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

Chapter 340 Accident
At this moment, the day's matches have all come to an end, and countless members of the Anti-Japanese War Bar are having a heated discussion about the six matches played today.

[Wasn't it supposed to be that all four teams would advance? Why is there so much pressure all of a sudden?]

[JD.com is in trouble, there's nothing we can do. As for Top Esports, I have no idea what they're doing, they can't even beat a fourth seed.]

[That's normal. Didn't you see EDG sweating buckets even playing against the third seed? There's something to say about the LCK this year.]

[Where's the sweat on his brow? I feel like this is pure torture.]

[Trying to salvage the situation by surrounding EDG, huh? What does EDG's performance have to do with TES losing to DRX?]

[Top Esports' performance today really reminded me of LNG's performance last year. Will they also end up in the round of 16?]

[What the hell? Top Esports will only make it to the top 16? They can't possibly lose to Vietnam, can they?]

Mingjing looked at the dazzling array of posts in front of him and happily continued to refresh the page. Soon he saw the scoring post for the competition.

Today's rating post didn't get as much attention as usual, since it was only a best-of-one match, but the replies still exceeded a thousand.

Mingjing clicked in and sorted by popularity, then scrolled down to see his own post!

The second floor is where Mingjing posted his own ratings.

【God among gods! 】

[Fly! You'll always be my prize!]

With Fei Shen in the mid lane, it's so reassuring; I don't know how we could possibly lose.

[Truly, a complete liability!]

He really wanted to win.

Regarding Mingjing's performance, the forum members had nothing to say but that it was impeccable.

LPL viewers are eagerly anticipating the moment when Mingjing wins his third championship and officially becomes the greatest player in history.

Then, scroll down again and you'll see Flandre's floor.

Today, Flandre had both merits and demerits, and his performance in terms of visuals was outstanding, resulting in an exceptionally high number of comments for him.

However, the forum members didn't seem to have much ill will towards him, after all, Flandre did achieve redemption, and his reputation in the forum was quite good.

So the fans were mostly just trying to make Flandre more rational and understand who the real boss and leader are in the team.

A terrible top laner can feed, so what if he feeds? The key to victory is letting your two carries have a comfortable game!

Mingjing glanced at Saint Gun Bro, but didn't show him the screen on his phone.

When it comes to verbally waking up players, Abu is the real expert.

When Abu returned from the match, he was playing Flandre and dealing massive damage for a long time, but Mingjing was there for an interview and didn't see it in person.

It's a bit of a pity.

Mingjing continued scrolling down and saw the Showmaker floor again.

[Korean mid laners are really weird these days. A classic case of them picking Twisted Fate and then getting wrecked by Flying Yasuo, exactly like last year's Dafei. Are they all this obsessed with Twisted Fate?]

That's called confidence, don't you understand?

[Show God has delivered another victory to LPL, truly magnificent!]

LPL desperately needs a show-off.

[If all else fails, come to the LPL next year! Top Esports needs you!]

I feel like I've developed a real fondness for criticizing Xiu Shen. I was originally going to come and yell at him for going offline, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

[Classic satire that evokes emotion]

Since S10, Showmaker has been LPL's number one rival. Most importantly, he has never won against him, personally handing LPL two World Championships and one MSI title.
Over time, Showmaker naturally became more handsome in the eyes of LPL viewers.

Ming Jing smiled as he read the comments, then exited the rating thread.

At this moment, Abu also spoke up from the front.

"After today's match, our first round of group stage matches will be over."

Abu said, "Our second round match is in five days. In the next few days, the brothers should stay in the hotel and train hard."

"I think the biggest challenge for us on the road to winning the championship is epidemic prevention. Brothers, please be careful."

Regarding safety issues, EDG's management always emphasizes them repeatedly, to the point that the players are tired of hearing it.

Of course, it's always good to be cautious in this regard.

It's nothing more than restrictions on freedom of travel and food; as long as we win the final championship, it will all be worth it.

Soon, everyone returned to the hotel, and after a quick bite to eat, they resumed their training.

As the group stage and scrims progress, EDG's understanding of the current version is gradually deepening, and the general priority of heroes in the current version has become clear.

Before the major teams start revealing their trump cards, what EDG needs to do is first master all these meta heroes!

The heaviest task belongs to JieJie, after all, the new jungle champions in the current version, such as Sejuani and Graves, are quite challenging.

Secondly, there's Flandre. It's been three days since the group stage started, and the total ban/pick rate for Aatrox is still 100%. Flandre's proficiency with Aatrox is not yet considered mastery. He needs to master Aatrox before the second round begins.

Before we knew it, it was October 11th, the fourth and final day of the first round of the group stage.

With EDG already out of contention and only one match remaining in the China-Korea rivalry, today's game didn't garner much attention; viewers were mostly just curious about the outcome.

Mingjing's main concern is the condition of his former teammates at JD Gaming.

JDG will face CFO today.

Before the match started, Ming Jing even sent a WeChat message to inquire about his condition.

But the result was not good.

Recurring COVID-19 symptoms, such as fever lasting for a week, are considered normal.

The JDG players are still not overheated; they've only regained some clarity and are able to participate in light scrimmages, but recovering their economic form is a pipe dream.

This made Ming Jing sigh inwardly, feeling powerless to do anything about it.

Under the distorted competition model of League of Legends, the efforts of professional players throughout the year need to be proven in the final World Championship.

It would be such a pity if someone were eliminated early in this competition because of this factor.

This competition, once again, failed to produce a miracle.

As the fourth seed of the LPL, JDG was not much stronger than CFO, the wildcard first seed, in terms of niche. Even in a normal match, there was a considerable possibility of an upset, not to mention the off-field influence.

The two sides fought fiercely for as long as forty minutes, but the later the game went, the worse the JDG players' performance became.

In the end, JDG's team fight positioning, vision control, and mechanics all became drastically flawed, leaving them riddled with weaknesses.

As expected, JDG lost the match again, ending their first round of the group stage with a dismal 0-3 record.

At this point, countless LPL viewers couldn't help but feel heavy-hearted. They could completely understand JDG's loss; as the fourth seed, they didn't bear much responsibility to begin with, and now, having suffered such a misfortune, there wouldn't be much criticism.

However, many viewers still drew parallels to JDG's dire situation.

JDG was the first team to be diagnosed. Will there be a second or third one?
What should we do if symptoms appear in the quarterfinals, semifinals, or even the finals when there is no room for error?

There was no time to think further; the game continued.

Following JDG is the second seed, TES, who will face the European first seed, RGE, today.

In terms of team positioning, the LPL's second seed is positioned almost the same as the European first seed. After all, Europe's performance in recent years has not been bad, and the top teams still have some prestige.

As LPL viewers, we all naturally hope that TES can win the game.

After all, TES has already lost to DRX once. If they lose to RGE as well, they will end the first round with a score of 1-2, which would be really unacceptable.

But as I said before, Top Esports never disappoints when it comes to being disappointing.

At the start of the match, everything went smoothly, and the two sides engaged in a small team fight around the river crab at the four-minute mark.

JackeyLove's Varus controlled the bottom lane with absolute lane control. He arrived first and unleashed a barrage of Lethal Tempo Varus attacks relentlessly, helping his team win a small team fight.

With the advantage they gained, TES secured another dragon, putting them in a very favorable position.

But soon, the big one arrived.

At the eight-minute mark, RGE's Rakan, seeing the jungler in position, immediately used his W to lift him up.

To be honest, even the RGE players themselves didn't expect that W would hit, since Varus has two summons, and if all else fails, it's easy to just use Flash.
However, JackeyLove's reaction was noticeably slow. At the same time that Rakan initiated with his W, Varus also auto-attacked a minion, causing him to be momentarily slowed down and unable to use Flash. As a result, he was directly knocked away by Rakan's W!

It wasn't until Varus was airborne that JackeyLove finally unleashed his first skill—Purify.

The purification was used to remove the knockback effect.

Ming Jing was stunned by what he saw.

What is this operation?
Being lifted into the air like that, there's no way they could survive.

Even the jungler didn't need to be used. RGE's Kalista jumped in and stacked spears with normal attacks. After Varus used Flash to create distance, she followed up with Flash and used AQE to easily finish him off!

Such low-level scenes were not uncommon in the following games. 369's Gnar also frequently got lost in this game, either being blocked and tower-dived by the mid and jungle in the top lane, or being ambushed while supporting the dragon team fight, resulting in him being killed.

Twenty minutes in, RGE made another big move, with ALLIN killing TES's mid and jungle in the top lane, and then immediately taking the dragon.

Seeing that RGE was in poor form, TES decided to engage in a 3v5 team fight.

The team fight took another turn when JackeyLove's Varus drew his bow and fired a fully charged arrow with WQ, killing both the jungler and Baron Nashor at the same time!

"TES JackeyLove has killed RGE Malrang!"

"The Red Army has captured Baron Nash!"

The game situation changed dramatically in an instant. Top Esports' top and support players naturally pressed their advantage and chased down the four remaining RGE players who were low on health!

The final result was quite ideal. Although TES's top and jungle players were killed during the chase, JackeyLove still managed to clean up the mess and wipe out the entire RGE team.

From a two-for-zero exchange to a four-for-five exchange and the giant dragon, it was an epic comeback.

Once you get to this point, the game immediately changes its feel.

Thanks to JackeyLove's dragon spawn, TES took the initiative, not only erasing their economic disadvantage but also overtaking him in the subsequent push.

The two sides fought for 35 minutes, when TES scored a 3-for-0 team fight on RGE's mid-lane high ground, and then pushed to end the game, winning a crucial point that could determine their qualification spot!
Upon seeing this, Ming Jing immediately looked down and clicked on the anti-racism forum.

At this point, we have to talk about the resistance.

As expected, the forum was incredibly lively after this highly dramatic match.

Bingbing turned the tide and her greatness needs no further explanation!

[They rescued the team from dire straits, but don't ask why they were in such a predicament.]

[Top Esports' bots are really hilarious. They actually think they can hold their own against those weak Western teams?]

It doesn't matter, as long as we win.

After watching this match, the audience was speechless.

This kind of comeback, achieved by the AD carry stealing Baron, is really hard to explain; it's not a glorious victory.

Many people, however, are more focused on the final match of the first round between China and South Korea.

From the seeding order, this match is undoubtedly the one with the lowest chance of winning, after all, as the third seed of LPL, RNG has to face the first seed of LCK, GEN.

Even if we lose this game, it's within the expectations of the forum members.

But it was precisely under these circumstances that RNG rose to prominence.

In this tough match, RNG's strategy was incredibly clear, sticking to their most effective late-game teamfight composition.

However, they did not give an inch in the early game, and they focused on attacking GEN's top laner Doran's weakness. In less than four minutes, the mid, jungle and support coordinated to gank the top lane!
In this meta where everyone is focused on securing the Dragon Soul, it's rare to see a support roam to the top lane in just over three minutes; this is something we only see in RNG's matches.

While this strategy might cause RNG to lose control of the dragon, it also gives them the ability to push towers and control the Rift Herald.

In RNG's philosophy, losing the dragon is not terrible. As long as it can bring in gold and allow the carry to quickly develop to the point where they have all the necessary items, it is worth it!
This strategy is particularly effective against teams like GEN that rely on slow, defensive maneuvering.

Because GEN's offensive rhythm was completely insufficient to break through RNG's defense.

As expected, the game went into the late game, but RNG's four-core lineup of Jax, Graves, Lissandra, and Aphelios became stronger and stronger as the game progressed. Even though GEN managed to control the Earth Dragon Soul, it was useless, and they still couldn't gain any advantage in team fights!

In the final 42 minutes of the Baron Soul team fight, Ming perfectly initiated the team fight with E-Flash-R, and with the help of his team, he first eliminated Doran's Aatrox. Then, relying on the numerical advantage, he completed a crushing team fight and pushed to the end, winning this crucial point!
It can only be said that LPL is a bit strange. When you have high hopes for it, it usually makes a big mistake, but when you don't have any expectations, it usually produces unexpected results.

"Then let's congratulate RNG!" Miller shouted excitedly from the commentary booth, "They've secured this crucial point, ending the first round with a 3-0 score!"

At this moment, within the Anti-Japanese War forum, countless veteran members naturally couldn't resist singing and dancing.

Everyone says RNG is weak in international competitions, but RNG's performance this year is anything but weak!

They won MSI and also defeated the LCK's number one seed in the group stage!
If this continues, what will become of us?

Countless netizens have even started to rationally analyze and discuss the possibility of RNG and EDG meeting in the S-series finals, and each one of them is more outrageous than the last.

Amidst the jubilation, three days of rest passed quickly, and the second round of the group stage soon began.

In the second round, the format changed; it was no longer a four-group free-for-all, but rather a separate competition for each group.

The first group to play was Group D, where RNG was located.

Countless viewers are full of confidence for this match.

RNG is a 3-0 team after all. Even if they had a bad day today, they should still be able to advance as the second-place team in the group.

However, on the same day, viewers around the world received some truly terrible news through RNG's official Weibo account:

After a second round of testing, all five starting players of RNG, along with coach Tabe, assistant coach xiaobai, manager Ash, team leader Shadow, and others, tested positive. Today's match will be held entirely in the hotel's isolation rooms.

(End of this chapter)