Chapter 8: I Voted, I Initiated It!

The fist also realized this issue; S3 increased auxiliary economy and gave vision work an endless pit, adding Insight Stones to fill it.

However, when the Fist designers tried to use Insight Stones to fill the abyss of auxiliary economy, they clearly underestimated S3's bloodthirsty nature. This green item capable of storing four vision wards was torn to shreds the moment it landed on Summoner's Rift—by Jax's thrown blades, the Mantis's claws, and the Fox's soulfire; in this season later dubbed "Assassins Reign," the dawn auxiliary players had longed for was mercilessly shattered by the glint of blades.

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

At seven minutes, the top tower fell; at eight minutes, NXG surrounded and arrested the Outlaw and his accomplice, the Gem Knight, and even added a jungler Olaf humming "Where'd the monsters go?"

Kill, push tower, take dragon!

In a small LPL preseason qualifier, NXG showed their opponent what "crushing resistance" truly meant.

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

QX's captain had tried resisting—he was thrilled to think he'd caught the lone ADC, charged in with his ultimate—only for the jungler Blind Monk's massive kick and the support Soraka's ultimate stun to yank him back from his fantasy of saving the world, 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.

"Submitted, submitted—this is unwinnable."

"I've already voted; whoever hasn't, vote now."

"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 terrible? Not a single decent player."

"Hahaha, you didn't see that Dragon Lady—she tried flashing 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; 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 marveled at the purity of today's esports atmosphere—his heart swelled with quiet satisfaction.

The five he'd picked weren't famous veterans; 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 gifted, but they listened.

"Hehe, 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—their smiles faded.

NXG's team rules forbade players from taunting opponents verbally…

"Good job," Jiang Ming said reassuringly, refusing to ruin the team's first victory with a lecture.

"Get up, stretch, drink some water, use the bathroom if you need to."

"Lao Xu, got any drinks?"

"Yeah—do you want the 1982 Sprite Ming-ge bought?"

"Ohhh, cola's meh, but 1982 Sprite? Definitely one can."

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

Seeing 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!

This was a new term he'd learned after joining Ming-ge's team: watching replays of past ranked or party queue matches 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: "Even winning games reveal plenty—your own shortcomings, the enemy's mistakes."

He moved the mouse, fast-forwarding to the moment the heroes first appeared at the river at level one.

"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 inaccurate—Shi Zhenyu, your error margin's too big!"

"Then the top lane level-three tower dive—too sloppy. Any player with even a little experience could've avoided it—or even turned it around and killed one of you."

Song Yuan awkwardly scratched his cheek, silently wondering: Is "experienced player" including you, Ming-ge?

During the review, Jiang Ming didn't dive into deeper strategy—he focused strictly on team coordination, vision placement, and wave exchange.

You can't eat a whole pig in one bite.

Unlike later eras, where average players could lecture you on wave management for hours, by the end of 2012, most Chinese players were still learning hero mechanics; even higher-ranked players were merely better in awareness and execution.

Over twenty minutes later, the group chat finally received the staff's update on their next match.

"Our opponent is Junhengjiao Sect's party queue #1!"

"Pfft, I thought their ladder peak was only around 2200."

"Then how'd they win their first match…"

"Seems they got matched on Crystal Scar."

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

Although everyone currently has teams with just one point.

But the Junhengjiao Sect and Crystal Scar are two new servers that only opened a few months ago, with not many high-level players.

Facing a team whose strength was even lower than the second-place War College squad from the previous match, the five members of NXG could only say they struck extremely hard.

In ten minutes, all three lanes were crushed; without needing Shi Zhenyu's jungle support, the solo kills by the lane teammates never stopped, leaving him alone in the jungle, either trying to do a three-hundred-dollar business deal with the opposing spider player or borrowing some money from Mr. Dragon.

At the 16-minute mark, with an economic advantage exceeding ten thousand and facing NXG heroes advancing up the high ground alongside super minions, the Junhengjiao Sect server team couldn't even gather twenty surrender votes, helplessly watching their own Nexus get destroyed by the opponents.

On the post-match review and settlement page, each NXG member's minion kills outnumbered the opponents' by 1.8 times—this statistic would have been enough to spark accusations of match-fixing in later eras, but in 2012, it was just routine for new server players.

Two to zero!

With two consecutive wins, NXG could be said to have one foot already stepped into the LPL Preseason promotion zone.