Chapter 102: The Playoffs Are Approaching

Now I have no doubt about Firrrrrre's individual skill; the terrifying data of 16 MVPs and crushing all players in the regular season has already proven everything.

But to be honest, I'm a bit worried about his mindset; after all, he's a player who debuted this season and has never had big-match experience.

So I hope the playoffs can be held more grandly, perhaps letting him experience the atmosphere of a big match in advance.

Moreover, the patch changes for the playoffs are also a test for him...

Liang Yan, in his stream, brought his own stream's viewers to watch someone else's stream.

On camera, chattering away, was a Europe-based big streamer; on his screen he had a document open, working on a "playoff team strength ranking," claiming to analyze each team's strength from objective conditions, but actually just outputting personal opinion.

Liang Yan was having fun watching it, and the viewers in his stream were also having fun, but someone ran into the other's stream to leak the news; when the streamer found out a big shot was watching his stream, he immediately stopped analyzing Liang Yan and G2 and switched to talking about other teams.

Hey, why do you stop talking as soon as I look? I'm not going to flame you.

Liang Yan regretfully closed the other's stream, was about to play two ranked games, when Lao Zhang came up from behind and patted his shoulder.

Don't stream anymore, the meeting is starting.

The time was the evening of August 8; the group had returned to Berlin the previous night.

Ka Lao Si convened the first meeting after their return in the conference room, with the agenda being a discussion of the recent few patch updates' content.

Liang Yan turned off his stream's push, then went to the conference room together with Lao Zhang.

When the two entered, the rest were already present.

Tang Anna was busy changing the PPT; on the projection screen at the front of the conference room were several Chinese character cards annotated with pinyin, obviously previously used to give a Chinese lesson to the mid and bottom three.

As soon as AP saw Liang Yan and Lao Zhang enter, he started showing off the Chinese he had just learned.

Wow, you two, you're very energetic today!

Liang Yan and Lao Zhang exchanged a glance, not understanding what AP meant.

Tang Anna helplessly corrected:

"'Spirit' is used incorrectly; what you mean to say is, you guys look quite happy."

"'Quite?' AP looked puzzled."

"'Quite,' as a verb, indicates an action of 'stretching straight, extending out'; as an adverb, it describes a state one level higher than ordinary."

I don't understand!

Chinese is profound and extensive; learn it slowly...

Liang Yan casually found a seat and sat down, while listening to Tang Anna's explanation, feeling quite fresh.

Ka Lao Si entered from the doorway.

Meeting, meeting! Sit down and listen carefully!

Such meetings are usually hosted by Tang Anna, and today was no exception. She changed into a set of PPT she had hastily prepared today, and gave the explanation in sync with the slides.

The meeting lasted over two hours.

Tang Anna kicked off the discussion, and together with everyone examined the impact of the updates from versions 6.13 to 6.15 on every aspect of the match environment.

As of today, all global regions' summer regular seasons have ended; even LCK's playoffs have already started today, while the Europe Region, as one of the earliest to finish its regular season, has the latest playoff start date, which is the 13th.

Therefore, European teams can draw on LCK's experience before the start, because all global regions' playoffs use game version 6.15.

Across these three versions, there have been many changes, and the impact is significant.

However, if we talk about which change affected the match environment the most, it is certainly Riot's tweaks to the turret mechanism.

In version 6.15, the first-blood turret mechanism went live officially.

Together with the removal of bottom lane defensive effects, a clear trend is that in regions using version 6.15 as the playoff match version, all teams will in the early game focus their attention on the next turret, making the bottom lane the sole strategic core of the early game.

The strategic change brings about an alteration of the whole Summoner's Rift environment; whoever can fastest research a composition and playstyle suited to the environment, whose players first master heroes adapted to the version's environment, will reap the victory fruit condensed from a season's effort and sweat—the summer season championship.

And those teams unable to adapt to the environment, unable to quickly adjust their tactical systems, will inevitably be swiftly eliminated and also be barred from the gates of Season 6.

However, version 6.15, as a version Riot laid the groundwork for over an entire season before finally releasing, is not unrelated to previous versions but rather a bridge connecting them.

From the launch of the Elemental Dragon in 6.9, to raising the teleport channel time to 4.5 seconds in 6.13 to stop top lane interference, to finally releasing the first-blood turret mechanism in 6.15, and continuously strengthening the dragon buff across multiple versions, Riot has actually been sending a signal to all teams:

Don't lane swap!

Go cause trouble in the bottom lane!

Go fight! Go teamfight!

Go contest the dragon!

And whether it's contesting the first-blood turret or taking the dragon, the necessary condition is that the bottom lane must have lane priority, which is basically also the theme of the whole summer regular season; therefore, those strong laning bottom lane heroes will still blow up in the playoffs.

However, the picks for the top and middle lanes need to change.

As for the middle lane, its pick needs to serve the bottom lane, requiring either support ability or extremely strong counter ability.

For the top lane, the extra bounty from the first-blood turret will inevitably cause ADs to develop ahead of schedule, dealing damage faster than before, making tanks unable to hold up, so pure tank-type heroes will completely drop out of the environment—for example, the Treant; even though it has noble team damage reduction, in the face of more explosive damage, that bit of reduction is utterly insufficient.

Everyone can't hold up; what to do?

Either magic duel, or play counter.

In short, this is necessarily a fragile, long-range-dominated version.

And for Liang Yan, with this version's groundwork, some preparations that needed to be done in advance for Season 6 can now be started.

Actually, from the day he officially became a team member, Liang Yan began preparing to advance into Season 6, silently influencing every member of G2 with his words and actions.

By now, this G2, compared to the G2 of another timeline's Season 6 era, is incomparable in both overall team quality and individual ability.

Furthermore, as he plays match after match on the stage, Liang Yan also recalls more details about Season 6.

After this meeting ended, everyone in G2 truly realized:

The playoffs are really coming.

Even AP has put away his playful mindset and formally entered a tense preparation state.

……

August 12, the day before the Europe playoffs kick off.

Just as dawn was breaking, Master Liang Yan got out of bed.

Lao Zhang in the same dormitory was still snoring loudly; Liang Yan finished washing up quietly, went to the cafeteria and took two freshly steamed buns (added to the G2 menu last month, the Chinese chef specially invited by Ka Lao Si), taking occasional bites, and staggered over to the training room.

To most people, today was just an ordinary day.

But for Liang Yan, today was a day of reaping, a critical juncture to test whether certain actions could bear fruit.