Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 266 Voting Ends! The Quarterfinals Begin!
A huge uproar!

The first people to hear the news on Weibo and ask questions were none other than RNG members.

"Little dog, are you crazy? G2 is a quarterfinal team, okay? If you mess this up, your professional career is really over."

Xiao Ming rushed in first, talking as he went, his anxiety evident in his words.

"Yeah, yeah, I could understand if you said you wanted to vote for an ADC hero, but look at what's below the poll results!!!"

"Yasuo? Pyke? Blitzcrank? Taliyah?"

Chris was furious and grabbed his phone, ready to launch a verbal attack on Li Luo.

Although the two were good friends in the past, their current behavior is blatantly arrogant and disrespectful, which is an unforgivable mistake for a professional player in competitive games.

"Relax, relax, I'm 100% confident we'll win the game. Come on, let's..."

After gesturing for everyone to sit down, Li Luo began his speech, which could be described as brainwashing.

Before long, the tense atmosphere in the room became harmonious, and laughter could be heard from time to time.

Compared to the gradual internal harmony, public opinion from the outside world is like the eye of a storm gathering energy, waiting for a trigger to either erupt into a terrifying natural disaster or dissipate into nothingness.

Just two hours after the Weibo post was published, near midnight, not only were the likes increasing, but the comments and reposts were also rising at an alarming rate.

By noon the following day, it had created the first Weibo post by a League of Legends esports player to reach one million comments.

This time, the battle not only spread to the Backstab forum, but also to the official main forum, the League of Legends forum. People who usually chatted about couples and partners were gone, and nine out of ten posts were discussing random heroes.

"A comprehensive analysis of Uzi's champion pool, supported by extensive data, reveals just how many more hidden weapons are in Uzi's arsenal."

"Please vote for Vayne. Although Uzi asked us to vote for her, please don't vote for those weird support heroes!"

"Uzi is really showing bad sportsmanship this time! So arrogant, if he loses, he should just retire!"

"Hehe, G2 is just messing around, RNG is just being unethical, double standards go on and on, yeah right."

"1/10000! 10,000 people are begging for your vote for Yasuo! One vote from you, one vote from me, and Yasuo will debut tomorrow!"

"Go for it, Yasuo! Jian Zihao's Yasuo is shining on Worlds, wow!"

Amid the popularity of voting for random heroes, the official League of Legends account was surprised to find that the number of votes on Weibo was trending towards surpassing the All-Star vote.

In just one day, Yasuo, who came in first place, led Teemo, who came in second place, by 1380 million votes and 920 million votes.

This prompted the official League of Legends team to take action. After contacting Weibo and Li Luo, they created an unprecedented official voting page.

In the quarterfinals, you decide Rng.Uzi's champion picks!

Voting will close on the 18th, which is two days before the quarterfinals begin. All players who have reached level 30 in League of Legends will have one vote to cast for any champion.

When players who don't follow the matches but play the game open the League of Legends client and see the title in the center, they are dumbfounded.

You have to understand, this is the pinnacle of professional League of Legends competition! When has anyone ever dared to do something like this?
As more and more players join, the number of votes becomes increasingly staggering.

By noon on the 12th, when the deadline arrived, the page officially calculated all the lottery results and locked the voting channels.

Yasuo: 8631 million votes (5630 million votes from Weibo)
Timo: 6630 million votes (4870 million votes from Weibo)
Garen: 4200 million votes (Source: Weibo)

Barbarian King: 2900 million votes (Source: Weibo)

Thanks to netizens' antics, almost all ADCs have fallen out of the top 20. Those remaining in the top 10 are either heroes that have never appeared in a single professional match, or heroes that Uzi "rewards" in ranked games.

Yasuo secured his spot with an overwhelming majority of 2001 million votes, becoming the popular choice.

For all players who love the "Happy Wind Man" (a character from Journey to the West), the day after the voting ended felt like New Year's Day, with hundreds of thousands of users flooding into the "Wind Swordsman" forum to offer their congratulations.

Now, random hero voting is no longer an individual-led activity; it's no exaggeration to say it's a carnival for all League of Legends players.

How novel is it to help your favorite professional player choose heroes?
On the other side, after the voting ended, Li Luo also saw the voting results and smiled.

It's normal for netizens to want to see Uzi play Yasuo, but he didn't expect Yasuo to get more than 80 million votes.

With League of Legends having only a few million daily active users, this voting number is alarmingly high.

After opening the system and finding Yasuo's proficiency, Li Luo was amused to see that Uzi's Yasuo proficiency was only two stars.

Basically, a two-star rating is equivalent to a regular diamond level, which is based on the level of mastery of hero skills.

With his reaction speed already exceeding the limit, Li Luo is confident that even at a two-star level, he can achieve a three-star or even four-star performance.

However, this level of skill is clearly insufficient to destroy G2's confidence.

In Li Luo's plan, he not only wanted to play this hero, but he wanted to play him until G2 got tilted and were afraid that he would pick him in the next game.

The next moment, a longsword radiating a deep red blood-red light appeared out of thin air. The instant it appeared, the entire room seemed to collapse under the weight of the energy.

The longsword fell silent as a blue ripple flashed past and the training manual appeared beside it.

Aatrox's Sword: Trait 1: Sacrifice [Sacrifice the proficiency of one hero to transfer it to another. The sacrificed hero can never be upgraded by external means; their proficiency is locked.]

Feature Two: Rapid Kill [Lock-on]

Every time Li Luo saw the Sword of Aatrox, he couldn't hide his shock.

The equipment I got after the Asian Games, putting aside the strangeness of the item itself, its characteristics alone are enough to make people baffled.

Silently reciting Fiora's name, a ray of light appeared on the blade. Silently reciting Yasuo's name again, amidst bursts of hissing, the memory of the details and techniques of Fiora's gameplay was rapidly disappearing, replaced by Yasuo's various novel techniques.

On the system panel, Yasuo's proficiency level seemed to have taken a train ride; after Fiora completely dropped one star, Yasuo reached five stars.

10 month 20 number.

Today marks the start of the quarterfinals of the 2018 World Championship.

The RNG team got up early in the morning, packed their peripherals, had breakfast, and then took their private bus to the competition venue.

The quarterfinals of S8 will still be held in Busan, the semifinals will be held in Gwangju, and the finals will be held in Incheon.

The buildings on the road rushed past. Looking at the venue through the windshield of the bus, even though they had been playing here for several days, the RNG players could still feel the difference between the group stage and the quarterfinals.

In the annual S-series viewership ratings, the quarterfinals have the highest viewership, second only to the finals.

Eight teams, two days of competition on the 20th and 21st, yet they encompassed almost 80% of the buzz and memes surrounding the S-series.

Almost every year's memes and memorable moments originate from the quarterfinals.

Once the quarterfinals are reached, the format changes from a round-robin to a brutal best-of-five (BO5) elimination format, where the winner advances to the next round and the loser goes straight home.

On October 5th, the four teams in the left half of the bracket will compete in a best-of-five series.

When RNG's bus arrived at the venue parking lot and stopped, everyone got off the bus only to find that RW and IG's buses were already parked.

The Rw members, who are usually all smiles and laughter, looked grim as they carried their peripheral backpacks and walked straight into the venue.

“They’re building up their momentum. Steak is a good coach; he’s probably done a lot of mental work these past few days,” Chris said quietly from the side.

Although there are no swords and spears in League of Legends matches, just like in military campaigns, momentum is extremely important.

With momentum and determination, one can develop resilience and turn the tide in a desperate situation.

Now, LPL teams are no longer like family, but enemies fighting to the death on the battlefield.

Nobody wants to joke around with their enemies; wanting to advance by stepping on other people's corpses without hurting feelings is just wishful thinking.

Upon seeing RNG's bus, Ah Shui waved from a distance and then quietly followed the team into the stadium from the other side.

"Relax, they'll probably play a full best-of-five series today, we'll just play a best-of-three series."

Seeing that the group was a little tense because of the two teams' atmosphere, Li Luo took the initiative to help them relieve the pressure.

The two substitutes on the side, Xiaotian and Xiaodongbei, were a little excited because they had received some kind of promise from Chris.

"Sigh, why are we nervous about playing G2?" As the captain, Xiaohu took a deep breath and pretended to be calm.

"Seriously, Li Yuanhao? Didn't you call your dad last night saying you were nervous? Why are you acting all serious today?" Xiangguo, who shares a room with Xiaohu, dropped the pretense without hesitation. "Get lost! I'm determined to win this year's S-series championship. Nobody knows better than me how to play mid lane!"

Before the others even had a chance to get nervous, they were amused by the banter between Xiao Hu and Xiang Guo.

Amidst the laughter and chatter, the Riot Games photographer, hidden in a corner of the parking lot, once again captured the dynamics between the various teams.

Open-air parking lots require entry through the main gate.

There were many people outside the venue today. Although there were security guards and barriers, you could still see many Chinese faces cheering among the huge crowd of spectators.

Upon seeing RNG arrive, the crowd that had been cheering for IG and RW immediately turned their attention to RNG, and the chants of "RNG!" continued for a long time.

Despite being used to the atmosphere of major competitions, seeing so many people supporting them still stirred a little excitement in the RNG team. They walked into the venue with their heads held high and chests out, ready to wait for their match.

It's 1 PM Korean time.

As the time drew closer, viewers around the world in the live stream and the fans in the Busan stadium, which holds tens of thousands of people, grew increasingly excited.

Suddenly, the closed microphone crackled to life with the sound of a clock.

Immediately afterward, with the host's appearance, there were no fancy opening ceremony elements, and the countdown began immediately.

As the countdown ended, fireworks burst above the venue with a few bangs, officially announcing the start of the S8 World Championship quarterfinals!
On the large screen in the center of the stadium, a cool animation of a fist was played quickly. As the fist logo fell heavily, the screen shattered and transitioned to the pre-match preparation phase.

As the stage lights dimmed, the pre-match promotional video that had been prepared earlier began playing on the screen.

This is a promotional video filmed at the foot of the mountain. As the camera rises, the entire mountain peak comes into view.

At the foot of the mountain, the five members of the veteran powerhouse C9 silently climbed the mountain. As the camera zoomed in, the female AD carry turned around and said indifferently:
"Aside from missing out on S1 and reaching the Round of 16 in S5, C9 has consistently been a quarterfinalist for years, never even breaking through that mark. Now, we will face the strongest team in history, SKT."

Svenskeren, the jungler, also stopped and turned around, gazing down at the foot of the mountain:
"How should I put it? Skt was indeed very strong in the past. As the number one seed from the LCK, they had the strength to crush us."

"So we can only..."

The five of them said in unison, "Give it your all!"

The camera zoomed out rapidly, leaving the C9 members silently climbing the mountain, and then switched to another group that was climbing.

As the background music swelled, the RW members appeared in the frame, walking and laughing.

This time, the authorities didn't give the five a chance to speak, but the self-satisfied smiles on their faces spoke louder than any words.

As the background music (BGM) gained popularity, the two rival teams, G2 and FNC, came together.

Perkz laughed and said, "This year, Caps and I have been very unlucky. Our team ran into RNG, who had a perfect record in the group stage, and they ran into KT, who also had a perfect record in the group stage. After this draw, many people said that the championship was already decided. They are just too strong, so strong that it makes people lose hope."

"However, I will show them with my strength that this is Eu's strongest year yet."

The scene shifts to the group stage of Group A, where Ap (Ap) pulls off a series of incredible plays, securing a quadra kill and winning the match.

The commentators from Europe and America shouted passionately, "G2, they've made it out of the group of death! They've defeated TL and Fw and successfully advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2018 World Championship!"

Caps, equally relaxed, replied, "Before the match, nobody thought we could beat KT, but we'll show you the difference between the number one and number two seeds!"

The camera pans upwards, and on the mountainside, the figures of KT and IG appear.

This time, both teams, like Rw, chose not to say anything, but simply to steadily move forward step by step.

"If RNG loses to us, it means that all LPL teams will be eliminated again this year."

The voices of the Skt members stood like gods on the right side of the mountain, appearing before the camera.

A voice-over suddenly appears:
"Faker!! Game over! Faker is down!"

The camera, following the voice-over, shifts to Faker's desolate figure, his clothes billowing in the mountain wind:

"We have the most World Championship titles."

"World Championship, S-series double champions, SKT's dominance continues!" The screen quickly cuts to several shots of Faker holding up the trophy.

"At the World Championship, we are the ones who truly deserve to sit on that throne!"

As Faker made his bold statement, tens of thousands of Korean fans in the arena went wild, standing up and chanting Faker's ID throughout the venue.

The screen seemed to freeze in response to the audience's cheers, then suddenly went black.

The scene shifted to one that no South Korean wanted to see:

"Pentakill! Xayah's pentakill extinguished SKT's hopes of advancing to the finals. SKT fell in the semifinals! RNG is going to the finals!"

"Little dog! The little dog's three-piece set is complete! Sect Leader An has no power to resist! Sect Leader An has fallen!"

"Withering, withering won't stop it, demolish, demolish, demolish the base!"

"Congratulations to RNG! Congratulations on winning the 2017 World Championship! LPL has broken through LCK's dominance! We are the champions!!!"

In the video, watching Samsung's dejected state and RNG lifting the trophy and basking in the golden rain, all the Korean fans at the scene in Korea had bloodshot eyes, almost bursting with excitement.

At the summit, the RNG members, gazing confidently at another mountain peak, watched the churning sea of ​​clouds in the distance with calm expressions.

Xiangguo spoke first: "SKT's record has already told everyone that their dominance is weakening. At MSI, we also ended them with a clean 3-0 victory. This time, there will be no surprises."

"Last year we beat SKT and Samsung, and everyone said we were lucky. This time, we will use your so-called 'luck' to continue defending our championship title, hehe." Xiaohu's words were still irritating, but they sounded much better to LPL fans.

"In the history of the league, only SKT has won the S-series championship twice in a row. This year, we will break this record, and next year, we will surpass this record. We will show everyone with our actions that this is our era!"

As Uzi uttered his last words, the valley seemed to echo with the phrase, "This is our era."

The camera zooms out and disappears into the clouds.

The promotional video officially ended, and fireworks lit up the stage again. As the host announced the start of the show, IG and Rw made their orderly entrance from both sides.

The opening match of the S8 quarterfinals has begun.

Thousands of eyes fell on the people on the stage at the same time, and with the referee's command, both sides began to make their bids and bans.

From the very first game, Rw showed no intention of testing IG, immediately unleashing their signature strategy, determined to secure victory in the first game and lay the foundation for success.

Titan mid, Pyke top, Hecarim jungle, Karthus AD, Leona support.

This is a lineup led by Karthus, with Pyke providing follow-up finishing blows. It features the strength of Nautilus and Leona in the early and mid-game, and Hecarim for follow-up control and pursuit.

IG responded by picking Jayce for TheShy and Syndra for Rookie.

But once the 20-minute mark is up, Jayce and Syndra, two champions without mobility skills, will be caught off guard and suffer devastating consequences.

All of IG's early-game advantages were destroyed by wave after wave of team fights, and they had no way to counter Rw.

While TheShy is strong in the top lane, he has no way to counter this situation where Karthus can take down half of a player's health with a single ultimate and Pyke can easily finish them off.

IG lost the first game, and Rw secured their first victory.

In the second game, Coach Kim decisively changed his strategy, shutting down Pyke and Karthus during the draft phase, denying Rw any chance to play unconventional tactics.

But Coach Kim forgot that Doinb's Titan was still outside. A Guang was reminded of his days with EDG, and when facing TheShy's Aatrox, he pulled out Twisted Treant to withstand the pressure.

Facing IG, RW withstood the pressure and once again utilized Doinb's developed roaming ability, combined with Liu Qingsong's Thresh, to create the feeling of S9 FPX in advance, with Shoe King becoming the breakthrough point.

When Rw took a 2-0 lead and secured match point, everyone watching was shocked, seemingly unable to understand why IG, who were clearly in better form, could lose two games to Rw in a row.

Even Li Luo, who was watching the match backstage, was shocked. Whether FPX was stronger in S9 or IG was stronger in S8 has always been a hotly debated topic, but now, it seems there is an answer.

Once the top lane can withstand the onslaught of TheShy from S8, when JackeyLove was not yet fully mature, as long as Shoes King lost his way, IG seemed to be drunk and couldn't find a direction to attack.

In the third game, Coach Kim banned Titan as soon as the game started, trying to limit Doinb's champion pool.

Unfortunately, Galio was still outside, and IG's tactics had already been broken. Although they were not facing Titan, Baolan's efficiency was far inferior to Liu Qingsong's due to RW's multi-point support and roaming.

As expected, Rw, who were not favored before the match, defeated IG 3-0.

Hindsight is always 20/20!
Once Rw deciphered IG's tactics, even with IG's exceptional individual skill, they still couldn't escape being swept aside!
(End of this chapter)