Chapter 727: Witnessing History

SKT and SSG are far-sighted, but what about KT?

Since the summer season began, KT hasn't even played a single practice match against VG, but some things can be seen from the replay; at least Liang Yan's personal feeling is that KT remains the same KT, with no change whatsoever.

If Liang Yan were to rank the true strength of the LCK's four top teams, KT could only be third or fourth, tied with Dragon Pearl.

The two teams battling for third and fourth are just lurking; if we need to decide who's better between SSG and SKT, Liang Yan feels SKT would have to dive deeper.

These two teams' regular-season point totals are surprisingly similar to the top two, with identical big and small game points, but SSG swept SKT and leads on head-to-head.

Everyone says it's bloodline suppression—SKT just can't beat SSG.

Liang Yan disagrees, because in his view, at least in this patch, SSG's playstyle isn't that different from SKT's—both are macro‑oriented—but in champion selection and overall team strength, SKT actually has the edge, as its understanding of the version is deeper and its players are individually stronger than SSG's.

Losing one game could be a fluke, losing two a coincidence, but SKT losing four games to SSG? That's definitely suspicious.

We'd better be careful…

Liang Yan quietly made plans, his thoughts already wholly on S7.

As for the LPL playoffs looming ahead, Liang Yan didn't care at all—he couldn't even be bothered to waste a brain cell on it; otherwise it would be disrespect to the work he'd put into rebuilding VG over the past two seasons.

……

On August 12, the LCK playoffs kicked off; fourth‑place regular‑season SKT started its ascent from round one, sweeping AFS 2‑0 in its opener to reach round two.

The next day was the final match day of week nine of the LPL summer regular season; VG had no game that day, but on a whim Fu Lan Duo urged everyone to go to the venue and watch two matches.

Liang Yan also hadn't expected that attending this purely accidental offline viewing would unintentionally let him witness a landmark historical event—what a coincidence.

The day's final match was the highlight of the summer season's Group A intra‑group schedule, and everyone from VG had come precisely for this.

This match was EDG versus WE, the last meeting of the two Group A powerhouses in the regular season. Before this game ended, EDG and WE had identical big‑game points in the regular season, so whoever won this first game would essentially be the Group A regular‑season leader.

At 22:25 of the first game, a teamfight erupted near the Dragon Pit; EDG jungler Changzhang's excavator, back on stage less than half a month ago, died first—and the instant Changzhang fell, the match suddenly paused.

The commentators and the live audience were all bewildered.

From the players' cams, the referee looked just as confused, apparently unaware of what had happened.

The pause lasted a few minutes; then the commentators got a backstage notice announcing the reason: the game server had suddenly auto‑restarted, possibly due to overheating.

At that moment a lightning bolt flashed through Liang Yan's mind, thinking "No way…"

And the result was exactly that "no way."

The pause lasted another ten‑odd minutes; finally the officials announced they would use the "Time‑Space Rupture" technology to rewind the match a dozen seconds or so and continue.

This was the LPL's first use of that technology; the audience found it amazing but saw nothing wrong, assuming it was normal.

Only after this long‑drawn‑out match ended did WE jungler Condi post two lines on his personal Weibo:

【If I lost because of skill, I admit I'm not as good.】

【But today's game, I can only say, no wonder it's Nationalelectric—damn impressive!】

Public opinion exploded instantly; clueless netizens swarmed in, flooding the comments with "What the hell happened?!"

Condi didn't reply, so netizens searched elsewhere and finally found the answer in the stream of 957, who was broadcasting to make up his monthly contract hours:

After the game server restarted, the organizers proposed a solution: they could use an "advanced" technology to rewind the match to a specific point and continue, giving the exact timestamp of 22:27.

The WE side, which had originally demanded a rematch, quickly agreed after a brief discussion.

But not long after, the organizers suddenly changed their tune, saying the technology wasn't mature enough and they could only rewind to 22:25.

WE immediately refused, because at 22:25 EDG hadn't yet touched the Dragon Pit; if the match resumed from that point, EDG would surely not engage WE in a teamfight.

However, the organizers took a hard line, citing the regulations that let LPL terminate a match in special circumstances, and warned that disagreement would mean an automatic loss for WE.

Under the eaves one must bow one's head; WE had no choice but to accept the organizers' plan.

What followed was what everyone saw: after the pause ended, the match resumed at 22:25, EDG's five players turned and ran, never touching the Dragon Pit again, so naturally no teamfight broke out—and of course Changzhang didn't die.

EDG ultimately won the game.

WE lost the match due to the unforeseen circumstance; the players' resentment lingered, their mindset suffered, and as a result they played slightly off in the next two games.

In the end WE lost the best‑of‑three 1‑2.

The importance of this match for WE needs no explanation; losing today to EDG means that point can never be recovered, and thus WE loses any chance to contend with EDG for the Group A top spot.

The foregoing events come from 957's reply to netizens during his stream.

957 is famously honest; his words are highly credible, and given the subsequent silence from LPL officials and EDG, it's basically confirmed.

The next day, public outrage erupted completely, and the whole internet went into an uproar.

The angry 60e launched an online assault against LPL officials and EDG.

But both sides still played dead.

In the end this matter came to nothing; all that happened was that Riot, unable to watch any longer, issued a hollow announcement promising to strengthen global event‑team training for handling similar incidents and to further improve the Time‑Space Rupture technology, while saying nothing about compensating WE for its heavy loss.

Although the affair ultimately fizzled out, history will forever remember it.