Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 177, Section 174: Battle Against T1! A Shocking Battle of Internet Celebrities

That night, Yuna Shimamura kept replaying the words Caps had said in her mind.

"Don't be like me."

"Don't be like me."

That night, similar ramblings kept appearing in her dreams.

She was thinking, wondering if she would end up like Caps.

We must seize every opportunity that can be seized.

All the success and fame you have now are only temporary.

The audience will cheer for themselves and marvel at themselves.

However, this is merely an expectation for one's future.

Ultimately, for professional League of Legends players, only winning the World Championship is truly important.

MSI championship or FS title are honors that will not be recognized in the long run.

If you get caught up in the cheers and honors of the moment, then as time goes by, Caps's today will become your tomorrow.

We need to do our best to win.
We need to do our best to win every game.
-
Time flew by and we arrived at the knockout stage.

This knockout stage adopted a double-elimination format, which is not so traditional for the game League of Legends.

In other words, in the first round, the eight teams are divided into four matches, with the four winners advancing to the winners' bracket and the four losers going to the losers' bracket.
The winners of the upper bracket will continue to compete until the final.

Teams that fall into the loser's bracket will be eliminated after losing once.

This competition format ultimately selects the loser's bracket champion and the winner's bracket champion to compete in the final.

The advantage of this competition format is that the competition is dense and the randomness is low, making it more entertaining for the audience.

The downside is that it reduces the chances of a dark horse pulling off an upset.

Because often, dark horses are like CFO in the pioneering round, a miracle that cannot be replicated, created by a combination of luck and information asymmetry.

For teams with stronger overall strength, once they have a loser's bracket to adjust their form and mindset, they are very likely to come back and fight their way to the winner's bracket.

The advantages of information aggression and form are likely unreplicable for teams with weaker overall strength.

In other words, if FS had used a double round-robin format with winners and losers, then CFO would never have been able to win the championship.

HLE was the stronger team back then, both in terms of their understanding of the game version and their individual player performance.

A single cycle can create miracles.

Such miracles sometimes seem unfair; there's an element of luck, the possibility of underdogs defeating their opponents, and sometimes it's unfair to the harder-working and stronger teams.

This is why more and more competitions are now choosing a double round-robin format instead of a single round-robin.

However, for Riot, the element of chance introduced by the single round-robin format is the best way to generate hype and excitement for the matches.

This is why, despite making so many adjustments to the MSI and World Championship formats over the years, they have always insisted on maintaining a single round-robin format in the quarterfinals of the World Championship.

And as it turns out, the fist's approach was correct.

At the very least, FS's CFO owes a debt of gratitude to Riot Games' tournament format for winning the championship.

The buzz generated by CFO's victory has indeed had a significant positive impact on the overall popularity of League of Legends esports.

but
If CFO wants to win the championship at this MSI, it might not be so easy.

After the Play-In Stage ended, their first opponent was T1, who had fought their way up from the Play-In Stage.

Yes, the first round was an epic battle of traffic teams.

However, this is not about drawing lots or any divine will.

Instead, it is the only possible grouping obtained after filtering according to various restrictive rules.

To put it bluntly, from the moment T1 emerged from the group stage, their only opponent was CFO.

This is certainly good for the audience.

Who wouldn't want to watch a battle between internet celebrity teams? Who wouldn't want to see Faker vs. Shimamura?
Before the match, there was a lot of discussion about it.

This is definitely the episode I've been most looking forward to in this competition. It feels like it's going to be Dolan's battle to protect his job.

I heard from the sidelines that because Dolan played well, T1's interest in Shimamura has decreased. In a way, this match can be considered a battle to protect Dolan's market value.

[That's true. I feel like Dolan has been playing very well ever since his playoff explosion. But I have a feeling that Shimamura will play even better.]

As an LPL fan, I can only hope Doran performs well and doesn't ruin his own reputation and end up sending Shimamura to T1. If that happens, I'll hate him for life.

Now I know whether or not I should cheer for Doran.

This match was undoubtedly the highest-scoring one since the start of the season this year.

In the past, everyone had the idea that the viewership of LOL esports events was entirely supported by Faker and that he was the one who monetized the game.

Without Faker, League of Legends wouldn't have the tournaments it has today.

This is true.

League of Legends esports is indeed the world's number one esports event, but to a large extent, its prosperity is somewhat artificial and unhealthy.

Apart from LCK, few viewers in any major region still have high expectations for their own region's teams.

All that's left is personal worship of Faker.

So, aside from Faker, what's left in this competition?

Almost nothing was left.

Matches featuring Faker attract attention, while matches without Faker don't.

But it's different now.

The emergence of Yuna Shimamura, a figure who gained immense popularity out of nowhere, effectively added another point of interest for viewers to enjoy the competition.

A new world-class internet celebrity has emerged.

Now, with Shimamura Yuna and Faker playing together, it's like having two core players driving the team.

If all goes as expected, and there is no rematch between CFO and T1, then this match will be the highest-rated match of this MSI.

On the day of the competition, when Shimamura Yuna entered the venue, she felt a rare sense of novelty.

because
In the past, when she played matches, the audience was almost entirely cheering for her.

Everyone says "Go Shimamura!" and "Go CFO!"

Then, no matter who the opponent is, they will be so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of her fans that you can barely hear any cheers or encouragement.

At least when it comes to fan support, she has never lost.

This was true from the first stage to the second stage.

But this time, the situation is slightly different.

When it was the CFO's turn to cheer, the noise from below remained as loud as ever.

"Go Shimamura!!!"

"Shimamura-san is awesome!!!"

Similar voices are emerging one after another.

However, after the cheers of her fans, it was soon the turn of the T1 fans.

"Let's go T1!"

"Let's Go Faker!!!"

The cheers were no less enthusiastic than those for her. In fact, they were even more powerful, forceful, and memorable.

The other teammates were clearly seeing this for the first time as well.

They were used to having a super popular internet celebrity by their side, and no one could beat them when it came to fan support.

As it turned out, they met their match this time.

HongQ exclaimed, "Wow, there's actually someone cheering louder than Shimamura-san!"

Junjia jokingly scolded, "Are you stupid? This is Flyco! Of course Flyco has a lot of fans, okay? You should say that it's strange that Shimamura's support is about the same as Flyco's."

“It’s not strange, I don’t see anything strange about it.” HongQ was clearly protective of his older sister. “In my heart, Shimamura is already greater than Feike.”

"Then you'd better pray that this line doesn't get cut out, otherwise you'll be in big trouble."

The team burst into laughter.

During the process of going on stage, Shimamura Yuna saw Faker, one of the five players from the opposing T1 team, face-to-face for the first time on the field.

At this moment, Faker was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, seemingly resting.

He didn't seem nervous about the upcoming match.

He seemed to have a good grasp of what was about to happen.

He may not have absolute confidence in today's outcome, but...
No matter what, he can always ensure that he does his best in the moment without being affected by his mindset.

That absolute sense of control over the game is something that only a five-time champion like him can naturally exude.

Although we had already met privately when I was in Canada, and the CFO and the T1 team had taken a group photo together.

However, it must be said that Faker truly deserves to be called a professional player.

The Faker we see on the field is very different from the Faker we see in private.

"I wish I could become a player like that."

She muttered to herself unconsciously.

Her self-talk was overheard by her coach, Chawy, who was standing behind her.

"One day."

"You will do it."

When someone overheard her talking to herself like she was having a fit of hysteria, Shimamura Yuna blushed.

For a moment she didn't know what to say, so she could only cough awkwardly.

After a brief pre-match equipment setup, the competition officially began.

As always, the pre-match drafting and banning (BP) phase began.

In the first game, CFO, the blue team and the number one seed in the knockout stage, will choose first.

Due to the order in which champions are picked, T1 cannot use a pick-to-ban strategy to limit Shimamura Yuna's Yorick.

Ultimately, they had no choice but to ban the hero.

This is exactly what the CFO wanted.

Is the hero Shepherd of Souls strong?
In the current version, it is undoubtedly considered quite powerful.

However, it is definitely not a top priority.

No matter how high a hero's stats are, their performance on the field will always be limited due to their inherent hero role.

Generally, you have to wait until the second or third game, after all the top-priority top lane heroes have been picked, before it's Yorick's turn to be banned.

However, due to Shimamura Yuna's influence, this hero, which shouldn't have been banned, was banned in the first game.

Meanwhile, T1 also banned Gwen in the first round.

In the current version, after being buffed, Gwen has transformed from a hated hero into a reliable and easy-to-use character who has strong stats in the early game, decent combat power in the mid-game, and can provide backup in the late game.

Incidentally, there are still many people online who question whether this hero was a character specifically designed for Yuna Shimamura.

Because now, Yuna Shimamura is the representative of this type of mage-centric hero all over the world.

In this back and forth, Shimamura Yuna ended up getting two bans in the first round.

Normally, if you feel that neither hero is easy to play, the usual choice is to let both be available, pick one of each, and get both heroes banned as soon as possible.

The reason T1 made the current draft is because they didn't seem confident whether Doran played Gwen against Yorick or vice versa.

That's why I made this choice.

This means that T1 assumes it is inferior to Shimamura Yuna on the top lane.

After two rounds of bans and picks, the lineups for both sides were finally determined.

For CFO, the top lane is Rumble, the jungle is Pantheon, the mid lane is Taliyah, and the bottom lane is Xayah and Riel.

On the T1 side, the lineup consisted of Aatrox in the top lane, Xin Zhao in the jungle, Azir in the mid lane, and Corki and Neeko in the bottom lane.

The chain reaction of banning Shimamura Yuna in the top lane resulted in T1's limited ban slots.

They absolutely must allow either Azir or Taliyah, the two overpowered mid laners of this patch, to be released.

So they opted for a double placement, choosing one on each side.

This is very comfortable for a CFO.

Although HongQ is a young mid-laner, his champion pool and playstyle are nothing like those of a young player.

He plays mid-lane champions like Azir and Taliyah quite well, even those that feel like older-school champions.

From the perspective of hero selection, CFO got a lineup that he liked quite a bit. Although T1's lineup wasn't bad, it felt like a slight compromise.

After the draft phase ended, the match officially began.

Yuna Shimamura hasn't played a high-intensity match in a long time.

Her long-term dominance over weaker opponents in the LCP made her feel a little nervous before the match began.

She was afraid that if she stomped too many weaker opponents, she would misjudge their strength.

She was afraid that she might become overconfident and give herself away.

Just like Zeus, who had his own weakness exposed in the vanguard match.

Especially after watching T1's match against HLE, she was even more worried that Doran's explosive form would carry over to the World Championship and into his match against her.

Before the match started, both sides knew that if T1 made it to the knockout stage, CFO would most likely run into T1.

So neither side contacted the other to arrange a practice match, and they tacitly remained silent, maintaining a state of no contact.

This means that Doran's condition is completely unknown to Shimamura Yuna.

If he can maintain the form he showed when he played against HLE, then I'm afraid I'll have a hard time being his match.

Reason tells Shimamura Yuna that such a state cannot be maintained indefinitely; she is also a professional player, and she should understand this.

But, instinctively, I still imagine things to be the worst possible outcome.

These thoughts made her subconsciously cautious from the start.

However, after a brief laning phase, after trading blows and farming minions with the opponent twice in a routine manner, Shimamura Yuna suddenly felt...
"This guy seems no different from before."

Yes, that's her biggest feeling.

To put it more bluntly.

"I don't see what's so great about him."

(End of this chapter)