LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 519 So what if you're invincible in training matches?

After all the summer season matches have concluded, there are still at least two weeks until the actual World Championship begins in October.

In the past few days, the qualifying tournaments for the World Championship in North America and Europe have also come to an end.

FNC has revived and won the European League title, while G2, unlike last year, managed to survive as the third seed and climb into this year's World Championship.

There have been changes in all major regions, but North America is still under the rule of the senior player.

What does TSM's failure have to do with my senior brother?

Doublelift, who joined Team Liquid (TL), obviously brought his reputation as a god of domestic competition with him, thus successfully helping TL win the North American League Summer Championship.

However, due to the North American region's unfortunate bottom finish at MSI, they will not have a first seed in this World Championship. As the North American champion, TL can only be the second seed in the World Championship group stage.

In the group stage, they will undoubtedly clash with the top seeds from other regions, which will naturally increase the difficulty of advancing significantly.

Therefore, even before the World Championship started, many North American viewers seemed to see their Doublelift heading towards a new top 16.

They really don't want to admit it, but it seems to be the truth.

After all, in the past, as the number one seed, they could only reach the round of 16. This time, in the World Championship group stage, they have to face the number one seeds from other regions as the number two seed. It's hard to have confidence.

Therefore, in order to make TL's elimination in the round of 16 at least seem more justifiable, many North American viewers quickly photoshopped images to put TL in a group of death.

The number one seed in the group is naturally EDG, who can practically beat TL to a pulp.

Of course, many North American viewers felt that it didn't matter whether EDG was the number one seed or not. Any of the number one seeds from Europe or Korea could easily beat TL, so using EDG was obviously overkill.

Next up is the third seed after TL, which directly pulled Gen.G over. Then there's the fourth spot. Excluding wildcard regions, G2, who are likely to make it through the play-in stage, are obviously the tallest of the short teams.

Thus, the "group of death" has been freshly formed.

EDG, TL, Gen, G2.

Many North American viewers could already imagine how terrified the senior brother would be when he saw this, wetting himself in fear.

They probably didn't expect that such a mischievous predictive post would become a viral sensation on Twitter for half a month, until the actual group stage draw began.

There is no other reason.

Because too many people entered.

First, the ever-confident senior brother saw the post and dismissed it, then reposted it and commented below: "Call EDG, Gen.G and G2 over here, and I'll show you how to call them over!"

Clearly, after an invincible North American Summer Tournament, Doublelift's confidence has only increased.

The reason is that before he left TSM, many North American viewers mocked Doublelift for relying on Bjergsen, and therefore believed that he would be nothing without TSM.

But who could have imagined that Doublelift, who left TSM to join TL, would still win the league championship, while TSM would plummet and fail to even qualify for the World Championship?

This made the senior brother instantly arrogant, and after seeing the post, he immediately started making a show of arrogance on Twitter.

TSM is nothing without me, TL went from nobody to league champion in no time, so what are you guys pretending for?

Such a bold statement easily attracted the attention of Twitter influencer Perkz, who first thanked the North American audience for thinking so highly of him and selecting G2 into the "group of death" that could prevent Doublelift from reaching the quarterfinals.

He then made another very confident statement: "Guys, believe me, beating TL has never been difficult. Our opponents for G2 have always been China and Korea."

After the speech, the comments from the Western audience didn't seem to be very convincing.

I admit G2 is probably stronger than TL, but that's about it.

Guys, Perkz's confidence and Big Brother's confidence are probably the same, there's no difference, they both belong to the category of arrogance.

[Because G2 is the third seed this year, we almost forgot that they used to be a powerhouse in domestic competitions.]

[Perkz should know why we were chosen as the fourth spot in the "group of death" in the initial plan. You guys are the only decent teams besides the third seeds from China and Korea; after all, we can't exactly pick wildcard teams.]

The comments section was filled with complaints, but Perzk, with his good attitude, didn't care at all. However, he would soon inevitably have to care.

Because Lin Ruo came.

Lin Ruo, who hadn't used Twitter in a long time, finally took a stroll during the off-season and unexpectedly stumbled upon such a lively and entertaining event, so of course he had to join in.

Thus, he became the third League of Legends player to retweet and comment. The first two were arrogant because they lacked the credentials, but sorry, his arrogance was 100% justified.

What can I say? That's all I have to say.

"This death group is quite well done. I'd be happy to give TL, Gen.G and G2 a boost. I hope they don't get tilted."

Once the comments were posted, Western audiences quickly became Lin Ruo's righteous sycophants.

[Lin Shen is God's successor; whatever he says is law.]

As everyone knows, Lin Shen has been spouting nonsense for two years, and he's never been proven wrong.

Yes, I've been waiting for Lin Shen to be proven wrong and fall from grace so I could become a hater and start criticizing him, but so far, Lin Shen hasn't given me that chance, so I've had no choice but to become his true fan.

[Oh, guys, let's just stick to our slogan: As long as Lin doesn't mess up, we'll always be his true fans. Keep praising him, keep praising him!]

Judging from the frenzy in the comments section, it's easy to see that Western audiences have completely lost their minds.

The senior brother and Perzk, who saw the news, wanted to say something, but when they turned around, they realized that they really didn't have any reason to argue.

Damn it, we really can't beat EDG.

It's not like I haven't been beaten by EDG before, or that I haven't watched EDG's matches in the Summer Split. In short, if you run into them, there's absolutely no problem with running away.

Or are you just waiting to get beaten up?
And so, the two masters of showing off quickly fell silent after the appearance of an even more impressive master of showing off.

It's not that they don't want to talk, but that they simply can't.

Only Gen, who watched the whole thing from beginning to end, remained silent. If they really needed to do something, they would probably just give the netizens in the group a good scolding.

Why did they put us in the same group as EDG? Don't they know that the World Championship is held in Korea and that if they don't get first place in the group, they, as a Korean team, will be criticized?
Being grouped with EDG guarantees second place in the group.

...

Perhaps only later in the season will they realize that finishing second in their group was already the best possible outcome.

September 23rd arrived in the blink of an eye. On the day of the World Championship group stage draw, the entire EDG team, who had already begun their preparations, watched the group stage draw in the training room as usual.

The South Korean team in charge of the draw was Flame, who was a member of the Happy Family at LGD. He is also known as the "Big Princess" because of his handsome looks and height that Peanut can't envy.

All teams are naturally very concerned about their group assignments in this draw, except for the other teams that are also number one seeds, such as GRF, which will not be grouped with EDG.

The other teams basically shared the same idea: as long as they weren't grouped with EDG, their group stage draw would be half successful.

Teams like KT and Gen.G are the least willing to be grouped with EDG because they really want to compete for first place in the group on their home turf in Korea. If they are grouped with EDG, it will likely mean that they are destined to miss out on first place.

It's not that they lack confidence in defeating EDG, it's that they simply don't have any.

Other European and American teams also don't want to, because if they want to advance from the group stage, they need to at least secure a second-place position in the group.

In other words, at least one Chinese or South Korean team needs to be eliminated in order to compete for second place in the group.

If they face EDG as the number one seed, their chances of advancing will obviously be much lower. Against other LPL teams, they still have at least a 30% chance of causing an upset.

Against EDG, a 3% win rate would be considered good.

So obviously no team wants to face EDG.

Especially when Flame drew EDG as the first team in Group A, other teams, including KT, became very nervous.

The fact that the four groups of first seeds have been determined is not a big deal. The key is which teams will be placed into these four groups later on.

Therefore, when TL was drawn from the second seed pool, just as most North American fans had predicted in their tweets before the match, they actually ran into EDG.

In the TL training room far away in North America, all the TL players and coaching staff were dumbfounded.

The eldest brother felt an urge to burst into tears. He had only joked about not being afraid before, but now you guys are really doing it.

If KT or Gen.G comes along next, the entire TL team simply can't think of a way to advance.

However, this doesn't stop North American netizens from laughing as much as they want.

They weren't gloating, but they were naturally excited that their pre-tournament prediction of a "group of death" had come true. If they were to face another "Gen" group later on, wouldn't they be overjoyed and their whole family could reunite?

The result was beyond their expectations.

After all the second seed pools were filled, Gen unexpectedly became the first third seed to be drawn, bravely and fearlessly entering the Group A family.

This caused an uproar.

[Guys, we were just joking, why are we actually dividing into groups?]

[Oh no! This will be the fastest time our senior has ever secured a spot in the top 16. Previously, the group stage had to be completed before eliminations were determined, but this time it's been decided before the tournament even started.]

[Guess which player TL can beat between EDG and Gen.G; I certainly don't know.]

[Stop talking. G2 is already trembling with fear. They'll definitely be the fourth team to enter Group A in the near future.]

Regardless of the jokes from European and American audiences, the good thing is that G2 has to play in the play-in stage before they can be included in the group stage, so at least they have time to adjust before then.

Unlike Gen, there was absolutely no time for adjustment.

"Are we playing against EDG? Does that mean we're guaranteed second place in the group?"

In the Gen.G training room, Crown waved his hand helplessly. "Alright, now that they've qualified as the second-place team in their group, what if there's an internal battle later on?"

That would perfectly take over the mantle from KZ and become the primary target of Korean fans' attacks during the World Championship. "It's okay, it's okay, losing to EDG isn't shameful, the fans shouldn't criticize us too much."

Ruler remained very rational; in his view, unless they were eliminated in the group stage, he would never become an outlet for the frustrations of Korean fans.

Is there any possibility that they will be eliminated in the group stage?

"There's absolutely no chance of that. We'll just make sure we finish second in our group and advance." Cuvee waved his hand confidently. Little did he know that in a parallel universe, he was completely crushed in the top lane in two out of three group stage matches.

...

"Let's see what the fourth one is. It would be great if the fourth one really is G2."

At this moment, Lin Ruo's expression in the EDG training room was particularly interesting. He really didn't expect that the group draw would be exactly the same as the tweet on Twitter.

This made him want to send a private message to his good friend Perzk to interview him about how he was feeling.

"Let's get G2, but not some wildcard, otherwise it'll be too boring."

Mingkai also enjoys the atmosphere of the "group of death" as he wants to teach other groups.

If he had led the team into the group of death back then, they would definitely have been trembling with fear, because EDG was notorious for losing badly in international competitions.

But now that he's the head coach, Mingkai, who doesn't have to lead the team anymore, would love for the team to enter the group of death, because that would be more exciting and interesting.

At that time, G2 was definitely unwilling to come to Group A, but a few days later they realized that fate was really hard to defy.

...

After a half-hour draw, the final group list was released.

Group A clearly lives up to its reputation as the "group of death," and Team Liquid (TL) can be aptly described as the most unfortunate number one seed in history.

Group B consists of FW, KT, and VIT.

Group C: GRF, MAD, IG.

Group D: FNC, RNG, PVB.

This qualifying round is different from other times, as neither the third seeds from China nor South Korea participated.

According to the previous rules, the third seed from the second region, LCK, would obviously have to participate in the play-in stage. However, Riot Games seems to have realized the importance of globalization ahead of time.

Two more slots were added for Latin America to make the qualifying rounds more impactful, but these are ultimately insignificant.

The day after the group stage draw, all the teams from each continent participating in the World Championship boarded flights to South Korea.

This was probably the easiest international tournament trip for Lin Ruo.

After all, going to South Korea feels no different from going to other provinces in China, and the team doesn't need to worry about time zone issues at all.

The only thing that might need to be considered is... diet.

“Bu, we must find a hotel in a place with many Chinese restaurants. I’m sure you don’t want to eat kimchi every meal.”

On the plane, the passengers were discussing the hotel location with more excitement than they were playing a game.

There was no way around it; people who ate delicious food every day had developed picky palates and simply couldn't endure any hardship.

Even Kim Gong, a Korean, found it hard to refute. Before coming to China, he thought kimchi was delicious, but after coming to China, he truly understood why.

Why is kimchi a staple food that can be eaten from morning till night every day?

"Don't even mention eating it every day, I think I'd be tired of eating it just once a day. Anyway, I need to eat, and I can't stand eating kimchi as my main meal."

Thinking of the fields here makes me shake my head.

He often watches videos and has seen his neighbors eating, and every time there's only kimchi on the table and no rice. How can they possibly eat that?

As a southerner, he might not even be used to having noodles as the staple food on the table, let alone foods like kimchi.

"Don't worry, I'll definitely take care of your eating habits." The only thing Abu can do now is take care of everyone's food and daily life; otherwise, there's not much else he can do as a member of the team.

Upon arriving at Busan Airport, the group didn't linger and headed straight to the pre-arranged hotel. After putting their things away, they went out to find a Chinese restaurant for a good meal.

There's no need to worry too much about the training matches yet. There's a five-day qualifying tournament in Seoul in early October, and the real group stage starts on the 7th.

However, while the EDG members weren't in a hurry, many others were. Just as they found a hot pot restaurant, Abu received a training match invitation from another team.

The team that was so eager to challenge them to a scrimmages was none other than LCK champion GRF.

GRF, who have been invincible in the LCK league, believe that if they want to improve, they have to play against EDG. Only by finding their own shortcomings can they improve; otherwise, they will stagnate like other Korean teams and even start to regress.

Abu, who didn't have many ideas, chose to temporarily refuse after a brief discussion. The team will not play a scrim tonight, nor tomorrow.

They won't be able to really focus their energy on training matches until at least the day after tomorrow.

GRF, who have already begun preparing and are hoping to achieve good results at the World Championship, are naturally not in a hurry. As long as EDG can make an appointment with them first, they will avoid having to wait in line later.

Abu then received an invitation to practice matches from G2, and since G2 needed to participate in the play-in stage, they naturally started practicing as soon as they arrived in Korea.

"What's up? Are we that popular? We've barely landed and teams are already asking us for practice matches."

Lin Ruo was somewhat surprised. It seems there are still many teams that are not afraid of death. Well, it's okay. After a few more crushing victories, they won't even think about playing scrims with them anymore.

Unlike Taiwanese teams, especially Flash Wolves, FW, who had already scrimmed with EDG back in MSI, knew exactly what scrimming with a team that had Lin Ruo was like.

Simply put, there was no real experience to speak of. After all, the purpose of scrims is to find problems and refine the lineup, but EDG just pushed the game out in 15 minutes every time.

What problems are you looking for? There are clearly a lot of problems here.

What kind of lineup are you practicing this time? You can't practice a single lineup in 15 minutes.

Therefore, FW, who also arrived early, never considered arranging any scrimmages with EDG, unless they were really desperate to do so.

Teams like RNG and IG, who have suffered greatly in the LPL, are eager to stay away from EDG. Perhaps they were too confident and foolish enough to seek out EDG for scrims.

If you have nothing to do, I suggest playing against bots. You'll gain more insights that way than playing scrims against EDG.

One day later.

As scheduled, GRF finally got the chance to face EDG in a scrim.

The united GRF team was already prepared to face EDG's onslaught, and even fought to a standstill with EDG in scrims, to show their opponents why they were considered the second favorite to win the championship.

After playing all morning, EDG successfully showed them through their matches why they were the undisputed number one favorite to win the championship, while GRF was only the second favorite.

There is still a gap in strength.

After four games in the morning, GRF barely won one scrim, and was completely crushed by EDG in the other three. As for the last game they won, it was only because Haro was brought in.

Some GRF players, unwilling to accept defeat, persisted and played three more games against EDG in the afternoon, but as expected, they were soundly defeated.

So starting the next day, GRF stopped scheduling any scrimmages with EDG.

If we keep making these appointments, I'm afraid everyone's mentality will explode within two days.

EDG then scheduled a practice match with their second opponent, G2. The North American powerhouse, G2, was also thoroughly outmatched and decided to call it a day after only two games.

It's normal to play poorly in scrims, so G2 thinks it's better to scrim with their fellow qualifiers, like C9 from North America, for a better gaming experience.

It's not that they're afraid of EDG, it's just that they don't want to take it too seriously.

Look how seriously EDG plays, who would want to play with them? The last team to play this seriously was TSM, who were always in the top 16.

Within just two days, news of EDG's dominance in scrims spread across the internet in both China and South Korea.

In particular, GRF, who were highly anticipated by LCK fans, were also on EDG's list of teams that got crushed, and they were the teams that got crushed the most times.

At first, LCK fans tried to brush it off by saying that scrims were useless, since anyone who knew how invincible TSM was in scrims in the past was well aware of it.

However, for EDG, this excuse is clearly not enough to cover up their shortcomings, because they are not on the same level as TSM.

TSM is only good in scrims, but EDG... this world champion team has proven its strength countless times, and scrim data is undoubtedly the most insignificant evaluation.

So saying that you're good at practice matches is useless at this point. To most people, it's more like a self-deceiving joke, as if you're just trying to cover up your incompetence.

EDG is very strong, well, LCK netizens ultimately chose to accept the facts.

Given that this training data, including screenshots from within GRF, has been leaked, admitting it is far better than denying it.

LCK fans also firmly believe that GRF, as a team that has just entered the World Championship, has unlimited potential. Rather than facing reality, they should look forward to their development.

Lin Ruo thought so too.

On another ordinary day after the training match, seeing the hype online, Lin Ruo had no choice but to step forward and clarify on Weibo.

"Please don't take the training matches too seriously, and don't think that we are so great at training matches. In fact, training matches are the most useless thing."

Why? Because we only used two-thirds of our strength, and it was obvious that EDG was much stronger in the match, hehe.

...

After reading the first paragraph, LPL fans thought Lin Ruo had lost his mind today, as he had surprisingly become low-key. In the past, he would probably have been arrogant and overconfident.

It wasn't until they read the second paragraph that they realized Lin Ruo was still the same Lin Ruo, without the slightest change.

(End of this chapter)