Alliance: Let you buy the top order, you buy an old man?

Chapter 193 The intercontinental competition begins!

On June 6, the third week of competition will start as scheduled!
EDG defeated the NB team with a crushing score of [-]-[-]!
Two days later, facing the OMG team currently ranked third in Group B, EDG once again scored a [-]-[-] victory and firmly defended its top spot in Group B!

Four games, four consecutive wins!

EDG continued their winning streak in the spring split into the summer!

On and off the stage, whether it was the commentators, players or the audience, everyone was excited.

Although EDG did not lose a big game last summer, they only ended up with a dismal record in the quarterfinals of the World Championship.

But this year's EDG is not last year's EDG, not to mention that last year's top laner Mouse, who EDG used to win the whole summer, had to withdraw from the World Championship due to personal matters.

Changing generals at the last minute and facing unprecedented challenges!

EDG will lose to its opponents in the quarterfinals. In fact, it has already begun to show signs after mouse left.

But this year's EDG not only have a solid starting five, but they also just defeated the LCK dynasty team SKT head-on at MSI!

The shock and influence it brings are far beyond what they were last year!

Commentator Guan Zeyuan looked excitedly at the EDG people who were bowing to express their thanks on the stage, and burst out with enthusiasm!

"The first intercontinental competition will be held in Ryukyu in ten days. It will be the time for us to face the LCK and avenge our shame!"

Simply defeating SKT is not enough. There are too many teams in the LCK with strong foundations.

In the past, there was KT, an old LCK team that was known as SKT’s only second team and KT’s second team!

Later, in the S7 season, the emerging force Longzhu spent an entire season disbanding and reorganizing the entire team!
Since the LCK schedule is faster than that of the LPL, this Dragon Ball team, which is currently not famous in the spring split, once again recruited top, middle and jungle generals in the summer, and has made great progress and won six consecutive victories!
Even the spring LCK champion SKT was easily won by them!
There is also the Samsung team that is the S4 champion and the S6 world runner-up. They are also strong. A legendary player of the same era as the Triple Crown legend Faker, Samsung jungler An Bixin is currently their mainstay!

EDG defeated SKT in the mid-season invitational, but they couldn't convince the entire LCK at all. They even claimed that SKT just didn't have a strong top laner. If it were replaced by a team with a good top laner, even MSI would be able to win. LCK wins!

Guan Zeyuan took a breath and said loudly: "Each division sends four teams, each representing the division! This is a competition between the division and the overall strength of the division. Whoever wins will be the well-deserved first division!"

Yes, unlike the previous teams that represented the teams themselves, this time in the new event established by Riot Games: the Intercontinental Competition, the participating teams will represent the glory of the division!

As the start date of the intercontinental competition approaches, the clamor on the LCK forum becomes increasingly fierce, vowing to take back everything lost to EDG in the mid-season!

As for the LPL, although EDG fans are extremely optimistic about their home team, the problem is that the intercontinental competition involves four teams fighting side by side, and it does not mean that one team can win the final championship if it is invincible.

Even if the head coach arranges it well and uses the "Tian Ji horse racing" tactic, it is not impossible for the weak side to win!

As a result, LPL fans are somewhat lacking in confidence.

Look at the LCK. It’s useless to go too far. Let’s talk about the last two years of the World Championship. The three seed teams in the LCK have all made it to the final four!

There are only three seeded teams, but they can occupy three seats in the semi-finals. What is the concept?
Even a person who doesn't watch league games at all can know that the strength of the LCK division is definitely superior to all divisions!

Looking back at the LPL, there are three teams every year, not to mention the top eight with the best results. Even three top eights are not guaranteed!

In two S tournaments, half of the LPL seed teams fell to the top [-]!

In fact, the main match only starts from the top [-].
Comparing the two, even though this year's EDG has defeated SKT once, the LPL audience has no confidence in winning the intercontinental competition.

Not losing so ugly is already the best ending they can think of.

After all, this intercontinental competition is placed on the head of the LPL, that is, the Asian Competition, which is jointly participated by the three divisions of the LPL, LCK and LMS.

It's okay to lose to the LCK, which has a strong foundation. If it loses to the LMS and ranks third, the LPL region will be embarrassed!
Therefore, even if EDG has won four consecutive victories, they dare not neglect training at all. Instead, they treat every day's training arrangements more carefully.

Monday to Wednesday is the LPL off-season.

Because the intercontinental competition is approaching, EDG will no longer broadcast live broadcasts, but will devote themselves wholeheartedly to preparing for the competition.

Coach nofe also began to lead his coaching staff and data analysis team to conduct a new round of overall research on the LCK and LMS teams.

As mentioned before, each division of the Intercontinental Championship will be composed of four teams, and these four teams will be composed of the top four teams in the spring split of each division.

Therefore, the Longzhu team that recently defeated SKT is actually not eligible to play. However, this is not a good thing for the LPL region, because IG, which has become the strongest team under EDG in the summer, is also not qualified to play. .

"Each of our two divisions lost one general, which is fair and reasonable." Nofe nodded secretly, completely treating himself as a member of the LPL division.

"In recent training matches, our winning rate is very high, reaching 80%!" Assistant coach Maokai held the statistical paper handed over by the analyst in his hand, with uncontrollable excitement on his face!
Even during their winning streak in the Spring Split, they played training matches against several strong players in the LCK, and their winning rate never got above [-]%.

Now it has reached [-]%, which is a huge leap!

"Hey, this data is actually a bit too high." Nofe sighed slightly and shook his head: "In training games, most of the time in training games, we have a big advantage in the early stage, and the opponent takes the initiative to ask for it to end."

nofe is actually a little worried, because as EDG showed unparalleled dominance in the upper, middle and jungle in the early stage, the teams that came to play training games with EDG after hearing the news also wanted to have a collision with EDG in the upper, middle and jungle, so as to improve their early stage performance. ability.Until now, nofe even feels that this is somewhat different from his original intention of scheduling a training match.

Isn't EDG regarded as a free sparring partner?

This kind of training match actually improves EDG very little, but it is an excellent training method for the opponent team.

Even if they concentrate on practicing with EDG for two weeks, and the team's coaching team can summarize and summarize after the training and games, and impart insights to the starting players, it is unknown that these teams will make rapid progress.

But for nofe, there is a faint worry in his heart.

EDG is studying the participating teams from the other two divisions, so why aren't the other two divisions studying EDG? !

In addition, EDG lost a small game to DAN not long ago. This small game may have given the top coaching staff of the other two divisions a clue to defeat EDG!
"We now rely too much on Rift Herald to set the pace, but we have to play like this!" Nofe shook his head helplessly: "If the top teams in the other two divisions find a way to break our tactic, it would be a little bad!"

Unlike during MSI, EDG worked hard to develop several trump cards. From the management to the coaching staff to the players, their confidence is a hundred times different;
Today's EDG can reveal their trump cards in the MSI finals. In addition, with the new season and new version, they have not developed anything new. If even the only tactical system they are good at is cracked by the opponent, the situation will suddenly become chaotic. It's dangerous!

nofe wants to add one or two trump cards to the team. Even if the strength is not very high, at least he has some confidence.

In the current competition, there are dozens of top professional teams in several divisions, including nearly half of the world's top players and coaches. These people who understand the league the most have slowly figured out a set of version content through the regular season.

But creating a trump card means stepping out of the existing popular routines and breaking away from the existing common competition systems. How easy is it?
A few days later, EDG won another game against the SN team.

Five consecutive victories, which also means that EDG ended the first round of the summer split with a complete victory.

The intercontinental group stage starts in four days, and the regular seasons of each division have entered the offseason to make room for the intercontinental stage.

Several teams representing the LPL, including spring champion EDG, runner-up RNG, third runner-up WE, and runner-up OMG, were also fully prepared and boarded a plane to Ryukyu.

Unlike the MSI trip that spanned the entire Blue Star, this trip was extremely short. Li Mufan had just leaned against the plane window and took a nap when the stewardess's gentle reminder of arrival came to his ears.

Coming to Ryukyu, this is the base camp of the LMS division. Riot Games also worked with the host to prepare resting places and competition venues for each team.

When EDG arrived at the hotel, it was already meal time. They hurriedly put down their luggage and walked to the restaurant. They were surprised to find that almost all the other teams were already there, including old faces from SKT, Samsung, and KT.

There are also many acquaintances in AFS, the fourth team of LCK. The top laner Ma Datou Marin and the jungler Xiao Sprite Spirit have all been in the LPL. The mid laner Kuro was the mid laner of ROX last year, that is, he stepped on the factory The person who has made it to the semi-finals with Scout
The factory director has already taken revenge on Little Peanut at MSI and vows to fight KT_Smeb and AFS_kuro again in the intercontinental competition!

So after a short meal, everyone gathered directly in the prepared lounge.

Soon, the other three teams from the LPL also walked in. Together with the coaching staff and managers or team leaders, there were more than 30 people in the group, and the training room that was originally an empty hotel conference room was packed to the brim.

The well-known EDG manager Abramovich was also the head coach of WE and EDG. He led the team to win the first MSI championship. He stood in the middle of the training room and became the team leader without hesitation.

First, Abu will introduce the competition system to everyone.

LPL, LMS, and LCK have four representative teams from each of the three divisions, and they will start with the group stage.

In the group stage, each team will play once against each hostile division. For example, EDG will play one game against SKT in the LCK division first, and then EDG will not be able to play again in the next match against the LCK division.

In this way, a total of eight games will be played in each division, and the first, second, and third place in the group stage will be determined according to the winning points.

Then it enters the knockout round, with the second and third places playing first, and the winner advances to the finals and the No. 1 in the group stage to determine the final champion!
The format of the knockout round is a BO5 round. Different from the BO5 in the previous MSI and World Championships, the BO5 in the Intercontinental Championship is also a best of three games, but it requires each of the four teams in the division not to play more than two games, and If 5 games are played, each team must appear once!
If you do a little analysis, you can conclude that in the knockout round, only one team can appear twice, and the other teams can appear once at most.

In addition, whether it is the group stage or the knockout round, each team has no idea who its opponent is before taking the field. Each team blindly selects its own team!

Although it was not stated clearly, after the competition system was discussed, everyone in each team knew that if it really came to that point, the only one who could represent the LPL in two games would probably be EDG.

After explaining the competition system clearly, the coaching staff of each team gathered together. There were still several days until the game. During this period, they shared resources and worked hard to develop a tactical system for the LCK!
The members of the four teams started playing training matches in pairs.

In this competition between divisions, it seems that each division may be a little conservative and choose to train within the division to avoid leaking tactics; but in fact, not long after EDG arrived, Abramovich received a message from his old acquaintance KT, Invite EDG to play a training match in the evening.

Abramovich is not surprised by this. The four teams in their LPL can sit together to discuss tactics like this. Then the LCK, which has always regarded e-sports honors as a treasure, must also have four teams discussing with each other without reservation.

KT will come to arrange a training match with EDG, which must have been discussed with the LCK, and Abramovich can be sure that while the LCK will send KT to play a training match with itself, it will also send another team to play with the LMS team. Play training matches, and their invitation target must be the absolute ruler of the LMS-Flash Wolves!

Through the training matches of the two teams, collect as much information as possible about the two kings of the LPL and LMS. This is the plan of the LCK!

And they can also achieve a surprise effect in the knockout round by hiding the remaining two teams.

After all, although EDG won the championship at MSI, but when it came to the Intercontinental Tournament, which was dominated by team battles, the group of LCK veterans would still think that apart from the champion team in the LPL and LMS, the rest of the teams were nothing to worry about.

As long as we can get enough information about EDG and Flash Wolves, we can support them in winning the championship.

Abramovich naturally did not want to be at a disadvantage in the intelligence battle before the official start of the event. After discussing with several coaches, he decided to let the OMG team contact Flash Wolves and arrange for the next round of training matches.

The official game has not started yet, but with the start of training matches between various divisions, a sense of nervous and exciting anticipation has already lingered in the hearts of everyone in the LPL.

This time, it is the best opportunity for LPL to win the title of the first division!
(End of this chapter)