Chapter 37: Facing Inner Demons!

July 5, 2022, Hongqiao World.

"I feel like JDG's form isn't that great either. How did we get 2-0'd in our second match of the Summer Split?" Jiejie grumbled to himself in frustration.

The EDG squad arrived at the venue at four o'clock to watch the matches, and the opening match at five o'clock had already concluded, with Team JDG ultimately defeating Team UP 2-1.

It was clear that for JDG, having just undergone a "major reinforcement" this year, putting up such a performance against UP, a team that consistently sat at the bottom of the rankings, was extremely below expectations.

The "highlight" of this match actually also included some interesting trivia regarding the top laners of both sides.

There had been rumors during this year's transfer period that JDG was choosing between Zoom and 369, and ultimately chose 369.

And according to leaks, 369's salary was a full 7-8 times higher than Zoom's!

Online speculation suggested that because Zoom was only good at tank champions and couldn't play carry champions, JDG had spent a fortune to choose the latter.

However, JDG insiders also revealed that it was the new coach, Homme, who insisted on 369, eventually convincing JDG's upper management.

But looking at today's match, this 7-8 times price premium clearly hadn't produced any results; JDG was entirely relying on the advantage of their mid and jungle to dictate the tempo.

The top lane was even "counter-picked" and crushed, which, compared to that price premium, was simply the behavior of a total sucker.

"Don't worry, we'll get it back in the playoffs. When the time comes, we'll go to the top lane together and accompany Flandre to spin the top!" Ye Bo comforted Jiejie nonchalantly.

"That actually works. Let's try the whip on Teacher Cheng Lu today~" Jiejie chuckled.

"Though, this is my first time seeing TheShy in person."

A backstage referee came over to remind them to prepare to go on stage.

The EDG starting lineup stood up immediately and walked to the backstage corridor.

Standing at the entrance of the adjacent corridor, Ye Bo tilted his head slightly and happened to see TheShy standing in front as the top laner.

Unlike the abstract appearance he saw in livestream clips, as long as the other party wasn't grinning wildly, which made his already long face stretch even further, he actually looked quite normal.

In the gaps between the stage lights.

Wearing a black-strapped, off-the-shoulder evening gown with a high slit, the host Yu Shuang had already stepped onto the stage in transparent high heels.

After a brief opening announcement, Yu Shuang began to shout out the players' IDs.

"First, let us welcome Weibo Gaming!"

TheShy, SofM, Angel, Huanfeng, and ON.

The five WBG starters took the stage one by one, enjoying the sky-filling cheers from the audience!

Compared to LNG in the previous match, WBG's popularity was definitely more than a notch higher.

And currently, TheShy's supporters were still getting along quite well with WBG; after all, WBG's results this year were still decent, and nothing too explosive had happened.

Of course, it wasn't hard to see the current main fan demographic of this team, given that the vast majority of people off-stage were holding TheShy light boards and cheering banners printed with Jiang Cheng-lu's photo.

"Then, the next to take the stage is, Edward Gaming!" Yu Shuang waved and continued loudly.

On the other side, the five EDG starting members also began to take the stage in turns.

However, the momentum was clearly a notch inferior by comparison.

There was no help for it; after all, a large portion of their powerful combat force had collectively gone silent. They could still put up a fight against LNG, but by today, they were slightly falling behind.

But for Ye Bo, hearing the voices calling his name—which were clearly much more numerous than in the first match—still made him instantly excited!

In the first week's [Weekly Top 10 Plays] released by the LPL, Ye Bo alone accounted for 4 of them!

They were the Top 1 "Yone Back-Flash Quad-Flight."

The Top 2 "Taliyah Tower-Dive Ultimate Unraveling Earth Counter-Kill."

The Top 5 "Yone Tower-Dive Solo Kill."

The Top 7 "Taliyah Mid-Air Ultimate Collision."

Taking up nearly half of the highlight reel for a week by himself—few players in the entire LPL had achieved this!

Although there was indeed a lot of "marketing" and "fandom" cultural invasion in the LPL region now.

But clearly, not everyone was like that.

There were still many in the silent majority who actually just purely liked this game, wanted to see wonderful performances on the professional stage, and were all serious {match spectators}.

It was precisely this group of spectators that Ye Bo attracted, which allowed him to have a huge increase in popularity in just one week compared to the previous week; at least he wouldn't be "playing to an empty house" anymore.

The players from both sides took their seats on stage, and the commentary voices also came through simultaneously from the commentary desk.

"Welcome back to the scene, everyone, I am Wang Duo!"

"Hello everyone, I am Gu Gu!"

"Wow, after watching the 'Dragon-Tiger Struggle' in the top lane position in the previous match, in this one, we can watch another duel between Flandre and TheShy!"

Right from the start, Gu Gu's conversational angle was placed on the most-watched top lane position.

However, Wang Duo mentioned a different point of view: "But I am also personally looking forward to this match, to see if this new mid laner from EDG can continue to bring surprises. After all, in his debut last match, he truly brought us quite a few famous scenes."

[Beating Doinb is really annoying, who doesn't know how washed up this guy is now! Sigh, keep hyping him up!]

[Ah, yes, yes, yes~ he just beat Scout twice, it was just a Jurassic-era ancient match from 4 months ago, it really doesn't count, heh.]

[The "School Mom" fans are still stirring up trouble. After stealing the MVP, he's been feeding for half a year, and now he's being benched by a rookie. He's really hateful~]

[The two above, if you have the guts! Post your Weibo IDs!]

[But what's the point of changing the mid laner for this match? EDG getting crushed in the Spring Split wasn't because of the mid laner. What kind of form is Flandre in this year? How can he fight against Jiang? Maybe just pick him a Malphite.]

[So annoying, what kind of champion are you? You really have a champion title? It's fine, haha, an ancient champion is so annoying.]

High traffic meant that controversy was inevitable.

Before the match had even started, the live chat was already opening several barbecue shops, starting to "skewer" each other.

"The pick and ban has already started here, so without further ado, let's enter the pick and ban phase!"

The pick and ban screen loaded.

The coaching staff responsible for WBG's pick and ban this year were Easyhoon and Eimy.

They were a former champion mid laner and a former LGD jungler known for his unpredictable play.

It was just clear that the coaching process for these two was not going smoothly.

Especially this year, almost every time WBG lost a match, both of them would be scolded onto the trending searches regarding [#BPLineup], highlighting a state of constant fear.

However, the facts on the ground seemed to indeed prove that the abilities of these two coaches were slightly lacking.

Because.

Most of the progress of this pick and ban was almost identical to what EDG had guessed before the match!

Although WBG's jungle strategy was relatively difficult to guess, their tactical focus was quite singular, and the players' style characteristics were fixed and distinct.

Coupled with the fact that the coaching staff's ability was indeed limited.

The pick and ban for the first game could be considered to have hit most of the "analysis" Ye Bo had made beforehand.

"Besides banning the popular Taliyah, WBG also specifically banned Akali and LeBlanc in this match. The respect shown to this rookie is fully maxed out!"

"Hmm? EDG is actually not picking Yone for the mid laner on the third pick? If that's the case, Yone will definitely be banned in the second round!"

"As expected, he was banned, and they even added a ban on Galio. It seems WBG also wants to fully seal off the mid lane champion pool."

"Zoe!?"

"And Flandre has picked his Graves. This is using what he is best at to face his inner demons head-on!"

Compared to Graves, the discussion in the live chat at this moment was more focused on Zoe, even leading to quite a bit of speculation.

EDG is letting Ye Bo play Zoe?

To outsiders, this really did have the meaning of "facing it head-on"...

The lineups for the first game of both sides were relatively conventional.

Selection confirmed.

《Blue Side: WBG || Red Side: EDG》

[Top: Jayce vs Graves]

[Jungle: Rek'Sai vs Vi]

[Mid: Orianna vs Zoe]

[ADC: Sivir vs Ashe]

[Support: Nautilus vs Karma]

Because I've already written about the pick and ban strategy in the previous chapter, I won't write about the first game's pick and ban in detail, so as to avoid everyone feeling like I'm just padding the word count again 0.0.

You can look at the pick and ban image~

[3k+3.6k+2.2k]

8.8k words updated today!

During the new book period, I really can only burst out this much.

I'll start bursting more once it's officially published!

Asking for a monthly ticket, qaq.

PS:

[Important reminder! Because I'm competing for recommendations on Monday, the chapter originally scheduled for this morning, Tuesday, will be updated normally before 12:00 PM tonight.]

Sorry brothers, please forgive me, it's just an adjustment for this one day.

Everything will return to normal time after tomorrow~

Thanks to the brothers for the monthly tickets!

Thanks to the brothers for the support!

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(End of chapter)