League: I really didn't tank!

Chapter 106, the semi-finals begin!

The two quickly arrived at a nearby villa-style hot pot restaurant. The prices there were relatively high, but it wasn't a big deal for Chen Dongqing at the moment.

The two chatted as they prepared the dishes.

"You guys have a competition the day after tomorrow, right?" Lin Yuanhua asked. "Are you confident?"

"Who can say for sure when it comes to winning or losing?" Chen Dongqing laughed. "But if you're talking about confidence, I think I still have it."

"You can't say that," Lin Yuanhua laughed. "You said you're aiming to win the world championship. If you don't even have confidence in winning domestically, what's the point of talking about the world championship?"

"Alright then, I was worried you'd think I was too arrogant, but I didn't expect you to be so supportive of my confidence." Chen Dongqing said cheerfully, "Then I'll be honest, whether it's Snake or RNG, I'll crush them!"

This is what he truly meant.

It's been over a month since he left RNG, and he's been grinding for points non-stop. Now his team fight ability has officially reached 90 points.

Now, he is a well-rounded warrior with 90 points in all attributes and 95 points in understanding the current meta. He is confident that he is the strongest top laner in the LPL!

"That's more like you," Lin Yuanhua said with a smile after hearing the boy's confident words. "The most important thing for a person is to find their own world. I'm glad you've found this path that allows you to shine."

The dim, warm light from the Western-style chandelier bathed Lin Yuanhua's face, creating a striking contrast between light and shadow on her otherwise gentle features, and adding a touch of seriousness to her words: "I'll be here to watch the competition the day after tomorrow. I hope you can bring your brilliance to a bigger stage!"

Chen Dongqing was slightly touched, raised his Coca-Cola, and said, "Definitely!"

There were no upsets in the playoffs.

Even LGD, who finished fourth in Group A, lost to VG without any suspense and were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

Last year's summer split champions, after making strong signings during the transfer period, have become a team on the verge of the playoffs. Perhaps LGD needs to seriously consider the problems within their team.

Anyway, no matter what, LGD fans are drooling over Chen Dongqing. They still don't understand why they let Chen Dongqing go and brought in Marin.

Of course, this is all based on the outcome. When Chen Dongqing left, no one tried to stop him.

On April 15th, after finishing their morning free ranked matches, the QG players first sat around the dining table and enjoyed a sumptuous lunch prepared by the cook. Then, they sat down in front of the big screen on time to watch today's quarterfinals.

Both quarterfinal matches in the upper and lower brackets will be held this afternoon.

The current playoffs are using version 6.6, which is three versions older than the 6.3 version that was just updated after the Lunar New Year.

These three versions have included numerous updates.

First up is another new champion, Aurelion Sol, the Star Forger. This champion has some roaming attributes, and Doinb tried practicing him, but ultimately didn't achieve any significant results.

He concluded that the hero relied on the defense.

Of course, Chen Dongqing just smiled without saying anything. He knew how popular this hero would become in the future; it was just not the right time yet.

There have also been changes to the top lane. Gangplank has been changed to the three-barrel version, a major nerf that has caused his professional pick rate to plummet.

With the buffs to Ekko's passive and E skill, this Zaunite has now become a popular top lane pick.

Then came the bot lane changes. Kog'Maw, who was soaring in patch 6.3, had his base attack speed nerfed in patch 6.4. In patch 6.5, the attack speed bonus from W was moved back to Q, but the base attack speed wasn't restored. Now, Kog'Maw's win rate has plummeted.

Sivir's W has been changed. If W bounce crits the primary target, the attack will also crit on the bounce.

This can be considered an enhancement to late-game damage output, which has made Sivir an instant favorite in professional play.

That's about it. Although there were many changes, they didn't have a significant impact on the competition.

First up is a match where VG, having defeated LGD to advance, will face off against WE, who have been waiting for a long time.

As it turns out, WE 2.0 is really strong now, easily defeating VG 3-1 and advancing to the semifinals!

At 3 o'clock, another semi-final match kicked off, but the outcome was as expected: RNG swept Snake 3-0.

The four teams that will advance to the finals of the 2016 Spring Season have now been determined.

Simply put, it's QWER.

QG, WE, EDG, RNG.

Next, Q will face R in the first semi-final match, while W and E will face off in the second.

"It's not unexpected, it's RNG after all," Coach Banbazi said. "But fortunately, we are well-prepared. Go and prepare well, we have a scrim match soon, and today's opponent is quite strong."

"That's a bit intense?" Xiangguo sensed a challenge: "Who's who? Who's who?"

The coach said sternly, "Rox Tiger!"

"Really?" Chen Dongqing couldn't help but raise his voice, "It's that hard?"

Rox Tigers, formerly Koo, the runner-up in the S5 World Championship, have become even stronger this year after acquiring the talented jungler Peanut. They now have a strong chance of winning the LCK title.

"There's nothing I can do." Banbazi shook his head. "Now that it's the semifinals, all the other teams are on break, and there aren't many teams to schedule scrims with, so I can only schedule scrims with the Korean team, who are also still preparing for the tournament."

"Then hurry up, hurry up!" Xiangguo rubbed his hands excitedly. "I've always heard that Peanut from Rox is incredibly strong, but I've never had a chance to play against him. Let's give it a try!"

"." Chen Dongqing didn't speak; he simply returned to his computer quickly.

During his previous livestream, he uninstalled the Korean server client.

He needs to get back down quickly.

Soon, the afternoon of training matches was over.

The QG players were increasingly surprised as the game progressed.

As expected of an LCK champion team, their strength is truly impressive.

It's worth noting that QG has a very high win rate in scrims; when scrimming against LPL teams, their win rate can even reach 80%.

But against ROX, they have to play very carefully, and even so, their win rate is only about 50%!

"Damn, they're really tough!" Even Xiangguo had to abandon his gaming mindset and exclaimed, "Their jungler is playing too aggressively!"

Peanut's jungle style is all about being aggressive. As long as you have even the slightest advantage, he will definitely chase you down in the jungle!

Most importantly, the entire ROX team moves together extremely quickly. Once a conflict breaks out in the jungle, the laners will unconditionally drop their minions and rush to support, with everything revolving around the jungler!

Under such terrifying support, Xiangguo was suffering terribly; he was truly struggling to cope.

Even in the half of the matches that QG won, it was mainly due to the advantage they gained online.

"That's really impressive." Chen Dongqing nodded seriously. "Smeb is going all out against me in terms of skill, it's putting a lot of pressure on me."

In these few scrimmages, the top laners on both sides kept getting solo kills on each other, and often even if you got a kill, it didn't matter because the other side could come back to kill you in the next wave. They were fighting fiercely.

But who is Smeb? He was widely recognized as the top laner with the strongest individual skills last year. The fact that Chen Dongqing could fight him so fiercely and even gain the upper hand in many situations proves Chen Dongqing's current strength.

As it turns out, QG's top and bottom lanes are absolutely world-class in terms of laning ability, and even ROX couldn't gain an advantage.

However, as an LCK team with a longer history of teamwork, ROX's overall synergy is superior.

"Next game, let's try picking Nautilus!" Doinb said. "After pushing the lane, go help in the jungle and see if we can contain Peanut!"

Banbazi nodded. He was happy to implement the solutions his teammates came up with themselves, since this was a training match and the best opportunity to try and fail was right there.

He sent another training match request to ROX, and the other side was obviously happy to play against QG, so they accepted.

Immediately afterwards, another round of best-of-three (BO3) matches began.

4 month 17 day.

In mid-April, the highest temperature in Shanghai had already reached 22 degrees Celsius, and pedestrians on the street were already wearing spring clothes.

As Chen Dongqing stepped off the bus in his spring team uniform, he was immediately greeted by enthusiastic cheers.

Many fans were waiting in the parking lot to greet the QG players.

As the QG members waved and walked into the arena, Linko asked Chen Dongqing, "Are you feeling any pressure playing in the playoffs for the first time?"

"There's a bit of pressure," Chen Dongqing nodded honestly, "but this pressure doesn't affect me much."

As a time traveler, Chen Dongqing knew that without his interference, RNG would have been the champion of this year's Spring Split.

Chen Dongqing's pressure also stems from this; theoretically, they are competing against the champion.

But if you insist on asking whether RNG's strength puts any pressure on him, the answer is actually no.

RNG is no match for them right now.

The QG players took out their peripherals and handed them to the staff to check for any violations, then sat down on the sofa in the lounge.

"It's okay, don't be stressed," Xiangguo said casually. "RNG, we're not going to just play casually, are we? Let's go for it!"

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm really not affected at all," Chen Dongqing quickly explained, then added, "Why don't you go ask Liu Qingsong what kind of pressure he's under? It's his first time too."

Liu Qingsong had a cold and stern expression, exuding the persona of an ice-cold handsome guy. He snorted and said, "What pressure could I possibly feel? RNG's bot lane is so weak, we can beat them easily."

Chen Dongqing was speechless: "You're the most arrogant one."

He was still in a confident phase, but Liu Qingsong simply didn't treat the other party like a human being.

After chatting for a while, the staff quickly returned the keyboard and mouse that had been inspected and informed them that they were ready to go on stage.

Upon hearing this, Chen Dongqing's heart seemed to beat a little faster. He followed the group and walked quickly toward the stage.

As the two contestants stepped onto the stage, a burst of excited cheers quickly erupted from the audience, filling the ears of all ten contestants!

In the playoffs, it's not just the teams that get upgraded, but also the enthusiasm of the audience!

Today's venue is still the same as the regular season games, and it seems no different from usual.

Chen Dongqing glanced down at the audience and saw Lin Yuanhua standing up and waving at him.

Chen Dongqing smiled and waved.

That is actually a little different.

He sat back down, took a couple of deep breaths, and calmed his thoughts.

All the hard work of the entire spring season was reduced to the final two best-of-five series in the playoffs.

Chen Dongqing knew that they could not afford to lose this battle!

I forgot to change the chapter titles when I merged the two chapters yesterday, and I accidentally merged chapter 102.

But the most annoying thing is that you can't change the chapter name on Qidian.

But I felt bad seeing that the chapter title was missing one chapter, so I decided to release another 105 chapters to forcefully bring it back. Is that a good idea?

(End of this chapter)