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

Chapter 57 From this moment on, let's train the LPL!

Shanghai's Magic City, Zhabei District's Fantawild Multimedia Valley!
Unlike the main tournament, the LPL preseason matches were not held in Taicang, but rather in the studio complex of Gamefy in Shanghai.

Outside the building, many spectators were waiting to have their tickets checked and enter.

As the first professional League of Legends tournament, Tencent, considering the need for early promotion, essentially gave away preseason tickets to the audience at a discount.

Most of the people queuing up to watch the e-sports competition at this time are college students and young people from the surrounding area.

While waiting, some members of the community chatted for a bit and then started talking about the teams they favored.

"I think IG and LGD should have no problem advancing to the main tournament."

"PE's overall strength is also quite good, and I even think they are stronger than IG."

"Pfft, PE is alright... Dude, didn't you watch the LPL's TGA livestream before?"

"Huh, an LPL live stream?"

"Didn't the LPL just start today? Where did all this live streaming come from before?"

"Bro, you're talking about the LPL qualifier preview, right? The one where NXG played against PE, I just happened to watch it."

"The massacre team, NXG is a fierce and sophisticated guy, taking down five Kings is like me playing against bots."

"No way, PE performed so well in the previous offline tournaments, and they got crushed by NXG?"

"The last match of the qualifiers was replayed on Tencent Video. NXG was almost completely crushed by PE."

Once the topic was raised, the discussion among the crowd grew louder and louder.

Centered on the two male college teams that started out, "NXG is definitely a preseason powerhouse. Look at the discipline of the whole team, other teams simply can't compare."

"I've never seen anyone play a game and feel like they're in a war before."

“Their tactical understanding is on a completely different level from other teams. JM is the number one player in the Chinese server, and he is both a mid-laner and a coach. Look at some other teams, they don’t even have a coach.”

"I came all the way from Nanjing specifically to watch NXG's match."

"Indeed, JM is really amazing. I followed his advanced videos for half a month and my rank went up a whole rank."

"May I ask what rank you are now, brother?"

"I am not very talented, but I have already reached the Gold 1 Golden Core stage, and I have a good chance of transcending the Platinum Tribulation!"

"Six six six!"

Just then, a cry of surprise suddenly came from the right side of the queue.

"Wow, NXG even has a base vehicle?"

"Isn't this something only those top CS esports teams abroad have?"

The audience was some distance from the back area where the team vehicles were parked, so Jiang Ming and his team did not notice the commotion in front of the multimedia building.

It took them about four hours to drive from Nanjing to Shanghai, and they didn't arrive in the city until around 2 p.m.

Fortunately, Senior Sister Lin is reliable. After today's match, since we couldn't go directly back and forth to the base, she booked a cheap hotel in advance.

After dropping off their luggage at the hostel, the group had lunch before driving to the competition venue.

"I'll go report for duty first!"

Wearing the NXG team leader badge, Lin Jingyi, dressed in a professional office lady dress, was the first to get off the car.

"Take your personal belongings with you and don't leave them in the car," Jiang Ming said to his team members behind him.

"Then, Uncle Zhou, please wait for us outside for a while. You can move around freely in between, but don't stray too far apart in case of any emergencies."

"Okay, boss." The LPL preseason lasts for seven days, but in reality, including the opening ceremony, it's only five days of matches.

The first two days were mainly spent with LPL officials organizing training sessions for the teams and scrimmages between them.

The preseason consists of twelve teams, including the 3rd and 4th place finishers from the three City Heroes Championships, the 1st and 2nd place finishers from the Media Selection Tournament, and the top eight teams from the Server Championship, for a total of 12 teams.

The preseason consists of two rounds. The first round is a double-elimination tournament, with 12 teams divided into 3 groups of 4 teams each.

Teams with two wins advance directly to the Spring Split, teams with two losses in the group stage are eliminated, and teams with one win and one loss are put on hold and will participate in a round-robin tournament to determine the next three teams.

NXG has been placed in Group A, which means that if they can win both of their matches today, they can finish their preseason early and prepare for the main tournament.

Group A's opponents aren't particularly strong. Aside from LGD, a veteran LPL team, the other two are Dodo Club and BLQG, a casual internet cafe team.

The first opponent was a team called BLQG (Violent Cut Cake).

……

Inside the building, in the e-sports competition demonstration hall.

Heavy metal music reminiscent of around 13 echoed all around, while promotional photos of the two teams were displayed on the large screen in the center.

NXG vs BLQG!

However, the audience members who entered the demonstration hall twitched at the corners of their mouths the moment they saw the big screen.

These two teams are very different just by looking at them...

On a screen displaying the BLQG team name, five players were striking cringeworthy poses while wearing cheap T-shirts with printed text from a Taobao store for ten yuan.

In contrast, their rivals NXG not only have trendy and stylish team uniforms, but also feature sponsor information on the right shoulder.

It evokes a sense of déjà vu, a battle between a powerful family and a lowly ant...

Of course, if you only look at the appearance, some novel fans might automatically imagine a story of a loser's rise to power, with an army of ants defeating a wealthy family.

That doesn't seem right either. NXG is a newly established team with no achievements to speak of, so they can't be considered a powerhouse.

……

"Alright, everyone, welcome to the live broadcast of the 2013 League of Legends Pro League preseason matches."

On the commentary stage, the male commentator, with a slight local accent, read the opening remarks in a measured and methodical manner, while simultaneously propelling the historical wheel of the League of Legends Pro League.

"Okay, let's take a look at the player information for both teams in today's Group A match."

"The blue team, NXG, consists of: Top Laner Norsha, Jungler Stone, Mid Laner Yihan, AD Carry Sorry, and Support Door."

"The red team, BLQG, consists of: Top Laner: BladeCrusher, Jungler: RampageBoard, Mid Laner: SugarTyrant, AD Carry: NovaSlash, and Support: LayeredGuardian."

"Oh right, I forgot to introduce you, our NXG team also has... NXG head coach JM!"

The wording was stiff, and it took an excessive amount of time to introduce the players' IDs, even forgetting to mention the coach of the NXG team.

These mistakes, which in later years would have been enough to send a commentator flying and forced to retire, are perfectly normal in today's 13 preseason.

Today's commentary team is a combination of Wawa and the legendary "poisonous milk" Joker, neither of whom are strictly speaking professionals.

"We are now seeing some data from the five players of the BLQG team shown by the director."

"In the previous LPL qualifiers, BLQG also performed very well, winning four out of six matches and only losing two."

"Next up is the player introduction: BLQG's top laner, BladeCrusher, ranked Diamond 1 with 55 LP..."

(P.S. Due to the poor commentary skills during Season 3, the descriptions sometimes sounded awkward. I'll try to minimize or avoid these issues.)
(End of this chapter)