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

Chapter 526 Guo Hao's Hesitation

About two weeks ago, right after the end of the regular season of this year's Spring Split.

Since LGD failed to make the playoffs, they were given an early break.

During the holiday, Zhou Dian and Dgc had a small get-together and had a meal together.

During the meal, Zhou Dian revealed his future career plans to Dgc.

Zhou Dian's contract with LGD only has the second half of this season left, with six months remaining until it expires.

At that point, Zhou Dian has no intention of renewing his contract with LGD, no matter what.

Zhou Dian could clearly sense that if he continued to stay with LGD, he might never win a championship again.

Even though he was already a Grand Slam champion, he still had an endless thirst for winning the title.

If professional players don't want to win championships, then what's the point of playing professionally?

He might as well retire early and become a streamer.

In the year or two since winning the championship, with teammates leaving one after another, and even now the club itself leaving one,

Zhou Dian's dedication to training and playing matches has been commendable, as it's a testament to the club's initial efforts in discovering him.

After listening to Zhou Dian's words, Dgc expressed his understanding and support for Zhou Dian's decision.

After this year, when your contract expires, go chase the championship with another team!

However, Dgc itself has no plans to move.

He has a clear understanding of his true coaching ability.

It has a certain level of skill, but it's not truly top-notch.

He plans to stay with LGD as long as they don't actively reject him.

Today, Dgc was drinking with his old friend White Crescent. After a few rounds of drinks, he remembered what Zhou Dian had said a few days ago.

So he told White Crescent that Zhou Dian was not planning to renew his contract with LGD.

"Hasn't your manager Guo Hao always been eyeing Zhou Shen?"

Dgc looked at the white crescent moon and said with a smile, "Besides, you always complain to me that if Zhou Shen were your top laner, you would have been a Grand Slam coach by now."

"Why don't you talk to Guo Hao? If he really has feelings for Zhou Shen, he should contact Zhou Shen beforehand and have a talk!"

"When Zhou Shen's contract with LGD expires and he becomes a completely free agent, everyone will know that your team may not be able to compete with other teams."

Upon hearing this, White Crescent Eyebrows twitched slightly, a strange feeling creeping over her.

Just the day before yesterday, I was thinking about whether TES could have gone further in this year's playoffs if 69 had been replaced by Zhou Shen.

Why is someone coming to my door selling Zhou Shen today?!
Could it be that one day, 69 will be replaced by Zhou Shen in the top lane?
While White Crescent was pondering, Dgc said again, "I just mentioned this to you. If you, as the head coach, think that the current players in TES are quite suitable, you don't need to reveal this information to Guo Hao."

"But if you really have this idea, you can definitely arrange to loan Zhou Shen during the summer season. You don't have to wait until the end of the year when his contract expires to think about bringing him in. Based on my understanding of Zhou Shen, he should be willing to go to your team."

"Why are you telling me this?" White Crescent Moon said with a smile.

"I feel sorry for Zhou Shen!" Dgc replied. "He still has drive; he can't continue to stagnate at LGD!"

Back home, White Crescent immediately called Guo Hao.

Although 369 was his favorite player, and he was the one who promoted him.

However, White Crescent felt she couldn't refuse the opportunity to coach Zhou Shen.

Therefore, he relayed the message Dgc had told him to Guo Hao, the team's manager.

However, what White Crescent didn't expect was that while he, as the head coach, didn't hesitate to temporarily give up on 369, Guo Hao, as the manager, did hesitate.

"What do you think about the future development of 369?" Guo Hao asked.

After all, he was a favorite general, so White Crescent still said some good things about 369 at this time.

"69 is quite talented and has a lot of potential. He's only played in the top league for half a year now, and I believe he will definitely get stronger and stronger in the future!" White Crescent said.

As for the issue of 369's rebellious nature and difficulty in managing, White Crescent felt it was unnecessary to bring it up at this juncture.

In situations like this, it's best to simply consider the player's skill level in the game.

After hanging up the phone, Guo Hao leaned back in his chair and fell into deep thought.

He quite agreed with White Crescent's evaluation of 369.

He also believes that 369 can become a top-tier top laner in the future.

If this had happened a year ago, Guo Hao would have given up 369 without hesitation.
But now, he's starting to hesitate.

After all, 369's performance in the regular season of this spring split was really good; he is a promising prospect for a top-tier carry-type top laner.

Although TheShy completely dominated them in the playoffs.

But that's TheShy who just won the championship. It's pretty normal that 369 couldn't beat him!

Just like when Zhou Shen won the championship, didn't he also dominate everyone in his matchup?

However, Zhou Shen seems to have declined quite a bit this year.

To put it bluntly, Guo Hao hesitated because Zhou Dian's performance in this year's Spring Split wasn't as explosive as before.

It's still very strong, but not as strong as it used to be.

There wasn't someone strong enough for Guo Hao to abandon the promising newcomer he was cultivating without hesitation.

After all, the competition in the LPL is very fierce now, and the top teams have very strong lineups.

If replacing 369 with Zhou Shen only results in the current LPL regular season top two and playoff top four, and cannot improve further, then it would be better to continue developing 369!
However, Guo Hao failed to understand one thing: TES's significant improvement in LPL performance this year was mainly due to their mid-laner, Knight.

While TES's top and bottom lanes have been upgraded compared to last year, this is not the main reason for their improved performance.

Moreover, Guo Hao brought in Marin last year, but Marin turned out to be a disaster, with their performance declining drastically.

This also gave Guo Hao a bit of a psychological shadow regarding the idea of ​​bringing in the FMVP top laner.

He felt that, judging from the trend of Zhou Shen's strength over the past few years, Zhou Shen would decline more and more like Marin!
However, Guo Hao overlooked one thing.

When Marin came last year, he was already 27 years old, definitely an older player, and it was inevitable that he would decline.

However, Zhou Dian is still very young and in the prime of his esports career, so the probability of him returning to his peak is actually quite high.

Guo Hao himself has never actually played professionally, so his understanding of some things is not that profound.

After much hesitation, he decided to trust 369, and TES will continue with the same roster as in the Spring Split for the Summer Split.

White Crescent breathed a sigh of relief at the manager's final decision.

Because he really likes 369.

But he really wanted to be able to mentor Zhou Dian.

Therefore, it's best to let the manager make the decision on this kind of troublesome issue.

It's best not to make decisions for yourself; you can't bear such a heavy responsibility.

White Crescent felt that all she needed to do was be a good coach; she really didn't want to worry about anything else.

In May 2019, the annual Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) was held as scheduled.

Ultimately, G2 from the European region surprisingly won the MSI championship. Of course, this result was unexpected before the knockout stage even began.

With both IG and SKT falling in the MSI semifinals, G2's victory was no longer surprising.

SKT was completely outmatched by G2's top laner Pyke in the semifinals, suffering a major defeat.

In the other semifinal, Team Liquid (TL) from the North American region, without any unconventional strategies like G2's top laner Pyke, faced off head-on and genuinely defeated Invictus Gaming (IG), which truly shocked the audience.

The match where IG lost to TL was absolutely comparable to the shocking upset of RNG losing to G2 at last year's S8 World Championship.

IG's dismal performance at MSI has silenced many who previously boasted that TheShy's skill surpassed Zhou Dian's based on LGD's lack of success in the past two years.

In terms of dominance, TheShy is far inferior to Zhou Shen back in the day!

The LPL Summer Split started on June 8, 2019.

There will be a total of 6 rounds of regular season games in June.

Then, after June ends, the LPL Summer Split will also be temporarily suspended.

The reason, of course, is the intercontinental competition that has been held every year in early July for the past few years.

In the past two years, LPL has defeated LCK and won the Asian Games championship twice in a row.

Even before the Rift Rivals tournament has started, most LPL viewers already consider the championship to be a sure thing for the LPL region.

In the first five rounds of the Summer Split regular season, TES achieved a five-game winning streak.

They are currently tied for first place in the LPL with FPX.

In these five BO3 matches, 369 performed exceptionally well, boasting impressive stats and even securing solo kills against his opponents.

They seem to have completely emerged from the shadow of the Spring Split playoffs.

Meanwhile, LGD's record during the same period was only 2 wins and 3 losses.

This also made Guo Hao feel that his decision to continue trusting 369 and not try to loan Zhou Shen in the Summer Split was the right one.

Zhou Shen, he really isn't as good at carrying as he used to be!

However, Guo Hao overlooked one thing.

Those were the opponents that TES had won five consecutive games against, none of whom were among the top four teams in the Spring Split.

In LGD's first five matches, apart from TES, they had already faced the other three teams that were among the top four in the Spring Split.

LGD's three losses were against these three teams.

Given LGD's current overall strength, it's indeed very difficult for them to win against strong teams.

Zhou Dian might have a better chance if he were playing mid lane.

However, the impact of a top laner in a match is indeed not as great as that of a mid laner.

Therefore, those who have historically served as the team's captain in weaker teams are mostly mid-lane players.

Mid-laners have a stronger ability to provide backup.

The role of a top-tier top laner is to raise the team's ceiling.

On June 29th, the sixth round of the LPL Summer Split regular season began.

In this round, TES faced their first formidable opponent since the start of the Summer Split – the IG team.

Since the start of the Summer Split, IG seems to have continued their poor form from their loss to TL at MSI.

After five regular season games, they still lost two without facing any strong teams.

Both losses were against teams that were ranked in the lower half of the Spring Split.

This has given the entire TES team a lot of confidence for their regular season match against IG.

This BO3 is a small way to get revenge for being eliminated by IG in the Spring Split.

However, TES lost to IG once again.

In the first game of the BO3, the entire IG team performed poorly and was quickly defeated by TES, with a kill score of 18-1, almost resulting in a clean sweep.

However, 369 was then crushed by TheShy in the next two games, and IG took advantage of their top lane advantage to win two games in a row, defeating TES 2-1.

However, this time 369 wasn't as badly beaten as they were during the Spring Split playoffs.

In addition, the Intercontinental Championship is about to begin.

Therefore, both White Crescent and Guo Hao offered encouragement to 369 after this defeat.

It was just a regular season game.

They were afraid that 369's mentality would collapse like it did during the Spring Split playoffs.

Fortunately, although 369 looked frustrated after losing the BO3 against IG, he didn't completely lose his composure.

However, as soon as the match ended, Guo Hao, who was watching from the locker room, suddenly recalled the decision he had made more than a month ago.

Did I really do the right thing?

"Forget it, I need to get ready for the Intercontinental Championship!" Guo Hao shook his head, shaking off some distracting thoughts.

On July 4, 2019, the third Asian Games kicked off.

The champions of the previous two editions were both from the LPL region.

The four teams representing the LPL in this Intercontinental Cup – IG, JDG, FPX, and TES – naturally aim to win a three-peat for the LPL region in the Asian Games.

However, LPL had a very difficult start to the group stage.

In the group stage, LPL and LCK will play four BO1 matches. Each team will be ranked according to their respective region's ranking in the Spring Split, with teams of the same ranking facing off against each other.

But apart from IG's very narrow victory over SKT.

JDG, the runner-up of the LPL Spring Split, lost to Griffin, the runner-up of the LCK Spring Split.

FPX, the third-place finisher in the LPL Spring Split, lost to DRX, the third-place finisher in the LCK Spring Split.

Moreover, those who lost had little chance to fight back; they were basically at a disadvantage throughout the entire match.

After three BO1 matches against LCK teams, many LPL viewers have become pessimistic.

It seems like our LPL region doesn't have the dominance it had for the past two years!
This year, IG only made it to the semifinals of MSI, so it seems they are no longer the number one region.

With a constant stream of new talent emerging from the LCK next door, it seems they're slowly making their comeback.

The Griffin team, which defeated JDG in the group stage, consists entirely of rookies who only started playing in the LCK last year.

The DWG team, which will play next, is even younger. Except for substitute top laner Flame, all the other players on the team only started playing in the LCK this spring.

Of course, while some are pessimistic, others are optimistic.

Many LPL viewers remain optimistic.

After all, LPL has won too many games in the past two years.

They said the group stage is not very informative. In the first Intercontinental Cup in 17, we also didn't perform well in the group stage, but we still easily won against LCK in the finals.

Moreover, if TES beats DWG later, LPL will have a 2-2 record against LCK in the group stage.

It's a close match, so it's not bad at all!
(End of this chapter)