LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 549 Seeing the high ground means success
The entire IG team is very confident.

However, once this period of hormonal surge subsided, most of the so-called confidence dissipated.

Of course, the real reason for the disappearance of most of them was that they quickly started training matches to prepare for the finals after a day of rest.

IG and EDG battled for a day and a night, and then IG suffered an unprecedented 10-0 defeat.

Well, at this point, IG finally realized that they shouldn't have been so confident. EDG was still the same EDG, and their scrims in the quarterfinals seemed like they were just putting on a show.

Just like the prevailing public opinion, they are indeed at a significant disadvantage in this final. Therefore, instead of getting carried away, they should accept this disadvantage and strive to improve, working hard to fight for the final. This seems to be a better approach.

After further adjustments, with only two days left before the start of the finals, both teams boarded the bus to Incheon.

It's a distance entirely within the province, taking less than four hours.

Because of the good relationship between EDG and IG, they naturally rode on the same bus for convenience.

Given her previous radical remarks, Lin Ruo was immediately attacked by the IG members as soon as she got into the car.

"I heard you're going to crush us?" Prince Ning practically wanted to completely overpower Lin Ruo.

He might not be good at practice matches, but he's still good at fighting.

Lin Ruo is good at everything, except when it comes to training. He's not weak, but he's definitely not as tall and strong as Ning or TheShy.

Fortunately, Lin Ruo has outside help.

The moment Jin Gong arrived, the atmosphere instantly became much more harmonious. No matter how strong Prince Ning was, he was no match for Jin Gong, a man with natural strength who had spent twenty years professionally smashing keyboards and mice. He was completely at the mercy of Jin Gong.

With GimGoon sitting next to him, Lin Ruo was naturally at ease and had the courage to make a bold statement: "Just a small IG, wait for the finals."

"Hmph, I'll unplug your internet cable during the finals." Ning Wang could only respond politely with words.

There's really nothing we can do if we can't beat them. After all, we can't rely on Baolan, JK, and Rouji, those three weaklings. Especially Baolan, whose physique is so good at bluffing, he probably wouldn't be able to handle Lin Ruo.

Okay, then we give up.

Lin Ruo calmly looked up and saw that An was safe, but the man seemed to have come up as well. He was the man who would become famous in the future for wearing a military overcoat and eating a hot dog, and he was also the inheritor of the 100% win rate of Jhin.

It was obvious that Mr. Wang still had to be given face, and Lin Ruo immediately stood up to shake hands when she saw him coming.

Wang Sicong was flattered by this: "Lin Shen, are you being so proactive? You'll have to go easy on us in the finals."

After exchanging pleasantries and shaking hands, Wang Sicong sat down, secretly thinking that he would ask Lin Ruo about her annual salary when he had time.

If we can't beat them in this final, we'll just poach twice as many players next year.

If you can't beat them, buy players. That makes perfect sense, right?

If Lin Ruo heard this, she would definitely laugh out loud. Double the annual salary? Well, sorry, I'll just poach one for every one of you.

Hesitating for even a second is disrespectful to money.

Ready to go.

During the journey to Incheon, the whole bus was bustling with conversation. Although Lin Ruo liked to make witty remarks, she didn't like to talk for long periods of time. After chatting with everyone for a short while, she calmly opened the Baidu Tieba forum.

It's been a while since I've visited Anti-Pressure, but its popularity has been growing day by day. Just yesterday, the number of people who rated the match against GRF reached a new high.

The content was naturally full of jokes about the entire GRF team.

For example, Chovy, who performed very poorly in three games, received the highest score, and the comments were basically the same.

[-1 point, are you Song Jiang? You always get caught in the early game. Without you, GRF wouldn't have collapsed so many times in the early game. I don't even know what to do with all those peanuts and melon seeds I bought.]

[0 points. It's his first time at the World Championship, so it's understandable that he played poorly. Please be understanding. There's really no need to get so angry. Here, I have Chovy's Korean address. I'll just send him some razor blades across the border.]

"Is it really necessary? We're not Koreans. EDG should be happy to win. I'm probably too busy praising Chovy."

Yes, yes, I came here specifically to thank you. Without further ado, I'll give you five stars. Keep it up, Chovy! I love someone like you who can't stay consistent online or go to support.

[Chovy, come to the LPL next year, I promise I won't flame you.]

Not only will I not criticize Chovy, I'm also willing to help Chovy with his application to join the Communist Party.

[Actually, I think Chovy is a very good player. You see, he gets ganked a lot in lane, but his CS is never bad, which shows that his fundamentals are quite good.]

...

Has anyone actually predicted that Chovy will become a legend in the world of last-hitting? Lin Ruo was slightly surprised after browsing for a moment, and then scrolled to the Tazan comment section.

It's a mixed bag.

[I'd give you 5 points. Actually, you seemed impatient in the first game. Lin Ruo was doing a lot of work for the first few minutes, and you didn't fall behind. At that time, I felt that you were better than many junglers because other junglers couldn't do anything when facing Lin Ruo.]

[4 points. You're only half a Zhou Yu, so it's normal that you can't compare to Lin Ruo, who is a Zhuge Liang.]

When you realize your brain is only slightly full of water, look at Lin Ruo and you'll see his brain is completely empty. So, you have no reason to lose.

[I admit you're the best jungler in LCK, but sorry, in LPL, you can only be second. Our Lin will always be the best jungler.]

[7 points. It's not your fault you can't beat Lin Ruozhen. I suggest you go back to playing your mid laner. He's not cooperating with you at all, he's so rude.]

Forget it.

Lin Ruo took another look at Sword Emperor's comment section. Sure enough, netizens had brains. Sword Emperor, who was being praised just a moment ago, had seen his rating plummet after today's match.

There's no way around it; some facts are just too obvious.

such as…

[Holy crap, how did you do that? Even Urgot couldn't stop GimGoon, and you didn't even have as many minions as GimGoon in the early game.]

[This is absolutely insane. In all three games, you couldn't put any pressure on GimGoon in the early game at all. It's okay if you're playing Sion, but were the other two games really that easy?]

[This doesn't make sense. I, Jin Gong, am here to withstand pressure, yet you're not letting him experience any pressure at all. Are you taking a liking to him and deliberately letting him off the hook?]

[GimGoon swore he had never played a match like this before. What kind of match? Of course, it's when you pick a weak champion to lane against, but your opponent not only can't pressure you, they can't even out-farm you.]

[You're making things too easy for GimGoon. I really don't know what you're up to. I saw that fight in the bot lane where you played Urgot and couldn't even lift GimGoon. Your basic mechanics are terrible.]

[You really underestimate GimGoon! You actually teleported into the bush right in front of him! Do you think GimGoon is stupid? That's outrageous! Luckily, GimGoon thinks you're stupid too.]

[Every game I give you a pick for Aatrox and Urgot, and they're completely useless. And where's your Gnar? Why don't you pick him?]

[EDG is too awesome, it must be Lin Shen who's too awesome. He probably saw through Sword Emperor's facade all along, so he basically didn't counter Aatrox and Urgot. Sure enough, that's exactly what happened – completely useless.] [Knowing you're not good enough, they gave you all the OP champions of the patch, making it impossible for you to pick your best champion, Gnar. EDG made a brilliant move, completely outmaneuvering Sword Emperor.]

[Yeah, Sword Emperor probably plays Gnar a little better than Aatrox and Urgot, but probably not by much.]

...

Is Sword Emperor Gnar really that powerful? Lin Ruo certainly doesn't think so.

Lin Ruo, who had turned his head away, was no longer in the mood to look at GRF's rating. In fact, his purpose in opening the forum had always been the same: to see his own rating.

Nonsense, what's the point of winning if you don't check your own score?

After the game, you have to look at your own performance.

There aren't many ratings, maybe just tens of thousands, but the popularity is unprecedented.

Holy crap, Lin Shen, playing this well every game is insane!

[Stop talking nonsense, brothers! Standing before you now is the savior of the LPL, the demon of the LCK, the super god who saved EDG the moment he started playing professionally, the father of all LPL teams, the god of all World Championship teams, the invincible man who is number one in all games, the Go professional player hailed as the Son of God by the West!!!]

As everyone knows, League of Legends is just Lin Shen's side job; calling him a professional Go player is perfectly reasonable.

[My name is Lin Ruo. Today I played against a Korean prodigy jungler. He was just so-so, actually. Let's move on to the next Korean prodigy.]

[Lin Ruo plays games like Zhang Fei eating bean sprouts—it's over before you know it, and every game is a complete stomp. Who can stand it?]

My biggest dream is to see Lin Ruo play a really close match. Do you know how hard that is? It's been two years and I haven't seen one. Even the top team in LCK is being beaten like this. Who else can I count on? IG, EDG's son? Forget it.

[Seriously, knock Lin Ruo unconscious and have him dissected. I suspect his brain is full of good stuff. Damn, I've never seen a game where the rhythm is completely different from start to finish.]

[In the third game, the opening really made all five opponents look like idiots, especially Tazan. I felt like he was in a daze. I clearly saw him attacking the F6 camp before going in, but he ended up attacking himself a little while later.]

[Brothers, after watching today's match, I've come to a conclusion: Lin's chances of winning consecutive World Championships depend on when he retires.]

【Isn't that obvious? With Lin's performance, I can't even imagine who could snatch the championship from him while he was playing.】

[After all, transforming EDG, the domestic powerhouse, into an international powerhouse is already an incredible feat. So, is there any need to question Lin's greatness? Because of Lin, all of us LPL viewers are standing tall. So now, let's all shout together: Lin's greatness needs no further explanation, okay?!]

"Tsk tsk tsk, why are you praising me like that? It's really unnecessary. Aren't these basic operations?"

After reading it, Lin Ruo, having crossed the river and then betrayed the bridge, righteously criticized the current state of public opinion.

It's always best to keep a low profile. What if things go wrong at any moment? Don't forget that we still have to face an awakened IG in the finals.

Right, that's right.

So Lin Ruo, who had stopped rating, decided to take another look at the prediction posts for the finals to see who had the highest probability of winning in the eyes of LPL viewers.

In terms of the probability of who wins and who loses, EDG only narrowly wins with a 90% to 10% probability.

Wow, so LPL viewers really trusted them this much during the finals?
The predictions and comments below certainly confirm this.

Lin Ruo couldn't help but move her phone closer, looking at it in front of Prince Ning.

To be honest, the IG vs. EDG match felt no different from the GRF vs. EDG match.

I think IG has truly woken up. They'll definitely have a chance this time. IG will definitely perform better than GRF; for example, they can see EDG's high ground.

[Stop talking, stop talking. Ning, IG's jungler, is already trembling with fear. Just think, in this World Championship, no jungler can avoid being completely outmatched by Lin Ruo.]

Fortunately, Lin Ruo switched to jungle this season. If he were still playing ADC, JK would probably have wet his pants before he even got a chance to play.

Although I'm an IG fan, I have to admit that as long as IG doesn't get completely humiliated in the finals, it's fine. Getting humiliated isn't shameful.

It's okay, it's okay. It's alright if IG lost. We can just criticize RNG, who came in the quarterfinals. They won't fight back.

[Congratulations in advance to IG for winning second place. Although I know IG has evolved significantly, there's nothing I can do. Lin Ruo is simply inhuman; they were no match for him.]

...

After reading through just a few dozen comments, Ning Wang, standing nearby, was already looking quite aggressive.

"I'm not pretending, we IG are just a bunch of worthless people, okay? Even if we don't die, we'll still skin you EDG alive."

Indeed, after Ning Wang acted impulsively, he didn't really think he could win, but he can always peel back his skin, right?

Surely we can take a piece of EDG's skin?

Ning was initially quite confident, until Lin Ruo gave him a thumbs up: "Okay, Ning, if you can beat us in the finals, I'll call you dad in front of the media. If you can't beat us, you can call me dad instead, how about that?"

Forehead…

Upon hearing this, Prince Ning decided to think it over and then quietly changed his seat.

It wasn't that he was worried about not being able to win a game against EDG; it was just that he was an upright citizen and resolutely stayed away from gambling and drugs.

Gambling can't be done without some good.

...

The short time passed quickly amidst the laughter and conversation of everyone in the car.

After a journey of more than three hours, the bus arrived in Incheon, the venue for the finals.

As everyone packed up and got off the bus in the afternoon, they felt a chill creeping over them.

It was still a bit chilly in Incheon as November approached, but thankfully the hotel was right there.

The Incheon Munhak Stadium, the venue for the finals, is also very close, only a few kilometers away.

Although the Wenhe Stadium, which can accommodate 50,000 people, is not as large as the Bird's Nest last year with a capacity of 100,000, it is still one of the largest stadiums in the history of the League of Legends World Championship finals.

The LCK organizers probably chose this location for the finals because they wanted the Korean teams to have a chance to shine, and the atmosphere at the finals with 50,000 spectators would definitely be explosive.

But who could have imagined that all of this would be ruined in the semi-finals?

No one could have imagined that not a single South Korean team would make it to the final.

LCK officials were clearly devastated, and two days later, the Wenhe Arena would undoubtedly become the domain of the Chinese.

(End of this chapter)