She chose the strategy with the most bullet comments.

Su Mu waved his hand and laughed, "It's alright, the international map is still useful. I just looked around and there are many restaurants nearby serving specialties from various countries, including Chinese ones. We can go there ourselves."

“Okay, I’m relieved that you understand Korean. Call us if anything happens.” Liu Keke nodded.

"Okay, is it difficult? Who wants to come with me?" Su Mu asked his teammates with a smile.

Several hands were raised.

"let's go."

Watching Su Mu and the others leave, Liu Keke and the others who remained exchanged glances and smiled helplessly.

Fortunately, Su Mu not only understands English, but also Korean. A cultured and mature college student is indeed different.

……

In mid-September, the temperature in South Korea was a bit low, the sky was dark and the moon was not visible, and unfortunately, the weather changed, with gusts of wind blowing.

"It's a bit chilly..." Yan Hua pressed down on his wind-blown hair.

"Hmph, thank goodness I wore my coat. You're just waiting to freeze, you stinky bastard!"

"It's alright, after all, I have a high level of cold resistance. I don't know who always crawls into my bed in winter and likes to use me as a human hand warmer."

Yi Lian glanced at Deng Jiayu, making no attempt to hide the mocking look in her eyes that seemed to say, "You spoiled young lady, you're so lame."

Deng Jiayu's twin ponytails fluttered backward in the wind as she clenched her small fists and gritted her teeth.

I'm so annoyed, I can't argue with her.

Su Mu looked to his side and saw Bai Wei trembling. Without thinking, he took off his autumn coat and draped it over her shoulders.

"I should have listened to you before we left and not worn a long skirt today."

Bai Wei's eyes softened as she tightened her coat and leaned closer to Su Mu, taking her arm.

It's so heartwarming to have Mumu around; it warms my very soul...

Su Mu's eyebrows curved into a smile, and she unconsciously looked at her phone. "What would you all like to eat? Let's hurry up. There's a Japanese restaurant nearby. The Western and Chinese restaurants are quite far, and... uh..."

"What's wrong, Brother Mu? You seem to want to say something but are hesitant."

"The Chinese restaurant mainly serves noodles... and the name on the business license is actually a foreigner."

"Huh? Foreigners cooking Chinese food... 6, what's their signature dish?"

"Various kinds of beef noodles..."

"Isn't that great? I really like beef noodles. What do you guys think about trying some of my hometown's food abroad?" Deng Jiayu suggested.

Bai Wei didn't care much; her tastes were basically the same as Su Mu's, except for their preference for spicy food.

The other two nodded after a moment's thought, but still sought the opinion of Su Mu, the team leader.

However, to everyone's surprise, Su Mu flatly refused.

"Huh? Why?"

Question marks floated above the heads of all the women, including Bai Wei. However, she realized that the strange tone in Su Mu's voice when he mentioned noodles as the main food was not a misperception.

Su Mu revealed a meaningful expression and said inexplicably, "There are a few things that people who play e-sports can't eat easily. One is beef noodles, another is Xiao Yang Shengjian (pan-fried dumplings), and another is... bananas."

"..."

They didn't quite understand, but judging from his tone, he didn't seem to be joking. For a moment, they were all stunned by Su Mu's words, blinking blankly, not knowing what to say.

“I don’t believe in metaphysics, but… after witnessing certain things happen, and whether it’s a coincidence or not, I’ve started to believe in it wholeheartedly,” Su Mu added.

"What will happen if I eat it?"

"Eating beef noodles and Xiao Yang's pan-fried dumplings will make you lose the game, and eating bananas will make you less intelligent."

Deng Jiayu scratched her head upon hearing this, finding it absurd, yet the tone of the voice made one subconsciously choose to believe it, which was truly strange.

"Then let's not eat beef noodles. Anyway, Brother Mu won't hurt us."

The group made their decision and headed in the direction of the Japanese restaurant. As they passed the restaurant that specialized in beef noodles, they spotted several familiar figures walking in and disappearing.

"Is that someone from the RT team? I think I'm seeing things."

“It’s them. Yuzi’s long ponytail has such obvious highlights,” Yi Lian said.

"That's strange. Didn't they arrive in South Korea an hour earlier than us? Why are they only coming out for dinner now?" Bai Wei wondered.

Su Mu narrowed her eyes. "Who knows? I hope they eat whatever they want, but not beef noodles..."

As the saying goes, it's better to be safe than sorry...

291. The original sin is the food itself.

The incident with the RT person was just a minor episode, and no one took it too seriously.

After their first night in the park, the WLD team got to know their new environment where they would be staying for a while, and began to prepare for the World Championship.

Don't misunderstand, it's not about cramming at the last minute, but there are some things you absolutely need to cram for.

It's very simple, just a version update.

Even at the World Championship, Riot Games still keeps the rules of dynamic, real-time version updates in mind, seemingly intending to see bloodshed.

Want to study the version in advance?

No way!

Apart from staff members who have signed a strict internal agreement, no one else is authorized to log in to the test server.

Even the start date of the competition was scheduled for the day of the version update. What's even more terrifying is that the finals were also held on the day of the version update.

One trip to the World Championship resulted in two version updates.

The 2.15 version will be updated in two weeks before the start of the competition.

Even if the World Championship started on version 2.16, it doesn't mean that participating teams from different countries and regions could ignore it.

Because a new hero is coming.

According to update habits or conventions, Yone and Lillia are already two versions old champions. Given Riot's track record, who would believe they wouldn't release something new?

However, no one expected that Riot Games really didn't introduce anything new.

Version 2.15 is all about balance adjustments; there are no new heroes, not even minor hero reworks or patching.

In version 2.14, all the characters who jumped around a lot got hit by the knife, with Lillia taking the most damage.

It's fair to say that these changes have significantly weakened Lillia in solo lanes; returning to the jungle is now the recommended survival strategy.

If you insist on going against the grain, you must be prepared to be crushed.

Liu Keke was not stubborn at all. Seeing that Lilia had been severely nerfed, she did not hesitate to abandon the entire system built around the single-player Lilia storyline.

Besides, in the LPL Summer Finals BO5 against RT, the opponent had completely figured out what to do with the game.

It's neither reasonable nor ethical to resort to old tricks anymore. You may be familiar with them, but the problem is that your opponent may be even more familiar with them than you are.

This is why many of WLD's strategies are only used a maximum of three times before they are never won again.

Version changes are one issue, but being studied by others is another.

"Is Riot Games planning to release a new champion in patch 2.16?"

"It's not impossible."

"That's a bit of a headache."

"It's alright, with Xiao Mu here. I think other teams would have a bigger headache in this situation than we would," Xu Jing smiled.

"Let's read the announcement first," Liu Keke shook her head.

Su Mu pondered for a moment, shaking off the many thoughts in his mind.

She couldn't say for sure whether there would be new heroes in version 2.16, and even if there were, she didn't know exactly how many or who they would be.

Firstly, the update order is different from the previous version, and the hero skill values ​​are also different.

Game companies are free.

In short, it's always good to prepare some 2.15 items as a precaution.

The day after the announcement, a more detailed schedule and format for the competition were also released.

The S1 tournament format is divided into four stages.

In the first stage, the group stage will be a double round-robin with BO1 format. The 16 teams will be drawn into four groups: A, B, C, and D. The four major regions will adhere to the principle of avoiding clashes within the same region, so they will not run into each other in the first or second stage.

For example, if WLD is placed in Group A, then even if they advance, they will only play against teams that advanced from Groups A and B before the semifinals. RT, on the other hand, will have to be drawn into Group C or D in the first stage of the draw to avoid running into them in the next round.

In the BO1 double round-robin stage, the elimination rate for each group is 50%. The two teams with more wins advance to the next stage, which means that half of the 16 teams will be eliminated in the first round.

That's incredibly cruel.

The second stage is the quarterfinals, which will be a best-of-three (BO3) tournament, eliminating half of the teams.

The third stage semifinals will begin with best-of-five (BO5) matches, with the two winning teams advancing to the final.

The competition format is very simple; you can understand it with just a few glances.

From Su Mu's perspective, the tournament format set by the company was undoubtedly immature. However, from the perspective of holding the tournament for the first time, the simple and direct format reduced the possibility of errors and unreasonableness.

It's less like the finals of the global championship and more like an MSI-level event.

Well, we can't judge based on our past lives' perspectives; when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Regardless, Riot Games' promotional efforts and costs for Season 1 were in no way inferior to those for Season 8 and beyond.

The higher the level of attention, the more prestigious the championship.

Over the next two weeks, most of the teams that arrived in Seoul, except for a very few who were active in the media, stayed home to prepare for the competition.

Liu Keke tried to arrange scrims with teams from other regions, and the European and American teams were all happy to play scrims. Only the two LCK teams refused without explanation, and their tone of refusal was not friendly at all.

Hearing Xiaoqi's translation, the hot-blooded Deng Jiayu and the others were furious.

Byd Korean girls, who do you look down on?

If Su Mu hadn't calmly calmed the indignant group and given them a confident guarantee, they probably would have posted the South Korean coaching staff's message, without any embellishment, on domestic and even international social media platforms.

But precisely because they were looked down upon, everyone voluntarily increased their daily training volume. Whenever they had time to train, they would never do anything meaningless.

Training matches are mostly for assessment; everyone knows that, and they're not meant to be treated like official matches.

They symbolically threw a few smokescreens at the European and American teams, and in return, they received some superficial tactics and habits from the other side, the meaning of which was unclear.

At first glance, the game didn't seem much different from their regular season, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be almost entirely a facade.

Of course, everyone is the same.

Unable to extract anything useful, all they could do was mutter under their breath, "That old fox is really cunning."

OIP, an optimistic LEC team known for its entertaining content, posted their 71% win rate from 14 scrims against WLD on the Little Bluebird community forum.

Goodness, foreign players are alright; they all know that privately arranged training matches are mostly just for fun.

Meanwhile, domestic online trolls and haters, smelling the scent, came over.

"How can they compete in the World Championship when they lost so badly in training matches?" There are countless sarcastic comments from people who said they should have swum back from the Han River in South Korea.

Unfortunately, no matter how much trouble these people cause, the WLD members are unaware of it and have no reason to care.

Only Su Mu, who habitually surfs during his evening rest, could catch a glimpse of it and simply laugh it off.

Most normal netizens watching the game don't care whether the controversy is caused by paid trolls or haters; they basically praise when the game wins and criticize when it loses, showing their fickle nature.

However, he is a fence-sitter whom no one can condemn.

Only a fanatical person would treat the players and teams like their parents or family, and not tolerate any criticism from outsiders.

That's just how esports is; being bad is the original sin, and playing poorly will inevitably draw condemnation from netizens.

292. Group stage begins

"Elsa, can I ask you something?"

On the eve of the start of the group stage, Su Mu sent out this message.

"I didn't expect Su to contact me at this time. Go ahead and tell me, as long as it doesn't involve classified information, I will answer truthfully."

"It shouldn't be considered a secret, so why was South Korea chosen as the venue for the first S1?"

"The reason is simple and straightforward... because they gave too much, you understand?"