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

Chapter 78 Kouma: JM wants me to praise him?

As the training match progressed, both players involuntarily quickened their breathing, both sides were alarmed by the other's performance.

Inside the NXG training room, the pupils of five teenagers, who were intently staring at the screen, trembled slightly.

Having just achieved an impressive record of undefeated victories in the qualifiers and a lightning-fast exit from the preseason, they have now been torn apart by SKT's second team, revealing a gap in their talent.

On the road, Song Yuan bit his lower lip and typed on the keyboard.

His Kennen couldn't suppress the enemy SKT top laner's Renekton's development during the laning phase. In the end, he relied on vision advantage and Jarvan IV's two targeted plays to drag the ganking Elise down with him, and only then did he gain a slight advantage in turrets and levels.

Simply calling for help is equivalent to ineffective training...

The situation was similar in the bottom lane. Due to being repeatedly poked by EZ's Mystic Shot, Xu Jing, who was originally swaying in his gaming chair, unconsciously straightened his back, and his knuckles holding the mouse turned even more pale.

With EZ and Lulu at a disadvantage, Zhu Rang managed to hold off Xu Jing's Caitlyn's tower-pushing pace thanks to his laning skills. The two were evenly matched in terms of basic skills, but Zhu Rang was clearly stronger in skill prediction and some detailed operations.

NXG experienced firsthand what it means to be a prodigy, while SKT was thoroughly outmaneuvered by the operational tactics that Jiang Ming taught NXG, which he had essentially reversed cause and effect.

Seven minutes into the game, the team had an advantage in both the mid and bottom lanes, and Prince soloed the first dragon.

Nine minutes in, the duo lane switched to the top side of the map, and NXG's four players ganked the top lane. After successfully killing DaMu's Renekton, they took down another top tower.

At thirteen minutes, in the first team fight, SKT was caught off guard. Kennen flanked and, with the help of Jarvan IV and Orianna, unleashed devastating AOE damage. Finally, Caitlyn picked off the remaining enemies one by one to finish them off.

At 21 minutes, after all three outer towers were destroyed and the jungle was completely lost, SKT, on the purple side, typed "GG" in the public chat!

"Hey……"

"My perspective was misleading."

"Ah, the speed of the Nakano collaboration is too fast, Fumando and the others can't react in time!"

"The biggest gap is in team fight coordination. They break apart at the slightest touch because the enemy's focus fire is too clear."

"And the minion wave management, it feels like every time there's a dragon team fight, every lane is losing minions."

Inside the SKT training room.

Koma, who had stood up from his chair at some point, had his tactical board in his hand crumpled at the edges.

As he stood up, the overturned water bottle rolled to Fumanduo's feet, but Fumanduo, who was assisting him, was staring intently at the gray screen and muttering to himself, completely unaware.

Koma's expression was like a Sichuan opera face-changing act, sometimes worried, sometimes distressed. One second he was annoyed by the fragility of his team's formation in the battle, and the next second he was excited because he had figured out a key point.

As he expected, T2 was able to hold their own against NXG during the laning phase, but once a certain point in time came and the opponent started making overall moves, T2 became like fragile glass, easily shattering into pieces.

"Sure enough, strengthening the mid lane is the top priority."

Although many things are still just fleeting thoughts, it is an obvious fact that the second team's mid laner was suppressed by Orianna in the scrims, which allowed NXG's mid and jungle to move around more frequently.

If our team has a mid-laner who can suppress the opponent, we can at least greatly limit NXG's coordinated playstyle, if not surpass them all at once.

He hadn't forgotten that JM, who was also playing mid lane and sitting in the coach's seat, was the strongest player on the NXG team.

In other words, only when JM is in the mid lane is NXG at its strongest, a team that is already incredibly strong.

When it came to choosing a mid-lane player, a figure suddenly flashed through Koma's mind.

It was by chance last week that he discovered this talented young man on a domestic live streaming platform.

"But it seems that KT is also contacting them."

"Aigu, it's just a computer used for live streaming. If everything has to wait for approval, it'll be too late."

……

Jiang Ming displayed a variety of skills in the BO5 training match that day.

The first game was a normal match, the second game involved lineup restrictions, and the third game simply restricted multi-position coordination, allowing for individual player skill enhancement training.

Koma didn't understand the scenario-based training proposed by NXG, but he raised both hands in support.

In his opinion, apart from the mid and jungle, there is no difference in skill between the players in the other positions on both sides. In fact, the SKT players are slightly ahead in the top and bottom lanes. It would be better to play more scrims to learn the essence of the opponent's tactics.

In a total of five training matches, NXG won four and lost one!

In the game they lost, Jiang Ming went to extremes, demanding that all five members of NXG engage in a head-on battle of skill against SKT T2, with no lane switching allowed without strategic maneuvering, just a direct confrontation and intense team fights.

The result was obvious: after abandoning their existing advantages, even though the five members of NXG had grown, there was still a clear gap between them and the truly gifted monsters.

As their opponents gradually familiarized themselves with their tactics, and they could only rely on sheer skill, the five members of NXG felt utterly overwhelmed.

Song Yuan was solo killed by Da Mu in the top lane, and Xu Jing's most prized stable development was also disrupted by the opponent's targeting, resulting in more than one lane collapse.

The online explosion also affected the jungle. The advantage of being able to gank and catch people in the past, and always anticipate the enemy's moves, disappeared. For the first time, Shi Zhenyu experienced the feeling of his former opponents being at a loss.

The expressions on the five boys' faces went from relaxed at the beginning of the training match to numb.

That's how brutal esports can be.

Effort can determine a person's lower limit, but what determines their upper limit is always their personal talent.

You might spend months of hard work and sweat, only to find that a true genius can achieve enlightenment in just one or two games.

Around 9 p.m., after the extra solo match ended, Jiang Ming sent a message to Koma on the opposing team, officially ending their first training match.

On chat software, Koma replies to messages instantly.

Kkoma: "I learned a lot from today's scrim, thank you very much; I hope that our two teams can continue to cooperate in scrims in the future."

"The scrims went well," Jiang Ming typed, then asked, "What do you think of the performance of my NXG players?"

Ah, how talented are NXG's five players?
Kkoma was a little confused, staring at the text on her phone screen, unsure how to respond.

You should know best just how talented the five members of NXG really are.

After a full day of training matches, especially the final solo rounds, Kkoma has gained a fairly good understanding of the NXG players.

Well... it's a long story.

To exaggerate a bit, in the high-ranking Korean server matches, any random Challenger player might have even higher talent.

Does Jm want me to praise him?

Koma glanced back and saw the dejected SKT players sitting in their seats, heads hanging low, lost in thought.

The final solo match definitely hit the opponents hard. Yes, not because they lost the match, but rather because the match they won dealt a heavy blow to the players.

"How could that be?" Pig let his head rest on the gaming chair, his eyes glazed over.

"That shouldn't be the case. If the individual skill level of the opposing team is not as good as ours, why is the overall strength of the opposing team so much stronger than ours in the training matches?"

"The synergy is off the charts. It's like NXG has every task in every time slot ingrained in their very being." DaMu, who has played 1v1 in the top lane for a long time, understands this deeply. There are no problems during the laning phase, but as soon as the opponent makes a move, it's like the mid, top, and jungle are unleashing a coordinated attack.

"LPL's operations..."

"Coach, do you think we can learn this style of play from them?"

You say that NXG's five players are overwhelmingly skilled, so losing in scrims is understandable. But after a few scrims, you tell them that the opponents' skills are just average. Who can accept that?

The team members' reactions made Koma feel that he had found the truth of the problem.

Yes, the fact that the coach trained several players with mediocre talent to a level of exceptional skill is precisely what makes the coach so remarkable.

Koma typed, "NXG's five players are all very promising, especially after JM's guidance, the team's overall strength is formidable..."

"We players only know how to rely on our talent and play hard. There is still a lot we need to learn."

Jiang Ming: "???"

Okay, okay, so not showing talent means having good potential, right?

Jiang Ming really wanted to hit the opposing player with a baseball bat. Damn it, all he wanted was to get the most talented monster and hard-working player in the entire league.

You're acting like a Versailles enthusiast.

I didn't eat lemons...

After exchanging a few more words, Jiang Ming stood up and walked towards the dejected team members.

This week, from the team gaining widespread attention online and players actively following them, to the heartbreaking reality of facing off against several talented but unpredictable players from SKT, their emotions have been like a rollercoaster ride. It has certainly honed the mentality of all five players to the greatest extent possible.

"Clap! Clap! Clap!" Jiang Ming clapped his hands lightly. "Everyone snap out of it. Let's do our debriefing for today."

————Review Divider————

"Ming... Brother Ming, I'd like to ask for a leave of absence to rest."

"Ah...me too, tomorrow morning...no, tomorrow afternoon, we'll have normal training."

"And I……"

A few hours after the debriefing ended, the five members of NXG, whose ideals had been brutally defeated by reality, came to the office and asked Jiang Ming for leave.

"Haha, you're already discouraged?" Jiang Ming encouraged them. "Didn't we know our talent level from the beginning? After months of hard work, the ranks we couldn't climb before, and the people we couldn't beat in professional matches, have all become your defeated opponents."

"We've just encountered a group of people with even better talent, and even they are just ordinary geniuses among geniuses. There are still more monstrous talents who haven't appeared yet."

"Does that mean that every time you encounter a problem, you'll have to doubt yourself, and every time you lose, you'll completely give up?"

"Or perhaps, after two months of training, you've all unknowingly come to regard yourselves as unparalleled geniuses!"

It's one thing to fool outsiders with grades, but you can't fool yourself too.

“No, no.” Song Yuan suddenly looked up. “It’s just… it’s just a little bit.”

"I'm starting to doubt whether my efforts will be fruitful?"

"Ok!"

Jiang Ming chuckled and said, "Have you forgotten that in the training match we lost, I asked you to abandon tactics and use raw strength to compete with these gifted monsters?"

"Didn't you mistreat them before?"

"Well...it seems like we won."

"That settles it then. I arranged the final clash of strength simply so that you could better recognize yourselves, accept your weaknesses, and continuously train and improve. The current strength of NXG has never been based on the five of you having extraordinary talents."

"Also, while those with innate talent are very strong, does that mean you guys who work hard to become stronger won't be strong anymore?"

"Don't forget, you've only been receiving professional training for a few months!"

"Finally, I want to say that innate talent is fixed and finite, but effort is infinite. Using infinite effort to overcome finite talent—that's youth!"

"..."

"Of course, I will still approve the vacation. Consider it our last relaxation before the main competition begins."

After offering words of comfort, Jiang Ming unhesitatingly granted everyone a full day to rest and recuperate.

"Speaking of which, it's fortunate that SKT's mid laner isn't Xiao Li now, otherwise, it would be easy to lose control of the intensity of the real-life attacks, and he might actually break someone's moral compass, which would be quite a mess."

Jiang Ming stood by the window on the third floor of the base, watching the backs of his five wobbly children who had gone out for a barbecue, and felt a surge of emotions.

Thus, the problem of restlessness and agitation within the NXG team caused by the continuous surge in online traffic has been initially resolved through his internal and external treatments.

……

It's no wonder that internal chaos is rampant among LPL players. NXG has only been around for a short time, playing a few server qualifiers and two LPL preseason matches. Just because they achieved a perfect record, the team and players instantly found themselves in the eye of the storm online thanks to the exaggerated match scores and Wang Gongzi's unintentional "stirring up trouble" in LPL's publicity.

For a group of fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds, having money in their hands and enjoying the feeling of being praised by thousands of people can easily lead them astray if they are not properly guided.

Jiang Ming was experienced and had prepared himself mentally beforehand. He managed to get the five people's psychological education on the right track by using a combination of persuasive and gentle methods, including playing musical instruments and singing. Imagine other teams that can't even manage the most core training and management properly, how could they possibly pay attention to and handle this issue?

In conclusion, NXG is temporarily free from worrying about this mess. With the players' mentality adjusted and their attitudes corrected, their training is becoming more effective, and their application of new tactical ideas and the team's overall progress have improved significantly compared to before.

As everyone focused on honing their skills, time passed day by day.

Thanks to Jiang Ming's proactive efforts to cool things down, online attention and discussion about NXG did not escalate to an unpleasant level.

A week before the start of the LPL main tournament, the schedule for the double round-robin BO1 regular season was also announced.

On March 16th, the first day of the league, while the league arranged a classic showdown between WE and IG, two old rivals, NXG, a popular team in the professional scene this year, was also included in the schedule for the first day of matches.

Their opponent is Royal Club, who just won the runner-up title at the TGA Grand Prix Winter Finals.

"Hey ho ho, we've run into Zaozi in the opening round of the main competition!"

　(Ask for monthly ticket)
　　
　
(End of this chapter)