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

Chapter 218 Pilot - Kid!

S3 viewers all know that, as the new manager of IG, Paladin's sprinting speed is much faster than Xiaoyan's, who is holding a tactics book.

how so?

Just look at the dark figure that darted to the mid lane position of the purple team after the last match between IG and SKT!

The reason why everyone's attention was not focused on Kid, who "crashed" like Valkyrie, was because the other one of the two Cs was more captivating.

Long after the game ended, he remained slumped in his seat, his forehead pressed against the table, not lifting it for a long time.

The paladin quickly walked to his side, gently comforting him while forcefully pulling him up from the chair.

When they saw the contestant's bloodshot eyes, both the audience at the scene and the netizens in the live broadcast room had the same thought: This must be a case of "the heart of the Dao being shattered"!

After all, they were full of confidence before the match and launched a second round challenge against their opponents. The available Gragas was almost completely outclassed by Ahri in terms of team effectiveness.

(Let's switch roles!)

At the same moment the group stage ended, in the TGA live stream room and on various esports forums.

The discussion revolved around IG's loss to SKT in the final group stage match.

[The coach should come out and take the blame!]

Is 3AP the chosen lineup?

[I don't think this has anything to do with the coach. You all saw the dragon fight; even though Renekton rushed Spirit Visage, he lacked armor and had Corki as a backup. SKT couldn't avoid his attacks in several waves.]

[My heart goes out to Zz1tai. He didn't make any mistakes from start to finish, but one death on the high ground ended the game.]

Feeling sorry for someone? Damn it, what right do I have to feel sorry for someone I can't even handle?

[The other meaning of "not making any mistakes" is that he didn't do much either. He was completely dominated by the enemy Ahri from start to finish. Even when the enemy Ahri had no mana, she could roam to the top lane, but he did nothing.]

[What JM considered a nuclear weapon, the Gragas became just a drinking addict in Zz1tai's hands.]

To be honest, this new mid-laner from the OGN region is really strong, especially his Ahri.

The biggest blame definitely lies with the bot lane. Kid used W on Ahri's face—he's a human!

[Once is one thing, but you get picked off every time in team fights. You ban pilots like Talisman, and it's like your plane crashes as soon as you get behind the wheel, right?]

In addition to expressing their anger through text messages in the live stream chat and forum posts, some players with exceptional hands-on skills quickly created animated emoticons.

Title: "League of Legends 2013 World Championship: SKT vs IG - Best Pilot!"

The font was bolded in red by the author, and below it is the image of the heroic bombardier, also known as the Red Baron. However, the airplane inside the cabin is replaced with the image of Kid, with Ahri's pink heart printed on his glasses, and his two outstretched hands have become scissor hands.

The tiny figure is hanging from the tail of the plane, wailing and crying. The plane, which should have been flying upwards, has been rearranged by the author into a straight dive, with flames hanging from the wings.

The most outrageous thing is that the right side also deliberately added the text: "Posture, how's my flying skill?"

(It's a pity we can't use real people!)
[Wow, there are already memes?]

[OP is incredibly talented!]

[Haha, the pilot is right, that kid made his teammates cry.]

All I can say is that it's a good job!

I think PDD's Rambo is missing; the flames should have been provided by Rambo.

[To the people upstairs: I'm jealous of your talent.]

It's not like IG only lost one game; it's not fair to criticize the players like this.

[Get out of here, you idiot upstairs! Everyone knows how Kid performed in the group stage. Winning didn't have much to do with him; he couldn't even play properly, he just fed the team a huge loss.]

As JM aptly put it, if someone plays poorly, they can't even be criticized; are you expecting to win them over with love?

[Exactly, NXG only lost a few games in the regular season and still got crushed. What makes IG so special?]

[I'm an IG fan. To give a simple example, Chinese national football team fans support the team both online and offline, but that hasn't affected their offensive capabilities, has it?]

Thus, this post, which contained only one picture, quickly rose to the top of the LOL Tieba homepage.

The forum management team, always eager for excitement, is well-versed in attracting traffic and has a smooth and efficient process for adding and pinning posts.

After the All-Star event, the viewership of League of Legends' global tournaments has already skyrocketed.

Although SKT is the second seed from the OGN region, they have already won the Summer Split championship and their strength is widely recognized by the audience.

As both IG and IG are established powerhouses that existed before the LPL region was founded, their match naturally attracted high attention both domestically and internationally.

The moment the results were announced, the public discourse was instantly ignited.

People were amazed by the strategic maneuvering between the two sides, marveled at Faker's unpredictable assassinations with Ahri, and even brought back the old topic of "what kind of sparks will fly when Faker faces JM in the quarterfinals" for heated discussion.

The public opinion in the Korean region was particularly polarized—radicals spammed "Faker is invincible," claiming that they could crush any team they faced in the quarterfinals and advance.
Meanwhile, the rational analysis faction launched a detailed deduction on the local forum, and heatedly discussed how to use the draw to allocate half of the bracket to both avoid SSO from the same region and delay the strong match against NXG.

However, a significant 80% of the discussion focused on IG player Kid's performance on the plane. While domestic players were still reeling from the shock, many overseas IG fans even bypassed internet restrictions to flood the team's official Weibo account with questions.

We don't usually allocate many resources to you, and we won't criticize you for messing around in matches. But most of the team's damage output depends on you playing the plane, and then you make two crucial mistakes in team fights and die instantly. Who can stand that?

Because Kid's plane was so abstract, Zz1tai's post-match outburst didn't make much of a splash and was relegated to the sidelines.

……

"Xiao Wu, Xiao Wu."

In the NXG team's rest area, Xu Jing nudged his neighbor with his elbow, leaned forward, and whispered, "If we run into SKT later, you're not going to just blindly go head-to-head like Erzi, are you?"

Wu Zhiqiang kept scrolling through the forum without looking up, his voice muffled as if he had a block of ice in his mouth: "No way!"

"So sure?"

"Certainly not."

Because he never intended to compete with SKT's mid laner.

He knows exactly what level Wu Zhiqiang is at;
He's simply not cut out for mechanical skill. His strategy is to play it safe in lane, avoid being pushed out of the experience range, and provide timely support to the side lanes. That's the path he's chosen for himself.

As for flashy plays and comebacks, those have never been part of his strategy.

We've seen too many talented players in the LPL, such as Zz1tai from IG, who can DJ with his left hand and play Zed with his right – he's a true prodigy.

Ming also praised them as hard-working geniuses, but in front of someone like Faker, so-called geniuses are just entry tickets to the professional stage.

Even more outrageous, aside from the difference in experience, even Doflamingo might not be able to suppress the opponent.

Well, it's probably a 50/50 chance at best.

Although I hate to admit it, that's the truth.

On the other side, the IG players stood together, listening to the coach review the final match. The manager didn't scold Ge Yan, not because the kid had supposedly shielded Wang Sicong from an atomic bomb or anything, but mainly because he knew that if he continued to scold him, the player's mentality would be affected.

What if the criticism goes too far, causing problems with small skills to escalate to the point where no one can use their ultimate skills?

Why wait until they lose the match to question the players about why they didn't amplify the results?
The daylily buds are probably all cold by now.

Besides, finding a team's problems in a harmless group stage match is something many people would love to do but never achieve.

A dozen minutes later, the Riot Games staff finally finished tidying up the studio.

The next step is to draw lots for the quarterfinals elimination rounds for the eight teams.

……

Unlike later tournament formats, the draw rules for the quarterfinals of the S3 World Championship were quite unique.

First, there are the seeded teams from the four regions, each occupying one spot and not facing each other. In the upper bracket, Orange Bears and Samsung are paired up, while in the lower bracket, North American representative C9 and championship favorite NXG are separated by the river.

When the group stage matchups for the four No. 1 seeds were revealed, the lamentations from North American players nearly overwhelmed the forums.

Previously highly anticipated teams TSM and Team Vulcun both failed to advance beyond the round of 16, leaving only C9, the host nation's sole representative, who was then placed in the "death bracket" by Riot Games, alongside tournament favorites NXG.

One fan angrily complained, "Are they treating us like dirt?"

The more intense the despair of the North American audience, the more blatant the mockery from players in other regions.

A group of netizens, always eager for drama, immediately chimed in with sarcastic remarks: "Hey buddy, doesn't this perfectly exemplify the sportsmanship of the NA region? The organizers are willing to forgo all underhanded tactics to ensure their number one seed faces the strongest opponent head-on—look at this 'great' fair competition!"

With the number one seed secured, the next teams to advance from the group stage – Royal Club, IG, SKT, and FNC – will be randomly assigned to matchups.

Well, there is still no regional avoidance principle, which means that there is a considerable probability that the three LPL teams will face off against SKT and Samsung from OGN.

This rule made things much easier for Western audiences.

Although we have fewer teams advancing to the quarterfinals, at least we don't have to fight an internal battle!
"Now, let's give a warm round of applause to welcome the number one seed representatives from each major region!" After reading the rules, host sjokz slightly raised his right hand and looked towards the aisle. "They are Gama Bears from the Southeast Asia region, SSO from the OGN region, NXG from the LPL region, and C9 from the LCS.NA region."

The player representing NXG in the draw was jungler Xiaoshitou.

There wasn't any other reason for picking the jungler; it was mainly because the team collectively confirmed that Xiao Shitou had the best luck, including Jiang Ming's.

As the host finished reading the team names, Gama Bears' top laner STEAK stepped onto the stage first, followed by SSO's support mata, NXG's jungler Xiaoshitou, and C9's mid laner Haizhangmen.

It's worth mentioning that this C9 mid laner, known as "Hai Zhangmen," is the same player who, during the S4 World Championship, used Zed to create the classic moment of "0-7 record but dreaming of the stars and the sea, preparing to sneakily backdoor the enemy base."

"Next up are our teams that advanced from the group stage, they are..."

A dozen seconds later, representatives from each team appeared on both sides of the Summoner's Trophy.

The draw was conducted by Riot Games, with TSM's mid-laner, Captain Gorilla, serving as the guest of honor.

Looking at Captain Gorilla, who was dressed in a suit and tie but perfectly embodied the phrase "a beast in human clothing," everyone on stage tried to suppress their laughter.

Both are bosses, but JM looks like a successful person in a suit, while others can't help but remind people of the casting scene for "Beauty and the Beast 3".

However, most people didn't have any objections to Riot Games arranging for Captain Gorilla to draw lots.

As a veteran player of League of Legends, whose team finished fourth in Season 2, and given his impressive Teemo play in this year's group stage, the opposing team has every right to draw this draw, considering both his seniority and popularity.

Of course, Riot Games did consider more suitable candidates like Jiang Ming, but given that NXG was still in the top eight, they ultimately abandoned the idea to avoid controversy.

pat!

The stage lights suddenly dimmed, leaving only Captain Gorilla on stage. A beam of light focused on a transparent glass basin in the center, where four small balls of the same color lay quietly.

The host retreated into the darkness, handing the camera entirely over to the guests drawing lots.

[Here comes the first lucky winner!]

Please, please, no civil war! No civil war!

As the room quieted down, Captain Gorilla dipped his thick, hairy right hand into the lottery pool.

"SKT!"

Whoosh!

The first team drawn was SKT, who had performed brilliantly in the group stage, which made the audience gasp in surprise.

The Orange Bear team, who were gloating over not being in the same half of the bracket as NXG just a second ago, froze.

My mood fluctuated along with the team name that Captain Gorilla showed to the camera.

Damn it, they ran into SKT, who are likely the strongest team among the four teams in the qualifying rounds. It's really bad luck.

OGN fans are equally disheartened.

SKT's placement in the upper bracket means their hopes for a perfect draw have been dashed.

Although SKT didn't face SSO in the quarterfinals, they will inevitably have to fight them in the next round.

A dozen seconds later, Captain Gorilla pulled out the second ball.

"Royal Club!"

Jiang Ming looked up at the scene, staring at the Royal Family icon on the big screen, which was in the same position as Samsung's, and was somewhat speechless.

Wow, it seems like Uzi's choice between Samsung and SKT was destined.

The odds of him being perfectly matched with Samsung and SKT in the same half of the bracket are so high that he doesn't believe there's no hidden influence behind it.

"Damn, it's getting cold."

PDD, backstage, suddenly let out an even more exaggerated wail than during the match, "We've been assigned to Lao Jiang's half of the bracket this time, how are we supposed to play?"

"Um, how about we order first?" Kid asked tentatively.

"Let's hold off on ordering food for now, just hope we don't run into each other in the quarterfinals. C9...give us C9!"

Head coach Xiaoyan was praying frantically.

Whether it was his prayers or not, the team that Captain Gorilla drew for the third ball was indeed the counterpart to IG.

In the lower bracket, IG vs C9!

Thus, the three teams were decided. Captain Gorilla glanced at the five FNC players below the stage, their faces ashen, and secretly gloated. "Hahaha, you bunch of EU dogs mocked my TSM, now you've got your comeuppance!"

No zuonodie!

With only one ball left in the draw pool, the gorilla captain, in high spirits, deliberately annoyed the FNC players, and solemnly presented the perfect ceremony for the final procedure.

My turn—Draw a card!
The final match of the quarterfinals: NXG vs FNC!

(End of this chapter)