me head-on."

He sounded very confident when he said it.

However, after hearing this, the comments section unanimously expressed disbelief.

Is Shimamura really avoiding the online battle?

[That's too much of an avoidance. Just don't get beaten up and have to switch lanes.]

If you were really as amazing as Shimamura, there wouldn't have been rumors of T1 wanting to buy her this year.

You should be thankful that Shimamura-san didn't come and steal your job, forcing you to go and sit on the sidelines.

Due to past stereotypes and this year's head-to-head record, this trash talk sounds completely unconvincing and is simply laughable to the audience.

Even the Dragon God, who was involved in the pirated competition, couldn't help but laugh out loud during his live stream when he saw this scene: "Oh my, Big Dinosaur, Big Dinosaur, can you really be more awesome than Shimamura-san? I don't believe it."

"It's okay, big dinosaur. Go ask the T1 management whether they'd choose you or Shimamura. The T1 management will definitely choose you."

It's a kind of bustling prosperity that sounds a little strange and unsettling.

The reactions to Dolan's trash talk perfectly illustrate the point that harsh words are not necessarily effective.

The harsh words spoken by someone who is not well-regarded by others only make people laugh.

This is the same principle as the saying that when you are weak enough, everything you do will be considered cute.

In contrast, Shimamura Yuna.

Her pre-match trash talk was very conservative.

"Um, encountering T1 in the first round is something that puts a lot of pressure on me. After all, they are the strongest team that can be drawn from the pool. It makes me wonder if my luck is just too bad."

"However, since this match has already been decided, I will do my best."

Even though Shimamura Yuna was quite confident, even a bit arrogant, when she first drew T1 yesterday, she was still very confident in private.

However, when facing the public, her tone changed completely.

It's back to the formula of humility: the formula's opponent is very strong and I need to work hard; the formula will do its best.

These are the kinds of things that both her seniors and she herself have said countless times, and they are considered "boring" and trashy by everyone.

However, these humble statements about formulas, when uttered by Yuna Shimamura, conveyed a sense of composure and strength.

Everyone watched as Shimamura Yuna nodded occasionally and smiled slightly from time to time, as if it were nothing serious.

But viewers could easily recall how she brutally beat Dolan on the court.

This is the aura of a strong person.

No need for excessive performance.

Even a conventional, formulaic statement can still convey the depth and confidence of a powerful individual.

Because the first match today is LCK vs LPL, and it's the most popular match, T1 vs WBG.

Therefore, many people were already waiting in the live stream room in advance.

I was afraid of missing this game.

Don't say you missed the whole thing.

Even missing one or two highlight shots would be unacceptable to those present.

For the first round of the Swiss system, today's matches were incredibly exciting.

On Bilibili, there are already three live stream rooms with more than 3 viewers.

The entire platform combined is estimated to have over a million concurrent users.

As for the viewership of other platforms like Huya and Douyu, the total viewership of this match across the entire Chinese internet is staggering.

They probably have several million concurrent users.

And not just domestically.

On foreign websites, this match is clearly just a qualifying round, but the number of concurrent viewers has already exceeded 200 million.

This is a viewership that many other esports events, even their finals, can't achieve.

This is the effect of the "S-rank only" mentality created by Riot Games.

At the cost of completely eliminating the prestige of other competitions, it created the world's most watched, most talked-about, and most epic esports event.

Even at this moment, though it's just the beginning of a trivial match, the sheer volume of buzz surrounding both teams has reached a level that other esports events can never achieve.

but
Compared to the online discussions about how exciting this World Championship was based on various data, Shimamura Yuna's observations were more direct.

"It's truly magnificent."

When she entered the competition venue in BJ, she saw that the stands, which had been empty during the pre-match rehearsals, were now packed with people.

Even though we were in the same space, the sense of oppression we felt was completely different.

Yuna Shimamura is no longer very nervous about being on stage.

Rather, it's more accurate to say that we've become somewhat numb.

They've become somewhat numb not only to the game, but even to victory.

She thought she would stay in this state forever.

She once remarked that "even winning too much makes you numb." But at this moment, as she walked from the players' aisle onto the stage...
I heard a noisy, indistinct cheer behind me.

Feel the lively atmosphere at the scene.

She suddenly realized.
"It's not that I'm numb to victory, it's just that I'm numb to unimportant victories."

League of Legends is, after all, a game where only the World Championship is considered the ultimate measure of success.

No matter how much you deny it, or how much you feel that this public opinion atmosphere is unreasonable.

But that's the truth.

Only the World Championship (S-Series) is considered an important competition.

The other matches were all "competitions that are not very meaningful compared to the World Championship".

Therefore, no matter how many times she won before, Shimamura Yuna always felt that "although I won, I wasn't too happy because it wasn't the World Championship."

Aside from the World Championship, all other championships are merely appetizers before the World Championship.

She ate far too many of these kinds of appetizers.

Whether it's the Pioneer Tournament, MSI, or three league championships.

When you can't eat the side dishes, they seem delicious.

But when you can eat side dishes repeatedly, you start to feel that they're "nothing special".

Yuna Shimamura desperately craved a truly recognized competition and a championship that was considered to be of real value.

And this championship is the S-series.

Right now, the unveiling of this "only truly recognized competition in the entire game" is about to begin.

Their opponent is none other than the most recognized team in the entire history of the game.

This made it difficult for her to calm down.

Although today's match was very popular, according to the rules, this was just one of many BO1 matches in the qualifying rounds.

Therefore, the scale of the event was not particularly complicated.

There wasn't much of a pre-match entrance ceremony.

There was also no elaborate introduction of the two opponents by the host before the match.

It's just a very ordinary one.

Amidst the cheers of the audience and the stage lights, the WBG and T1 representatives took their seats together.

Start debugging the equipment and testing the network for any problems.

Once everything was ready, the referee asked both sides, "May the match begin?"

After receiving a positive response, the business process (BP) phase begins.

Such an important match, yet the corresponding sense of ceremony wasn't that strong, which made Shimamura Yuna feel slightly out of place.

I feel a little dazed.

But in the end, her teammates' calls brought her back to reality.

"It's open! It's open! It's open!"

"Come on, come on, come on! We must win this round. Taking them down will be a piece of cake."

"OK, let's all cheer each other on! Let's get off to a great start!"

It was only after a moment that Shimamura Yuna realized what her teammates were saying.

Then, a beat late, she echoed her teammates, saying, "Okay, let's all cheer each other on, we must win today!"

And so, the match entered the draft phase.
-
The first round of the Swiss system is a best-of-one (BO1) format, meaning one match determines the winner, which greatly increases the element of chance and randomness in the game.

Nobody knows if the opponent has some dirty trick up their sleeve and will steal it from you in a best-of-one match.

Sometimes you're still testing the waters to find out what's going on, but as you keep testing, you realize you've run out of room for error and are about to be eliminated.

This will put a lot of pressure on the players.

From any perspective, BO1 is an absolutely unreasonable tournament format for League of Legends.

However, at the same time, this irrationality is equal for both sides.

T1 and WBG are giving it their all right now.
As this is the first Swiss round of this World Championship, it's still a bit uncertain what kind of lineup T1 will field against WBG in the current version.

Similarly, although T1 had already played in the play-in stage against GAM, they didn't really show their true strength because GAM was too weak.

It was even clear that they deliberately hid and practiced their lineups during that BO5 qualifying round.

The heroes I played in the last two games were all things that were very abstract at first glance.

In other words, there is an information gap between the two sides at this moment.

This, in turn, led them to adopt a convergent approach.
That is stability.

We won't resort to any fancy tactics.

We should avoid testing unstable practices.

The saying goes, "Even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit."

Neither team knows who the lion is or who the rabbit is, so they'll be more conservative and go all out.

On the T1 side, in the first round, they directly banned Yone and Vampire, two characters that Shimamura Yuna could use.

In response, WBG banned Orianna and Yun Ana.

The character Clockwork has been adjusted in this parallel world version, which can be considered a significant buff.

After testing in training matches over this period of time, almost all teams have come to agree that this role is of such high priority that it "cannot be left out".

At this point, WBG took the initiative to choose the red side, so the first pick for the blue side went to T1, and Faker's mastery of traditional mages is well-known.

Therefore, banning Clockwerk first is not a problem.

Yun Ana continued her strong performance from the third stage and remains the highest priority character in the current version.

Simply put, both sides are doing what they believe to be the most reasonable action.

Guided by this mindset, both sides selected their respective lineups.

Blue side T1 selected a combination of top lane Wolf Mother, jungle Vi, mid lane Galio, and bottom lane Sivir + Braum.

WBG, on the red side, selected Jayce for top lane, Xin Zhao for jungle, Taliyah for mid lane, and Kai'Sa and Rakan for bot lane.

The key to both teams' lineups lies in the top lane.

That's right, Shimamura Yuna is back in the top lane this game.

Although Dolan made some bold statements before the match, saying he wasn't afraid of Shimamura Yuna or anything like that.

But that was just talk.

Whether he is truly afraid or not, only he himself knows the answer.

He expressed his anticipation of fighting Shimamura Yuna again, his desire for revenge, and his feeling that he had become stronger.

They were just saying it for fun.

He himself was well aware that his peak performance was actually during the second stage of the playoffs before MSI.

After that time, although my condition wouldn't be terrible, it certainly wouldn't be as good as it was back then.
I'm definitely not as good as I am now compared to the second stage playoffs.

At that moment, during the match, he was praying.
"Go lane against Faker, don't come lane against me."

(End of this chapter)