Chapter 407: When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter

Liang Yan deeply felt the sensation of the historical wheel rolling over their face.

After two days, Ma Ge invited everyone to hot pot; NB's assistant substitute Liu Qingsong, Changzhang, and others were on the invitation list.

The Flash Strike Poland incident caused an uproar online; at this moment, Changzhang, one of the parties involved, was right there, so everyone naturally couldn't help but ask a few questions out of curiosity.

Everyone present was trustworthy; Changzhang didn't hide anything, briefly explained the cause and course of events, and thus Liang Yan finally learned the truth of the Flash Strike Poland incident.

Simply put, EDG, the Polish Embassy, and the IEM organizers—these three parties—did not lie; they each only released information favorable to themselves.

As early as the beginning of December last year, ESL, the organizing body of IEM 11 (the IEM Katowice Finals), had already begun preparations for the tournament; they sent EDG an informal invitation email asking about EDG's willingness to participate.

The email contained relevant information such as the schedule of IEM 11 and visa requirements, serving as reference material for EDG to determine whether they had the time and conditions to participate.

At that time, EDG's two core team members, Deft and Pwan, had just left the roster; the lineup for next year was still undecided, so it was naturally impossible to reply to IEM, and the matter was temporarily put on hold until the S7 Spring Season began, after the first week of the LPL Spring Regular Season ended, EDG preliminarily tested the roster's strength, then made a decision, formally wrote to the IEM organizers, agreeing to participate in IEM 11; the IEM organizers then, the next day—January 23—sent EDG a formal paper invitation (this is the material needed for visa processing).

January 27, which was New Year's Eve, EDG received the formal participation invitation mailed by the IEM organizers, becoming the sole invited team from the LPL region, and officially began preparing the visa application materials.

However, at that time all national government offices were on Spring Festival holiday, so EDG could not process visas at all; they had to wait until February 3, when government offices reopened, to begin the process.

By that point, EDG only needed to examine the situation to realize that the remaining time was actually insufficient for them to complete all visa procedures.

However, everyone in EDG's HR and admin department were a bunch of slackers; they didn't realize that obtaining visas would take so long, only discovering the issue once they started the process.

The problem is:

If EDG wanted to obtain visas as quickly as possible, the best way was to go to the players' hometowns' household registration locations; then the players only needed to bring their ID cards to handle it.

But if they wanted convenience and applied directly in Shanghai, they would need a temporary residence permit.

Further problem arose:

Since the spring season was underway, EDG players had to train and compete, so they definitely could not return to their hometowns to process visas; they could only choose to do it in Shanghai.

However, if they were to apply in Shanghai, some newly joined team members lacked a temporary residence permit; starting the application now was clearly too late, because although the temporary residence permit process is simple, from submitting the application to completing approval and receiving the permit takes about two weeks, whereas by the time EDG learned this information, there were fewer than ten days left before the IEM 11 opening…

The makeshift EDG HR and admin department, fearing blame, hedged in their upward report, only saying they might possibly be unable to finish the visas, without stating the reason clearly.

Afterwards, EDG's HR and admin department contacted IEM officials, attempting to use external means to obtain a temporary residence permit early via a shortcut, but the IEM organizers didn't have that kind of power; even getting the Polish Embassy involved would be useless, because this is a domestic affair and external parties have no authority to interfere.

Since the IEM organizers could not help EDG, they simply gave no reply, seeing that EDG was still trying, they added EDG to the list of participating teams in IEM.

Not replying while also putting EDG's name on the participant list gave EDG a false impression, leading them to believe that the IEM organizers were also making an effort……

EDG submitted materials to the visa center three times, back and forth, but each time they were returned due to insufficient documentation; the visa materials were never actually sent to the Polish Consulate General in China.

As the competition date drew nearer, the truth could no longer be concealed; only then did EDG's administration finally come clean with A Bu and Boss Zhu, admitting that obtaining the visas was definitely impossible.

Boss Zhu was furious but helpless, so he left A Bu to handle it himself.

As for A Bu, because IEM said it ultimately wasn't a major tournament, he somewhat neglected it, dragging his feet before finally issuing an official notice…… On February 18, the matter finally exploded.

In conclusion, this is yet another typical farce caused by a makeshift crew.

There weren't so many twists and turns; merely, as the situation blew up, all parties shifted blame, covered up, and only spoke of what benefited them, plus the three involved parties actually had no further communication, causing the information netizens saw to be fragmented and logically hard to connect, thus various conspiracy theories proliferated wildly.

Liang Yan inferred the full truth of the incident from the known information and Changzhang's oral account, reacting just like everyone present—lost for words.

"Damn it... the misunderstanding blew up."

Gangzi said with feeling.

Changzhang had drunk a bit of beer, his face slightly red, helplessly shrugged his shoulders:

"What can be done? It's already like this. No more talk, no more talk—let's drink!"

"Cheers, cheers!"

"Damn, Xiao Song, you poured the orange juice?"

"Jiao Shen too……"

"Are you Jiao Shen? Hurry up and switch!"

"……"

So, who will ultimately take the blame for this?

Naturally, it's EDG's administration.

Objectively, this was originally their responsibility as well.

On February 26, EDG's HR and admin department posted an announcement on EDG's official Weibo, apologizing to all relevant parties and netizens.

At the same time, the IEM finals concluded late that night, netizens' attention shifted to discussing the IEM 11 champion G2, and with the LPL fourth week approaching, bored netizens finally had a new topic, so the Flash Strike Poland incident gradually subsided.

However, the impact of this incident is profound.

After EDG suffered defeats in the S5 and S6 World Championships, the Flash Strike Poland incident again dealt a heavy blow to EDG's fan base.

Over these three years, EDG's official Weibo followers once peaked at 8 million, but as the team's performance collapsed, many fans unfollowed; after also experiencing this Flash Strike Poland incident, they now have fewer than 4 million, shrinking by more than half!

It rather gives a feeling of "when the tree falls, the monkeys scatter."

However, what no one expected and nobody noticed is that a large portion of the fans EDG lost in this turmoil actually went to VG.