Chapter 149: The advantage is ours!

The World Championship countdown: 23 days.

September 7, Riot simultaneously released the second season of the documentary 'Legend in Its Prime' on global platforms: Episode 1 – Spring Competition.

This episode mainly tells the story of Changzhang and Rekkles in the spring season.

The documentary is decent, but because FNC failed to qualify for this year's World Championship, many of Rekkles' shots couldn't be edited in, making the documentary's content feel empty and hollow.

On YouTube, countless FNC fans huddled together in the comment section; each post looked a bit heartbreaking, to the point that even G2 fans felt embarrassed to say anything cold.

September 8, all G2 members returned to the team.

The same day, Riot updated the World Championship game version to 6.18.

In the regional playoffs, the hotly picked top‑lane champion Shen was indeed nerfed.

Also heavily nerfed was Rakan; the designer had added the Q skill Stone Pierce in earlier versions to boost its pick rate, dealing 50% extra damage to minions, but this mechanic was removed outright in this patch, while the base damage of its E skill Stone Shield was reduced by 10 points. It's obvious that Rakan, which had only just become popular, will completely fall into the gutter as a trash pick at the S6 World Championship.

Fortunately, thanks to Liang Yan's suggestion, G2 already had a backup plan, and AP had begun hero‑pool reserve training early on.

As for Shen, G2 had never played him at all.

Everyone was once again amazed by Liang Yan's brilliant foresight.

The hero‑pool reserve plan for each position, jointly designed by Ka Lao Si and Tang Anna, originally stemmed from Liang Yan's strong suggestion, and Liang Yan also deeply participated in selecting the concrete goals. Once the World Championship patch settled, the two members of the training team, the deeper they researched, the more astonished they were by the accuracy of Liang Yan's predictions.

It was those predictions that led everyone in G2 onto the correct path.

Now Ka Lao Si finally felt at ease.

If researching the World Championship patch were likened to a 110‑meter hurdle race, the situation now is that other teams have just started the run, while G2 has already cleared all the hurdles and entered the final sprint.

Does the clumsy bird fly first?

No, G2 is certainly not a clumsy bird!

What a huge advantage this is!

Although Ka Lao Si had earlier agreed with Liang Yan that G2 would aim for the championship in this season's S tournament, he honestly felt it was unrealistic, still thinking merely making the semifinals would be a success… but now it seems they can actually imagine reaching the finals!

Is the LPL laning phase very strong?

Is the LCK macro play very impressive?

What is called laning actually comes down to familiarity—and G2 has higher champion mastery!

What is called macro play is about the synergy between team composition and each position—long before the playoffs even began, G2 had started the relevant preparations, and now they possess a complete system that fully matches the S‑tournament patch environment, is nearly perfected, and encompasses everything from pick‑and‑ban strategy to execution details—and not just one such system!

Putting it this way, if the S6 World Championship started right now, Ka Lao Si even thinks G2's chance to win the title could be as high as sixty percent! Even against the LCK's first seed, he believes his own team would still have at least a fifty percent win rate—because G2 has simply jumped ahead too far!

Too bad we can't start now.

There's still about half a month until the S tournament opens; other teams will surely catch up gradually.

But G2 is also continually improving, so other teams can never completely erase the gap; by then G2 will still retain a huge lead!

But… what if G2's understanding of the patch is wrong?

Impossible!

We have a prophet—he absolutely can't be wrong!

Actually, Ka Lao Si is still too conservative.

He never imagined that what Liang Yan prepared for G2 wasn't just a lead of a few patches—it was a lead of many eras.

He is someone who returned from the era of the six‑time champion.

Even if he doesn't remember every patch detail, his vision and game sense are vastly superior to those of people in this era.

……

September 10, 8:00 p. m., the World Championship draw ceremony was held at the Riot headquarters studio in Los Angeles, broadcast simultaneously on all major platforms.

Germany, Berlin.

In the G2 base, Ka Lao Si also gathered everyone to start a livestream, watching this fate‑determining draw together with fans and global viewers.

The livestream was lively, with comments scrolling nonstop.

In the picture, the G2 members sat facing the camera, while below a window occupying one‑third of the screen showed the official draw livestream in real time.

They chatted and laughed, discussing all the possible group outcomes.

Soon, four award‑drawing guests from around the world appeared on the livestream.

All four were dressed in solemn formal attire, sitting upright on high stools with serious expressions—except Captain Jack, who, whether from nerves or his nature, appeared especially lively.

S6 draw guests

All four guests are retired players with tremendous fame in their respective regions, worthy of being called legendary representatives; among them, WeiXiao, once hailed as the 'world's best ADC', enjoys worldwide renown, and there is still a folk saying that 'a smile adds C to the AD'.

Before the draw began, officials explained the group‑stage rules.

Simply put, the S6 World Championship has no play‑in stage; it starts directly with the group stage, where the 16 teams from worldwide are placed into four groups A‑D and play a double round‑robin of best‑of‑one matches, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the quarterfinals.

Thus which group a team lands in matters greatly, because the 16 teams' strengths differ enormously; for fairness, Riot established a set of draw rules, and before the draw they pre‑assigned the teams to three pools based on their slots.

Pool one has four teams.

Pool two has eight teams.

Pool three has four teams.

It's worth noting that only the regions whose four teams reached the MSI knockout stage receive a team in pool one; all other regions have none—concretely, this means only Europe and the Wildcard Region lack a pool‑one team.

According to these rules, Riot will ultimately, by means of a draw, distribute the teams from the three pools into the four groups in a 1:2:1 ratio.

The four teams from pool one are:

LCK's first seed, ROX,

LPL's first seed, EDG,

NA's first seed, TSM,

LMS's first seed, FW.

As soon as this image appeared, the G2 livestream chat became awkward.

You say you're the Four Major Competition Zones?

Then why aren't you in Pool No. 1?!