Chapter 246: One-Round Trip, Zero Wins and Out

As Ye Bo walked into the backstage corridor, he happened to see Flandre and Xun, who had returned from their interviews at the LPL and North American stages earlier, chatting cordially with some people at the corner of the intersection.

He walked over and took a closer look, only to realize they were old acquaintances: "Brother Viper, you're here!"

"I came to cheer you guys on," Viper said with a smile, stepping forward to give Ye Bo a warm hug: "You were truly fierce today."

"After watching that, I'm feeling the pressure now."

Although he had his own tough battle to fight tomorrow, Viper still rushed to the venue today to watch the match.

On one hand, Viper still had deep feelings for his former EDG teammates; after all, it was the birthplace of his two championships.

Especially during last year's World Championship, having experienced so much together due to the pandemic, the bond of even just one year of being teammates was unbreakable.

On the other hand, to be honest, Viper never expected T1 to lose so miserably today.

They had originally even thought T1 might win.

After all, T1 always performs inexplicably well in international tournaments.

And as Ye Bo's former teammate, Viper was extremely wary of V5—even though his current teammates didn't seem to think so.

The rest of GEN, however, were all very confident that they could get revenge!

Since Viper joined this year, Chovy suddenly seemed to find the form everyone expected, displaying terrifying dominance within the league!

They also achieved a record of winning every single series in the Spring Split!

Even though there were quite a few "captives" from last year's World Championship on the team.

But since EDG was the championship team last year, losing to them didn't actually prove that they were "bad."

After some pleasantries, Viper bid farewell to everyone; after all, they were still opponents during the tournament, and besides, he had to face JDG tomorrow and needed to go back to prepare.

The three from V5 continued walking toward their backstage area.

Xun noticed three people standing at the backstage entrance from far away: "Looks like BeryL and the others haven't returned yet. How are they taking even longer than Master Ye's interview? So, who are they waiting for this time?"

Flandre joked: "I'll bet fifty cents, they're definitely looking for Master Ye. Could it be those foreign reporters?"

But when Ye Bo saw two somewhat familiar faces among them, he immediately remembered who they were: "It seems to be the designers of Aurelion Sol and Neeko. I met them during the Aurelion Sol playtest before."

The three people who had come specifically to visit the backstage finally waited for them to return and immediately stepped forward.

"Oh! Yeah!" The guy nicknamed CT was the first to walk up, clearly a bit excited, as he shook hands and blurted out a string of surprisingly standard Chinese: "Nice to meet you! Hearing about you is not as good as seeing you! It really is love at first sight!"

Listening to this "Pinduoduo-style idiom" usage, Ye Bo couldn't help but smile, but he immediately reached out generously: "Your Chinese is really good~"

"Oh, I had a Chinese colleague named Chun Li before, and I was very close with him!" CT accepted the compliment without modesty: "Your Neeko play today was too amazing! It was practically the way I imagined it to be! Sooo good!"

"Thanks for the praise~~"

CT chatted with Ye Bo with immense enthusiasm about his design philosophy for Neeko.

And although the other two had a language barrier and could only communicate through the others, they were also observing Ye Bo with great interest.

Of course, the three of them didn't come specifically for "small talk," and they soon explained their purpose.

First, the three had just searched for the 【Canyon Wing Chun Gym】 segment—they felt that this kind of "hands-on teaching" method by professional players was very helpful for the promotion and dissemination of the tournament.

So, Riot officials wanted to invite Ye Bo to create some hero tutorial videos aimed at "international players" in a similar format.

Simply put, it was an official-level video collaboration.

In fact, Riot had been doing similar things for a long time; for example, every time a new hero was released, they would find many well-known domestic and international media accounts to go to Riot headquarters for promotion and feedback collection, producing programs like "Designer Face-to-Face."

And at this moment, Ye Bo possessed huge attention both domestically and abroad, and he could absolutely become a great template!

"Of course, no problem!"

"But it will have to wait until we finish the tournament and reach the off-season; the matches are the most important thing right now~"

Ye Bo actually had this idea in mind when he first started that segment.

He loved communicating his understanding of the game with others; for him, this couldn't even be considered work, just a pure hobby.

"That's fantastic! Then we'll wait until your MSI journey ends!" CT said with an excited face, already starting to imagine the blueprint: "Then for the first video, how about your most iconic Akali? That is also one of my personal most satisfying works!"

"Oh~ just imagine how excited the global audience will be when they see 'Ye: Exclusive Akali Tutorial.' I believe that will make Akali players all over the world incredibly excited!"

Ye Bo naturally agreed happily.

And the guy nicknamed Three-Ring beside him seemed to remember something and had CT convey two more things.

"A new hero playtest? And it's a new Darkin!? That's definitely no problem!" Ye Bo's eyes lit up after hearing the reveal.

"Yes yes, that is this guy's latest work~"

CT pointed at Three-Ring with a cheeky look in his eyes, and bullying the other guy for not understanding Chinese, he added with a mischievous grin:

"When the time comes... you should give him more 'suggestions.' This guy has been too lazy in the last two years; use your genius ideas to give him a blow!"

Before this year's Darkin, the two closest works by Three-Ring were Zeri and Viego.

Viego was actually fine; apart from the fact that the number of game-breaking bugs set a record and it still hadn't been completely fixed even after two years, the overall evaluation was still quite good.

But Zeri was a different story.

Don't look at how Zeri's performance in the tournament seemed quite good from last year to this year.

But this hero actually broke Riot's record for the "shortest rework"!

From patch 12. to 12. 3, it was completely overturned and mid-reworked in just 9 months... and then for the upcoming 13. 2 patch, it was going to have a third small rework!

Released for less than a year and a half, and reworked three times!

It was enough to show that when this hero was first designed, there were definitely some problems that weren't designed well at all.

However, Three-Ring's performance in the last two years had been like this: great ideas, but always getting confused in certain places.

And then they could only wait until after the launch to slowly receive player feedback and make fine-tuning.

And in fact—Riot really does receive and refer to a large amount of player feedback from all over the world when changing heroes, especially from some "master players" who truly understand the hero better than they do.

Neeko's rework was the best example!

CT was the one who saw Ye Bo's idea of Neeko transforming via Homeguard movement speed and thought it was so cool that he finally insisted on adding the "inheriting jungle monster attributes" setting despite all opposition.

Therefore.

If Ye Bo really proposed some brilliant ideas at that time, leading to some slight changes before the new hero was officially released, perhaps it wasn't impossible.

The three designers expressed their purpose and then tactfully stopped bothering them and left.

And as they pushed the door open to leave, the bot lane duo who had gone to the Korean-language stream for interviews finally finished and returned.

"Who are those three big brothers?" BeryL asked curiously as he closed the door.

"Designers~ They came to ask Master Ye for teaching~" Xun replied half-jokingly, his eyes filled with "worship" as he looked at Ye Bo.

He had never seen a situation where hero designers came to his door asking for a collaboration!

BeryL's eyes widened upon hearing this: "Holy crap, awesome!"

"Brother Alpaca, why were you two so slow? The flowers have withered from waiting!"

"The interview asked too many questions."

"I'm starving, let's go, let's go out and find some food to celebrate!"

In a great mood, Ye Bo and his teammates packed their gear and left the venue, preparing to find some local delicacies to celebrate their first MSI win!

However.

Everyone, being in the UK for the first time, was still too young.

They didn't know that the "thinnest book" in the world was called "British Cookbook."

Flandre searched on various review websites for a long time.

"No way? The number one local delicacy in London is actually Fish and Chips?? How come it looks no different from what the fried chicken shop downstairs from my house sells!"

"You're wrong, Brother Gun, not only is the first one that, but the second and third are also ketchup fish and chips and peanut butter fish and chips respectively."

"Wait, brothers! This dish, looking at the name, seems okay!"

"Stargazy Pie?"

"The name sounds awesome, let's go, let's eat this!"

But when everyone arrived at the restaurant, starving, and waited for a long time, only to see the true appearance of the three plates of the local specialty dish called "Stargazy Pie."

The six of them were all stunned.

The thick butter pastry base was poked full of holes, and fish with wide-open eyes were "inserted vertically" into the pastry base, their eyes rolled outward, gazing upward.

"What the f***!"

"Damn it! Where's the starry sky? Where is the starry sky! Did you fry it away!?"

"Is there a possibility that the cook's name is Stargazy!?"

"Don't be anxious, brothers, believe first! Maybe it's like stinky tofu, looks stinky but tastes fragrant..."

The optimistic Ye Bo had just finished speaking when he volunteered to take the lead, digging out a spoonful with a whole piece of almost unprocessed fish body and stuffing it into his mouth to chew vigorously.

And soon, he finally knew.

It turned out he had always wronged the West Lake Vinegar Fish.

—It turned out that in this world, there really were fish that died even more unjustly than those made into West Lake Vinegar Fish!

"I finally understand why the number one local delicacy is fish and chips."

"Hi sir! Three orders of fish and chips! Big, big portions!"

The failed food-hunting trip allowed Ye Bo to skip enjoying the food and instead spend his time scrolling through his phone.

The fastest things to come out on video sites are always reaction compilations from various secondary streamers; after all, no extra editing is needed, and they can be produced immediately with just a little splicing.

"It's Chinese New Year! Streamers watch V5 crush T1! Everyone exclaims this is simply not human!"

"Three to zero!!! Ye is the eternal god!!!" Xiaohao Youshen's emotions were sincere, his face flushed red with excitement, just like he was cosplaying Red-Temperature Rumble.

Beside him, Xika habitually played the contrarian: "T1 fans, step out! You loved to bark before the match! What broken record? Turns out it was you who got your record broken!"

Sun Ye instinctively reached up to brush his air bangs and directly joined in the roasting: "V5 is a bit too perverted. I personally declare that if Ye Wen wins the championship again this year, he will be the number one in domestic history! Regardless of position! Who agrees, who disagrees?"

"Still need to win another championship? He already is! Xika shook his legs non-stop and chuckled: "Otherwise, who else could be the domestic number one? It can't be Brother, right?"

The video barrage followed the guest's style.

Right now, it was all: "Bold!", "Isn't the first person in the domestic scene the 12-title winner Uzi? I don't accept this!", "The troll has gone crazy."

And what appeared next was a face that Ye Bo found slightly unfamiliar.

He looked like someone who really loved alchemy, his voice was a bit sharp, and he was currently ranting at T1.

"So stupid, Oner! I don't know what he's playing! I want to ask, what is he saving that damn ultimate for? Saving it to protect his own damn ass?"

Switching to the footage of the second game, he was still saying: "The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I don't know why they picked that damn Kindred in the first game! If that Kindred had been released in the first game, would there even be this damn mess in the second game?" Moving to the footage of the third game, he was still saying: "Oh my, look, just look, the way he used that Nocturne ultimate! It's just like that damn ultimate from the first Kindred! Does he even know how to play at all?"

【Post-match: SKT and V5 legend Otto delivers an important speech!】

【I haven't heard the story of Oner failing to use his ultimate and getting roasted by Dian Gun for an hour and a half in thirty seconds.】

【Oner: Just empty! Just empty!】

【Whenever the professional scene is mentioned, even the 0-6 Dian Gun who nobody wants will proudly raise his double eyelids!】

Ye Bo was biting on a french fry like a pigeon at the pier.

Watching the livestream and barrage full of beeps, he suddenly asked his teammates with curiosity: "Hey, was this Otto a member of our V5 before?"

"Does our team history really have such a fierce general? And he even went to SKT!"

However, all four teammates, including the living fossil Flandre and Deft, shook their heads with blank expressions, having not the slightest impression of this ID.

And immediately following that was a sound resembling a dog howling, "Woo~~~~~~".

"Zeus is coming down! The TP to save him! This is the game sense of Zeus! V5, all of you die for me!!!"

"Hey! What the hell is that!?"

"Damn it, Ye Wen is cheating!!!"

"Zeus is down, it's over, it's over, off work, off..."

【Hitting T1, hurting in Xuan Gou's heart!】

【Report! Everyone report them to the International Animal Organization! V5 is abusing a dog! Cancel their qualification!】

【Actually, the dog doesn't know how happy he is inside! Thinking that his second-favorite Sushi is about to roll out of MSI and reunite with his favorite horse-face, his tail is wagging to the sky with excitement~~】

【All wrong! Actually, Xuan Shen is the most loyal guard dog of the Balance Sect! The evidence is that he gave every T1 member a nickname————Zeus, O-Pao Fruit Milk, Big Fly, Little Rag, K-Vocational School, only calling Ye Wen by his real name!】

【It really is!】

Further on were various familiar faces appearing.

Ye Bo didn't feel satisfied enough, so halfway through, he switched out of the program to a domestic forum to look at the grand spectacle of the rating posts at the moment.

【Operation God!!!】

【EDG > T1, V5 > T1, history has already been verified! Who are in EDG and V5, huh?】

【That's right, it's Flandre!】

【I can only say that humanity's development of Master Ye is not even one percent! This Lee Sin can top seven 4396s! This is the true Dragonmancer!】

【Ho ho, Dr. K has been granted another extension of his studies by Professor B!】

【Has anyone watched the LCK interview? The Koreans are completely broken!】

Ye Bo saw a repost of a video link.

It was exactly the interview clip of the bottom lane duo heading to the LCK.

The host was asking Deft about his thoughts after getting the pentakill, and his words seemed to imply: "It was because of Deft's pentakill that helped V5 win"————trying to force a save of face!

The host even hinted around that if DRX hadn't had that incident, perhaps they could have all stayed on the team this year, and other such fantasies.

But he didn't expect Deft to be incredibly honest; he shook his head vigorously before the host even finished.

"Thoughts on the pentakill... actually, there are no special thoughts. I'm very happy, but the credit for those plays clearly doesn't lie with me. I was just picking up kills."

"How does that saying go? All I have to do is click the mouse to attack, the mid laner has to do much more."

"It is my luck to be able to join the V5 team. I still have a lot to improve. Not holding my teammates back is my biggest goal at this stage."

Once these words were thrown out, the host was left speechless and stuck, unable to continue!

He could only smile awkwardly and turn to interview BeryL.

As a result, BeryL shrugged and said concisely: "Hyeok-kyu hyung is right~"

And in the interview clip, despite the host's various explicit and implicit hints, the two simply refused to take the bait.

However, the last question the host asked seemed to take them both by surprise.

"If, I'm saying if..." the host looked at the two seriously.

"If the Asian Games selection after MSI ends, and the region needs to recruit you two to return to compete, would you be willing to fight on behalf of our LCK region?"

The two did not answer this question directly.

They only gave an ambiguous: "We need to focus on the current matches first, we don't know about the future..."

Below the reposted video were attached a large number of comments from the Korean internet.

【Don't, what if they are called back to sabotage us? The Asian Games cannot afford to be lost! People who went to the CN side are unreliable!】

【That's right! Everyone go watch the interview with that guy Ye! How does that CN saying go? He is talented but lacks virtue!!】

【He dares to sabotage!? Anyway, I have already contacted my brother in the military. If they dare to refuse, or don't perform well after coming, I will make sure they learn a lesson later!】

【I'd say it's not necessary at all, it's still early. Anyway, I've never had hope for this damn T1 team. How strong can a team that got 3-0'd by GEN all spring be? GEN is the hope of the LCK!】

【Exactly! Why do we need to find such traitors who ran to the LPL? Just send the GEN five-man squad to the Asian Games, they can easily take both MSI and the gold medal!】

BeryL, sitting next to Ye Bo, heard the faint sound of the video, leaned over to take a look, and then complained indifferently.

"We don't want to go at all, these people are really..."

Ye Bo asked with some curiosity: "Why? Viper hyung specifically went back for this."

"If you can go, you have to be able to win for it to be useful. A silver medal doesn't exempt you from military service~"

BeryL chuckled, also biting on a french fry, and turned his head to look at Ye Bo: "Anyway, we two don't want to play against you again..."

And don't say.

This really was the true inner thought of BeryL and Deft.

They had absolutely no worldly desire for that tournament spot that all LCK players were flocking to, even Deft, who had at most less than two years of "probation" left, felt the same.

Because after half a year of getting along, just like Viper before them, they could better feel the ceiling and terror of this team————all because of the mid laner!

If the mid laner for the Asian Games were someone else, the two might have had some thoughts.

But once the mid laner for the Asian Games was confirmed, Deft had completely dispelled the last shred of thought in his heart.

Now he completely viewed this year as the final year of his career, which is why he didn't let go of any bit of time he could train, just as he said in his interview.

Ye Bo did not know the inner thoughts of his two teammates.

However, if they really were to face his current teammates on that stage in the future, thinking about it carefully, it seemed quite interesting.

The next day, the final match of the bracket stage began, which was also the final match of the half of the bracket where V5 was located.

JDG vs GEN.

It is worth mentioning that the impact of V5's match the previous day was clearly huge!

A Lee Sin mid laner was fine; everyone could see that it was definitely a "human issue" and had little to do with the hero itself.

But Nautilus and Neeko were different!

Ye Bo let everyone see the ceiling of a Nautilus mid laner.

Next was Neeko.

Even a fool could see that Neeko's "strategic value" had broken through the sky!

Not to mention anything else, just a cannon minion tanking a tower was an existence that had almost no solution, and even if the hero itself lacked damage in the early game, it could be used as the best utility hero.

The sudden appearance of two T0-tier heroes changed the original BP ecosystem.

The one directly affected was JDG.

JDG's original understanding of the version was built on the jungle————and one of their biggest advantages was Homme's exquisite BP ability, which should have been easy to gain an advantage in the BP phase.

However, with the massive change in the competitive scene the day before, there was simply no time to practice heroes the next day, and it was even more impossible to change the BP strategy on the fly!

By comparison.

GEN, a team that didn't rely much on BP to win anyway, was not significantly affected.

And this Bo5 was also the first match for both sides; perhaps it was because Knight saw Chovy, his long-time online dating partner, and his pure-hearted syndrome flared up.

Throughout the Bo5, the mid laners of both sides kept holding hands and farming, and whenever a team fight started, Knight would silently protect his teammates in front of him.

On the contrary, Viper and Ruler, the two top-tier LCK ADCs currently active, frequently had highlight moments.

In the end, GEN took down JDG 3-2 and advanced to the winner's bracket!

"Hey, so this is GEN!"

"Doesn't feel like they're as strong as people say online!"

Xun, who had been somewhat worried by the outside public opinion, was clearly relaxed now.

Although the version had changed a lot and the environment was no longer the same as the spring finals version, and V5 also knew that this version was theoretically very suitable for JDG————but V5 had after all beaten JDG 3-0 twice within the region!

And since GEN and JDG were evenly matched, didn't that mean their strengths should be about the same?

Then what was there to be afraid of!

But soon... something even more unexpected happened.

Three days later, the loser's bracket match, which could also be said to be the match with the most "suspense" and "gimmicks".

JDG vs T1.

And what was shocking was that the evenly matched battle everyone imagined never happened.

T1, whom everyone had high hopes for, was actually swept away by JDG 3-1, cleanly and neatly sent back home, kicked out of this year's MSI!

Xun, who had already prepared to show his skills in the final battle against GEN tomorrow, was dumbfounded in front of the screen!

"Is it possible that something went wrong somewhere?"

In this battle, the comparison of strength between the participating teams seems to have lost its reference value.

And as it was destined the moment the draw took place, the team eliminated from the upper bracket will undoubtedly become the most explosive news of this restructured Mid-Season Invitational.

Compared to the end of the first match, an even more terrifying wave of public opinion is sweeping across the entire internet right now!

Because before the match started, almost no one could have imagined it.

The one to be eliminated in the first round would actually be T1!

(End of this chapter)