LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 401 Only those who can mutate can play the Zerg well.

Early the next day.

With the highly anticipated MSI tournament kicking off in various international regions, it quickly sparked considerable discussion among viewers of foreign leagues.

In particular, the MSI Play-In Stage will begin on May 3 and last for four days, all held at the European LCS Studio in Berlin, Germany.

The LMS region, which performed poorly at last year's World Championship, will replace the North American region as the seeded team for the Play-In Stage to advance to the Group Stage.

The group stage will begin on May 11th (Beijing time) and last for a total of five days.

With May 2nd as of now, there are less than 10 days until the start of the MSI group stage. Teams from all major regions, especially LCK champions LZ, only had a short two-day break after winning the championship before quickly throwing themselves into intensive training.

The setbacks suffered by the LPL last year, especially EDG, have put the LCK region under considerable pressure this year.

As the European champions playing on their home turf, FNC also broke with their usual inertia and announced the start of their training camp on social media ahead of schedule, in order to live up to the expectations of all their European fans.

Compared to G2, the domestic powerhouse, this time FNC's participation in MSI has filled many European fans with the hope of achieving good results.

Of all these regions, only North American fans have always felt there's no love. The good news is that this year's MSI team representing the region is TL, not last year's domestic powerhouse TSM, who went home in the group stage.

Bad news: This TL team has the ultimate internal battle king, Master Brother.

Although they changed teams, North American fans seem to have grasped a simpler truth.

That is, it seems that the senior brother is the real god of the internal war, while TSM is not. So this makes the North American fans still not have confidence, especially since the game is being held in Europe. Facing the taunts of the enemy, the audience is under a lot of pressure.

Their North American team gets applause everywhere, except perhaps in Europe.

However, this did not dampen the enthusiastic discussions among North American viewers about the upcoming MSI.

However, in the LPL region, which has the largest League of Legends audience, the level of discussion surrounding the matches has visibly decreased despite the release of the schedule.

This isn't because viewers have visibly lost interest in League of Legends, but rather...

[Damn, Lin Gou has started playing StarCraft 2?]

Early this morning, clips from last night were already circulating wildly on Bilibili and Douyin on Tieba, sparking a frenzy of discussion among netizens.

[He still came. I told him Lin Gou wanted to play StarCraft 2. StarCraft is so fun, how could he not play it?]

[Whether Lin Gou (Lin Gengxin) is just trying to challenge himself with higher game difficulty, he actually feels that all games are the same.]

Damn, Lin Gou really knows how to pick his timing! MSI is about to start, it's bound to have an impact.

[It will definitely have an impact. Other regions have already started preparing. Here's what I suggest: LinGou should be a substitute throughout MSI, only playing three games in the finals. He can just stream the rest of the time. That way, it won't affect his StarCraft 2 gameplay.]

【Rebel against the Heavenly Gang, is that what I meant?】

Stop messing around, shouldn't we be discussing Lin's specific performance in StarCraft 2 last night?

Indeed, what all the viewers really care about is whether Lin Ruo will maintain her usual level of gaming skill, so many people watched last night's clips and came out completely confused.

Like many viewers who watched the entire live stream, they couldn't tell much from just two games; they could only see that Lin Ruo was familiarizing himself with hero skills and various city construction facilities.

Just like a clueless newcomer exploring blindly, it's inevitable that viewers will feel that Lin Ruo's talent in StarCraft 2 seems no different from theirs, and he still needs to learn in the early stages.

However, it's only the first day. What viewers really want to see is how fast Lin Ruo learns. This is the biggest highlight in the early stages of StarCraft 2, which is full of complex content.

Around 8 a.m., Lin Ruo, who got up early, started her live stream on time. Within half an hour, a large number of viewers flooded into the live stream room.

The traffic and activity on the Zhanqi live streaming platform surged, to the point that in the same time slot early in the morning, its popularity completely surpassed that of Douyu and Huya, the two major live streaming platforms that dominate the gaming industry.

However, to the disappointment of the viewers who entered the live stream, Lin Ruo was still learning skills and was playing against bots in a custom room.

After exploring the Terran and Protoss races last night, Lin Ruo began to leisurely study Zerg unit management and buildings this morning.

The Zerg are far more complex than the Protoss and Terran, so a considerable amount of time needs to be invested in them.

The game begins with an initial base and a large worm that can float in the sky. The base can produce larvae for mining.
Yes, it's built at the base, unlike the Terran race which builds at supply depots. The so-called buildings are all designed to provide upgrades for units.

As the technology continues to develop, the larvae produced at the base can be upgraded into more advanced units, with mutation being the main focus.

Initially, they can transform into worker bees (also known as peasants) to perform work. Later, they can be upgraded to queens, which are used to increase the unit limit of their own forces. Even soldiers are transformed from larvae.

Once the technology advances to the Splitting Pool stage, the base can produce a more advanced Queen to spray eggs to produce larvae and simultaneously heal building units.

The Zerg Splitting Pool, the core structure of the Zerg nest, contains the primordial mucus reservoir that holds the genome that allows larvae to mutate into springtails.

The Zergling is a Zerg ground unit. One larva can mutate into two Zerglings, which can fight together under the command of the Zerg. They have sharp claws and teeth that can tear enemies apart, and their genetics and easy replication result in efficient reproduction. They serve as both a warning and an attack vanguard in the Zerg swarm.

The corresponding buildings can then mutate into exploding bugs, which, as the name suggests, are bugs that explode.

This insect has a sac filled with acid, and its shape is bloated and it is even unable to walk normally. On the battlefield, you can sometimes see the insect curled up in a ball and rolling forward.

However, when the exploding bug gets close to an enemy, it triggers an unstable chemical reaction within its body, causing it to explode and spray strong acid outwards.

The self-destruction destroys the Banelings and inflicts significant damage on enemies. The Zerg's innate burrowing ability makes the Banelings an even more deadly threat.

The explosive insects that suddenly emerge from underground will rush towards the enemy, leaving them no time to react. The seemingly peaceful safe zone will then turn into a deadly trap, making them an excellent killing weapon for travelers.

Therefore, all players who can breach the Zerg hive will prioritize this obvious pool of slime.

If the production of springtails can be disrupted, the key advantage of the swarm can be neutralized.

In addition to the Split Pool, there is also the Evolution Chamber, which serves as a basic unit for the Zerg's early development and can provide upgrade options for ground units.

The most unique aspect of the Zerg is undoubtedly that every building unit is produced by a peasant. This means that when a building unit is completed, a mining peasant is automatically lost. This inevitably plays a role in controlling population, as the number of peasants can be controlled by continuously building and demolishing buildings to achieve balanced population growth.

The Zerg also have advanced and basic buildings, and they still need to build them step by step.

Lin Ruo's first step was naturally to build the same extraction room to collect gas, followed by the splitting pool and evolution chamber.

Except for the extraction room and the main base, all of these buildings must be built in a unique fungal carpet zone.

In addition to the initial presence of the so-called fungal carpet, the queen insect can also directly secrete fungal carpet. The queen insect can indirectly expand the fungal carpet by generating fungal carpet tumors as base points, which causes the soil-like fungal carpet to grow very quickly.

This allows all Zerg to build and live on it in a more timely manner.

The fungal mat has a honeycomb structure. Individual insects can move faster on the fungal mat than on normal ground because the fungal mat is covered with cellular microfilaments, which allows the insects to "glide" on the fungal mat instead of walking step by step.

In addition, the fungal carpet firmly anchors all the alien insect structures located on it, thus it can be regarded as an organic whole, with the alien insects forming its organs.

Later in the development process, once new buildings are unlocked, new units can be produced using larvae.

For example, after establishing a cockroach greenhouse, the larvae can mutate into cockroaches, and later the cockroaches can be mutated into new biological destroyers that can fire plasma liquid. They not only have close combat capabilities, but can also be used to destroy the enemy's solid formation.

Anyway, after Lin Ruo finished learning about it, he understood that the Zerg gameplay clearly has one key word: mutation, mutation, and more mutation.

Only through mutation can one become increasingly powerful, thus becoming the overlord of the game.

Well, this means the Zerg will be poor, because the rich rely on technology, while the poor rely on so-called mutations.

When enough mutations have occurred and resources are running out, the next step is to continue searching for minerals, use farmers to build new bases, and repeat the previous series of operations to lead the impoverished Zerg to become stronger.

In order to grow bigger and stronger, in addition to its own development, it is also necessary to guard against possible attacks from enemies. This is where spiny reptiles and spore reptiles came into being.

As brand-new variant units, the two units can defend against air and ground attacks respectively, and detect possible enemy movements before an attack, making them essential for home defense.

However, since the opponent was a bot, Lin Ruo, who did not face much threat, simply tried her best to show off her hand speed and established four bases in a short period of time.

He led the Zerg to take a very significant step on the path of becoming bigger and stronger.

After the base is manually upgraded to a bug nest in 1 minute, it enters a new stage of expansion and strengthening, unlocking more advanced buildings.

The method is the same as before, just with a different name: build new structures to mutate larvae into new Zerg units.

For example, a thorn beetle nest can mutate larvae into hydralisks. Hydralisks have countless armor-piercing spines hidden in the bony plates under their carapaces, which can be shot at enemies attacking from the air or the ground.

After upgrading and expanding, the Hydralisk Nest can still increase the movement speed of Hydralisks by 25% and increase their range by 1 even when they are not on the creep.

It can also mutate into a Lurker's lair, allowing Hydralisks to mutate into Lurkers.

Other structures include spires, various mutated buildings from the infected abyss, and more advanced buildings that require further upgrades to the base before they can be built.

It is simply called "upgrading to a bachelor's degree," and the base also has differences between first-tier, second-tier, and even third-tier universities.

After half an hour of learning, it became clear that while the Terran race was either building or on the way to building, the Zerg race was either mutating or on the way to mutating.

It has its own unique features, but not many.

With so many mutations, choosing the right one can sometimes be a huge headache.

After quickly reviewing the process, Lin Ruo took a sip of water. To prevent viewers in the live chat from falling asleep while watching the constant emergence of new units, she decided to start practicing.

However, before that, Lin Ruo felt it was necessary to understand one thing: what is operations?

This is also a point that many veteran StarCraft 2 players in the live stream often mention, almost to the point that a player who doesn't know how to manage resources isn't a good player.

Lin Ruo could roughly understand the meaning of operations, but it was still necessary to find examples to learn from.

Lin Ruo casually learned from Baidu and came up with the most straightforward answer: operations are about doing the right thing at the right time.

Knowing when to build what, when to launch an attack, and when to upgrade requires neither blind action nor haste.

However, one thing remains constant: the exploitation of farmers must never stop. They must be made to work day and night to create wealth. This only shows that they have a strong capitalist mentality.

In addition, it is also important to learn how to allocate resources. At different times, there is not only one type of building and unit that is most suitable to be built. At this time, you need to weigh the pros and cons.

During the operational phase, the player's primary objective is to maximize economic gains, thus investing most of their resources in the production of work units and buildings.

The resulting problems are obvious: if resources are overly focused on economic development, the resources available for production and combat units will become extremely limited.

If offensive and defensive capabilities are weak, it is easy for an opponent who focuses on offense to take advantage of the situation.

Therefore, it is very important to allocate resources in a way that prevents weak links from becoming vulnerabilities.

"So this is what operations are like?" Lin Ruo felt that it was indeed not much different from what he had thought.

Lin Ruo, who was about to start a game, didn't forget to take ten minutes to have breakfast in the cafeteria before returning to her seat to begin the real-life practice battle.

Abu, who was passing by the training room early in the morning, was pleased with Lin Ruo's diligence, but dissatisfied with the games Lin Ruo played.

Tomorrow we start training matches to prepare for the upcoming competition, and I still have time to play new games? And StarCraft 2, which I need to learn the most... This is more exciting than popping champagne.

Lin Ruo's opinion was simple: it's just a regular training match, so let Haro play.

It's impossible for him to step in every time we have to fight a Vietnamese team; that would be too tiring.

Appropriate rotation is good for physical and mental health. There's no other way; the main character has to appear at the most crucial moment to be impactful.

(End of this chapter)