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

Chapter 203 Though the severance of ties may be late, it has arrived!

LPL Summer Split Regular Season.

NXG finished their journey with a record of 18 wins and 3 losses, and steadily occupied the top spot in the standings, followed by IG, Royal Club, OMG and PE.

Because their undefeated streak was broken by IG, and after securing first place in the standings and a direct qualification for the S3 World Championship, Jiang Ming instructed the coaching staff to try out more combinations for the players in the main tournament.

Of course, there is a price to pay for trying something new, namely, the team suffered two more BO1 losses after IG.

Apart from NXG itself.

The battles among the later teams were incredibly fierce, with IG and PE, and Royal Club and OMG even having the same score at one point. In the end, the final rankings were determined based on the differences in their head-to-head records.

With the four teams having similar scores, WE was the one who suffered the most!

LPL players never expected that after NXG's undefeated streak was broken by IG, WE, with two All-Star dream team members, Mingkai and Weixiao, would still manage to make headlines by losing their chance to qualify for the S3 World Championship through the gauntlet.

For a time, the e-sports forums were filled with discussions about these two big news stories.

[Ah! Ah! Ah?]

[Dude, are you kidding us? The team that won IPL5 and became the first Chinese server champion can't even go to S3?]

[To clarify, it's not that they can't go to S3, it's that they don't even qualify for the S3 regional qualifier.]

[WE contributed to LPL's three World Championship slots, but you're telling me they won't make it... That's a complete joke.]

[I admit you underperformed in the Spring Split, I can just say your playstyle didn't change immediately with the patch changes. But the All-Star game is over, and Mingkai and Weixiao have been teammates with JM for so long, and they still don't know how to adapt?]

[How should it be changed? Should you let Ruofeng or Caomei change it?]

To be fair, it's true. NXG's rise was inevitably accompanied by WE's decline. With the assassin meta of Season 3 and the widespread adoption of top-jungle-mid strategy, relying solely on a bot lane carry meant WE couldn't possibly go far.

[The guy upstairs is right. WE's poor performance is their own fault. In esports, skill speaks for itself. With their top and mid laners so terrible, the club is only focused on fan economy and refuses to make any changes, serving a few fans who just stand there yelling. A disadvantage in the top half of the map every game means a disadvantage in the early game. Even if WeiXiao is a god, he can't handle consistently losing games, not to mention his own declining performance.]

[It's better not to mention it, but just thinking about it makes me angry. Every game we were at a disadvantage in the mid lane, and even our only trump card, Twisted Fate, got completely destroyed by Waiter's Fizz.]

[You should just retire already, wouldn't it be better to sell meat floss cakes?]

Hey bro, don't you dare badmouth my pork floss cakes! JM started out selling pork floss cakes, and she still dominates the game.

To be fair, NXG's performance was good enough, but they only lost one game and immediately started making adjustments. Their two losses at the end of the season were also due to experimenting with new tactics and strategies.

[If someone has a perfect answer, they won't know how to copy it; what can you do about it?]

Let's not mention WE, it's bad luck!

Luckily, I'm a fan of NXG, hehe, I'll probably wake up to another victory, no need to even watch.

[First place in the regular season, and they don't even need to play in the gauntlet. JM is probably already studying their opponents for the World Championship.]

As the players on the forum chatted, their focus shifted to Jiang Ming and his NXG.

But perhaps because Jiang Ming has always had good character, just when the fans' optimism was off the charts and it was about to turn into an overconfident trend of belittling other teams, WE, not wanting to be left out, resurfaced.

Overnight, countless related terms surged to the top of the trending searches.

#WE suspected of internal strife!#
#The loss of the opportunity to participate in the S3 World Championship ignited internal conflicts within the team.#
#WE is reportedly disbanding, and according to industry insiders, several WE players are already in contact with other teams.#
#Once the pride of the Chinese server, now estranged!#
What exactly happened to WE?
The incident originated from a Weibo post by Strawberry.

Sina Weibo!

WE-caomei: "As teammates, as friends, as brothers, I beg you, at least stay with me until the end of NEXT before you leave. I beg you, I beg you... even if we come in last, let me fight with you one more time, even if it's the last time, I beg you..."

The content of Strawberry's Weibo post, with its humble tone, could almost be described as pleading.

Countless WE fans, as if they had found an outlet, flooded the comments section of the post, wanting a definitive answer.

[Damn, what happened? We just finished sixth in the regular season, we can try again.]

Why did it have to escalate to this point? It's said that it's best to part amicably. Even if you're leaving, you don't have to skip the final match.

I originally wanted to say something sarcastic about strawberries, but after typing it out, I decided against it.

Why is this person, who usually loves posting on Weibo, completely silent today?

[Brothers, I've figured out the truth. With top laner Strawberry talking like that, and excluding that ridiculously bad mid laner, it's easy to see who WE is going to lose.]

【! ! ! 】

[Don't tell me, is Smile leaving WE?]

[Who says that just because they're smiling, they can't be the jungler and support duo?]

The internal conflict within WE escalated, even trending on Weibo.

As a former world champion team, despite their poor performance in the new season of 13, they still have many fans around the world who are quietly following them.

This dramatic turn of events has stunned countless people in the esports community.

As a result, discussions on the forums about NXG securing the S3 World Championship ticket first, and the remaining four LPL teams competing for the last two spots through a gauntlet a week later, were greatly overshadowed.

...Jiang Ming never expected that even though he had already distorted the original world's trajectory beyond recognition, the WE team would still end up severing ties over performance issues.

As someone in the industry who also possesses memories of the original timeline, he naturally understands the reasons behind the current online uproar.

The rights and wrongs of this complicated matter are not easily judged by simple right and wrong.

It's understandable that Mingkai and Curly wanted to pursue better results and left EDG with Abu. It's also within the business logic of WE Club not wanting to let go of Mingkai, who had a contract and had already benefited from years of traffic.

Ultimately, the only explanation is that the management team is a complete mess!
His series of decisions were no different from those of a madman.

Even during the later years when the league gradually became more standardized, they still managed to let their own players go out to play in the wild, affecting their competitive state. They kicked the "Foot God" with a score of 0-6 seconds, and the result was even worse, with a score of 0-16. They even made a documentary to make the "Foot God" take the blame alone. This series of outrageous operations, allowing internal conflicts to intensify and become public, and profiting from negative traffic, is really their "standard practice".

However, these controversies are unrelated to NXG.

The frenzy of WE's fanatic fans and trolls on Weibo, whether it's the team's frantic efforts to catch wolves or the club's various attempts to recruit traitors, have nothing to do with them.

Right now, if you ask anyone in the entire LPL, they'll all know that NXG has the most promising players.

One after another, players lined up in the youth training camp, waiting to take the field.

I have very little interest in WE's jungler and support players who have achieved good results and command high prices.

Furthermore, after the regular season ended, the club has fully devoted itself to preparations for the World Championship, formulating training plans, which include the first team, the second team, and even the owner himself.

No matter how advanced your knowledge or how good your personal condition is, you still don't have a supernatural cheat code like a system to help you. If you want to ensure you don't get crushed on stage in S3, you still need to maintain the required training intensity.

Fortunately, with Senior Sister overseeing the operations of JM Food and Jingjie Culture, and Lao Mo and Chen Muxin in charge of the club's management, internal chaos did not occur when the entire team's focus shifted to the S3 World Championship.
With everyone operating at full capacity, how can we possibly have the extra energy to focus on the love-hate relationships between WE's "best five" players?

In addition, it is worth mentioning that Chen Muxin, a graduate of Jinling University, not only perfectly fulfilled her duties as the club manager.

After a few months of exposure to esports, the first club management and development plan he submitted caught Jiang Ming's eye and gave him a lot of inspiration.

Sometimes, many things may have existed in the original timeline, but they may not be suitable for the present. Similarly, some solutions that he considered to have failed can be revitalized with slight adjustments.

Chen Muxin's first task as manager was to sort out the fan management issues of the NXG team.

Die-hard fans are an invaluable asset to any esports team, but if not properly managed, their highly contagious nature can make them a double-edged sword.

In the original timeline, countless negative opinions circulated from fan communities.

For example, "IG fans expelled from the fandom" and "mass boycott of team sponsors led to the termination of multi-million dollar cooperation." Fans used public opinion to hold teams hostage, directly interfering with players and even the operation of the club.

The esports industry cannot do without the fan economy, but it cannot rely on it excessively. Fans are a group that is inherently biased and prone to irrational behavior towards players. Over-reliance on the fan economy will inevitably lead to the abnormal development of clubs.

The most typical example is the terrifying story of a certain team playing permutation and combination games, trying to find an inside man, and eventually ending up finding the manager instead.

Fans bring traffic, traffic brings money, and ultimately money holds club management hostage. Once club management is held hostage, its own training system will inevitably be affected. If you prioritize traffic, how can you guarantee that newcomers can stand out?

Even established powerhouses like T1 faced similar situations when rotating their championship-winning hero, Xiao Lu Bu, and the super rookie, Smash. Putting aside the question of whether the management was being unreasonable, an AD carry with a promising future was subjected to intense scrutiny and constant scrutiny of mistakes by fans after only a few games. Who could withstand that?

If T1 is still a long way off, then WE, which is currently in a mess, is the best example. The team had problems with its performance in the Spring Split this year, with the top and mid laners declining in form and unable to adapt to the meta. They just changed teams for the Summer Split and that was it.

As a result, WE couldn't bear to lose the fans of several players, which led to repeated delays and ultimately resulted in a major loss, losing their spot in the World Championship and ending up in the current situation.

The fact that Chen Muxin focused on fan issues as her first priority upon taking office demonstrates that she possesses genuine talent and is not just a pretty face with no substance.

Therefore, Jiang Ming wholeheartedly supported the other party's proposal.

Furthermore, the proposed solution was improved upon based on experiences that could be learned from in later generations.

First, a dedicated "Fan Ecosystem Management Department" was established within the club, with specific fan management positions set up to prevent ordinary players who volunteered out of "love" from becoming managers of the team's fan community.

After all, there are too many examples of fan leaders setting an example by inciting fans to cause trouble, or even engaging in illegal fundraising for support activities.

Having your own club employ dedicated management personnel will increase costs, but overall the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

The opinions expressed in fan group chats, Weibo super topics, forums, and even various live broadcast barrages can be understood and controlled in a timely manner. At the same time, there are dedicated management positions that can effectively communicate with fans, preventing absurd incidents such as fans going against the club for the sake of the players and ultimately driving away the sponsors.

Since fan management is involved, preventing negative public opinion incidents is one aspect, while expanding the team's influence and enhancing fan loyalty is another aspect and the core task.

Chen Muxin gave a lot of detailed advice.

On the basic level, there are lightweight content such as irregularly releasing highlights of the games and daily glimpses of the players through esports forums such as Weibo, video platforms, and Tieba, in order to attract casual fans while strengthening the attention of the club's existing fans to the team.

Going forward, the focus will be on core fans who not only follow the event online but also occasionally purchase tickets offline to support it and shop at merchandise stores.

NXG currently manages its core fans by establishing QQ group chats, regularly announcing team information, uploading match videos, highlight reels, and sharing firsthand version tutorials in the group chats. Finally, a certain "fan contribution value" is set, which is accumulated through activities such as checking in, forwarding, and commenting. These points can be redeemed for team benefits from time to time to retain core players.

On the next level above the core, Jiang Ming added an extra super fan, also known as a die-hard fan.

Learning from a club in the original timeline, they launched a "team membership program"—the kind that's free!
The membership program idea was good, but that didn't stop them from being greedy. Jiang Ming simply couldn't bring himself to charge thousands of yuan for a single membership card.

Given that the club is well-run and has no financial problems, he would have to be crazy to think about making money this way.

Given the lessons learned from the past, Jiang Ming devised a very reasonable and non-offensive way to acquire members.

(I made a concept image)
(End of this chapter)