Chapter 366: A Winning Start! [Zeus (Master Ye)]

"Congratulations to V5!!" Guan Zeyuan beamed with joy.

"They took down DK in just over 20 minutes, fully displaying their flair as the first seed and securing a winning start to this year's World Championship!"

Listening to Guan Zeyuan’s post-match summary, Jide nodded in agreement: "The designers actually deliberately tried to 'slow down' the pace in this patch by enhancing {Plating Resistance} and {Turret Damage Reduction}. In fact, the average game time during the Play-Ins was dragged out to over 30 minutes."

"But V5 is V5; they can still pull off this kind of fast-push tempo!"

"This also gets the LPL off to a great start! I look forward to seeing the other teams perform well in the Swiss Stage!"

Ye Bo took off his headset and, with a radiant smile, high-fived his teammates to celebrate.

Although DK was only the fourth seed from the LCK, as the first victory of the S13 World Championship, it symbolized the first step of V5’s long journey, which was quite worth celebrating.

Most importantly, they had successfully executed their plan without revealing any "flaws."

Admittedly, even with the early-game advantage in the jungle, V5 failed to tear the game apart as they usually did, and they even hit a wall repeatedly in the team fights at the Rift.

But relying on a series of eye-catching team fight performances and operational decisions, they still managed to secure results in the second skirmish at the Rift, forcibly dragging the tempo back into their own area of expertise!

Just as the casters said—even if you covered the IDs, you would still know this was a V5 match!

"Feels like our old system is still pretty fierce!" Xun joked with a smug look on his face: "Call T1 over! Tell them to call T1 over!"

"Master Ye hasn't even started showing off yet, and you're already at it?" Beryl teased, then couldn't wait to run to the other side: "Hurry up, hurry up! I want to go shake hands!"

The entire V5 team, in high spirits, crossed the center of the stage toward the DK player booths.

During the process, aside from the cheering from the venue, one could still hear the casters' voices, still evaluating the match.

"Beyond the gap in player mechanics, it feels like this match was also a suppression of DK's 'game IQ' by V5!"

"I have to say, although they didn't follow the meta trends, they are proving with facts that in the face of absolute strength, there is no need to chase the mainstream; you can completely use what you are best at!"

"Looking at the post-match stats, Xu Ge's Malzahar finished with a 1/7 record."

The director pushed the camera to the DK player booths.

Among the five DK players, four were entering the World Championship for the first time, and the whole team looked dejected at this moment.

As the only big brother, Xu Xiu felt just as miserable inside, but he still had to offer comfort: "It's okay, it's okay. Everyone is playing their first World Championship match, so it's normal to be nervous and perform a bit poorly!"

The heavily discouraged top laner Swioo replied with some frustration: "Does the Play-In stage not count, Xu Ge? It feels so different from the Play-Ins. I thought all champion top laners were the same..."

"Of course the Play-Ins don't count!" Xu Xiu was desperate to comfort everyone.

"Have you ever heard of a 'Top 17' award at the World Championship? Only after entering the Group Stage is it the official World Championship, so this definitely counts as the first match!"

Hearing the comfort from their big brother, the four little ones of DK finally calmed down.

Unfortunately, no one could comfort the big brother.

"Yo yo yo! Isn't this Xu Xiu!" Beryl’s mouth stretched to the sky as he chuckled and patted the other's shoulder: "Long time no see, brother. It seems like it's been twenty minutes since we last met. I missed you!"

"Go away, go away." Xu Xiu’s face fell, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything harsh.

Who told him he had just been beaten up?

And when he shook hands with Ye Bo, he stared at him quite dramatically, muttering something with a determined look in his eyes.

Ye Bo didn't understand, and only asked Deft, who was in front, to translate after walking out of the player booths.

"He said he will definitely take Syndra back."

"Oh, what a pity, then he won't have the chance~"

The Swiss Stage BO1 schedule was tight, with 7 more matches to play later, so only Ye Bo accepted the brief on-site interview alone.

While standing on the side of the stage waiting to prepare, the big screen also showed the MVP selection for the first match, which had no suspense.

Cheers erupted from the audience!

Ye Bo also saw the brand-new promotional photo he had taken on the eve of the World Championship—he stood in front of the Seoul landmark, N Seoul Tower, with one hand behind his back and the other slightly extended toward the camera, as if welcoming the teams that had come from afar to challenge them.

It gave people a sense of "Huzhou Huang Feihong."

And the highlight reel exclusive to his performance in this match was also released.

From the seemingly simple but actually extremely difficult solo kill with "Blade in the Bosom," to the "Baiting with One's Body" thousand-mile barrier-breaking edge, to the art of spacing in side-lane split pushing.

As well as the most breathtaking "Sword from Beyond the Heavens"!

The director sent by Riot was very savvy, specifically creating a "3D panoramic" view for this play, using a multi-camera angle from a high-altitude bird's-eye view to restore the immersion for everyone.

The sword flowers slashed into the air by the red and white twin blades bloomed with neon flashes high above, and the layered light of the twin swords dancing in his hands looked even more like the eyes of a demon opening!

Seeing it again still caused cheers to erupt from the venue once more!

Ye Bo stepped on the wave of sound and walked onto the stage again.

And the LCK's lead female host, Park Ji-sun—who was also about to marry the retired T1 player Bang and was nicknamed "Mother of God" by netizens on the Anti-League forum—was already waiting on stage with a smile.

Once the noise in the venue subsided, Park Ji-sun finally asked the first question.

"First of all, congratulations to V5 for winning the opening match!"

"I believe not only I, but many viewers are also very curious: the system and playstyle V5 used in this opening match seem different from the other teams we are familiar with from the Play-Ins... May I ask if this means V5 has some unique understanding of the World Championship patch?"

After all, she had the persona of being the "wife of a former professional player."

Park Ji-sun had always been known in the LCK for her in-game professionalism, and she asked a detailed question right from the start.

Ye Bo flashed his signature smile and replied somewhat evasively: "Every team naturally has its own understanding of the patch. As for us at V5, we do indeed prefer the old systems."

Park Ji-sun used to be a translator, a position similar to Yu Shuang of the LPL.

So, before the translator on the side could give the response, she, having understood the meaning, already nodded with a smile.

In her view, by getting this answer from him, the "task" she had just received could be considered accomplished.

She immediately switched to another topic.

"Speaking of which, whether it's the Top 20 players announced before the tournament or the 'God-Ascending' theme song MV, you, Ye, are very prominent. Especially the storyline in the theme song, which was filmed exactly according to your journey at last year's World Championship."

"So, how do you evaluate this?"

This was actually an event that had caused quite a stir in the LCK recently.

The theme song MV for this year was considered by everyone to be a high-quality work, with both special effects and plot fully maxed out, receiving unanimous praise from both domestic and foreign networks.

Only the Korean fans of the LCK were extremely dissatisfied!

At the time, one could see everywhere: "What are they doing? Filming a personal documentary?", "The tournament is being held in our country this year, and instead of filming our country's scenery, they film this?", "Faker didn't even get this kind of treatment when he won his double championship in S5."

Of course, everyone knew—they reacted so strongly because everything in the documentary was a "flogging of the corpse" of the LCK region from last year!

It was completely tearing open the wounds.

Facing this question, which could be said to offend no matter how one answered, Ye Bo appeared very calm and raised the microphone without even thinking.

"I think it was filmed quite well."