Chapter 246: First-round exit

When Ye Bo walked into the backstage corridor, he happened to see Brother Shengqiang Ge and Xun, who had returned from interviews at the LPL and North American stages earlier, chatting cordially with someone at the corner of the intersection.

He walked over to take a look and realized it was an old acquaintance: "Brother Viper is here!"

"I'm here to cheer you guys on," Viper said with a smile, coming up to give Ye Bo a warm hug: "You were truly fierce today."

"After watching that, my pressure has gone up."

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 EDG teammates; after all, it was the birthplace of his two championships.

Especially during last year's World Championship, having gone through so much together due to the pandemic, even just a year of camaraderie was a bond that couldn't be severed.

On the other hand, frankly speaking, Viper never expected T1 to lose so miserably today.

They had even originally thought T1 might win.

After all, T1 always performed inexplicably well in international matches.

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

The others on GEN, however, were all very confident 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 an undefeated record in the Spring Split!

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

But after all, EDG was the championship team last year, so losing to them didn't actually prove 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 toward their own backstage area.

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

Brother Shengqiang Ge joked: "I bet fifty cents, they're definitely looking for Master Ye. Could it be that foreign reporter?"

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

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

"Oh! Yeah!" Brother CT was the first to walk up excitedly to shake hands, blurting out a string of surprisingly standard Chinese: "Nice to meet you! Hearing about you is not as good as seeing you! It really is like meeting an old friend!"

Listening to this "Pinduoduo-style idiom," 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'm very close with him!" Brother CT accepted the compliment without modesty: "Your Jin Kesi play today was amazing! You played it exactly as I imagined! Sooo good!"

"Thanks for the praise~~"

Brother CT communicated with Ye Bo with immense enthusiasm about his design philosophy for Jin Kesi.

While the other two didn't speak the language and could only rely on the other to translate, they were also observing Ye Bo with great interest.

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

First, the three had just searched for the 【Valley Wing Chun Hall】 segment—they felt this method of professional players "personally teaching" was very helpful for the promotion and dissemination of the tournament.

So, the 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 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 Ye Bo at this moment possessed huge attention both domestically and abroad, absolutely capable of becoming a great template!

"Of course, no problem!"

"But it will have to wait until we finish the tournament and reach the off-season. The tournament is the most important thing right now~"

Ye Bo actually had this idea 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 great! Then we'll wait until your MSI journey ends!" Brother CT looked excited, 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~ think about how excited global audiences will be when they see 'Ye·Akali Exclusive Tutorial.' I believe that will make Akali players all over the world incredibly excited!"

Ye Bo naturally agreed happily.

And Brother Sanhuan beside him seemed to remember something and had Brother CT convey two more things.

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

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

Brother CT pointed at Brother Sanhuan beside him with a grin, and bullying the other for not understanding Chinese, he mischievously added some personal thoughts.

"When the time comes... you can 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 Darkin this year, Brother Sanhuan's two closest works were Zeri and Viego.

Viego was still okay, except for the fact that the malicious bugs were so numerous they broke records, and even after two years of fixing, they still hadn't been completely wiped out; the overall evaluation was still quite good.

But Zeri was a different story.

Don't look at how Zeri seemed to have a very good performance on the professional stage from last year to this year.

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

From version 12.2 to 12.23, in just 9 months, it was completely overturned for a mid-scope rework... and then for the upcoming 13.12 version, it was going to have its third small rework!

Released for less than a year and a half, 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, Brother Sanhuan's performance in the last two years was just like this: they were all great ideas, but he would always get confused in certain places.

And then he could only wait until after the launch to slowly receive player feedback for fine-tuning.

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

Jin Kesi's rework was the best example!

Brother CT was the one who saw Ye Bo's idea of Jin Kesi transforming using Homeguard movement speed, felt it was too cool, and finally overcame all opposition to insist on adding the setting of "inheriting wild monster attributes."

So.

If Ye Bo really proposed some particularly great ideas when the time came, leading to slight changes before the new hero was officially released, perhaps it wasn't impossible.

The three designers expressed their purpose and then sensibly stopped bothering them, getting up and leaving.

And as they pushed the door open to leave, the bot lane duo who had gone to the Korean broadcast for an interview finally finished and returned.

"Who are those three big brothers?" Beryl closed the door and asked curiously.

"Designers~ They came to find Master Ye for teaching~" Xun replied half-jokingly, and the look in his eyes when he watched Ye Bo was simply filled with "worship."

He had never seen a scene where hero designers came to the door to ask for collaboration.

Beryl widened his eyes upon hearing this: "Holy crap, awesome!"

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

"The interview asked too many questions..."

"Starving to death, let's go, let's go, let's go out to find food and 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 who had come to 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."

Brother Shengqiang Ge searched for a long time on various review websites.

"No way? The number one local delicacy in London is actually fish and chips?? Why does it look no different from what's sold at the fried chicken shop downstairs from my house!"

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

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

"Stargazy Pie?"

"This name looks awesome, let's go, let's eat this!"

But when everyone arrived at the restaurant hungry and waited for a long time, seeing the true appearance of the three plates of local specialty dishes called "Stargazy Pie."

The six of them were all stunned.

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

"What the f***!"

"Meow! 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 Starry Sky!?"

"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, scooping up a spoonful with a whole piece of fish that had barely been processed, stuffing it into his mouth and chewing 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 more unjustly than being made into West Lake Vinegar Fish!

"I finally know 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, however, allowed Ye Bo to not have to enjoy the food at all and could scroll through his phone to his heart's content.

The fastest videos to come out on video websites are always reaction compilations from various second-tier streamers; after all, no extra editing is needed, and they can be produced immediately after a little splicing.

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

"Three to zero!!! Ye is forever the god!!!" Xiaohai 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 devil's advocate: "T1 fans, step out! You loved to bark before the match! What broken record? It turns out you were the ones who had your record broken!"

Sun Yalong instinctively reached out to lift his air bangs, directly joining in the trolling: "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 person in domestic history! Regardless of position! Who agrees, who opposes?"

"Still need to win the championship again? He already is!" Xika kept shaking his legs and chuckled: "Otherwise, who else could be the number one domestic player? It can't be Brother, right?"

The video bullet comments followed the guests' style.

At this moment, they were all 【Bold!】, 【Isn't the number one domestic player the 12-time champion Uzi? I don't recognize it!】, 【Trolling has gone crazy】.

And then appearing was a face Ye Bo was slightly unfamiliar with.

He looked like he really liked alchemy, his voice was slightly sharp, and he was frantically blasting T1.

"So stupid, Oner! I don't know what he's playing! Why is Kindred's ultimate being saved? I want to ask, is it being saved to protect his (beep) (beep) (beep)?"

Switching to the second game's footage, he was still saying: "The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I don't know why they had to pick that Kindred in the first game! You say if Kindred had been released in the first game, would there be this (beep) business in the second game?" Switching to the third game's footage, he was still saying: "Oh, look, look, this Nocturne ultimate, it's just like that Kindred (beep) ultimate in the first game! 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 not using his ultimate well and being lectured by Dian Gun for an hour and a half for thirty seconds】

【Oner: Just empty! Just empty!】

【Whenever professional competition is mentioned, even Dian Gun, who is 0-6 and unwanted, will proudly raise his double eyelids!】

Ye Bo held a fry in his mouth like a pigeon at the pier.

Watching the live stream and bullet comments full of beeps, he suddenly asked his teammates curiously: "Hey, was this Otto a member of our V5 before?"

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

However, the four teammates, including the living fossil Brother Shengqiang Ge and Deft, all shook their heads in confusion, having not the slightest impression of this ID.

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

"Zeus is coming down! The TP protection that retreated in advance! This is Zeus's awareness! V5, all die for me!!!"

"Hey! What the heck!?"

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

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

【Hitting T1, hurting in Xuangou's heart!】

【Report! Everyone report to the International Animal Organization! V5 is abusing dogs! Cancel their tournament 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, Xuanshen is the most loyal gatekeeping dog of the Balance Sect! The evidence is that he gave every T1 person a nickname————Zeus, O-Pao Fruit Milk, Da Fei, Little Mabu, K-Zhongzhuan, only calling Ye Wen by his real name!】

【It really is!】

Then came the appearance of various familiar faces.

Ye Bo didn't feel satisfied enough watching, so halfway through, he exited the program and jumped to the domestic Tieba, watching the grand occasion of the domestic rating posts at this time.

【Operation God!!!】

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

【That's right, it's Brother Shengqiang Ge!】

【Can only say that human development of Master Ye is not even one percent! This Lee Sin can top 7 4396s! This is the true Dragon Slayer!】

【Ho ho, Dr. K has been granted an extension by Professor B again!】

【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 bot lane duo going to the LCK.

The host was asking Deft about his thoughts after getting the pentakill, and his words seemed to want to describe it as: "It was because of Deft's pentakill that helped V5 win"————to forcibly save face!

The host even hinted that if DRX hadn't had that incident, perhaps they could still have kept the whole team this year, and other fantasies...

But he didn't expect Deft to be extremely honest, shaking his head vigorously before he even finished listening.

"Thoughts on the pentakill... actually, there are no special thoughts, very happy, but the credit for those few waves 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 a lot."

"It's my luck to be able to join the V5 team, there is still a lot for me to improve, not holding back my teammates is my biggest goal at this stage."

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

He could only smile awkwardly and turn to interview Beryl.

As a result, Beryl shrugged and said concisely: "Brother Hyuk-kyu is right~"

And in the interview clip, although the host made various hints, the two didn't take the bait.

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

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

"If the Asian Games selection after MSI ends requires the region to recruit you two back to participate, are you willing to represent our LCK region?"

The two didn't answer this question directly.

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

The reposted video also included a large number of Korean web comments.

【Don't, what if they come back and act against us? The Asian Games cannot be lost! People who went to CN are unreliable!】

【That's right! Everyone go watch the interview of this person Ye! There is a saying in CN, he is talented but lacks virtue!!】

【He dares to act!? Anyway, I have already contacted my brother in the army, if they dare to refuse, or don't perform well after coming, I will definitely make them know the lesson later!】

【If you ask me, it's not necessary at all, it's still early, anyway, I have never had hope for this T1 team, how strong can a team that was 3-0ed by GEN all spring be? GEN is the hope of LCK!】

【That's right! Still need to find such traitors who ran to LPL? Just send the GEN five-man team to the Asian Games, MSI and gold medals can be taken easily!】

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 curiously: "Why, Brother Viper specifically went back for this."

"Being able to go is one thing, but being able to win is what's useful. A silver medal doesn't exempt you from military service~"

Beryl chuckled dryly and turned his head to look at Ye Bo with a fry in his mouth: "Anyway, we two don't want to play against Ni again..."

Don't even mention it.

This was truly the real inner thought of Beryl and Deft.

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

Because after half a year of getting along, they, like Viper before, could feel the upper limit and terror of this team more deeply————just because of the mid laner!

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

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

Now he only regarded this year as the last year of his career, so he didn't let go of any bit of training time, just as his interview said.

Ye Bo didn't know the inner thoughts of his two teammates.

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

The next day, the last match of the winners/losers bracket was held, which was also the last match of the half-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!

Lee Sin mid was fine, everyone could see that it was definitely a "human problem" and had nothing to do with the hero itself.

But Nautilus and Jin Kesi were different!

Ye Bo let everyone see the upper limit of Nautilus mid.

Secondly, Jin Kesi.

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

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

The sudden appearance of two T0-level heroes changed the original BP ecological pattern.

The one directly affected was JDG.

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

However, with the huge change in the arena the day before, there was simply no time to practice heroes the next day, and it was even more impossible to temporarily change the BP thinking!

In comparison.

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

And this BO5 was also the first match for both sides, perhaps it was Knight seeing Chovy, his long-distance online dating partner of many years, and his pure love syndrome flared up.

Throughout the BO5, the mid laners of both sides were just holding hands and farming, and once it came to team fights, Left Hand would silently protect his teammates in front of him...

Instead, Viper and Ruler, the two top active LCK shooters, had frequent highlights.

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

"Hey, is that all GEN has!"

"Doesn't feel as strong as what's said on the internet!"

Xun, who was originally worried by outside public opinion, clearly relaxed at this moment.

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

And GEN and JDG fought to a standstill, doesn't that mean the strength of both sides should be about the same?

Then what is there to be afraid of!

But soon... something even more unexpected happened.

The losers' bracket confrontation three days later could also be said to be the match with the most "suspense" and "gimmicks."

JDG vs T1.

And what made everyone's jaws drop was that the evenly matched battle everyone imagined simply didn't happen.

T1, who was pinned with high hopes by everyone, was actually beaten 3-1 by JDG like autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, kicked out of this MSI with extreme cleanliness and decisiveness!

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

"Is it, did something go wrong somewhere?"

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

And as it was destined from the moment of the draw, the loser of the upper bracket would undoubtedly become the most explosive news of this reformed MSI.

Compared to the end of the first match, what was set off across the internet at this time was an even more terrifying wave of public opinion!

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

The one who would be a first-round exit... would actually be T1!

(End of chapter)