League of Legends: Reborn in Season 3, Tuning the Entire League

Chapter 153 The Spring Showdown is Here!

9:30 AM.

Pang Ran opened his eyes on time, looked at the sunlight streaming into the room through the gauze window, and stretched.

“Oh!”

Thanks to the All-Star event, Ming and his club gained immense popularity in the entire League of Legends community, and the number of teams seeking scrimmages with them has been steadily increasing.

As a result, a large part of the daily training tasks have been freed up from ranked games, and now they are mostly used for expanding the hero pool, practicing strategies, and maintaining a good feel for the game.

Without this, their rest time has been moved forward from around 3 a.m. to a little earlier.

If you go to bed early, you'll naturally wake up early too.

However, this doesn't mean that NXG's five-man team has reduced their training volume. From ranked games to a massive number of scrims, from the OGN region to the North American LCS.NA, they played different scrims every day without repeating any matches.

After each training match, there's a small replay of a small game and a large replay of a BO5 game.

And perhaps because they were so eager to learn from NXG, the teams that practiced against them were all giving it their all, resulting in much better training outcomes than before.

The most amusing thing was the OGN teams. Even though their own region stole their championship, in the practice matches, more than a dozen teams from their region took turns coming to their door.

Simply put, the quantity has decreased, but the quality has improved by more than one level.

When they first started going to bed earlier, Pang Ran and his friends were not used to it. They often lay in bed counting stars and the moon, tossing and turning for an hour or two before they could fall asleep.

However, as the schedule was gradually adjusted, everyone found that their mental state improved significantly the next morning, so they all began to adapt to this new schedule, either actively or passively.

"We have mutton rice noodles for breakfast today! It's a specialty from Ming's hometown. Hurry up, guys, or I'll show it off to you all by myself."

In the QQ group chat, which was renamed "The Champion's Development Diary" again, Xu Jing, who was the earliest to get up, was scrolling through the chat.

I don't know why my partner is so energetic every day.

Pang Ran sighed inwardly. Sure enough, there are differences in talent among people in all aspects.

For example, this show-off, who gets an erection every morning, is something he can only envy.

Let's hope this bastard doesn't actually end up with a rich woman...

With that thought in mind, Pang Ran's hair washing movements inevitably quickened.

The most popular place in the club is the cafeteria. The auntie cooks incredibly delicious food, and the team changes the menu every now and then.

Big updates like today's will happen from time to time... Well, saying it's from time to time isn't quite right. After a match or before a major tournament, except for Beef Mingge, they will arrange it for them.

When Pang Ran arrived at the cafeteria downstairs, he found that Song Yuan, Xiao Shitou, and Xiao Wu were already seated in their places, in addition to himself.

Looking at Xu Jing's bowl, sure enough, it contained a large chunk of mutton slices.

"Eat, eat, eat until you die, that's all."

"Hey, if you guys aren't going to eat it, I will! It's a specialty from Ming's hometown, authentic black goat meat, and the broth is made by Aunt Deng, who started simmering it yesterday afternoon. It's so fragrant!"

Xu Jing made a move to touch the meat in Xiao Shitou's bowl, but halfway through his hand, he suddenly remembered that the finals were about to begin. What if this thing had eaten the jungler's resources and Xiao Shitou didn't come to gank him from the bottom lane?

So the chopsticks reached into Xiao Wu's bowl again.

"Get lost, you're always bullying Xiao Wu."

Song Yuan took advantage of his solo top lane position and kicked the AD carry, who had gotten a few kills and become arrogant and overconfident, right back.

"Hiss...slurp...ooh, it's so delicious!"

"I've made up my mind. After I retire, I'm going to open a mutton rice noodle shop," Song Yuan suddenly said loudly.

"Do you have money?"

"I have money, of course I have money. I hardly use my monthly salary, and I also have the bonuses from live-streaming sales. My parents don't want my money, they save it all. Besides, we've already made it to the finals, and the runner-up gets a 25 yuan bonus."

Little Stone is very sensitive to numbers: "We can only get 30% of the runner-up, which means about 70,000 yuan, and each person will get more than 10,000 yuan."

"So brothers, we have to get this championship! Five hundred thousand, a full five hundred thousand!"

The club operates on a tiered bonus system, meaning that the higher the league ranking, the more bonuses the players receive.

From 20% for third place to 30% for second place, and finally 60% for the champion!

The main feature is the difference in elevation.

The LPL Spring Split first place prize is 500,000 RMB. If 60% of the prize money is split, it means that even if head coach Jiang Ming does not participate in the profit sharing, each of the five players will receive 60,000 RMB.

What does 60,000 mean? On average, it's 6,000 per month plus a base salary of 2800. Rounding it up, they are high-income earners with a monthly income of over 10,000.

Oh wait, after the semi-finals, Ming Ge has already renewed the contracts for all of them. As long as they can win the championship, everyone's base salary will be 5000 or more.

Not to mention this is only the Spring Split; there's still the Summer Split and the S3 World Championship to come.

The prize money for the S3 World Championship winning team is as high as 100 million US dollars!
One million, which is roughly eight million RMB, would be... for each person...

The speed at which esports creates stars is nothing short of magical.

A single godlike play, a highlight moment in a decisive game, is enough to elevate an unknown player to a phenomenal star.

The most famous example is the renowned "Double Zed Battle"!
The fledgling Leonardo DiCaprio became an overnight sensation, striking fear into the hearts of players across all competition regions.

What's even more astonishing is that, through the professional team's packaging and operation, newcomers who were struggling for a basic salary yesterday can often become top influencers with a commercial valuation in the tens of millions the very next day.

The subsequent famous scenes of the alliance, such as "heavenly thunder," "earthly fire," and "annihilation," were often created by hiring online trolls to generate hype.

This transformation from "Bronze" to "King" is just a routine occurrence in the esports field.

With the Spring Split now over, and considering the bizarre sandwich sorting method used in the LPL Summer Split and World Championship, Jiang Ming had no choice but to upgrade the players' contracts ahead of schedule.

The spring transfer window is almost here!
NXG's current outstanding performance has made its five main players highly sought after in the entire league.

My good friend Xiao Wang has been frequently probing me on chat apps lately. On the surface, it's to catch up, but in reality, he's looking for suitable transfer targets for IG.

If even these close "brothers" are eyeing the game, then the scouts from other teams certainly won't be idle either.

Therefore, we must be careful!
Jiang Ming knew very well that in the jungle law of the e-sports circle, as long as a tempting enough exorbitant transfer fee was offered, no amount of friendship could compete with the bargaining chips on the trading table.

The penalty fees for breaching contracts for NXG's five main players have long since become symbolic figures!
Especially in the early days of the league, when teams valued competitive results more than commercial potential, this constraint based on "the gratitude for nurturing" seems pale and powerless in the face of the soaring value of players.

Therefore, proactively upgrading is imperative. The base salary is not just about 2,000 yuan per person per month. If someone really can't resist the temptation and leaves halfway through the summer season, it will be a problem.

Reintegrating the team is troublesome, but the club can make a hefty transfer fee. However, that's about it; NXG's star player will ultimately remain Jiang Ming for the next few years.

After S3 ends, even if the current players want to stay, it will be difficult for the teams to offer matching contracts. Considering the development of the club and the LPL environment, Jiang Ming will have to sell a few players.

……

call!
At the dinner table, the breathing of several young people suddenly became heavy.

Just thinking about it is enough to drive their brains into a frenzy.

"Champion! Champion!"

"A life-changing opportunity!"

"Transform into a millionaire in an instant."

"Waaah... My dad works hard all year and doesn't even know if he can earn 20,000 or 30,000. I used to only dare to dream about a million."

"Now I understand why Ming said that Season 3 might be our only chance in this lifetime."

That's right. Not to mention the incredibly talented rookies in the youth training camp, every team in other regions, especially OGN, has monsters with freakishly high skill levels. If it weren't for Ming's guidance, and if they hadn't been ahead in tactical understanding, they might just be ordinary players who have barely reached the club's trial level.

"I'm suddenly a little grateful to myself for persevering through Doflamingo's insane training last year."

"Me too."

"Heh, suddenly I have to thank the LPL. If they hadn't adjusted the schedule and Pangpang hadn't gone to the All-Star event, our team probably wouldn't have had enough time to gel."

"Is it possible that if he put the playoffs before the All-Star game, none of this would have happened?"

"Makes sense!"

As everyone sat around the table enjoying breakfast, the pre-match discussions among League of Legends players on esports forums, Baidu Tieba, and other platforms continued to heat up. In particular, the tactical analysis and predictions of the outcome of the two teams, NXG and PE, sparked considerable discussion on various forums.

[No, you can't even be discussing the result of the NXG vs. PE match? PE's tactics for beating WE in the semifinals were all learned from NXG. It's a miracle they didn't get swept in the finals.]

I vaguely remember PE, the team that got brutally crushed for twenty minutes in the server championship during the LPL team selection.

[PE: Fortune changes every thirty years!]

To be honest, PE isn't without a fighting chance (well, provided JM doesn't get involved personally)

[Let's predict a 3-1 score and see how this ends, to build up some good karma. Those mindless hysterics I, an NXG fan, will treat as haters.]

[During the semifinals, PE's match against WE revealed quite a few things. PE's bot lane held its own against the duo of Smile and Curly, and their performance in mid-game team fights was particularly impressive. The junglers were evenly matched, but the difference in the mid and top lanes, especially the mid lane, was too significant.]

[Damn it, you're even worse than Ruofeng and Strawberry, you should just retire already, don't drag me down!]

This is actually quite abstract. Ever since JM explained the strategic importance of the mid lane, every team in the LPL has been targeting the mid lane.

[So this is why WE's mid lane keeps collapsing? JM, you've done all sorts of bad things!]

[NXG's strength lies in the fact that all five players are of average skill level, with virtually no glaring weaknesses.]

I'm just hoping JM will pull out some big surprise in the finals. PE should win two games and go the distance to five games!

Forget it, ranked games these days are full of players with lightning-fast QA combos and wrinkled skin, kids playing Zed with double Qs, and even old-timers trying to show off their Insec kicks with Ghost. It's so frustrating.

Don't even mention it, it makes me so angry. Yesterday in my promotion match, I ran into a mid laner who instantly picked Zed. I thought he was a carry, but he missed a million Qs in twenty minutes. What a kid Zed! I think he's a dart-throwing joker!

[Pfft, this humorous darts player is quite something!]

The overall sentiment on the forum was overwhelmingly in favor of 99% of people who believed that NXG would defeat PE without any pressure in the Spring Finals.

The reason is simple: from the very beginning of NXG's establishment to the current playoffs, no team has ever defeated them in the main tournament.

With the performances of All-Stars Smile, Mingkai, and PDD as teammates, JM's coaching ability is beyond doubt. He believes that the players PE could beat before, even the tactical execution they praised, were things that NXG was the first to master.

Some even suggested that NXG, due to their long winning streak, might lose the game due to carelessness, but this was considered an impossible event.

underestimate the enemy?

Have you ever seen a team that underestimates its opponents and maintains high-intensity training for more than ten hours at a time, with its members rarely involved in outside gossip besides training and team activities?

If we have to talk about underestimating the opponent, the most underestimating ones here are probably the NXG fans.

They're all about being incredibly frivolous!
As for why everyone is so certain, it's actually because NXG's explosive performance, coupled with the hype surrounding their All-Star victory, has led to discussions extending to more and deeper areas.

As the performances of the five NXG players before joining NXG were revealed one by one, people were amazed that JM was able to bring a group of unremarkable "2200-point" players to such heights, and also admired their perseverance and growth.

While it may not be possible to guarantee the experience of those with exceptional talent, it's highly improbable that people who climb up from the bottom would easily become arrogant.

On Saturday noon, amidst the anticipation of countless fans, NXG's official Weibo account finally released its pre-match update.

#2013LPL Spring Finals, here we come!#
In addition to the usual announcement of the team lineup, today's post included a brand-new photo of the entire NXG team.

There is also a cartoon poster to the right of the portrait.

In the past, after an update was posted, the team's fans would definitely focus their discussion on the team's promotional photos.

However, today, everyone's attention was drawn to this comic poster.

"The ascent begins today!"

On the right side of the poster, a line of white, flowing calligraphy cascades down from the top of the poster.

In the video, a young man wearing an NXG team uniform is seen only from behind, amidst torrential rain and flashes of lightning.

A bolt of lightning flashed white, and the trophy lay quietly beneath the night sky.

[So handsome!]

To be honest, JM is an absolute genius when it comes to business operations. Even without esports, he could have made a name for himself.

[He really made me want to cry; he even made sure to leave space for sponsors on the promotional posters.]

[JM: Send me the money!]

[Other teams should take note: maximize their exposure for sponsors, and they'll have no trouble finding big spenders.]

We can't learn even a little bit from NXG; we simply can't replicate their record.

……

(End of this chapter)