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

Chapter 188: The Summer Tournament Begins!
In the end, Mingjing accepted Faker's friend request.

However, the two were not familiar with each other, and after adding each other as friends, they did not communicate at all. They simply added each other as friends and left it there, and then each went into a solo queue.

Night had gradually fallen, and it was prime time for watching live streams. Mingjing's live stream viewership was steadily increasing, even making steady progress toward the 150,000 mark.

Ming Jing was somewhat surprised by the terrifying number of viewers in the live stream.

After all, he was just casually doing a live stream for fun, who would have thought so many people would come?

After thinking about it, he decided to follow the example of other streamers and start a long-term lottery event. He would give away ten sets of JDG championship skins for every time he died in ranked matches.

When countless viewers in the live stream heard this, they only felt that Ming Jing was stingy.

Damn it, it's rare to see you die in a match, and you just got a 14-0 thrashing in ranked. If you don't want to feed, just say so, why beat around the bush!
But the audience clearly misunderstood Mingjing.

Now that the event has been launched, Mingjing will no longer be as focused as before. He can be more casual and treat it as giving out some perks.

Next, Mingjing played three more games and won all three, dying seven times in total and giving away a total of seventy championship skins.

It was already 9 PM, which should have been the peak time for live stream viewers, but Ming Jing looked at the time and guessed that Song Xuan should have already returned to his dormitory.

"That's it for the stream, guys! Get some rest!"

"Tomorrow? I'll definitely stream tomorrow. What else would I do if I didn't stream? Don't worry, I'll stream every day until the Summer Split starts!"

Despite the pleas of 100,000 viewers for "one more round," Ming Jing showed no hesitation and ended the broadcast immediately.

To be honest, he started broadcasting at noon today and continued until 9 pm. He's a true workaholic, considering his contract only allows 40 hours of broadcasting time. He did one-fifth of that in one day.

After confirming that the live stream was over, Ming Jing sent a message to Song Xuan, wanting to send over the questions he had prepared that afternoon.

But unexpectedly, while he was still typing, Song Xuan sent him a message.

The email sent several pictures with Mingjing's answers to these questions written in neat, clear handwriting.

???

Ming Jing skillfully sent a voice call and then said, "Goodness, you're spying on me, aren't you?"

Judging from the fact that he sent a message right after the broadcast ended, it seems that he didn't just watch for a short while, but probably watched the whole thing!
"Stalking sounds awful!" Song Xuan immediately protested. "This is called caring!"

"You really have a lot of free time," Ming Jing said, a little puzzled. "Don't you have anything to do?"

"I only have classes in the morning, and the afternoons are for self-study and doing exercises, so watching a live stream won't affect me much."

"Hesitate." Ming Jing didn't think much of it and started tonight's mini-lesson based on the answer Song Xuan sent.

In the darkness of night, at Douyu's headquarters in Jiangcheng, countless managers looked at today's data and all nodded in satisfaction.

That's why they say a truly top-tier streamer can drive the entire platform.

Driven by Mingjing's live stream, the platform's peak online viewership today is significantly higher than in previous days!

Douyu executives even held a small meeting specifically to discuss this issue, planning to create another promotional event around Mingjing's story in an effort to retain this user base!

Of course, they need to confirm whether Ming Jing really wants to continue live streaming.

Over the next few days, Mingjing truly became a livestreaming workaholic, streaming from noon to night every day, averaging more than eight hours a day.

After lunch, they would livestream themselves doing practice problems, turning the livestream room into a study room. The streamer would bury himself in writing and drawing, while the chat would chat amongst themselves without disturbing each other.

After dinner, it's game time. Mingjing returns to FMVP mode and dominates the Korean server!

Douyu quickly followed suit with its own promotional activities, and with the support of massive traffic, Mingjing's live stream viewership broke new records for several consecutive days.

The massive traffic naturally gave rise to many memes and memorable moments.

But the most popular event was the double flight collaboration on the first day of the live stream.

That match was truly packed with all the elements.

Besides these, there are quite a few other trending topics.

For example, Mingjing's Ma's Triangle Kill.

For example, the rematch between Xiaofei and DK's mid and jungle was jokingly referred to by the audience as the fourth game of the MSI finals.

For example, Faker made ten fake moves in a second, and clicked the mouse back and forth for a long time, but in the end he still sent a friend request to Xiaofei.

This clip alone is enough for those abstract female fans to write a fanfiction.

Another example is Mingjing's blind monk's 3 minutes and 15 seconds in Fast & Furious 4.

This single jungle clearing session sparked considerable discussion among players, leading to the creation of the "Lee Sin Subject 3" (a popular online course for Lee Sin players).

With someone helping you clear the jungle, who can reach level four in 3 minutes and 15 seconds?
Countless Lee Sin players eagerly try it out, but only after actually playing it do they realize just how unattainable that stat is.

Even KID from De Yun Se, a jungle farming enthusiast and one of the few who could approach SofM's speed in last year's Lee Sin test, personally tried it out and his speed to reach level 4 was around 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

Most importantly, Xiaofei has hardly ever played jungle Lee Sin, yet he was able to carry in top-ranked games on the Korean server, which is truly astonishing.

Of course, KidGod also had something to say. He said that XiaoFeiGe was driven by his teammates, which might have caused some interference, so it's hard to say for sure.

These words even reached Ming Jing's live stream, prompting Ming Jing to simply play the game again solo.

Since it was a solo start, it was impossible to start with the red buff. Mingjing chose to learn the E six-bird start. In the end, the time was 3 minutes and 16 seconds, which was one second slower than when his teammates helped him start.

This left countless people speechless.

All I can say is that that damn talent is still going strong.

Half a month passed quickly, and it was June 10th.

The Summer Split has quietly begun, but EDG's matches will have to wait another eight days.

With the combined attention of 200,000 people, Mingjing officially reached the top of the server rankings, becoming number one in the Korean server.

This single achievement of being ranked first in the Korean server sparked another wave of heated discussion and even made it to the top of Weibo's trending topics.

In the top-ranked Korean server matches, he faced off against various top professional players, streaming and commentating while playing, and still managed to climb all the way to number one. I guess only Mingjing could have done that.

The viewers in the live stream who witnessed it all felt incredibly proud.

But the happy times will eventually come to an end. Although Mingjing's live streams are becoming more and more popular, the summer season is getting closer and closer.

After reaching the top of the Korean server rankings, Mingjing clearly stated that he would be reporting to the club the next day and would probably not be streaming anymore, causing countless fans to wail in despair.

Now that Xiaofei is no longer broadcasting, where will we make up for the daily study room we missed?

June 11th, with one week left until the competition, is also the designated day for EDG to wrap up their team.

The Ming family cousins ​​also landed at Hongqiao Airport on time.

Mingjing didn't waste the time on the plane this time; he spent almost the entire journey doing practice problems.

The rehabilitation over the past two weeks has been quite effective, which only shows that Jing's mind is still sharp. It could also be because he maintains a high level of calculation in the game at all times, so he has now recovered to 90% of his peak. In a little while, he will be able to return to last year's national team level and begin to make steady progress.

Of course, he is still far inferior to Song Xuan.

Song Xuan has been undergoing IMO-level training for some time now, and has now reached a completely different level.

My cousin's car was parked in the parking lot next to the airport, so the two of them got in the car without much trouble and easily arrived at the base.

I thought I arrived fairly punctually, but to my surprise, Ming Jing was still the last one to arrive.

When Maokai saw the Ming family cousins ​​return, he nodded and said, "Have some water and rest for a bit. There will be a meeting on a new version later."

Mingjing nodded, put his luggage away, and when he returned to the training room, he saw that Maokai had already turned on the projector.

The Summer Split will use version 11.11, while EDG players are still more familiar with version 11.9 from MSI.

There are two versions, with a huge update from the MSI version in between, which of course requires a special meeting to highlight the key points.

However, upon closer inspection, the changes in both versions are actually not very relevant to Mingjing.

The main changes are to the jungle.

The designers clearly have a problem with the jungler role, making one major change after another.

This time, the designers went even further, giving the jungler role a fundamental update.

The jungle respawn time has been increased from 2 minutes to 2 minutes and 15 seconds.

The Smite damage mechanism has been drastically changed. It is no longer linked to level, but to the jungle item. Now, after the jungle item is used five times, Smite will not only be upgraded to the corresponding red or blue Smite, but the damage will also evolve from 450 to 900.

Then, an experience catch-up mechanism was added, where a jungler hero will gain extra experience from jungle camps when their level is at least 2 levels lower than the average level of the entire game.

These three changes practically scream "targeting jungle carries."

First, it weakened the resources in the jungle; second, it weakened the dominance of high-level junglers.

In the mythic version, due to multiple changes and the rise of utility-focused, fast-farming heroes like Udyr and Hecarim, the jungle carry playstyle was already barely alive.

Now, with this decisive blow, the jungle carry is basically dead.

Canyon could have relied on his skill level to dominate in the game, but that might be difficult now.

But overall, it's definitely a good thing for Jie Jie.

After this change, junglers who were previously unable to play due to their slow jungle clearing speed now have a chance to be picked.

Don't be fooled by JieJie's amazing performance with Udyr and Rumble at MSI, which seemed to be a perfect fit for the current meta. In reality, he actually had a pretty tough time playing them.

In contrast, he prefers playing tempo-based champions like Xin Zhao and Jarvan IV.

And that's all.

"Graves' attack damage growth has been increased from 3 to 4; this needs to be observed."

"The cooldown of Lee Sin's E skill has been increased from 8 seconds to 9 seconds. This change doesn't seem to have much impact. The way Lee Sin plays in lane has already been figured out, so this small nerf won't affect his dominance in the mid and top lanes."

"Then Lucian was nerfed, with his base attack damage and Q skill damage both reduced slightly, which is quite damaging and was probably aimed at Mingjing. Of course, it also weakened RNG."

"It's also worth mentioning that Fryegor and Gwent, who were released in the first half of this year, have been officially unbanned. This is something to keep in mind, as both of these heroes are very suitable for competitive play. You guys should have been practicing them, right?"

Gwen is a champion released in the MSI version, so it's only natural that she's featured in the Summer Split. She's positioned as an AP fighter in the top lane.

The Ruined King, Fiogre, was released at the beginning of this year, but due to the same number of bugs as Sylas, he was banned from matches for a long time. Now, almost half a year later, the bugs have probably been fixed.

Fryego's role is more complex, similar to the current Lee Sin, he can play in the top, mid, and jungle.

After all, his Q skill can push lanes, making him fearless against all kinds of mages. His 225-yard basic attack range allows him to easily defeat short-ranged heroes, making him a hero with an exceptionally good mechanic.

Fortunately, Mingjing has been playing a lot of ranked matches recently and had anticipated that Foyego might appear on the field, so he has already practiced enough.

Saint Gun Bro doesn't feel any pressure; he never has a problem with his champion pool.

"This is quite strange," Maokai chuckled. "Generally speaking, the MSI champion is nerfed, but this time it seems like they haven't nerfed us much? Does Riot really want the LPL to win?"

LPL has won so many championships in recent years that it's hard to keep up.

Logically speaking, shouldn't we be supporting the LCK or the European and American regions?

"It's alright," Jie Jie said cheerfully. "What if the designer thinks we're only good at this?"

Mingjing, who was listening from the side, felt that Jie Jie might have hit the nail on the head.

Although he doesn't watch many matches, he understands Riot's logic in nerfing the MSI champion. To ensure the diversity and excitement of the tournament, Riot naturally has to nerf some of the top teams.

The problem is that, as League of Legends has developed to this point, the skill levels of the top teams are actually quite similar.

The skill gap between teams may not be as significant as the impact of the version update.

Often, the team that wins the championship is not necessarily the strongest team, but rather the team that best fits the current meta.

Therefore, it's easy for Riot Games to make changes to this aspect; they only need to adjust the current meta, which will naturally weaken the strength of the current champion teams.

Riot Games' previous nerfs to the Mid-Season Invitational were basically based on this logic.

But this time was different.

Both teams in this final, EDG and DK, are actually playing against the meta.

Both teams relied on their superior strength to reach the finals.

In contrast, RNG, who were blocked by EDG in the region, are considered to be a team that fits the current meta better.

In this situation, the designer's old-fashioned methods of weakening are no longer very effective.

But designers don't understand these things.

Before this, JieJie was just an unknown jungler, but now that he has achieved such results, the designers think he was right.

"Anyway, no matter what, this is definitely a good thing for us." Maokai laughed from the front, "The Summer Split starts in a week, brothers, practice hard and try to get good results in the Summer Split!"

The EDG members all nodded in agreement.

For professional players, every version change is a challenge. A team that was invincible in the previous version and could dominate everywhere might be wiped out in the next version.

The current version is favorable to them, so they certainly can't miss this opportunity.

Flandre suddenly asked, "So, who are we playing in our first match?"

It's clear that Flandre had a great time during his vacation and has forgotten all about competition.

Maokai glanced at Flandre, somewhat speechless, before saying, "TES."

(End of this chapter)