Chapter 59: Do you want to destroy European esports?!

In the match against SPY, G2 played far less smoothly than in their match against ROC.

SPY seemed to have specially studied G2's lineup; in the first game they gave the top lane a Captain, then from the start they kept focusing on Expect as a breakthrough point, pressing and catching him, having already ganked three waves ten minutes in, killing Expect twice, and both kills were taken by the Captain……

Liang Yan saw this and knew how G2 lost the first game; afterward he couldn't be bothered to watch more and simply turned off the replay.

Fortunately, in the second game Ka Lao Si learned his lesson, knowing the top lane might still be targeted, so he gave Expect an Alchemist that wasn't so easy to catch and was great at teamfighting, gave mid lane a Kassadin, and placed the burden on AP.

As expected, in the second game SPY still targeted the top lane, but this time they changed their tactic—after a fast three-man bot lane push they directly swapped lanes.

SPY's sudden change caught G2 off guard; for a moment G2 Zhong Ren's formation fell into chaos, and after weathering a few messy minutes of the lane swap they finally stabilized, keeping the gold deficit at over two thousand, dragging it out until nearly twenty minutes, when they finally found an opportunity in a small skirmish to feed AP's Kassadin two kills and a tower.

Although AP had fallen a bit behind in CS earlier, he hadn't died once; eating those two kills and a tower not only fully caught up his farm, but even gave him a slight boost.

Then they fought two more small skirmishes; AP died once but still took three more kills, and now he truly took off.

After that, the rest of the game was basically Kassadin's one-man show.

Finally, after over thirty minutes, G2 razed SPY's high ground, successfully won back a game, and changed the score to 1:1.

The match ended here, with the final result being a draw.

In the official post-match bulletin, G2 inevitably got roasted again, but G2 Zhong Ren's attitude toward haters is basically "a dead pig isn't afraid of boiling water"—no matter how the trolls flame, it doesn't faze them.

However, some people just couldn't take it and started to vent:

"Firrrrrre played so well, why don't you let him play, and instead you put an old mixer up there to curry favor with fans—what's the point?"

Originally, when they were playing ROC, such voices were rare, after all they had won that game beautifully.

However, this game was ugly to watch.

If it weren't for AP's burst of strength in the second game, they would have likely ended up 0:2.

Some relatively neutral team fans then recalled "Monster Brother."

This isn't just random netizen name-calling; the person was personally certified by the North America senior brother! He definitely has several brushes, otherwise he wouldn't have made Doublelift shout "Monster!"

【We want to see Monster Brother!】

【Let Monster Brother play!】

【I admit CyanideFI used to be strong, but now it's 6102, you should have a rough idea of how much strength you have left!】

【Make way! Make way!】

As the majority opinion unified, the volume rose.

CyanideFI's fans were naturally unhappy—"Even a champion jungler isn't good enough, just swap in a new jungler and it's fine? What a joke!"

The two sides with opposing views started arguing, and the comment section was filled with uproar.

……

Lao Li probably saw the arguing comments; when he returned to the base and saw Liang Yan, his gaze darted away, and when Liang Yan raised his hand to greet him, he just gave an embarrassed smile.

Liang Yan immediately understood; after thinking a bit, he took out his phone, opened Twitter, and began editing:

【Do you guys want to destroy European esports!

【Noise noise noise, all day you just randomly spout nonsense online!

【Lao Li is my good buddy!

【But now you've made him want to cut ties with me!】

After finishing the text edit, Liang Yan forcefully widened his eyes, took an angry Vajra selfie, added it, and then directly posted.

You talking about photoshopping?

Liang Yan felt his looks were flawless; photoshopping would only make him uglier.

Not long after posting that, Lao Li came running over, face flushed.

"Sorry... sorry, Liang, I'm not... I didn't... uh..."

"No need to say anything, I understand."

Liang Yan patted Lao Li's shoulder, gazing "gently" into his eyes.

Instantly Lao Li felt moved to tears, his eye sockets turning a bit red.

The team crisis was easily resolved, and Liang Yan's mood brightened again.

As for how netizens argue, it's none of his business.

One can tell there's nothing good to hear, so he simply doesn't want to look at the comments.

But Liang Yan also didn't expect that his "flash of inspiration" would cause such a reaction—less than an hour after posting, the comments had already exceeded two thousand and were still rapidly increasing.

What Liang Yan found even more unexpected was that the comments weren't all insults toward him; there were also many supporters, roughly a third.

Ka Lao Si was also secretly keeping an eye on this; seeing Liang Yan's Twitter followers surge by over ten thousand in a day, he couldn't help but remark:

"This kid, sure enough, is a genius in other areas as well."

"Perhaps we can really train him to become G2's second face, because this kid is just too good at creating buzz!"

"He's only been on the team for a few days?"

"Putting aside actual follower numbers, in Europe he's already famous enough to be purple!"

So Ka Lao Si found Liang Yan and gave him a suggestion:

"\"Liang, when do you plan to open your livestream? I think you should strike while the iron's hot and give a heads-up on Twitter beforehand. \""

Liang Yan, however, said:

"\"No rush, I'll open after we finish H2K. \""

Ka Lao Si was taken aback.

"Good grief, this is about keeping the netizens' appetite hooked, creating another wave, huh?"

"He's really good at this!"

"Almost an operations genius!"

……

June 16, noon.

The fans who had been eagerly waiting finally saw the ID they had been longing for appear on G2's official Twitter announcement.

After the practice match against Snake ended, Ka Lao Si posted the starting lineup for today's match against H2K on G2's official Twitter:

Top lane: Island

Jungle: Firrrrrre

Zhong Lu: Perkz

Xia Lu: Zven

Support: Mithy

Substitute: CyanideFI, Expect

Coach: ocelote

……

Time entered mid-June, and Berlin finally had a hint of summer.

As the crowd flowed in, the temperature inside the venue gradually rose.

Even Liang Yan, backstage with the air conditioning on, felt a bit hot.

Fortunately, on the way over, they finally didn't have to squeeze into the back seats with a few big guys; Ka Lao Si actually followed through on his word, and did so quickly, directly arranging a 15-seat minibus for everyone—although it was secondhand, it was still better than eight or nine people cramming into a 7-seat shuttle.

Outside, occasional loud shouts would drift backstage, but because the venue was too noisy, they couldn't be made out.

Everyone had already gotten ready and was sitting in the lounge, just waiting for the match to start.