Chapter 757: Not that bad

29th, with two days left before the finals began, the official 7.17 patch for the domestic server went live. These past few days VG has been busy, and Liang Yan didn't have time to check the overseas server announcement. After training ended that night, he glanced at the domestic server notice.

In the update notice, Liang Yan saw this line:

【Explorer·Ezreal】Q Mystic Shot, damage: 1.1 total attack damage → 1.25 total attack damage.

In plain terms, Ezreal received another buff, his Q skill's attack damage scaling increased from 110% to 125%, meaning Ezreal jungle will become stronger.

Liang Yan didn't know what internal struggle had taken place at Riot, but to him this was clearly a good thing, because it meant that at the World Championship, opponents would have one more BP consideration to take seriously.

However, the 7.17 patch wasn't all good news for VG—for example, Gangzi had been practicing Draven a lot recently, and Draven was mysteriously nerfed hard. The kill bounty from his passive was greatly reduced, and when Draven died he would lose more stacks of Adoration, which would greatly reduce his snowball potential. The risk and reward were no longer comparable, and it was basically time to consider temporarily removing him from the standard hero pool.

Liang Yan casually sent this info to Zhu Xiaolong and Tabe, then continued reading the update details, screenshotting the key changes and sending them to the two coaches, such as:

Female tank buffed, passive damage increased, Q cooldown changed from 9~5 seconds based on level to a flat 6 seconds at all levels. Liang Yan noted: consider adjusting skill priority, e. g., max W then E, put points in Q last. Consider taking War fervor + Ignite to strengthen early lane duels.

Censer adjusted, attack speed buff changed from 20~35% based on level to a flat 25% at all levels; lifesteal buff changed from 20~35 based on level to a flat 25 at all levels. Liang Yan noted: early game strengthened, late game weakened, pace faster, Berserker's Greaves and Aphelios will be completely revealed— in the finals we can try giving EDG a taste to see the effect……

Overall, with the World Championship approaching, the 7.17 patch didn't bring major changes; it continued Riot's main direction of buffing bottom lane all season, then made some number tweaks on top of that, hoping the final version used at the World Championship would be more balanced, and on the premise of "not causing VG strong dissatisfaction," they secretly nerfed VG's strengths in some details.

After reading Liang Yan's version highlights, Zhu Xiaolong discussed it with Tabe, then replied on WeChat: 【Sure to bring Berserker's Greaves?】

Liang Yan replied: 【Sure, mainly just want to see the effect】

Zhu Xiaolong hesitated for a long time, turned to look at Liang Yan's back, and finally couldn't hold back his worry: 【Boss Lu and Manager Gao both really hope we can get another postseason perfect win, they've promised a lot of bonus money, and the brothers are also looking forward to it……】

【Not that bad】

After replying with those three words, Liang Yan directly shut down his machine and went back to his room.

Zhu Xiaolong held his phone and pondered for a long time before basically concluding that Liang Yan's words probably meant——not that bad as to break the winning streak.

……

Riot's changes to Censer in the 7.17 patch were nothing short of a thunderclap, aimed at waking up those still dreaming: stop clinging to your big-mouth little cannon in the late game, the early‑game strong AD that can still benefit from Censer's buff is the true strongest version answer!

Although the LPL playoffs used the 7.16 patch, as long as EDG's training staff noticed the Censer change in 7.17, they should be able to trace it back and realize that the strength of Censer + Berserker's Greaves + Aphelios had existed for several patches already.

So Liang Yan saying he'd let EDG try Berserker's Greaves and Aphelios in the finals was, first, to test whether EDG had caught on, and second, to actually test the power of the current strongest version answer on the real stage.

Of course this approach carries risk.

As one of the LPL's three major rookie AD carries who debuted mid‑season, iBoy may have been overhyped by netizens, but his skill is indeed not weak, and his Berserker's Greaves have been proven on stage, with extremely high proficiency.

So once EDG gets Berserker's Greaves, whether VG's top lane is Sima Laozei or Gangzi, the bottom lane will surely be pressured, and given EDG's nature and Changzhang's usual playstyle, securing and catching dragons is basically EDG's traditional skill.

How will VG break the situation then?

It all comes down to how the jungler brings the pace.

In short, if VG really lets out Berserker's Greaves and EDG snags it, Liang Yan will inevitably face unimaginable pressure——that's the real reason Zhu Xiaolong and Tabe are worried.

Afraid the winning streak will break and they won't get the boss's promised bonus, that's actually just an excuse to save Liang Yan's face and avoid making him feel the training staff doubts his ability.

Liang Yan, a veteran smooth‑talker from his past life, could clearly see Zhu Xiaolong and Tabe's good intentions, yet he still chose to stick to his suggestion.

This confidence left Zhu Xiaolong and Tabe utterly shocked.

——After all, Berserker's Greaves are a huge weapon: in practice games, giving it to a three‑star opponent can jump their win rate from 30% to 80%.

Speaking of which, every time the World Championship patch arrives, Riot always manages to pull out one or two such "patch princes," which is pretty heaven‑defying.

Moreover, the newly released champion Ornn in the 7.17 patch also has an extremely heaven‑defying mechanism—the initial Ornn version allowed you to upgrade two items for yourself, and the condition for teammates to upgrade items was much simpler than in later nerfs. The good news is, because Ornn was released too recently, he will be banned from use at the S7 World Championship; otherwise the red side would have to bear two 100% ban‑rate monsters, and the win rates of red and blue would become completely unbalanced.

……

On the same day the 7.17 patch went live, the neighboring LCK region's promotion series kicked off.

The LCK situation is similar to the LPL's: before the promotion series began, two spots were already locked, but the promotion series rules differ from the LPL's—the LPL promotion series is three teams playing two best‑of‑five series, with the final winner earning the spot, while the LCK is four teams playing three best‑of‑five series, still a single‑elimination format where the final winner gets the spot.

In the first round of the LCK promotion series, AFS faced MVP, and AFS emerged victorious.

On August 30th, the second round, AFS challenged SSG.

At this point, the SSG team is, compared to the SSG from half a month ago, already on a completely different level of strength.