Chapter 167: First Day of Group Stage

After the match ended, G2 Zhong Ren didn't linger at the venue; those with interviews went to do them, while those without stayed in the lounge scrolling Twitter, watching fans from their own region argue with North American netizens; once the interviews finished, they all went back to the hotel together.

No one came to arrange a practice match, so everyone stayed in the training room to watch the livestream.

Ka Lao Si wasn't in a hurry to review the just‑finished match—in fact there wasn't much to review; it was pure teamfighting and macro domination, with the lineup randomly picked, the opponent too weak, so for G2 this level of game entailed no pressure whatsoever; even any mistakes were just from fooling around, a mindset issue, so reviewing it wasn't meaningful.

As for LPL fans, G2's match against CLG was lively, but really just an appetizer; they cared less than for the LMS region's games, since it was just low‑tier teams pecking at each other, merely something to chuckle at—only when LPL and LCK teams faced off later did it become the main attraction LPL fans cared about.

The next match was that of the globally recognized championship favorite team ROX; unfortunately their opponent was relatively weak, a wildcard team ANX.

Moreover, they didn't look very professional, laid‑back and casual; during the pick‑and‑ban phase, someone from ANX even put their foot on the chair, flooding the stream chat with question‑mark danmu, saying this guy thought he was playing a casual internet‑café match, so nonchalant.

Figure

Interestingly, the blue side ROX's first ban was actually a fire‑type champion (Fire Man).

The clueless commentators began spouting nonsense, speaking earnestly while telling lies, claiming this was the signature champion of ANX's mid laner Kira, with an extremely high win rate, and so on.

In fact, Kira has never played the fire‑type champion in his home region this year.

This fire‑type champion is the signature pick of support Likkrit.

ROX had of course studied ANX; although practice footage from the minor regions is hard to find, match recordings are still available.

Everyone expected ROX to crush ANX, but they didn't anticipate that, less than five minutes into the game, in a 3v3 in the jungle provoked by Xiao Huasheng's aggressive invade, ROX gave up two kills first.

After that exchange, ROX was directly behind by a thousand gold; if it had been an even match, ROX would essentially have blown up, with their win rate dropping at least twenty percent.

But unfortunately, ANX's handling of fight details was far inferior to ROX's, and their macro gap was even larger; simply put, they had an advantage but didn't know how to capitalize, their teamfights lacked coordination, their tower dives were crude in swapping tanks, and as they played they threw away the lead—starting from an 11:30 tower dive failure that got counter‑engaged into a 3‑for‑1, the advantage completely turned into a disadvantage.

The match finally ended at 27 minutes.

Overall, the game's early stage was somewhat unexpected, but the mid‑to‑late game matched everyone's prediction; everyone said that if ROX hadn't been complacent and hadn't given up two kills in that 4‑minute 3v3, ANX might not have lasted past 20 minutes.

In short, everyone felt ANX's performance was honorable despite the loss; as a wildcard team, being able to push the championship favorite ROX this far was already quite good.

The third match was the C‑group game between Europe's second seed H2K and the Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan second seed AHQ; they fought for 47 minutes, and H2K narrowly lost.

After the match, the live audience gave AHQ enthusiastic applause and cheers, leaving the AHQ players a bit dazed, wondering when they had become so popular in North America.

The fourth match was still a C‑group game, with LPL's first seed EDG facing off against the wildcard team INTZ from the Brazil region.

When the players were preparing on stage, the venue and livestream played pre‑match interview videos of both teams; in it, INTZ's jungler Revolta opened up to the camera, sincerely recounting that he became a pro because he had once watched Changzhang's matches—Changzhang being a world‑top‑three jungler, his longtime idol—and that getting to face his idol was an honor and a trial, blah blah blah……

Changzhang replied bashfully: "Well, I've also won a few championships, so having fans from other regions is pretty normal, right……"

In the LPL livestream, the little piglets were ecstatic, even starting to generously cheer for the opposing side, saying things like they hoped EDG and INTZ would advance hand in hand—just nonsense.

At that point the official LPL livestream also switched commentators; recall that Su Xiao Yan had finished commentating three matches and gone to rest, and now coming on were the Heil brothers plus Changmao.

The three commentators were also joking and laughing in the livestream, with Wawa's voice especially prominent:

"Hey, no, I'm being serious—EDG's group is truly an absolute god‑tier draw, you know? Why is it a good draw?

"First, EDG is a first seed, right? Even if they faced ROX they wouldn't be weak; their strength is definitely fine, but if they could advance easily and stash more stuff before reaching the quarterfinals, that would definitely be a good thing, right?

"Then look at C group: one Europe second seed, one LMS second seed, and one Brazil wildcard—just these three teams, no LCK, no those second seeds that look strong on paper—isn't that a good draw, an absolute god‑tier draw!

"I won't even mention a clean sweep with six wins and zero losses to qualify; I think EDG topping the group and advancing is completely unproblematic—what do you two think?

Miller and Changmao both expressed agreement, then added a note about LPL's other two teams, RNG and Snake, saying RNG's draw actually isn't bad either—although D group has an LCK third seed, Three Stars, the other two teams are easy to beat; the only worry is Snake being placed in B group, which has SKT and Flash Wolves, and C9 is no pushover either—making it to the quarterfinals would require passing five gates and slaying six generals, extremely difficult.

When Liang Yan heard this, he barely managed to hold back his laughter.

Then the EDG vs. INTZ pick‑and‑ban began; the subsequent developments couldn't be said to be exactly the same as Liang Yan remembered, only roughly similar.

First, EDG's bottom lane came out strong in the opening, establishing a huge lane advantage; a skirmish turned into a 1‑for‑2, with INTZ's bottom lane both dying—not to mention a big wave of minions crashing into the tower that hadn't even been touched yet, bringing the situation near collapse.

Then INTZ's jungler started to shine; Revolta's Mang Seng dove from behind in the bottom lane, tower‑dived, sending Deft and Meiko back to their warm homeland, securing a double kill, and immediately began pushing the tower together with the duo to claim the first tower.

Changzhang rushed over in a panic, trying to use his ultimate to clear the minions and stop the tower push, but not only did it fail—he was instead kicked by Revolta's Mang Seng with a spinning kick, landing beside the duo and meeting his end.