You've only been playing for half a year, and you've already reached the finals?

Chapter 164 The Mid-Season Championship Begins!
"Wow, so cool!" Behind Ming Jing, several of his EDG teammates gathered around, praising the skin in front of them endlessly, their voices inevitably revealing a hint of envy.

It's no exaggeration to say that this is the ultimate dream of every professional player.

But this thing is indeed too difficult. Only five people can have this honor every year. They have worked hard for so long, but they haven't even gotten close to it yet.

After the demonstration, it was time for the hands-on experience.

These skins haven't been updated in the official server yet, but that doesn't stop people from logging into the test server and showcasing them to all viewers in the live stream through custom matches.

In order to better showcase the championship skins, LPL even invited some top streamers from Huya and Douyu to act as punching bags, but Mingjing really doesn't know who they are.

To promote his skin, Ming Jing returned to the AD position, a rare occurrence. He only saw his opponent after entering a custom game.

The bottom lane duo of the Old Snake team: Crystal and Rhythm.

To be honest, Ming Jing didn't know either of them at all.
If I had to pinpoint it, I think I've seen it once in those montage videos of commentators watching XXX.
Mingjing didn't know the skill level of these two people, so he decided to take it seriously.

This is related to skin sales, so we have to cut it!

Meanwhile, on the other end of the internet, Crystal was having a serious discussion with Rhythm.

"So, what do you mean?" Crystal asked. "Should we take it slow with Little Fei, or just go for the bullying?"

"Is that even a question?" Rhythm replied without hesitation. "What I want is absolute dominance!"

"walk slowly."

Crystal and Rhythm are both eager to get started and are ready for the upcoming match.

Of course, nobody took these words seriously.

At this moment, their live stream chat was filled with messages like "Who are you?" and "Humorous".

Seventeen minutes later
"Penta kill!"

The news of Jinx's pentakill resounded throughout the venue, and platinum light condensed above Jinx's head to form a floating Summoner's Cup, exuding an incredibly cool vibe!

In the first training match, the broadcaster team didn't even last twenty minutes before being swept aside.

In Crystal Bro's live stream, countless comments were filled with schadenfreude and laughter.

Crystal looked at his 0-4 score and felt a little dizzy.
So it's really stressful to play against Xiaofei!
Question Ghost, understand Ghost, become Ghost.

After Mingjing pushed the game to a draw, he heard his old teammate Green Hair's voice, "Bro, you went a bit too far! Give the other side a taste of their own medicine!"

"Mine, mine," Ming Jing couldn't help but scratch his head.

He thought that retired professionals like Crystal should have some skill, so he took it a little seriously.

Who would have thought they would be so easily defeated?
Fortunately, this exhibition match wasn't going to end in one game, so Mingjing still had to give the broadcasting team some face.

In the subsequent matches, Mingjing switched to a more relaxed mode, focusing on farming minions in the bottom lane and letting his teammates take the lead.

Although JDG's former teammates didn't perform well this year, they still had a good grasp of the streamers. Kanavi's Nidalee was extremely aggressive, and his Five-Tailed Nidalee moved in and out of the enemy jungle seven times, which was quite agile.

They easily won the last three games, bringing a perfect end to this championship skin promotion event.

"Go MSI!" Green Hair cheered Mingjing on in the voice chat as the competition ended. "You should be able to win, right?"

Ming Jing replied with a smile, "You still don't trust me?"

“How could that be?” Zoom chuckled. “We’re the people in the whole world who trust you the most.”

Ming Jing believed this, after all, he had seen the compilation video of the League's King of Resilience.
After saying goodbye to his old teammates, it was evening, and Mingjing's pre-match rest time came to an end.

Starting tomorrow, the MSI version will be updated to the official server, and the EDG team will officially enter a tense and rigorous preparation phase.

April 31st arrived quickly, and the EDG team arrived at Pudong International Airport and boarded a plane arranged by Riot Games to go to Iceland.

Shanghai is 7777 kilometers away from Iceland, almost halfway around the world. This journey of several dozen hours was quite an ordeal for most people.

Fortunately, EDG Club has always been financially powerful, and upgraded all the players to business class.

"You'll have to make do with business class this time," said boss Ed Zhu as he saw everyone off at the airport. "I'll take you to Iceland on my own plane when we go to the World Championship."

The owner, Edward Zhu, actually owns a private jet, and the EDG team logo is printed on the plane. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it's the club's property.

However, the MSI was held up in a rush this time, and the qualification for participation was only officially confirmed not long ago. In addition, the application for international routes would be very troublesome, so there was no time to participate.

Ming Jing didn't really care; he had never been abroad before and was even looking forward to it.

However, once the plane actually took off, the discomfort quickly set in.

Even in business class, sitting for a long time can be quite uncomfortable.

After a flight of nearly ten hours, the plane made a stopover in Russia.

Mingjing followed the group off the plane, stretched his muscles, and then took a nap after reclining his seat when he boarded the plane again.

When I woke up from another nap, the plane had already landed in Reykjavik, Iceland.

There used to be a meme online that said in the eyes of those who idolize foreign things, even the air abroad smells sweet.

Mingjing is capable of discernment and wouldn't fall for such a low-brow joke.

But as he stepped off the gangway and looked out, he had to admit that this time was indeed different.

The airport is located in a deserted suburb with no skyscrapers in sight. In addition, there are few factories and almost no pollution, so it is known as a "smokeless city". The view is very clear at a glance.

However, Ming Jing didn't have time to admire these things. He simply followed the team onto the bus arranged by the Riot Games and went directly to the hotel to check in.

Coincidentally, EDG also encountered several other regional champions at the hotel entrance.

This includes DK.

DK seemed to have arrived two minutes earlier. They had already checked in and were about to go to their rooms to catch up on sleep when they turned around and saw several people dressed in black walking in.

Among them, a handsome young man stood out.

The moment the DK members saw Ming Jing, all their sleepiness vanished, and several of them gritted their teeth.

It was this person's sudden emergence that snatched the championship from their grasp!
Ming Jing, however, was quite open and honest. Noticing the gazes of the DK members, he cheerfully reached out and waved hello.

Mingjing is itching for a fight. Last year, DWG, who brought JDG to the brink of defeat, left a deep impression on Mingjing. He really hopes that the DK team can give him another chance to compete in this MSI.

Ming Jing's generous demeanor actually made DK's side a little awkward. Everyone nodded stiffly, then turned and left.

After watching DK leave, Ming Jing followed the team to check in. After putting away his luggage, Ming Jing followed the team to the training room.

The training room has a nice view, with several large windows offering unobstructed city views.

Maokai looked at the players, who were exhausted from the long flight, and didn't plan to arrange any practice matches. Instead, he briefly talked about the matchmaking for the MSI.

MSI consists of three rounds.

The group stage consists of twelve teams divided into three groups.

After the second-place team from each group advances, a double round-robin tournament will be held among the six teams.

And the final knockout match between the top four teams in the competition.

The initial group stage was very low-intensity, similar to the World Championship group stage, where a strong team would draw three wildcards or lower-ranked seeds.

"If you want to observe the trend of the version, it is best to observe it in the group stage."

Maokai emphasized, "Anyway, let's stick to the normal meta for now and practice all the buffed heroes! If anything unexpected happens in the group stage, we'll adapt accordingly, okay?"

"Row."

The EDG members nodded.

One of EDG's biggest advantages is that they don't have any major issues with their hero pool.

Several of them are either seasoned players with extensive experience and a wide range of heroes, or they are exceptionally talented individuals who can readily acquire new heroes without much trouble finding them.

The only one who might be a little troubled is JieJie. After he fixed the machine, he immediately logged into the EU server account that Riot sent him and started a custom game to practice Rumble's jungle clear.

The designers' changes have been effective. Besides Darius and Zed, who are also quite humorous after the buffs, lane champions like Rumble, Morgana, and Diana have become frequent visitors to the jungle after receiving the buffs.

The latter two are easy to deal with, since the hero controls are not complicated and there are no special skills for clearing jungle camps; it's all about stats, so most people can get the hang of it quickly.

But Rumble is a different story. This champion's jungle clearing speed mainly comes from his red temperature. Now, Rumble's red temperature increases his attack speed by 50% and also deals percentage-based damage based on the target's maximum health.

Therefore, learning how to quickly clear the jungle after getting out of the red buff area has become a must-learn skill for every Rumble jungler.

Ming Jing looked back and narrowed his eyes slightly.

In the scene, the red buff had just sprouted when Rumble pressed W to enter the red buff area and used his passive's terrifying DPS to quickly reduce the red buff's health by more than half!
"That's not right," Ming Jing said, squinting. "How did you get to level one red temperature?"

Ming Jing was not unaware of Rambo's mechanics; on the contrary, he actually remembered all of Rambo's mechanics quite clearly.

He remembered that Rumble's W cooldown was a constant six seconds at all levels. Even with 8 points in skill haste in the talent tree, giving him a 7% cooldown reduction, it would only be 5.56 seconds. Rumble's heat would start to decay after four seconds, so he shouldn't be able to stack up his rage.

"I don't know either," JieJie said. "Anyway, all the Rumble junglers in the Korean server start their jungle like this. It seems to be a bug. Riot hasn't fixed it, and they haven't banned it this time, so it's probably still usable." Is it really that casual?
Ming Jing was a little speechless, but he didn't say much. He just said "good luck" to Jie Jie and then left the lounge with a yawn.

That same evening, Riot Games held a live draw, dividing the twelve teams participating in the Mid-Season Invitational into three groups.

The EDG team also saw their opponents in the group stage.

These are GAM from Vietnam, UOL from the CIS, and PGG from Oceania.

This group is actually quite strong, considering that both Vietnam and the CIS are among the stronger wildcard teams.

Of course, the EDG players weren't under much pressure.

Another week has passed, and May 6th has arrived, marking the official start of the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational.

The week-long group stage has officially begun!
EDG played in the second game against Vietnam's GAM.

This was considered the strongest opponent in the group. Although everyone played seriously, they were still quite relaxed.

Surely no one actually lost to Vietnam by playing wildcards?

If he loses, Ming Jing will retire on the spot without hesitation and bring his talent back to the field of mathematics.

And indeed, the outcome was almost exactly as expected.

GAM is an absolute jungle-centric team, with Levi being their core jungler.

If it weren't for the special circumstances that prevented them from participating in the World Championship last year, they would likely have had a place there.

In this patch where jungle clearing speed is crucial, Levi has a unique solution – Deathsinger.

Karthus' jungle clearing speed is undoubtedly top-tier, and in this Mythic patch, his damage output is incomprehensible once he gets going.

EDG was slightly surprised to see GAM pick Karthus jungle, but they quickly came up with a solution.

Since you're playing Karthus as a jungle carry, why don't I just invade your jungle?
Right at the start of the game, JieJie and Flandre had already planned to go straight into the jungle at level two and cripple Karthus.

As expected, Flandre's Sejuani abandoned the minion wave at the start of the game and rushed into the jungle with JieJie.

Karthus is a champion that is forced to start with blue buff, which makes his jungle route relatively fixed. Now, he has been invaded by EDG's top and jungle and has fallen into their trap.

Although Karthus didn't die after using Flash, losing half of the jungle is basically equivalent to a hellish start.

Of course, even more hellish things were yet to come.

At the six-minute mark, Mingjing's mid-lane Syndra landed a push, followed by WR's Electrocute, completing an incredibly natural solo kill.

Nobody knows why this Vietnamese mid laner would brazenly come up to farm minions when he was already within Syndra's kill range.

Are you that confident in your positioning?
After getting a solo kill in the mid lane, Mingjing even had Flash available, so the one who would suffer was Captain Levi.

At seven minutes, Syndra flashed and pushed the ball, stunning Karthus who hadn't flashed.

Taking this opportunity, Jie Jie's Rambo rushed up in W mode, his EQE entered red temperature mode, and then the drill chased after him and drilled fiercely!

Karthus's health bar kept dropping, and he was eventually sent back to the fountain by Syndra's Q!

With Karthus completely collapsing, the outcome of the match was no longer in doubt. EDG had an advantage in all three lanes, slowly snowballing their lead. They secured the Dragon Soul at 26 minutes and the Baron at 27 minutes, ultimately ending the game at 28 minutes.

After the match, EDG returned home and immediately took to the stage the next day to face UOL from the CIS.

Compared to yesterday's game, today's was even easier.

UOL couldn't find any outstanding players, so EDG didn't even need to design any special tactics. They just played normally and easily gained an advantage in all four lanes.

Mingjing didn't have much of a chance to perform this game, because before he got a solo kill in the mid lane, Viper in the bottom lane had already gotten a double kill.

Meanwhile, Saint Gun's top laner Nocturne was not idle either. After reaching level six, he immediately went to the mid lane and helped Mingjing kill the enemy mid laner.

Then, news of another double kill came from the bottom lane.
It was another uneventful stomp game, with EDG achieving an astonishing 19-1 kill ratio and easily ending the match.

UOL's only kill was given away by Mingjing himself through a team fight, considering international friendship.

Ming Jing's death has sparked much discussion among domestic viewers.

On the one hand, many people are criticizing Ming Jing's poor acting skills, and the purpose of this suicide mission is too obvious!
On the other hand, some people joked about FPX and RNG.

The two teams combined couldn't even kill Xiaofei once, they're not even as good as the Russian guys!
Despite the huge gap in strength, EDG won one after another. After a week of double round-robin matches, EDG not only didn't lose, but they didn't even lose the first tower in the mid lane!
However, the EDG team didn't intend to find any problems from the matches; their initial goal was to explore the meta trends through the draft picks in the group stage.

Fortunately, they did gain something.

On the very night the group stage ended, EDG immediately held a debriefing meeting to discuss the meta shifts of the group stage.

"As it turns out, our understanding was somewhat flawed."

Maokai posted the pick/ban rates and win rates of all the heroes that appeared in the game at the beginning, and then said:

"Centaur was significantly affected by the nerfs. Initially, his pick rate was decent, but his win rate was low, and he gradually stopped appearing in games afterward. However, Udyr was not greatly affected and can still be picked if needed."

"In addition, among the newly buffed junglers, Morgana and Rumble are significantly stronger than the others, which is reflected in the pick/ban rates in the last two days."

It is clear that Morgana and Rumble's pick/ban rate did increase significantly in the following days, and their win rate even increased slightly.

This was actually to be expected.

Morgana needs no introduction. She has a long history in professional leagues, and this mechanic monster is always present in every version. Now that she has been moved to the jungle role, she can directly avoid the problem of being weak in lane by farming jungle camps, so she naturally stands out immediately.

Morgana jungle may not be the best in ranked games, but she is definitely a popular pick in competitive matches.

As for Rambo, there's not much to say; he's just incredibly tall.

It can be cleared quickly, and the damage is explosive.

As for functionality, it doesn't actually have any.

Seeing this, Jie Jie nodded in satisfaction.

All I can say is that his hard work during this period has been worthwhile.

Currently, all three heroes are under his control!

"Besides that, there's another hero we need to pay attention to! That's also the focus of our meeting!"

As Maokai spoke, he highlighted the key stats of a hero.

The blind monk, Lee Sin.

This hero was lukewarm in the first two days of the group stage, gradually gained momentum in the middle days, and became a must-ban or must-pick on the last day, achieving a 100% BP rate!
This is actually quite exaggerated; it would be almost impossible for other heroes.

Because during this group stage, everyone was mainly testing different strategies. For example, EDG realized that Morgana was very strong in the second half of the season, but they still let Morgana out to try to deal with her.

In this stage of the competition, where the pressure is not high, the drafting and banning (BP) process has not yet reached the point where extreme competition and meticulousness are required, so theoretically, such a high BP rate should not exist.

However, this time the Lee Sin was indeed in a special situation.

"This time, Lee Sin's pick rate wasn't just in the jungle; on the contrary, the jungle role had the lowest pick rate, with only two games played. It was mainly in the mid and top lanes."

The data clearly shows that mid-lane Lee Sin accounts for half of Lee Sin's appearances, and of that half, a large portion is given to top laners, with junglers coming last!
With all three positions available and all teams practicing it, Lee Sin achieved a 90% pick/ban rate thanks to the combined efforts of all these factors.

Lee Sin's buffs in this version are not significant; the only change is a two-second reduction in the cooldown of his E ability.

The designers' original intention was to enhance Lee Sin's jungle clearing speed, allowing the champion to keep up with several currently popular jungle monsters.

But unexpectedly, the jungler Lee Sin didn't get much of a buff, while the laners Lee Sin just took off!
Lee Sin can push lanes quickly with his shorter E skill cooldown, and then use his strong fighting ability to group up and fight, quickly gaining an advantage!
"The Lee Sin's rise to power was unexpected," Maokai said sincerely. "It was our coaching staff's fault; we only realized the strength of the Lee Sin on the last day."

"Time is tight this time, so Xuanjun and Mingjing need to practice hard and try to be able to perform well in the competition the day after tomorrow!"

There is only one day between the group stage and the playoffs, and the next match will begin the day after tomorrow.

And this time it's a big one, the first match is against DK!

On the DK side, Showmaker hasn't played Lee Sin yet, but Nuguri has been frequently picked for the top lane.

This hero will undoubtedly be a key factor in the competition the day after tomorrow.

This could be a crucial battle that determines who will take first place in the competition, and no one in EDG wants to lose.

"It's alright," Ming Jing said calmly. "It's not a big problem."

Lee Sin, a champion that requires a high level of skill, is a challenge for him.

But that's exactly the kind of challenge Mingjing wants.

It is precisely because of the unexpected and uncertainties that professional leagues are interesting.

On the night the group stage ended, Riot Games officially announced the list of teams advancing to the showdown.

EDG, GAM, MAD, PSG, DK, C9.

The Mid-Season Invitational has finally entered its tense and exciting second stage!
(End of this chapter)