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

Chapter 303 A Battle That Changed the World Line!
Next, EDG entered into an intensive rehabilitation process.

The training schedule is much more intensive than before.

Mingjing only returned to the team on August 8th and will be playing on August 16th, leaving EDG with very little time.

Actually, Mingjing isn't afraid of becoming rusty or bad at the game; his main concern is falling behind the latest version.

EDG was worried about this, so they summarized the recent major version updates and the 12.15 update for the playoffs, and held a meeting with Mingjing to discuss the new version.

Anyway, Mingjing's learning ability is obvious to all, so EDG is not worried that Mingjing will be overwhelmed by so much information and will just stuff it all in at once!
Ming Jing also started brainstorming, memorizing all the updated stats of countless heroes.

It must be said that during his seclusion, the version changes were indeed exaggeratedly significant.

This can be considered the biggest change in the history of League of Legends.

Since the Mythic Gear update, its overpowered attributes have turned the game into a pure fighting game, or rather, a swordsman duel.

Under the damage from the supermodel, even tanks don't have much room to survive and will break at the slightest touch, let alone the fragile DPS.

So, the designers had a sudden inspiration and decided to add durability to all heroes, including base health, growth health, and growth resistances.

All heroes now gain an additional 308 health, 20.4 armor, and 13.6 magic resistance at level 18.

Using a simple model built from equipment such as red crystals, cloth armor, and magic resistance cloaks, Mingjing could easily calculate that these attributes alone were worth a full 1475 gold coins.

Ming Jing's assessment of this change was—it was heaven-defying.

The decision to weaken the overpowered output of Mythic gear by increasing overall stats is a good one, but this kind of one-size-fits-all approach should never be used.

Some heroes come with high shields or healing, while others come with high tankiness. Adding the same durability attribute to them doesn't improve them as much as it does to squishy carries.

Tank heroes are inherently toys for those who crave health, rarely getting a chance to appear on the field. What difference does adding two or three hundred health make to a tank hero? Purely negligible!
Assassin heroes were also struck by lightning. If this improvement was a drop in the ocean for tank heroes, it was a complete negative improvement for assassin heroes!
Assassin heroes' damage is already very limited. Assassins like Blue Kai, Qiyana, and Talon, who rely on burst damage, are basically only good enough to one-shot squishy targets if they are farmed normally. If their equipment is even slightly behind, they won't be able to one-shot them.

That's it, forget about getting a one-second kill now.

The debate over whether Kiana was overpowered has continued since the Mythic version, but this durability patch has wiped out Kiana players, making her no longer overpowered.

In addition, Ahri and Taliyah have been reworked.

While the skill set remains unchanged, a mechanism has been added that allows the user to directly recover health upon participating in a kill and also grants an additional ultimate skill.

The latter adds a new mechanic where placing Q on a stone-scattering area will throw out large stones, and enhances the roaming capabilities of the passive and R.

It's easy to see which mid-lane champions are currently popular in this version.

"Therefore, mid-laners with tempo like Taliyah and Ahri, as well as mid-laners with heavy damage like Azir and Corki that benefited greatly from the durability patch, will be top priority choices."

While showing Mingjing the version update, his cousin Mingkai was also interpreting the changes in the numbers: "As for assassin mid laners and warrior mid laners who are already lacking in damage, it will be difficult to choose them."

Mingjing nodded as he listened to his cousin's explanation.

This is roughly in line with his deduction.

The difference is that Ming Jing doesn't think the assassin mid-laner was killed outright.

Players like Akali, who deal excessive damage, and Sylas, whose mechanics are superior, are still viable picks.

Zed also gained a qualitative leap in lane control thanks to the revamped Ravenous Hydra, and thus had his share of play.

However, these heroes can only be picked as countermeasures in the second round; they cannot be picked first.

"How are things?" my cousin asked. "Are you feeling any pressure? I remember you don't play many of the popular heroes in this patch."

Mingjing has never actually chosen either Taliyah or Airplane in a competition.

I've played Tsar and Fox, but only once or twice.

Overall, this version is not friendly to Mingjing.

Ming Jing smiled and said, "It's not a big problem."

For Ming Jing, hero proficiency has never been a problem; he has always been exceptionally fast at learning heroes.

After all, his innate calculation ability and his talent for mastering a hero after just one practice session allow him to become proficient in a hero in just a few games.

Mingjing only needs to know which heroes are popular, and that's enough.

In fact, this rehabilitation wasn't even prepared for him, but for his teammates.

After all, his teammates hadn't played against Ming Jing for half a year and needed to readjust to Ming Jing's offensive rhythm.

Fortunately, everyone had followed Ming Jing on the Golden Road for a year, so they were quite familiar with it.

When Mingjing first started training matches, even when facing strong teams, his win rate was much better than before, and it continued to slowly climb as his rehabilitation progressed.

Seeing this, EDG's management finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Rehabilitation takes time, and they were worried that Mingjing's performance would decline too much and EDG would be eliminated before they could regain their form.

It seems that even if he can't return to his peak form in this summer season, qualifying for the World Championship shouldn't be a problem.

That's enough.

Even if they don't win the Summer Championship, as long as they make it to the World Championship, EDG will have plenty of time to fully regain their form!

All the previous championships are irrelevant; only winning the final S-series championship makes you the ultimate winner!
While everyone was working hard to recover, EDG's official Weibo account finally updated, posting photos of Mingjing returning to the team and participating in training matches, and officially announcing the starting lineup for the first round of the playoffs.

Seeing EDG.Phi's ID finally reappear on EDG's roster, countless fans breathed a sigh of relief.

The Flying God is back, that means we're safe!

Before we knew it, it was August 16th.

The playoffs are in the top 10 to 8, in the upper bracket.

EDG, who finished seventh in the regular season, will face off against BLG, who finished tenth in the regular season.

Once back to the rhythm of the competition, Ming Jing maintained his excellent sleep schedule. He got up early and played two ranked matches to warm up. As the competition time approached, he boarded the bus with the team and headed straight for the Hongqiao Tiandi Performing Arts Center.

The situation in Shanghai was already quite serious at this point, and LPL had returned to the offline mode without spectators. Spectators would not return until the finals, so there were not many spectators around the venue this time.

After a long absence, Ming Jing followed his teammates through the security check and entered the stadium. He casually scrolled through his phone in the rest room, waiting for the match to begin.

After replying to Song Xuan's message, Ming Jing opened the forum and looked at the discussions there.

Right now, the discussion in the forum is in full swing!

Because of Mingjing's return, today's match, which was originally unimportant, has received a huge amount of extra attention, and may very well be the most popular match before the finals.

[Breaking news! The Flying God has arrived at the scene! What's the news about today's match?]

[Is there any explanation for this score? If it's not 3-0, I'll say whatever you want.]

That's hard to say. EDG did lose to BLG during the regular season.

[Zeka's performance doesn't even count! Fei Shen can easily crush a cold dog.] [Let's see how EDG recovers. Winning is probably no problem, but a 3-0 victory is really difficult.]

[Indeed, Fei Shen hasn't played for two months. Can he even hold a mouse anymore?]

[No matter what, EDG, charge! BLG, that B team, doesn't deserve to win!]

The forum users don't have a good impression of BLG and don't want the team to go far in the playoffs.

The main problem is that BLG has caused far too much trouble during the Summer Split.

Although Mingjing didn't participate in the competition, he frequently posted on the anti-racism forum and knew what had happened.

Because of RNG's victory at the Mid-Season Invitational, the proportion of RNG fans in the forum has increased significantly. The old RNG fans look at this ultimate version of RNG and feel that they have a lot of hope. They even feel that they can compete with EDG in their prime.

But the fantasy was ruthlessly extinguished by BLG before it even began.

During the mid-season transfer window, RNG and BLG swapped top laners.

Huangza closed his eyes, still thinking of Bin, but when he opened them, he was surrounded by breathing.
It was later discovered that Bin was originally loaned from BLG by RNG, and now that the loan period has expired, it's time for him to return to the team.

Furthermore, Uzi made a brief comeback for BLG during the Spring Split, which helped BLG gain a lot of attention, but he only played a few games before his career ended abruptly.

Several incidents combined have led to the old royal fan, who now has a considerable following in the forum, being extremely dissatisfied with BLG and wishing he could be driven to ruin.

And today, EDG is the champion of justice!
As you know, pigs and dogs have been one family since ancient times.

Mingjing doesn't seem to have any hatred towards BLG.

But now that the competition is in front of him, he naturally has to win in order to qualify for the world championship.

Then we can only say sorry for the BLG players.

At 5 p.m., summoned by the staff, the contestants from both sides took to the stage one after another at the call of the host, Yu Shuang.

Top lane: Bin, Flandre!

"Junglers: Weiwei, Jiejie!"

Mid lane: icon, Phi!

The live stream chat exploded when the two mid-laners appeared, with the chat filled with comments like "Holy crap, flying!"

This exclamation, genuinely expressed by a streamer who was imprisoned, has become a meme deeply intertwined with Mingjing.

"AD: Doggo, Viper!"

Support: Crisp, Meiko!

"Please take your seats, both players. The match is about to begin!"

As the players from both sides took their seats, the popularity of the live broadcast room continued to rise, easily surpassing 100 million and heading towards 200 million, reaching its peak since the start of the summer season!

Those paying attention to this best-of-five series aren't just piglets or royal bastards.

There are also various professional players.

JDG, ranked ninth in the league, will also be playing in the quarterfinals tomorrow, but they are not in a hurry to play in the World Championship. Instead, they started the live broadcast of the match on time.

Of course, it's impossible to broadcast a second stream at this point; you can only watch it privately.

Strong teams like TES and RNG were also watching the game.

Even teams from the LCK, such as DK and T1, are all paying close attention to this first-round playoff series.

Because everyone understands that EDG's performance today may directly determine the outcome of the playoffs and even the World Championship.

But apart from JDG, perhaps no one wants EDG to win today.

For teams dreaming of winning the championship, they would love for EDG to be eliminated today!
"Okay, BP is activated!"

Guan Daxiao's commentary voice echoed in the empty arena, "Because EDG had a higher regular season ranking, they got the priority to choose sides in today's match and locked in the blue side in the first game. Let's see the draft and ban phase of the first game!"

When the BP panel was switched in, the first three bans for both sides were already coming to an end.

On the blue side, EDG banned Zeli, Jax, and Lissandra.

On the other side, BLG, the red team, banned Twisted Fate and Renekton, and is hesitating over their third ban.

There's no way around it; it's hard not to hesitate.

After all, to deal with a fully-formed EDG, you should ban the mid laner, otherwise Mingjing will really mess with you.

But Mingjing hasn't played a match in half a year, and nobody knows whether he has practiced any of the current meta heroes.

This is somewhat reminiscent of the S11 Spring Split, when Mingjing had just switched to the mid lane and before he made a name for himself with champions like Lucian and Akali, the opposing team had no way to deal with him.

After much hesitation and deliberation until the very last second, BLG finally decided to ban Aphelios, ultimately limiting Viper's effectiveness.

“Aphelios, no problem.”

Guan Daxiao nodded: "As Viper's champion hero, of course we have to respect Yishou. And it's worth mentioning that Riot Games has officially released a preview video of the EDG championship skins these past few days. These skins will be officially released in the next version update, so you guys can look forward to Yishou."

It has to be said that Riot Games has become increasingly lazy lately, delaying the release of this year's championship skins until close to the start of the World Championship.

However, this is also a good thing, since the sales period for the championship skins overlaps with the World Championship. If EDG performs well in the World Championship, it will inevitably further boost skin sales.

Once the selection phase begins, there's not much to say. BLG didn't ban any mid-lane champions from the current meta, so Mingjing can comfortably choose the best one from several popular champions.

Without much thought, Ming Jing immediately locked onto the fox he had chosen before.

Compared to Taliyah or Lissandra, Mingjing prefers Ahri, a more aggressive champion, as she allows him to better execute his maneuvers.

On the other side, BLG didn't hold back either, directly locking in the most popular jungler in the current version, Wukong, and pairing him with Lissandra in the mid lane.

This mid-jungle duo is not only strong in synergy after level 6, but this strength can also be maintained well into team fights, making them a popular mid-jungle combination since the start of the Summer Split.

Crystal Maiden is indeed effective against engage champions like Ahri.

EDG, on the other hand, locked in Luna as a response.

"Then BLG made their third pick, and they immediately grabbed Fiora! Wow, that's fierce, Bin! Of course, there's nothing wrong with picking Fiora!"

After entering the second round of business proposals, both sides also conducted their own review and improvement.

The two sides traded blows, and the lineups were quickly finalized.

Blue side EDG: Top lane Gnar, Jungle Vi, Mid lane Ahri, Bot lane Lucian and Nami.

BLG (Red Side): Top lane Fiora, Jungle Wukong, Mid lane Lissandra, Bot lane Kalista and Renata.

(End of this chapter)