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

Chapter 330 Drawing Lots!

The relaxing week-long holiday quickly came to an end, and EDG Club swiftly returned to training.

A week isn't a long time. None of the EDG members chose to go home to rest; they all stayed at the club. So the team's return was quite quick; it was just a matter of Abu clapping his hands.

"Come on, let's have a meeting first," Abu said, drawing everyone's attention.

EDG's pace is still very fast. Before the scrims begin, the first thing they need to do is, of course, have a meeting about the World Championship version.

The World Championship is a large-scale tournament that lasts forty days and uses the same version throughout. The further you go in the tournament, the more important it becomes to understand the version.

Mingjing participated in two World Championships and made it to the finals both times. Having deeply experienced the intense strategic battles beneath the surface of the meta during the final two BO5 matches, he naturally understands the importance of the meta.

Therefore, this version meeting is definitely indispensable.

"The official server just released detailed information about the World Championship 12.18 version a couple of days ago, while the playoff version we are familiar with is still 12.15. There is quite a difference in the versions."

Maokai connected his laptop to the projection screen in the training room and then said, "Fortunately, the changes are not significant and should not cause us too much trouble."

After so many years of the S-series tournament, everyone knows what kind of designers they are.

As the World Championship approaches, designers become especially cautious about making changes.

The Iron Man of Season 5, the Kalista of Season 7, and the Pantheon of Season 9 are all deformed products that only emerged under a terrible balance. Designers should try their best to avoid this situation now.

Of course, that's the extent of a designer's ability. Relying solely on the intensity of data control simply cannot fully predict the chemical reactions that result from countless small changes.

It's possible that a hero with a 100% pick rate will appear again this year.

"Just a heads up, Udyr has been reworked, and his skill set has been changed quite a bit," Maokai said. "But the designers have already emphasized that Udyr will be banned in this World Championship, so don't worry about it."

Udyr is alright; he was a popular champion at last year's MSI, but he's practically forgotten now, otherwise he wouldn't have needed a rework.

After speaking, Maokai opened the pre-prepared PowerPoint presentation and began to demonstrate the hero changes, carefully including the changes in win rates after the changes.

"It's worth noting the buffs to Jayce, Aatrox, Caitlyn, Sejuani, and Lee Sin." Maokai highlighted a few key points. "These champions are frequent picks in competitive matches, and their strength is not low. Aatrox, in particular, deserves attention. He has been buffed continuously in the second half of the year, which feels a bit excessive."

Aatrox is one of the few heroes who fully benefited from the durability patch, since such a hero with strong lifesteal makes exceptionally high use of his health.

Especially with the combination of durability patches and the invincibility mechanic of the Mythic item Duskblade, Aatrox has also developed the Dragon Piercing build, which has once again drastically changed the strength of this hero.

Who would have thought that, instead of nerfing this version of Aatrox, the designers actually increased the damage of his Q skill by 10 points?

I dare not think about it.

In addition, Caitlyn's headshot damage was increased, Jayce's base values ​​for his hammer form Q and E were increased, Lee Sin's scaling health and W's lifesteal were increased, and Sejuani's Q and ultimate damage were increased.

Ming Jing looked at these changes and quickly updated the database in his mind.

It must be said that these changes were all implemented effectively.

In Mingjing's view, these are definitely key changes that will affect the situation.

Maokai pointed out the changes highlighted in red: "These heroes definitely need to be practiced. Better to kill the innocent than let the guilty go free. I believe these heroes will not be a waste of time to practice."

"As for the nerfs, there's not much to say." Maokai continued turning the page. "The designers were quite precise this time, but not very forceful; they only nerfed a little bit."

Ming Jing carefully reviewed the nerfs and changes.

Heroes with extremely high priority in both the Chinese and Korean regions, such as Yuumi, Azir, Nami, Sivir, and Zephyr, have all been nerfed.

The reduction in Yuumi's Q movement speed and the fact that Nami can no longer trigger Electrocute with just Water Ball have slightly weakened Luna's burst damage.

Sivir and Tsar's sword techniques are similar; both weaken the bonuses of key damage skills, reducing their late-game damage output.

But as Mokai said, the efforts were not significant.

These heroes are all strong because of their irreplaceable hero mechanics, and this slight nerf in numbers will not make them disappear.

“The changes are indeed minor,” Ming Jing said. “You can still pick them; it’s just a matter of practicing a few more heroes.”

“Yes!” Maokai nodded emphatically. “However, version issues are never something we should worry about. The brothers’ hero pool is quite reassuring.”

Putting aside everything else, EDG's players have an absolutely amazing champion pool.

There has never been a team that couldn't use any hero; it's hard to find another team like that throughout history.

This is also the key reason why EDG was able to complete the Golden Road: their deep champion pool allows the team to withstand dramatic changes in the game's meta.

"Keep it up, guys!" Maokai laughed. "I feel like we're very close to the championship! Let's play some practice matches first!"

"OK, let's go!" Flandre clenched his fist tightly. "Who are we going to play in the scrim today?"

"Who else could it be at this point? JD.com, of course."

"OK."

Generally speaking, World Championship teams don't quit as early as EDG, since the version has only been updated recently and the data is still unstable. Blindly training might lead to bad results.

JD Gaming originally wanted to rest a bit longer, but as the fourth seed, they still had to play in the play-in stage, so they had to finish early along with EDG and start training.

But this is certainly a good thing.

Having EDG as a practice partner is an opportunity that countless teams would love to have.

At the very least, it can be guaranteed that JDG will not fall in the qualifying rounds.

Once you get into training mode, time always flies by.

In the blink of an eye, more than a week has passed, and it's now September 25th.

The scrimmages between JDG and EDG have been postponed.

With the qualifying rounds entering their final five-day countdown, the JDG team needed to take off early to head to Mexico City.

"Good luck." Ming Jing was still typing away as he said goodbye. "They shouldn't be eliminated in the top 32, right?"

"You're talking nonsense!" Toothpaste scoffed at such provocation. "If I'm eliminated in the top 32, I'll retire on the spot."

Ming Jing replied with an OK.

He was just joking, of course.

The two teams have been playing practice matches for so long.

If JDG is eliminated in the top 32, then Mingjing will have to start to wonder if there's something wrong with EDG as well.

Fortunately, JDG's performance was indeed quite stable.

After all, the teams in the qualifying rounds will be divided into two groups. As long as China and Korea are not drawn into the same group, JDG will have no opponents at all.

This time, such a low-probability event did not occur.

JDG and LCK's fourth seed DRX were placed in different groups, and both dominated their respective groups, making it difficult for them to win. In the end, they naturally advanced as the top seed in their groups.

Following them were FNC, the third seed from Europe, and EG, the third seed from North America, who also advanced.

However, an incident occurred during this qualifying round.

Scout accidentally triggered a bug during a game playing Orianna. When Orianna casts her E skill to buff teammates, pressing the R key frequently during this process causes a visual effect misalignment. The ultimate skill effect appears above Orianna's head, but the skill actually applies to teammates, severely disrupting the opponent's strategy.

Therefore, Riot Games decided to ban Orianna completely in subsequent matches, making her the second champion to be permanently banned in this year's World Championship.

Fortunately, this ban still has little impact on EDG.

On the very night the play-in stage ended, the other three LPL teams also officially landed in New York, the venue for this year's group stage.

The group stage was held at Madison Square Garden in New York, a rather legendary venue. It was here that SKT and ROX delivered a classic BO5 match that has stood the test of time during the S6 World Championship.

In the blink of an eye, six years have passed.

A legend will be born again in this place.

Since EDG, TES, and RNG all landed together, Riot Games arranged a long bus to pick up all three teams and take them to the hotel.

The group sat in the car, casually discussing hero priorities for the World Championship.

Since JDG departed, EDG has been playing cross-training matches with both teams.

Version understanding is something you develop through practice, and the three teams did indeed discover quite a few things during this training match.

Of course, for TES and RNG, most of their success was achieved by being crushed by EDG, so the experience wasn't great.
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To avoid viral infection, the bus doors and windows were kept closed after strict disinfection. In addition, everyone was wearing masks, which made breathing difficult and inevitably added to the sense of unease.

Ming Jing tugged at his mask, looked down, took out his phone, and opened the official live stream of the event.

After the qualifying rounds are over, the next step, of course, is the draw for the group stage.

Upon opening the live stream, you can see that Hai, the legendary captain of North America, has taken the stage and first assigned groups to the four number one seed teams.

Hai, the player, doesn't have many achievements, but he has a famous play: the one where he crawled forward, trying to steal the enemy base, but ended up being exposed and kicked to death.

There's no particular explanation for the draw in Pool 1.

The four teams, RGE, EDG, C9, and GEN, were drawn out in turn and divided into four groups: A, B, C, and D.

Next, we arrived at the main attraction, Pool 2.

Beside him, JackeyLove also took out his phone to look at the lottery, his hands already in a praying gesture, "Please, please, give me a good draw, give me a good draw."

During the off-season, JackeyLove even dyed his hair red, but it has to be said that JackeyLove's big head paired with red hair looks a bit...Tang.

Ming Jing laughed upon hearing this: "You're the LPL's second seed, don't be so cowardly. Why don't you just go to Group D and beat GEN?"

"That definitely won't work!" Red-haired JackeyLove declared confidently. "We have to fight the weak, like Vietnam!"

As they were talking, Master Hai moved his hand and pulled out Topsports.

TES was thus placed in Group A, which included the European number one seed RGE.

JackeyLove's eyes lit up. "Awesome!"

Although the European group isn't as top-tier as the North American group, it's still better than the Korean group!
Ming Jing couldn't help but glance at him sideways, "No ambition."

"You've got ambition, huh?" JackeyLove sneered. "How about we give you a T1 spot and send you straight to the top 1?"

"Come on then." Ming Jing was quite shrewd; last year in the group stage, they played against T1 and ended up winning both matches.

As they were talking, Master Hai drew another lot.

Unfortunately, it's not T1.

But it's pretty good too.

Mingjing smiled after reading the fortune slip.

"DK!" Holy Gun couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, "Holy crap, it's a big one right off the bat?"

"What a small world!" Xiao Hu couldn't help but laugh. "This DK is really going to throw up."

Because of Mingjing, the DK team has always been seen as a tragic hero in the eyes of the world, the biggest backdrop and stepping stone for the number one player of the new era.

The two teams are now meeting again in the group stage; it can only be described as fate.

Ming Jing chuckled but remained silent, watching as Master Hai continued the draw, placing T1 into Group C, where C9 was located, and 100T into Group D, where GEN was located.

Ming Jing glanced at the group assignments and raised an eyebrow. "Won't RNG be in a tough spot?"

According to the principle of avoiding teams from the same region in the group stage, RNG can no longer enter either Group A or Group B. This means they will either play against T1 or GEN.

"It doesn't matter." Shi Senming didn't seem to care. "It's just the group stage."

In the third round of the draw, Master Hai acted swiftly as always, drawing a G2 with a simple flick of his wrist.

Due to the principle of avoidance, G2 was moved down to Group B, becoming EDG's opponent.

Immediately afterwards, she stretched out her hand and sent a GAM to Group A.

"Wow, wow!" JackeyLove exclaimed in surprise when he saw the sign. "It really is Vietnam!"

After these two signings, Group A will truly be the BabyBus group.

With RGE and GAM, DRX will have to join this group due to the avoidance principle, but the fourth seed is always easier to beat than the first three!
"Tsk tsk, what incredible luck." Ming Jing scoffed. "You guys probably won't make it into the top sixteen, right?"

The elimination of FPX, the second seed last year, in the round of 16 left a deep impression on Mingjing.

"I can't beat him!" Red-haired Yu Wenbo waved his hand. "I'll retire right here in the round of 16!"

This sales pitch is exactly the same as the one used for toothpaste.
Ming Jing didn't think much of it and continued watching the drawing of lots.

Hai Zhangmen drew another lot, placing CFO into Group C, while RNG, who was left last, was placed into Group D, where GEN was.

Next, the four qualifying teams will focus on identifying and addressing any shortcomings.

Firstly, due to the avoidance principle, DRX cannot enter Groups B, C, and D, which contain LCK teams, so they are directly merged into Group A.

JDG also entered Group C for the same reason.

As for the remaining two groups, EG, being a North American team, could not enter Group D, which had 100T, so they were placed in Group B.

FNC had no choice but to join Group D.

The group stage draw results are now finalized.

Group A: RGE, TES, GAM, DRX
Group B: EDG, DK, G2, EG
Group C: C9, T1, CFO, JDG
Group D: GEN, 100T, RNG, FNC
Looking at the draw results, the members of the LPL teams all nodded in satisfaction.

All I can say is that each team met the requirements.

TES was placed in the easiest group, while the aggressive EDG got DK.

Although RNG and JDG both have strong opponents in their group, the other two teams are relatively weak, making their chances of advancing to the next round quite good.

This year, all four teams might make it to the quarterfinals!

(End of this chapter)