Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 196 Transformation, the Vanity Fades Away

The sudden news of the Asian Games made the RNG team, whose group stage was not yet over, feel the current competition was rather dull.

The MSI is already less prestigious than the World Championship, and now with the Asian Games added, it's practically a double-edged sword for most people.

It is a pity that it is tasteless.

FNC and RNG have secured their places in the group stage, while Flash Wolves and the Vietnamese team in the same group are relegated to second place. Meanwhile, the situation on the other side is similar, with LCK's SKT undeniably in first place, just like RNG.

The second place is North America, which also only lost to SKT once.

The group stage went by quickly, and it's clear that since RNG won the World Championship in S7, LPL teams have truly undergone a complete transformation in their style.

The old impression of "fierce in civil war, but utterly defeated in foreign war" no longer exists.

The second day had three matches, and the third day had two matches. This MSI was divided into groups A and B, and the matches were played in pairs in a round-robin format, for a total of six matches.

RNG qualified with the highest score of 6 points.

On the other side, Fnc advanced with 3 points.

Flash Wolves got one point, Vietnam got zero points; the difference in strength between these two teams was already evident compared to other teams.

I'm treating this trip to MSI like a European vacation; even if we lose, I won't be too upset.

After the group stage, four teams have advanced: Team Liquid (TL), Fnatic (FNC), RNG (RNG), and SKT (SKT).

The semifinals will feature a match between the top two teams from Groups A and B: RNG vs. Team Liquid, and FNC vs. SKT.

At this point, LPL has practically secured a spot in the finals. Although Team Liquid is not weak this season, boasting top laner Impact and Doublelift, their mid and support players are simply terrible.

In the historical ranking of the worst mid laner at the S8 MSI, Pobelter was originally supposed to be "Tiger Master," but Pobelter unexpectedly won the spot.

P, a veteran player, was the MVP of the S8 LCS finals, but his performance at the S8 MSI was utterly terrible.

Tiger Master may be a bit of a slacker, but at least he doesn't cause trouble and can occasionally support his teammates.

Pobelter not only got pressured online, but also lost his ability to provide support. His gameplay was "Kai-like," and his awareness was "clueless," making him a complete "low-spec Xiaohu" (the high-spec version is BDD).

I feel sorry for the senior brother; he's experienced what it's like to be the "director of an orphanage" this year.

As for Ollen in the bottom lane, he shattered the audience's perception of just how bad a support player could be.

I feel sorry for the senior brother again. The mid lane was already a weak point, and he wanted to gain an advantage in the bottom lane, but he was dragged down by this support.

The title of "world's worst clam" ollen has basically been confirmed. Not only has he been banned from the online game, but elderly people have also complained that he is driving a "poisonous car" and leading the TL team to a complete wipeout.

Although he had two moments of "last gasp" performance, most of the time, he and his senior brother were basically "outwardly united but inwardly estranged," and he would just give away kills.

In this version, a poor performance from the mid and support players is an almost unavoidable weakness, making them easy targets for the opposing team.

After the match schedule was announced, it caused a sensation on forums both at home and abroad. In the Backkick forum, all the coaches started to study the final opponents. Although FNC was not weak, it was not in the same league as Skt.

Countless fans of RNG offered advice and strategies to help RNG find a breakthrough point for SKT.

As it turns out, even at MSI, a major international tournament, RNG, despite their unparalleled strength, can still suffer an upset.

TL's jungler Xmithie is one of the few older players in the league, and even Clearlove (001) is a junior in front of him.

Relying on his strong mentality, 27-year-old Xmithie withstood the pressure and stole two Baron Nashors from RNG.

Ultimately, relying on the advantage he established by constantly summoning his teammates to control the dragon, he secured the Elder Dragon and the third Baron in 45 minutes, achieving one of the most outstanding results in his professional career.

"Pity"

On the LCS English broadcast, several commentators watched RNG's team, who had a huge early-game advantage, turn the tide and sighed.

Anyone with eyes can see that RNG had an 8000 gold lead in the early game and had a very good chance of winning. The commentator MaoMao, who is known for his support of RNG, bluntly stated this.

"RNG played exceptionally well in all four lanes during the early and mid-game, extending their economic lead to around 8000 gold at one point. However, after losing the first Baron, the two rookie top and jungle players seemed a bit lost and couldn't find their rhythm."

"Later on, thanks to DaMu's fully equipped Jax, even Uzi's playstyle was affected when he was targeted. It's clear that this rookie jungler from RNG lost his decision-making ability once he started to fall behind, and was simply being pushed around aimlessly."

"A vampire can only use his ultimate on the support in a team fight, leaving RNG without a major magic carry. When Impact was taking down Uzi, he turned into a blood pool and couldn't share any pressure. My god, especially this play, when the others came down to steal the dragon, he turned into a blood pool. Is this a joke? Shit!"

Commentators in North America never indulge the players; their culture also emphasizes freedom of speech.

If you play well, we'll praise you; if you play poorly, we'll criticize you mercilessly.

They even dared to attack the president on Twitter.

Most importantly, none of these commentators had any sense of team spirit. Although Team Liquid (TL) won the first game for North America, these commentators showed no sign of happiness.

The game was dragged into the late game by a series of dragon steals, and the players also made a series of bad plays, which ruined RNG's great early game situation.

"However, judging from the first game, TL doesn't seem to be in good form either."

Another commentator also provided an analysis.

"P God, you're really something else. Your performance is consistently terrible. I really don't know why TL keeps this piece of trash in the team. Is it just to make the other good players stand out?"

"Doublelift's performance was stable, but the mid laner and support players didn't seem to improve at all during MSI. Impact was also playing the same old scaling late-game top laner. If they weren't facing two rookie players from RNG, the outcome of this game would have been very different."

"You might not have noticed, but this player named Tian, ​​playing Jarvan IV in the early game, kept ganking the top lane Vladimir, trying to get him to create an advantage. But instead, Impact, without jungle support, ended up out-farming Mole by more than ten CS."

As for the LPL region, the three LPL commentators did not explicitly address this issue, only stating that TL was lucky in this match, rather than RNG's two rookies performing poorly.

But just look at the irritable guys in the bullet comments and on the forums and you'll see what's going on.

RNG's loss in this game was largely due to the mistakes of their top and jungle players. Even though RNG finally managed to use their long-unused macro strategy, they were still overwhelmed by wave after wave of resource losses.

Simply put, in terms of individual performance, he was performing very well in the group stage a few days ago and was once touted by esports media as RNG's successor in the top and jungle positions and the next generation of leaders for RNG. However, he suddenly faltered today and his performance has declined significantly.

A shift in mindset, the pressure of the Asian Games, a lack of emphasis on MSI, and overconfidence during the group stage.
The problems from all sides left the RNG members, including Xiaoming, somewhat sleepwalking.

Human psychology is strange. Before winning the World Championship, the desire for the MSI title is immense, like a button that, once undone, is hard to button back up. "Damn it, this game... I was careless before the match started. I was a level ahead of him, and he still managed to smite me."

"It was mine. I didn't play my part well later on; instead, I kept dragging the team down."

During the break between games, as soon as Chris returned to the locker room, before he could even speak, the two newcomers quickly said something.

Seeing the two people looking ashamed, Chris stopped himself from speaking, swallowed hard, and then said...
"Let's bring on Junze and Xiangguo next."

The two, eager to fight, didn't hold back and simply nodded to indicate that they understood.

The second match started quickly, and RNG took the blue side, which they are most proficient in this season, and brought out the championship lineup from last season, which drew cheers from the fans in the audience.

The scene that LPL fans imagined—a crushing victory for the blue side—did not materialize.

On the contrary, this game was exceptionally difficult from the very beginning.

With TL on the red side having red as their counter pick, TL initially held an advantage. However, their aggressive play quickly allowed Xiangguo to find an opportunity to gank and kill P in the mid lane three times in a row, opening up the game for them.

This game was even more dangerous than the last one, with TL gaining a 4000-point advantage in the early stages.

The fact that TL controlled two dragons in a row seems to foreshadow the same outcome as the previous game.

Fortunately, Li Luo picked Kai'Sa on the blue side this game, a hero who can step up and take over the game in the mid-to-late game.

RNG once again employed their signature four-protect-one strategy, successfully disrupting TL's mid-game offensive rhythm and forcibly dragging the game out of play.

Once both carries had completed their equipment and reached full build, RNG successfully showcased LPL's signature late-game teamfight style in a teamfight around Baron Nashor, securing victory.

A narrow victory.

This is the most difficult BO5 since Season 8.

This situation even exceeded many people's expectations, with some gamblers directly launching verbal attacks against RNG on online forums.

Before the match, the odds were set at 1.1 for RNG to win and 1.9 for TL.

After RNG managed to tie the score 1-1 in two hard-fought games, some fans who had blindly hoped for RNG calmed down considerably.

The viewing atmosphere in the LPL has also shifted from looking down on other teams and believing that their own LPL teams are invincible to a more rational approach.

Having lost only the first game of a best-of-five series, the region, which is recognized worldwide as the number one, seems to have lost its divine status.

Fans can accept this result, but they are angry at their lack of competitiveness.

However, some haters of other teams took the opportunity to stir up a wave of "TL defeats Royal Club, winning 2-0 decisively against RNG".

They lost just one game, and both newcomers were stripped of their citizenship. Xiao Dongbei was accused of fixing matches to swindle money.

Xiaotian had a conflict with the mid and bottom laners, and refused to help them no matter what. He even fabricated a rumor that several people in the RNG rest room got into a fight, and that Xiaotian was taken away in an ambulance. This was a rumor that anyone with eyes could see through.

Unfortunately, the trolls were interrupted before they could even get into their climax.

Letme and Xiangguo hadn't adjusted their mindset when they first came on stage, but after one game, in the third game, RNG, on the red side, finally woke up.

They used the same strategy they frequently employed during the Spring Split: Junze would withstand pressure in the top lane, while Xiaohu and Xiangguo would coordinate to gank the bottom lane. Xiaohu even picked his championship-winning champion, Syndra, and decisively killed P's Ryze at level six.

With Xiangguo's Lee Sin, TL's jungle was turned into a sieve this game.

As a result, Doublelift, who was ganked twice by four opponents in the bottom lane, completely lost his voice and could only be dominated by RNG.

Destroy and destroy.

At 18 minutes, Xiaohu's Syndra in the mid lane already had two major items: Luden's Echo, Ghostblade, and Boots of Speed. As for Xayah in the bot lane, it was even more outrageous. She also had two items, but her level was the same as the mid laner, and she was two and a half levels ahead of Doublelift.

看着Uzi的9/0/5的超神战绩，再看看小虎的4/0/12，两个双C占据了团队百分之71的输出。

Two to one.

"Rng! Rng! Rng!"

The semi-finals were held at the Zenith Stadium in the Park Villette in Paris, France, and there were quite a few international students in attendance.

At this moment, RNG decisively ended the game, and the audience instantly forgot the difficulty of the previous game. It seemed that RNG of the Spring Split had returned. The scene was filled with thunderous applause and cheers, and the whole audience chanted the name of the champion team from last season.

Taking off his headphones, Li Luo breathed a sigh of relief. He had given his all in the previous game, but the resilience of this TL team was astonishing, and Doublelift had unleashed 120% of his strength.

After winning the match, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, followed by absolute confidence in the next game. TL's raw strength wasn't that great; their strength lay in their thorough study of RNG.

Relying on their true individual skill, RNG, on the blue side, took the initiative in the fourth game, securing a strong mid-jungle duo and continuing their coordinated attack, aiming to dominate P's mid lane and Broxah's jungle.

As expected, P, whose confidence was shattered, made a series of small mistakes in lane. In order to lane against Xiaohu's Syndra, he chose Yasuo, which was slightly countered.

But Xiangguo's championship prince completely showed P what true strength is.

For a moment, Yasuo's 0-5 score prompted the TL coach to curse loudly in the locker room.

3:1.

After winning the game, everyone felt a huge sense of relief. Without pressure, there is no transformation and growth.

Everyone thought the pressure would come from SKT, but no one expected that it would be this TL team, which no one had any faith in, that would bring RNG so much trouble.

Back when LCK dominated the World Championship, the whole world was under the giant hand of the LCK region. Many fans said that as long as one team could defeat an LCK team, that would be the undisputed face of the LPL region, and no one could criticize that team.

But actually?
After winning the championship, the pressure and courage on my shoulders actually increased.

As the face of the region, how could they possibly lose the game? And the things the audience says online can't be held accountable for those words.

A quick glance at IG and FPX reveals that because their achievements are so dazzling, winning the S-series championship, everyone's expectations for your team are getting higher and higher, and they are more demanding when watching the game. They feel that you shouldn't have lost at all, and if you lose the game, it's because you threw the game and cheated the fans.

The more capable you are, the less you can afford to make mistakes.

(End of this chapter)