Chapter 440: Those Talents

IG's bench had two big names; Rookie, after winning the S5 season MVP and best foreign player nomination, himself counts as a star player, and with the team being one of the three phantom gods of ancient times, IG still has popularity.

After the match, the comment section under IG's official blog was filled with curses; management's grand celebration of JackeyLove's birthday, which led to a report and made him unable to appear due to insufficient age, was brought up again by fans, and IG manager Su Xiao Luo was drenched in abuse.

Some also complained that the Duke IG bought for so much money was useless, purely wasting money, and it would have been better to early on buy Sheng Qiang Ge, etc.

Naturally, someone then mentioned IG's other star substitute player, Theshy, who was traded from WE mid-season, questioning why Theshy wasn't allowed to play.

This is indeed puzzling.

Theshy is a player born in 1999, now already 17 years old, meeting LPL's age requirement for appearance, and there are no other restrictions preventing him from playing; logically he should make his official debut. The large batch of fans Theshy gained through streaming have also long awaited this day, thinking that IG's willingness to send Ben to WE in exchange for Theshy shows they value this player, and the long-dormant pearl is finally about to shine. However, fans waited and waited, waited and waited, until the spring season ended, the playoffs were over, and they still didn't see Theshy play, so this opinion grew strong.

Adding to that, the heartbreaking scene of Rookie after the match caused public opinion to explode.

Then, Chris, the head coach who joined IG this spring, came out and posted a Weibo, saying Theshy had just joined the team and hadn't yet synced with them, and moreover Duke's performance in practice matches was better than Theshy's.

This reason is barely passable; if nothing unexpected happened, fans could accept it, but the problem is that just that night, when Theshy was streaming and playing ranked on Han Fu, he ran into Duke……

Green Steel Shadow versus Jayce, flash and teleport strike flash and ignite, level three solo kill, level six tower dive swap, causing Jayce to lose two big waves of minions; from then on, whenever Jayce appears alone before Green Steel Shadow he gets solo killed, in under fifteen minutes two towers are pushed down, directly raising an unkillable fat split-push demon king.

Online viewers just hearing this might think it's nothing, it's only ranked play, just messing around. But anyone with a bit of game foundation, say gold rank and above players, can tell at a glance how big the gap between these two is.

Mainly, this version of Green Steel Shadow has been nerfed into uselessness; in the playoffs so far, its pick/ban rate is still under ten percent, with only QG and IM's top laners each using it once, and both games were lost……

Meanwhile Jayce remains at the top of the top lane champion ban rate from season start to playoffs, a constant on the ban phase, and this is absolutely due to its outstanding lane dominance.

In short, this version of Green Steel Shadow seeing Jayce, even calling 'dad' doesn't work; you need to call both the wild dad and mid lane dad together.

But the reality is, Theshy's Green Steel Shadow crushed Duke's Jayce, showing that the lane strength gap between the two players has reached an extremely exaggerated level.

With this real-game example as proof, IG coach's statement seems a bit shaky.

Even if Theshy's team synergy has issues and he lacks chemistry with teammates, this lane ability is genuine!

On the contrary, Duke was actually suppressed by WE's top laner 957, who isn't particularly aggressive, and in team contribution he was completely blown apart by Tui Ge, because Duke himself is a very lone wolf playstyle; outside team fights, not only does he not help teammates, he even consumes their resources, and after doing so he's still useless!

With that, you say Theshy is less useful than Duke?

Fans definitely wouldn't believe that.

Duke, you can't lane, you can't support, and you can't even pull off split-pushing!

And Theshy, although he hasn't played, at least he has lane ability, right?

Theshy's fans launched another offensive, first targeting head coach Chris, then IG's Weibo. Moreover this time nothing works.

But IG management can't do anything either, because the season is over, IG has no more matches, they can't quell the fans' anger, so they can only play dead and wait for the storm to pass.

……

Not mentioning IG's drama, after the playoffs top six finished, the LPL second round relegation playoffs resumed.

Although called relegation playoffs, it's more accurate to say promotion/relegation playoffs, because every match in this round is a life-or-death battle.

The first match: LGD versus YM, the spring season runner-up of LSPL.

YM is the team funded and organized by PDD, continuously supplying talent to LPL, later hailed as the esports Whampoa. Speaking of this team, although it has never entered LPL, many people know of it, and it can be considered one of the few somewhat popular teams in the otherwise overlooked LSPL, although the reason for its fame is not something good——

YM took LSPL runner-up twice in the S5 season, participated twice in the promotion/relegation matches but failed to advance, yet the talent it supplied to LPL later thrived.

Some suspect PDD is intentionally acting as LSPL's gatekeeper, throttling the ascension channel to sell tickets—selling once at the LSPL final, again at the promotion/relegation match, to repeatedly profit.

PDD has responded multiple times in streams, also often breaking down and cursing; if it's not acting, it's indeed quite heartbreaking.

And today, YM, led by the new-generation domestic prodigy mid laner who has repeatedly topped Han Fu this year and is nicknamed Jin Zuo Shou, Knight, once again stands at this historical turning point, attempting to undergo tribulation and ascend.

However, nobody expected that the anticipated underdog-overlord storyline would not appear; after three matches, instead, the halo of Knight the genius mid laner lay shattered on the ground.

Facing the former domestic prodigy mid laner GodV, who hasn't played a proper practice match in a long time, whose ranked records are basically non-existent, and who can often be seen in streams eating chicken, already worn down by 'reverse Q' into obscurity in the martial world, Knight is like a novice who just learned to play games, being GodV made to assume various positions and get beaten……

Directly a 3-0 sweep, LGD retained its LPL spot.

And YM, once again fell at the gates of LPL.

The Optimist Family rejoices greatly; although winning a secondary league team isn't worth bragging about, but now those loyal to the old godfather have already given up, no matter what, just watching Wei Shen crush the so-called genius is satisfying!