LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 542 GRF is a region
The LCK viewers who didn't know what was going on later understood.

If the early game lineup doesn't create an advantage, it's no different from giving away points; that's exactly the style GRF displayed from then on.

They fight in every team fight, but they don't gain any real advantage in any of them.

The 16-minute water dragon was about to erupt.

GRF, who were aiming to go all out, were suppressed in terms of formation due to the loss of the mid tower. With EDG gaining priority control of vision, the area around the dragon pit naturally fell into the hands of the red team first.

This makes it somewhat inconvenient for GRF to initiate team fights, especially when everyone's whereabouts are completely exposed.

After all, the main character's entry into the team fight must be characterized by surprise.

However, for GRF's aggressive lineup, this problem isn't so serious that they can't initiate.

EDG's positioning once again demonstrated what it means to respond effectively.

Varus absolutely cannot be locked down by Camille or controlled by Lissandra's ultimate, so iboy's positioning is quite close to the bottom half of the map.

The position of Irelia is the most necessary, and GimGoon has been circling around from the beginning, trying to find a way in.

"Don't stand together, the two Cs should separate a bit. Titan and I will be in front."

Lin Ruo devised a very simple tactical plan for this team fight.

The opponent has too much control, and it's easy for them to wreak havoc as soon as they start. So Varus, in particular, absolutely cannot be given the chance to become GRF's primary target, otherwise even if Lulu comes along, he won't be able to save them.

Therefore, you must stand at the back.

Furthermore, they cannot get too close to the dragon pit, as this narrow terrain is too advantageous for GRF to perform.

Secondly, the main reason Lin Ruo dared to confront him in this dragon fight was that both he and Titan had stopwatches.

Titan's stopwatch was provided by a rune, while Zhao Xin's stopwatch was purchased by Lin Ruo himself.

While theoretically EDG's two tankiest frontliners, they weren't actually that tanky in GRF's eyes, at least not as tanky as Sion.

So you can't guarantee that GRF will suddenly burst down one of them. At least, Titan is a squishy champion comparable to Rakan among hard supports.

What Tianye needs to ensure is not a sudden death, but rather that he uses his skills before he dies, which is where the stopwatch comes in handy to stop the flow of energy.

Otherwise, if someone suddenly gets hooked by Thresh and Lissandra follows up with a skill, wouldn't that mean there's one less person at the start of the game?

Obviously.

This is also GRF's objective at this time.

Realizing it would be difficult to engage the backline, Tazan, as the commander, immediately focused his attention on the frontline Titans outside the dragon pit.

As I said before, we can do without the dragon, but team battles are a must.

GRF opted for the purest initiation strategy: having Sion unleash his ultimate and charge into the EDG crowd, aiming for the best possible engage.

Even if it can't be opened, it can at least serve to attract attention and create opportunities for others to enter.

As the initiator, Sword Emperor looked left and right, and without hesitation, set his sights on the Titan in front.

You're standing so far forward, who else am I supposed to hit if I don't bump into you? Anyway, as a support, you're as squishy as a squishy character and can be easily killed when you use your ultimate.

The fact is that there was a collision, but it didn't kill them instantly.

Chovy wouldn't dare to E in and lock down the enemy with his ultimate. At most, he'd use his W skill to follow up with some crowd control, but that crowd control wouldn't last long and would have to be combined with Thresh's hook.

Even so, the Titan quickly used his Zhonya's Hourglass and then countered with his ultimate.

Even with multiple crowd control abilities, it still wasn't enough to instantly kill a full-health Titan.

Instead, Titan used this ultimate ability on Lissandra to knock her up, and then Lin Ruo flashed out from the dragon pit to strike directly at the heart of the dragon.

It doesn't matter who you target; what matters is crowding into the GRF crowd and then using a powerful sweeping attack to scatter everyone and confuse their vision.

After these two actions, GRF was completely dumbfounded.

Tazan, who was originally saving his skills like Chovy to prepare for a big push, suddenly didn't know how to use them. He could have used his E to control Nautilus, but that would have made him too reliant on a support.

Without E, how can he get into the game to catch Varus?

Therefore, Tazan did not use his abilities.

Instead, EDG's two carries chose to recklessly enter the fray, flashing in and using their ultimate to lock down Varus just before he stepped forward.

However, he was quickly overwhelmed by EDG's focused fire.

Because Ryze was right next to Varus, even Viper, who had flown in, was unsure of what to do.

He also wanted to reap the rewards effortlessly; if he could, he wouldn't even want to cooperate with Camille.

The problem is that when Camille flew out, Irelia, who had flanked her, practically burst out from behind the jungle wall with a single R-flash.

Startled, Viper immediately chose to coordinate with Camille to fly in and cut Varus.

It wasn't that he couldn't cut through, the key was that before he could do anything, he was controlled by Ryze, and then Ryze took away almost half of his health with a combo.

At this point, it would be a bit of an overstatement to rely on a Camille with only average development to single out Varus.

They have the Corruption Chains to slow down Camille's damage, and they also have Flash to create distance.

How can you, Camille, chase after him? And even if you catch up, what damage will you deal?
Kai'Sa could certainly chase, but wouldn't Flash bring her even closer to Ryze?
So here's the question: where did Lissandra go...?

Despite only using her E skill and having Flash and her ultimate ability to freeze Lissandra, she couldn't keep up with Camille and Kai'Sa's movements.

There is no other reason.

Chovy realized she was being watched.

As he woke up from the Titan's knock-up and tried to Flash to catch up, a Titan followed up with a Flash and used his passive auto-attack to stun him, then followed up with his Q skill.

Then Zhao Xin landed a triple Q to knock the enemy up.

There's also a female Irelia.

So frightened was Chovy that he froze his hand.

Then, Lissandra was completely ruined.

Titan is dead.

Can a Lissandra without any skills, along with Sion and Thresh, really be a match for Irelia and Xin Zhao? Obviously not at all; they simply can't win.

It can only give the opponent repeated conquerors.

Unfortunately, the two main damage dealers were being chased and beaten by EDG's two carries in a head-on confrontation, making the atmosphere in the arena almost red with excitement.

Is this the kind of performance a team composition should deliver in the early game? How come they can't even win a team fight?

All the excuses we had before will vanish at this moment.

You're playing an early-game composition, not some late-game composition like in the last game, so what are you guys doing?
"One for four, Sion escaped, EDG almost wiped out GRF!"

On the LPL commentary booth.

Miller saw the light at the end of the tunnel. If GRF couldn't even win team fights at this point, what were they supposed to do in the mid-game?

That's true.

Looking at the bottom left corner of the screen, Chovy leaned back tactically in the small window, then started pulling his hair with both hands on the player's bench, revealing his stunning hairline.

That alone is enough to show GRF's attitude right now. They played so poorly that they could have taken their hands off the keyboard.

Tazan, who was the team's commander, only then realized that it would have been better to use his E skill on Nautilus from the beginning, so that at least one of them could have been killed first, right?

Maybe after the initial burst of speed, they can pull off a comeback and win.

Only then did he remember Coach Mai's instructions before the game: the advantage of this lineup is that it is easy to catch people and easy to kill.

If you can find an opponent who is alone, just go up and lock onto Kai'Sa and she'll get the kill.

I'm sorry, but after wandering around the bottom half of the map for quite a while, Tazan couldn't find a single EDG player alone.

Oh, maybe that level 2 wave counts, but his E skill missed quite presumptuously.

And then there were no other opportunities.

The next opportunity was to fight in a team battle, but we failed and ended up like this.

Perhaps the culprit is that Irelia suddenly got fed, so Tazan couldn't call on Lissandra to gank the top lane anymore, and afterwards she really couldn't do anything.

The situation thus plunged into an abyss.

GRF's subsequent performance can only be described as a complete rout.

Not only could they not win, but they almost got beaten like bots by EDG.

Fortunately, the lineup was playable in the early game, and they managed to trade a couple of rounds with EDG to salvage some dignity, but the economic gap and the difference in the number of turrets were getting bigger and bigger.

The trades between these players were so stale they couldn't be any less, but that couldn't mask the fact that GRF's defeat in terms of gameplay was already inevitable.

Fortunately, GRF managed to hold out for 25 minutes, but the time was just over 25 minutes.

"It's over! EDG leads GRF 2-0 in the World Championship semifinals, securing three match points. They only need one more game to advance to the finals!"

As the blue team's crystal exploded, Miller raised his arms and shouted again.

EDG continued their unstoppable momentum, crushing the LCK's top seed for the Summer Split.

Wawa habitually added fuel to the fire: "If GRF still wants to win this BO5, there is only one possibility: a reverse sweep. But there has never been a reverse sweep in the World Championship so far."

This one sentence is tantamount to a death sentence for GRF.

A comeback from 0-2 down to win 3-2 in a World Championship? Sorry, that's never happened.

Judging from the dejected expressions on the faces of the GRF players as they left the stands, even they knew that losing the second game meant they had fallen into an inescapable abyss.

No one could save them from this predicament.

So...should we start dreaming about the LPL Autumn Season storyline?
Well known.

The LPL only has a Spring Split and a Summer Split, followed by the World Championship. There's no such thing as an Autumn Split.

But if EDG defeats GRF and advances to the finals, and their other opponent in the finals is IG, then why can't the finals, which are an internal LPL battle, be considered an LPL-exclusive autumn season?

Does this have even the slightest impact on other regions?
Obviously not.

So, as soon as the match ended, the hashtag "World Championship Finals are expected to become part of the LPL Autumn Season" quickly rose to the top of the trending searches.

All LPL viewers are eagerly awaiting the Autumn Split, which will be held in South Korea.

After experiencing the LCK finals of the S5 and S6 World Championships, no LPL viewer ever imagined that their LPL team could one day win the championship.

Moreover, this championship victory was actually an internal battle among their own people.

What a huge step forward!

If they could prevent an LCK team from winning the World Championship finals held in South Korea, they would be willing to accept it even if it meant an LPL team won.

It seems like it's really about to happen, which explains why the LPL Autumn Season became the most discussed topic after the second game.

Unlike the European and American regions where viewers were watching the second game end, not only were foreign viewers discussing it, but foreign teams, known for their ability to stir things up, also showed off their skills.

Especially VIT, who were eliminated by EDG in the quarterfinals, couldn't help but post a tweet.

What I'm saying is, GRF, what are you guys doing? How come you're easier to beat than us, VIT?

Yes, VIT played quite well in the first two games and weren't afraid of EDG at all.

They even played for more than 30 minutes before unfortunately losing to EDG.

As for GRF, after two games, it was no different from surrendering.

Without comparison, there is no harm, so Western audiences rubbed salt into the wounds of the Koreans.

VIT is greater than GRF.

Tell me, is there anything wrong with this ranking? It seems that VIT is stronger than GRF right now.

Although GRF won the third game, which would clear their name.

Given the current situation, is there really any chance to clear one's name?

Even Korean netizens are hardly believing it. After losing two games to EDG, they still want to come back from a 0-2 deficit to win 3-2? Brother, let's meet again at the next World Championship.

[Seriously, let's destroy this! What kind of game is this? It's worse than playing against bots.]

[There's no hope this year. Will we have any hope next year? It doesn't matter. Just don't let the World Championship be held in Korea again.]

[Hmph, so all LCK champions are just like KZ.]

[You're wrong. Not all LCK champions are like KZ; rather, every LCK champion who faces EDG will be like KZ.]

[If this is how LCK champions perform against EDG, then I forgive GEN. There's a reason they got crushed by EDG; it's normal for the third seed to lose to the first seed.]

Yes.

In the minds of Korean viewers, the LCK champions of the past were not like this; they were unstoppable forces on the world stage.

But ever since EDG, led by Lin Ruo, all their LCK champions have become clowns.

Now he's the biggest clown, because he's about to witness an internal LPL finals battle, but he has absolutely no ability to stop it from happening. All he can do is try to escape as quickly as possible.

Inside the Gwangju Women's Gymnasium, many South Korean spectators had already left by this time.

They adhered to the principle of never watching the third game; as long as they did that, they wouldn't consider EDG to have won.

As for GRF, damn it, you guys have already been crushed in two games, and you still want us to watch a third game? Are you trying to torture us?

Think beautifully.

The South Korean audience, who had anticipated this from the start, wouldn't watch the third set at all, which meant that the home game was essentially being played away.

Seeing that many of his own fans had left, the "Roaring Emperor" in the commentary booth could only sigh helplessly and sadly.

It's impossible for the audience not to be disappointed and angry when GRF, whom they had high hopes for, was beaten so badly, so it's completely understandable.

Even he, the commentator, was angry because the team played terribly. However, unlike the other viewers, he still showed the strongest support for GRF.

Of course, it's hard to say whether this support is genuine, but the Roaring Emperor sincerely hopes that GRF can actually win a game.

At least give the LCK region some face.

(End of this chapter)