Chapter 605

Two days later, the qualifying stage of this year's German Cup concluded, and all the slots for the main tournament have been filled.

The result exactly matched netizens' predictions; all eight main tournament teams came from the LPL, while the teams from the LSPL and the City Championship were completely wiped out in the qualifiers—not only did none qualify, but aside from GT and Snake, which had originally been relegated from the LPL, no other non‑LPL team managed to win even a single game against an LPL team.

But no matter how much netizens lamented, the gap remains the gap.

Then another amusing incident occurred: a rookie player who had performed impressively in the qualifiers, being too showy, bragged about his personal qualifier record on Weibo, provoking countless netizens to swarm him, mocking him for feeling superior after beating noobs, and someone dug up his black history from playing matches in the secondary league, filling the comment section with all kinds of horrendous record screenshots.

Then this rookie player broke down and posted two lines on his own Weibo:

【The past is the past, the present is the present! If you're trash, practice more; if you can't afford to lose, don't play!】

Liang Yan was live‑streaming that day; after being killed once in the game, the chat suddenly filled with that line. Fans were joking with the meme, teasing him that he'd been playing matches for so long that he'd forgotten how to stomp noobs in ranked, and his skill had dropped.

Liang Yan was left bewildered, thinking, "Isn't this supposed to go viral only much later?"

Out of curiosity he asked, and the bullet‑chat quickly gave the answer, whereupon he learned the truth.

Liang Yan then smiled and said offhand, "Not bad—I hope VG in the German Cup gets matched against his team, so I can test his mettle."

The chat exploded instantly, and netizens quickly relayed the good news to that player. But by evening, the player had deleted that Weibo post……

But deleting it was useless—screenshots were everywhere online.

So the player later posted another Weibo:

【@VG_Firrrrrre, (three soy‑sweat emojis) Jiao Shen, someone of your caliber shouldn't make things hard for us little shrimps—really can't handle it】

Netizens commented: 【Strict with others, lenient with oneself—what a double‑standard dog!】

For now the matter has blown over, but netizens are looking forward to the German Cup, hoping VG really gets matched against that team so that Jiao Shen can give that double‑standard dog a stern lesson.

Afterward, the officials announced the German Cup schedule.

VG's first match is on the second day of the opening round schedule.

The opponent……turns out to be EDG.

Then something even more interesting happened. On the day the schedule was released, all LPL teams successively announced their tournament rosters.

EDG also announced, but they were the last team to release their notice.

When netizens saw EDG's German Cup roster announcement, they immediately burst out laughing.

Aside from the top‑laner Mouse and support Meiko, every other starting position is filled by newcomers! Even the factory chief (Changzhang) doesn't appear on the substitute list!

The comment section instantly sprang to life:

【Amazing, I don't even recognize two of EDG's players】

【Is iboy finally about to debut? The first home‑grown new‑generation AD carry!】

【What about Changzhang? Is he really not going to be forced into retirement by Jiao Shen?】

【Don't spout nonsense upstairs, Changzhang is just taking a strategic break.】

【Are they using the German Cup as a practice match, right?】

【What if they don't treat it as a practice? They'd run into VG in the first round—what great luck.】

【Can't you stop exploiting Changzhang? After all, he's LPL's first‑ever jungler, he's earned merit for the LPL, the first MSI champion was brought back by him, he's got all these honors! Just because of a single 4396 horse‑tread flying arrow pick‑and‑roll where he didn't ult—apparently he's already researching how to have the little bear spread its hands on the MSI analyst desk—do you really have to vilify him like this?】

Liang Yan idly scrolled through EDG's Weibo, and upon seeing that last paragraph he couldn't help laughing out loud. All he could say was that LPL netizens really know how to make people snap; putting himself in their shoes, he felt that even if it were him, seeing such high‑level trash talk would probably make his mindset explode.

……

On the 30th, Dragon Boat Festival, Boss Lu again gathered everyone for a big meal.

While eating, they happened to watch the draw for the summer season regular groups.

The LPL summer season still has 12 teams; aside from abolishing relegation, the rules remain largely unchanged, with the top four from each group advancing to the playoffs.

As for the teams, compared to spring, GT and Snake had bad luck—they just happened to take the last train down before relegation was abolished, and two completely unfamiliar new teams came up for LPL viewers.

Of the two promoted teams, one is the amazing DAN (Cat King Awesome) that rose up by shocking reversal from third place in the LSPL; the other is SNG, backed by a big investor, and as the team name shows, its backer is Suning.

However, the LPL's first team to represent the influx of big capital is not SNG but another squad—just as VG was busy chopping vegetables at MSI, domestically the QG team silently posted a Weibo announcing that the team had officially been renamed JDG.

Yes, JDG is truly the LPL's first genuine big‑capital team.

And starting this season, the LPL has opened the curtain on a wave of big‑capital teams entering the fray.

Moreover, thanks to VG's surprise rise, the entire LPL's online public‑opinion atmosphere is quite optimistic, and the domestic server is likewise flourishing.

It is foreseeable that the environment of the domestic LoL server, and indeed of all global LoL servers, will head down a road completely different from the timeline Liang Yan has experienced.

After the draw ended, the LPL's official Weibo announced the summer tournament groupings:

Group A: EDG, WE, IG, IM, LGD, DAN

Group B: VG, RNG, OMG, NB, JDG, SNG

When the results came out, the RNG members watching the draw live all had deadpan faces; the silence in the training room was deafening. Xiaohu turned his head to look at Jian Zhaohao, then at Malaxiangguo, and chose to glue his butt to the gaming chair.

Netizens heatedly discussed the group results.

There's not much to say about Group A, except that a few people who had heard of IG's new rookie looked forward to IG's future performance; otherwise, it's just EDG and WE competing for first place, while the other three teams are merely makeweights, with nothing to talk about or look forward to.

Group B, however, had plenty of topics.

First and foremost, the most talked-about topic among netizens was the grudge between Jiao Shen and RNG.

During S6, because RNG's former manager Sanshao started a series of provocative moves beginning with "commenting on the official Top 20," RNG and the G2 team that Jiao Shen was then with erupted in a series of little skits; moreover, since Jiao Shen was then G2's representative figure, many netizens directly equated the grudge between RNG and G2 with that between RNG and Jiao Shen.

In fact, those events were indeed caused by Sanshao's frenzied dissing of Jiao Shen.

Besides the Jiao Shen–RNG grudge, Group B also had two points that netizens were equally interested in: Doinb's love‑hate relationship with his former team NB, and the e‑commerce war between SNG and JDG.

The era of capitalistic scramble has arrived as promised.