Chapter 436: Some rejoice, others grieve

The regular season ended completely; compared to last summer's split, this spring's results saw some teams soar, while others plunged into the abyss.

Naturally, the team with the biggest change in ranking was VG, which rose directly from fourth in the group to first.

Next was Snake, which had its two mainstays poached; it fell from an S-tournament quarterfinalist to a relegation team, and the whole team's strength collapsed.

GT was similarly lackluster, also falling from third in the group last year to the relegation zone. However, GT's third-place finish last year was largely due to favorable group luck, and the team genuinely has few fans; probably only WE fans would sigh for them, since GT can be said to share the same mother as WE.

There were also teams with pleasing results.

QG entered the playoffs as a promoted team, worthy of being called a dark horse; however, since QG had been an LPL strong team for the past two years, this outcome wasn't really surprising.

As for the 'Oscar Night', frankly it didn't affect QG much; in fact, after the season was halfway through, netizens' predictions for QG's ranking were also fourth place. After all, entering B Group—a dragon's pool and tiger's den—even a dragon crossing the river has to lie low.

The most surprising was OMG; nobody expected that after losing Sima Laozei, OMG could still snag a playoff ticket!

Although OMG's standing is largely due to A Group's overall weakness, and they'd likely be one-and-done in the playoffs, fans originally thought just avoiding relegation would be a blessing; to actually make the playoffs is naturally satisfying.

Under OMG's Weibo super-topic, the 59E fans exclaimed that Leng Shao is awesome, as if Leng Shao had already become OMG's new generation leader.

However, now that OMG has made the playoffs, some people can't save face. Indeed, it's the former OMG mid laner who transferred back to NB this year, Cool.

This year OMG lost two aces: Ma Ge went to VG, clinging to Jiao Shen's thigh and directly soaring, naturally unlimited glory. And you, Cool, went to NB—before you arrived NB was a playoff team, but after you came they couldn't even make the playoffs; how awkward is that?

Even more embarrassing, OMG, which was bottom-placed last year, made the playoffs after you left!

This is truly losing face to the extreme.

After the regular season ended, Cool didn't dare to start a stream, instead flying straight back to his hometown to lay low.

……

LPL has the most teams of any global region, so its schedule is always tighter than other regions'; the playoffs will begin two days after the regular season ends.

Netizens began lively discussions of the playoff situation.

Although the official bracket for the quarterfinals hasn't been released yet, according to the competition rules the playoff matchups can already be inferred.

Since the playoff divisions are based on the two top-seeded teams as cores, some netizens have called the two halves the R half and the V half.

The R(NG) half's teams are:

RNG (A1), EDG (B2), IM (A3), QG (B4).

The V(G) half's teams are:

VG (B1), IG (A2), WE (B3), OMG (A4).

In terms of overall strength by division, the two sides look about the same; netizens can see that each side has two top teams with two supporting teams—above is the home turf of RNG and EDG, below is where VG and WE vie for supremacy, while the other four teams just go through the motions.

But frankly, all teams are now seen as VG's supporting cast.

A 32-0 record is shocking enough, plus its average game length is far below the region's level—even a blind person can see that VG's strength in the LPL is a class apart.

So, although many hope for an upset in the playoffs, wishing one of RNG, EDG, or WE could take down VG, objectively speaking, the champion of this spring split should be the most foregone conclusion in history.

……

Then, on the day after the regular season ended, the domestic server witnessed an event not directly related to the competition but very important to all domestic players.

Since last year, news has been circulating; countless domestic players had long awaited the legendary super server—the Summit of the Rift—which finally opened officially.

According to the official announcement, the first two months after the Summit of the Rift opened constitute a trial season, open four days a week, seven hours each day. Moreover, supervision of in-game behavior will be stricter, and non-players are prohibited from renting or selling access rights to the Summit of the Rift.

On major domestic streaming platforms, various Summit of the Rift ranking activities kicked off simultaneously; streamers rolled up their sleeves for generous bonuses and traffic rewards, and in a short time almost all high-level players on the server dove into this super server, making the domestic LoL scene bustle with activity due to the Summit's opening.

Previously, the various teams that dominated thunder control and held the Challenger rankings on major group servers also seized the opportunity to enter this undeveloped blue ocean, attempting to replicate their past glory on other servers by selling high-rank scores for profit.

However, this is the newly opened Summit of the Rift.

Not to mention the makeshift forces represented by civilian experts, there are also regular troops here.

From the day the Summit of the Rift opened, professional players have a new hard rule: they must reach Diamond II or higher by the end of the trial season and maintain at least that rank, otherwise they will be barred from competing.

In other words, before most of the thousands of LPL pros—including academy players—raise their rank to Master, the high-end games at Diamond and above on the Summit of the Rift are so demanding that they even surpass the Korean server, despite the Korean server having higher skill overall but far fewer top players.

Under these circumstances, those teams trying to dominate thunder in high-end games are merely indulging in wishful thinking.

……

On the day before the playoffs began, Liang Yan, urged by a phone call from an executive of a certain fish platform, finally went live at noon the next day.

The title was very concise:

【Summit of the Rift】

For ordinary players, obtaining an eligibility account during the initial opening phase of the Summit of the Rift is no easy feat.

But as a professional player, Liang Yan needn't worry about qualifications at all; he didn't even have to fill out a registration form, as the official had already sent his account a few days earlier.

Liang Yan had just started his stream.

He adjusted his webcam, looked at the camera feed on the screen, and froze for a moment.

He suddenly noticed that his hair had grown long again.

Although earlier, when he had a video call with Tang Anna, she oddly asked him if he was planning to switch tracks and debut as an idol.