In the Busan venue in South Korea, representatives from 8 teams stood on both sides of the stage. The lucky draw guest watch in the middle had already opened the black ball in the No. 1 seed pool.
He slowly took out the ribbon.
"The first team to be drawn is IG!" Miller explained to everyone in the LPL commentary box. "According to the principle that teams in the same group will not meet before the finals, then TL, who is second in the same group, will be divided. In the lower half.”
Li Nian was still in a daze, but the lottery guest had already drawn the second black ball.
"Since the first draw is the division result, there are three easter eggs in the basin containing the top names of other groups!" Wawa continued to explain, "Our three teams are all seeded No. 1, which means there will be no winners in the quarterfinals. There is a civil war.”
"but....."
"Two teams will be divided into a half zone. If they both win their opponents, they will meet in the semi-finals."
"Hopefully we can see a civil war in our lpl division!"
"The second team in the top half is..."
The easter egg with the team logo printed on rng slowly appeared in front of everyone.
Prince Ning, who was standing next to Li Nian, groaned unconsciously and looked at the friendly troops next to him with a somewhat resentful look.
Obviously, their own division just concluded the LPL summer finals, and ig won with an absolute advantage of 3:0.
Who is strong and who is weak has already been determined within the competition area.
If we really meet ig in the semi-finals, we will be one year away from the most promising year.
It’s difficult!
Immediately afterwards, the ribbons of edg and fw appeared in the lower half.
In the panel displayed on the large screen at the scene, the four groups were placed in the four corners.
The four teams ranked second in the group will be drawn soon, which will directly determine the results of the top 8 knockout matches.
In the current second seeded team, except for the eldest brother who looked normal, the other three players were all a little nervous.
After all, the next draw result will face the ig team, which is the favorite to win the championship.
No one wants to meet them before the finals.
But although his expression was abnormal, Mr. Dai was a little excited.
They have wanted to beat ig for a long time.
This year in the intercontinental competition, the only chance they had to compete was broken by rw.
Now we face it again.
Mr. Dai hopes that his team can defeat the strong team ig in the quarterfinals.
Otherwise, even in the finals, it would be impossible to cross ig's body.
Li Nian didn't care, he would hit anyone anyway.
The second place among these groups is actually just that.
Under the instructions of Emperor Pao Xiao, the lottery guest walked up to the glass cover of the No. 2 seed pool, put his hand in, and stirred for a long time before taking out one of the seeds.
Just when everyone was holding their breath.
The TL team logo appeared in front of everyone.
Emperor Pao Xiao breathed a sigh of relief, "Then according to the rules, tl will be assigned to the lower half, and the result of the battle will be edg!"
Meiko's face was happy.
If we look at the weakest of the other three teams except kt, it is TL.
But for TL, if they face FW, they still have a chance to reach the semi-finals, but if they face the three major players of LPL, they may have to go far this year.
"Then who will be on our ig team?" Miller watched the second black ball being opened expectantly, and carefully looked at the ribbon in front of him, "kt from the lck division!"
Since the teams in the same group as edg in the lower half are not together, no avoidance principle is triggered, and ig and kt are only connected.
At this moment, King Ning suddenly held his breath.
At this moment, there is no need to look at the draw anymore. According to the avoidance principle, fnc in the group will naturally be assigned to fw.
And g2 is assigned to rng.
The top eight divisions are announced.
The first half: ig versus kt, rng versus g2.
Lower half: edg vs. tl, fw vs. fnc.
When the Korean spectators in the stands saw such a draw, their originally hopeful mood suddenly dropped.
"It's over, lck's most impressive record has appeared."
"IG is indeed invincible. The showdown between LCK and LPL No. 1 seed is a bit exciting!"
"If the old captain can suppress Brother Nian's rhythm, it will probably be effective. Deft in the bottom lane can suppress Jack."
The domestic audience laughed, but Korean netizens started to behave like ostriches diving.
I don’t know how to win this lottery!
After overtime in the group stage, kt failed to defeat rng and obtained the second seed. This was already the worst result.
Unexpectedly.
Watch's God's Hand directly sent his team into the abyss. What's the point of playing?
Li Nian shook hands with his much shorter deft, and then took him away from the stage like his younger brother.
Representative players from several other teams were still waiting in the backstage common room. The optimistic leader A P was the first to come to Li Nian and ask for a photo.
Caps looked at Perkz's optimistic face and couldn't help but feel a little heavy.
Although they cannot meet ig before the finals, can the previous teams defeat them?
The King of Hats really doesn’t know.
As the spring and summer double champions of the division, European audiences have high hopes for this veteran e-sports team, believing that they can overcome all obstacles and win the game to reach the semi-finals.
Even at a higher place, re-create the glory of winning the S1 Internet Cafe League.
This is expectation and shackles.
Looking back at g2, after being broken up by ig last year, the players who re-formed the team this year are all optimistic and have good strength.
The group photos of several team star players were quickly completed.
Except for Xiaomao who was a little depressed, the other players all had smiles on their faces.
Then Li Nian was puzzled. His team uniform was taken away by this bastard named Ah P, and he called it a swap of team uniforms.
Back in the lounge, Li Nian returned to the hotel training room with the team members.
This year’s World Championship schedule is very tight.
After finishing the group stage on the 17th, the knockout rounds for the top four spots will begin on October 20th.
ig will have to face kt first.
Moreover, we have to play a bo5 every afternoon and morning, and we have to reach the semi-finals within two days.
There is not much time left for the eight teams to study each other.
How to adapt to the version is the most important thing.
kkoma put the information about the kt team on the projection panel, accurately introducing the information about the team.
Semb, who is on the road, used to be the top top laner in the legendary team Rox Tiger, and was recruited countless times by Kim Jong-kyun in S7.
But in the end, he was rejected by this young and frivolous young man.
If s7 peanuts and semb can come to skt at the same time, then in last year's world championship, they would have the possibility of competing with the ig team for the championship.
After all, Huni and Xiao Hei are really having fun!
Coupled with the stretched hips of bang and wolf states, if Lee Sang-hyuk's Galio proficiency hadn't been maxed out, he probably wouldn't have even made it to the finals. "
Jungler Score is also a veteran who has experienced hundreds of battles. Both his experience and awareness helped the team gain many advantages in the early stage.
Li Nian was not very impressed with this player, but there were still no two players in the LCK who could suppress the carnivorous jungler.
This is one of them.
As for Ucal in the middle, a newcomer took over the position of fat general after coming to kt, and he performed very well in both laning and support.
kt's bottom lane is the key.
deft and mata, two ancient three-star blue and white players, are far superior to ig in terms of laning and awareness.
Jack has just entered the LPL for a year. If he really competes online, he will probably suffer a lot.
And what's more important is the command within the team.
Mata.
As the champion support of S4, he is currently the only player in the global finals to win FMVP with support.
Even say...
LCK dominated the League of Legends after S5 and S6, and mata took a huge credit for the prototype of many operational methods.
The linkage between him and Score's Yesuke was enough to give ig a headache in the early and mid-term.
On the other hand, look at ig.
Although Nosuke often did it again, Baolan passively accepted it. On the contrary, Li Nian and Rookie wandered around more.
If Ucal contained Rookie in the middle.
Then Li Nian will be unable to survive alone.
kkoma roughly explained the player information. After all, when they were still in lpl, they also played several training matches with kt.
Still win more and lose less.
in addition.
When smeb faced Jiang Chenglu, he didn't suffer online, and he had a good habit.
steady!
Generally speaking, kt has inherited Korean-style operations, and at the same time found the answer to the current version. It focuses on the offense of the middle and upper jungle, and uses the advantage of the bottom lane to help the jungler establish an advantage.
This is different from rng.
rng is that after gaining an advantage in the bottom lane, the jungler should try to protect the bottom lane. Let alone invade, anyone who takes two steps away from the bottom lane will be caught.
The second point of kt’s strength.
Now their hero pool is very deep.
The five players can not only come up with strong heroes in the current version, but also come up with their own unique skills. It is difficult to specifically target them in terms of BP.
】
The ig training team is constantly analyzing their opponents.
The quarter-finals are still held in Busan, and Li Nian and his team members don't have to travel all over the place. They only need to quietly participate in the training match in the hotel.
It's just that the hotel on the same floor is already half empty, and every night, the original noise gradually subsides.
The time soon came to October 20th.
The games to be held in the morning are ig and kt, while in the afternoon it will be rng versus g2.
Li Nian was lying on the minibus, blowing on the air conditioner and reading the e-sports forum.
Although the training games were full these two days, they had a lot of personal time due to the reduction in rankings, so reading the forum became the happiest thing.
Although some teams will take away players' mobile phones before the game and prohibit players from participating in any posts that affect their status.
But apart from Rookie and Baolan, the other three people on ig are the ones who get more excited the more they read the forum.
In today's Tieba, lpl viewers seem to be celebrating the New Year.
"Four teams in the quarterfinals are first in their group, and they are all Asian teams!"
"IG defeated kt. Doesn't that mean the semi-finals and finals were all our own?"
"Turtle! What is the most promising year?"
Li Nian now looked at the forums of other competition regions and found that not only the LPL audience was thriving, but they also started to support IG.
Accompanied by the joy of the e-sports forum, the bus slowly drove outside the clubhouse.
At this moment, there are already many enthusiastic fans wearing the jerseys of various teams waiting for the players' vehicles outside, and at the same time holding banners high to cheer for their favorite players.
After Li Nian got off the car.
Under the protection of security personnel, he warmly greeted the surrounding fans before entering the player-only channel.
Dedicated passages also require security checks.
After all, this hall can accommodate tens of thousands of spectators. If anything happens, their organizers will be punished.
I went to the lounge first, put my backpack away, and took out the peripheral equipment inside.
At the same time, the head coach also submitted the starting list to the organizers, and Chen Zebin was still in the audience as a substitute.
Although there is no opening ceremony in the quarterfinals.
However, in order to be photogenic and not look like King Ning, the contestants also put on light makeup on their faces.
KKoma is still writing and drawing in the notebook that he never leaves his hand, constantly deducing the opponent's BP results in his mind, striving to help the players get the best lineup.
Until Vincent pushed the door open and called the players to get ready to go on stage.
"Welcome to the 8-to-4 knockout stage of the 2018 Global Finals!" Emperor Pao Xiao stood on the stage and faced the audience.
"Starting today, the global finals will enter the final sprint stage. Every bo5 game here will determine who can continue on and move towards the Summoner's Trophy!"
"Let us give warm applause to welcome the two participating teams in the first game of the knockout round!"
"First is kt from the host lck team!"
Emperor Pao Xiao raised his arms and shouted, and six kt players and the head coach appeared in the backstage channel in front of all the audience.
"Top laner smeb, jungler socre, mid laner ucal, bottom lane deft, auxiliary mata..."
It is a home game after all.
Although kt usually doesn't have many fans, now that lck is the only one left, fans of the adaptive team naturally support kt very much.
They all raised their support sticks and waved them continuously, and there were even many ten-year-old kt fans shouting the names of the players on the field.
"Let us invite you next..."
Emperor Xiao roared with a prolonged tone.
Then he suddenly raised his voice, "The champion of the 2017 Global Finals, the number one seed team of lpl - ig!"
The stage that was supposed to be filled with enthusiastic cheers was now filled with cheers and shouts from fans shouting Chinese "ig" is awesome.
The pitter-pattering sound at this moment made the stage look particularly quiet.
Emperor Pao Xiao didn't care. After all, this was at his home court and he just had to do his job well.
"Top laner theshy, jungler fly, mid laner rookie, bottom laner jackeylove, assistant baolan, as well as substitute bin and head coach kkoma!"
Still quiet.
Li Nian's face looked a little bad.
Although I had prepared myself mentally in advance and thought that I would be treated differently, I never expected that it would go so far.
At the Bird's Nest, our fans didn't do this.
Smecta can't afford it, right?
Jack gritted his teeth, his face so gloomy that he almost dripped water, "tnnd, you like peace and quiet, right? I will beat you into a library later!"
The words just fell.
Emperor Pao Xiao continued to shout, "Welcome the two teams again."
"Climbing to the top, the first match on the first day of the knockout rounds has officially begun!"
The director quickly switched the screens to the commentary booths in each other's competition areas.
"Hello fellow Summoners, I am the commentator for this time."
"I'm Zeyuan."
Today’s commentary still remembers He Zeyuan.
