Chapter 8: I Voted—I Initiated It!

The fist also realized this issue; S3 increased support economy and gave vision work a bottomless pit, adding Insight Stones to fill it.

However, when the fist designers tried to use Insight Stones to fill the abyss of support economy, they clearly underestimated S3’s bloodthirsty nature. This green item, capable of storing four vision wards, had barely landed on Summoner’s Rift when it was torn apart by Jax’s thrown axes, Shaco’s claws, and Lux’s Soul Fire—in this season later dubbed “Assassins Reign,” the dawn that support players had long awaited was mercilessly shattered by the glint of blades.

Back to the match, a team with professional-level vision awareness, ahead by two or three seasons, gained the upper hand; it’s easy to imagine how dire QX’s situation had become.

At seven minutes, the top tower fell; at eight minutes, NXG surrounded and captured the Outlaw and his accomplice, the Gem Knight, and even added a jungler Olaf humming about where the monsters went.

Kill, push tower, take dragon!

In a small LPL preseason qualifier, NXG showed their opponent what “overwhelming dominance” truly meant.

Vision lagged, jungle fully exposed; every so often, a shrill kill alert echoed from the side lanes.

QX’s captain had tried to resist—he was thrilled to think he’d caught the AD alone and charged in with his ultimate, only for the support’s ultimate stun and the jungler’s blind kick to drag him back from his fantasy of saving the game, right out of the vision blind spot.

At fifteen minutes, they hadn’t even seen the Baron.

With a horrifying 13–1 score against them, QX promptly surrendered.

“Surrendered, surrendered, no way to win.”

“I’ve voted already; whoever hasn’t, hurry up.”

“I voted!”

“Captain, don’t look at me—I started the vote.”

…

“Victory!”

As the purple team’s nexus exploded, five young men in the cramped basement room erupted in pure, unfiltered cheers.

“Wuhu, we won!”

“First match won, easy victory.”

“Man, we almost shaved their heads clean—we’re so strong.”

“Could it just be that the other team is trash? Not a single decent player.”

“Hahaha, you didn’t see their Dragon Lady—she tried to flash into the tower to trade, and she was auto-attacking minions.”

“The support was worse—his wards? I could find them with my feet.”

“This is just online, but if it were offline, I’d definitely ask their support if he even knows how to play.”

“Wait, aren’t you supposed to find enemy vision with your eyes?”

“…”

Jiang Ming stood up, stepped behind them, and sighed—glad at how pure the esports atmosphere had become, and deeply satisfied.

The five he picked weren’t famous players; NXG was new, and skilled players wouldn’t join a startup, nor could he afford to poach them—no cost-effectiveness, and too many bad habits. Better to train his own.

These young guys weren’t exceptionally talented, but they listened.

“Heh, Ming-ge, I gotta explain—I really couldn’t escape that last kill; they were dead set on trading with me.”

“And just now, we only spoke out of excitement—we’d never type trash talk on the game chat.”

After finishing the game and stepping out of the room, the five suddenly remembered their boss was standing behind them, and their smiles faded.

NXG’s team rules forbade players from trash-talking opponents…

“Good job,” Jiang Ming said, offering comfort without ruining the team’s first victory.

“Get up, stretch, drink some water, use the restroom if you need to.”

“Xu Tao, got any drinks?”

“Yeah, Ming-ge bought 1982 Sprite—want some?”

“Oh wow, cola’s meh to us—1982 Sprite? Definitely one can.”

NXG’s match was the first of the 24 teams to end, and since they had to wait for the second-round draft after their first match, they had a while to kill.

Watching the group message from staff saying “Please wait,” Jiang Ming used the time while the others took care of personal needs to pull up the match replay from his computer and skimmed through it.

“Ming-ge, are we reviewing this match too?” Shi Zhenyu didn’t understand.

This match was a total domination—what’s there to review?

Review!

It was a new term he’d learned since joining Ming-ge’s team: watching replays of past ranked or co-op games to correct mistakes and summarize lessons.

But Ming-ge usually reviewed only their losses—why today…?

Jiang Ming leaned back in his chair and explained: “Sometimes, even winning games reveal plenty—your own flaws, the enemy’s mistakes.”

He moved the mouse, skipping to the moment when the heroes reached level one at the river.

“For example, here—the purple team’s duo already showed up in our vision; that means they’re trying to rush level two early. You could’ve gone straight into the upper half—so many of your movements were wasted.”

“Your memory of monster spawn times is still inaccurate—Shi Zhenyu, your timing’s off!”

“Then the top lane level-three dive—too sloppy. Any experienced player could’ve avoided it—or even turned it around and killed one of you.”

Song Yuan awkwardly scratched his face, wanting to ask: Is “experienced player” including you?

In the review, Jiang Ming didn’t dive into deeper strategy—he focused still on team coordination, vision placement, and wave exchange.

You can’t eat a whole fatty in one bite.

Unlike later years, where even casual players could analyze wave control in detail, by the end of 2012, most players in China were still learning hero mechanics; even high-ranked players were merely better in awareness and execution.

Over twenty minutes later, the group chat finally received the staff’s update on the second match.

“Our opponent is the Balance Sect’s ranked #1!”

“Pfft, I remember their ladder peak was only 2200-something.”

“Then how’d they win the first match…?”

“Seems they got matched to Crystal Scar.”

One could only say—the inaugural LPL qualifier’s level was truly hard to judge.

Though everyone was now at one point.

But Balance Sect and Crystal Scar were two new servers, only a few months old, with few skilled players.

Facing a team weaker than last match’s War College ranked #2, NXG went all out.

At the ten-minute mark, all three lanes collapsed—Shi Zhenyu didn’t need jungle support because their laners kept securing solo kills, leaving him isolated in the jungle, either haggling with the enemy’s jungler over 300 gold or borrowing money from the dragon.

At sixteen minutes, gold lead exceeded ten thousand. Facing NXG’s heroes charging up with super minions, the Balance Sect server team couldn’t even hold out until 20 minutes surrendered—they watched helplessly as their nexus was destroyed.

On the post-match review screen, NXG’s last-hits crushed the opponent by 1.8x—this stat would’ve sparked “match-fixing” accusations in later years, but in 2012, it was just normal for new-server players.

Two to zero!

With two consecutive wins, NXG had one foot already in the LPL preseason promotion zone.

…