The draw ceremony for the quarterfinals of this world championship was hosted by Luo Xiang. The person who came to draw the lots was Grape, a veteran LPL player and Hai Ge's former teammate.
As soon as he saw Grape appear, Brother Hai immediately covered his eyes in despair, wailing, "Oh my God, has the alliance gone crazy to invite Grape, that super black hand, to draw the lots? It's over, it's over, I have a bad feeling it's going to get bad!"
"Just shut up now," Roll stuffed an apple into Hai Ge's mouth, "We are first in the group and we won't face the PAO team, what are we afraid of?"
In Roll's mind, their real enemy is only the number one seed from South Korea, the super devil PAO team.
Click, click——
Brother Hai continued while chewing an apple, "We can't get into the quarterfinals, so what about the semifinals? What about the other two Korean teams?"
Lin Mi solemnly reminded: "Brother Hai, the Korean second seed is also the first in the group, and the Korean third seed is in the same group as us in the group stage. It is impossible for us to be drawn."
Hai Ge paused for a moment as he stuffed the apple into his mouth, but he still had no trust in Grape's luck: "Then I think the team next door will be in big trouble."
Facts have proved that as expected of old teammates, Brother Hai really understands Grapes.
Grape, who had specially changed into a Chinese red outfit and looked like he was here to pay New Year's greetings, clasped his hands together mysteriously and bowed. Then he reached into the lottery box, drew out a bright red plastic ball, and carefully broke it open. The logo of the PAO team was clearly printed on the cardboard inside.
"Great! The first one to be drawn is the Big Devil," Brother Hai used half an apple as a microphone and explained, "Let's see who is the unlucky guy who was assigned to the same half zone as the Big Devil?"
Everyone from the WDG team: “Shut up!!”
Lin Mi nervously grabbed Rong Zezhou's hand.
In fact, he knew in his heart that if the PAO team wanted to win the championship, it would be an obstacle that they could not avoid. But after being disturbed by Brother Hai, he really felt that it would be better to encounter it later.
Grape drew the second ball from the No. 1 seed pool, and inside it was——
DZG team.
The WDG team looked at Brother Hai together.
Brother Hai spread his hands and said, "It's none of my business. I just said it casually."
Everyone in WDG team: Haha.
After the two draws, the two teams in the lower half were determined, namely the second seed SS team from South Korea and the number one seed WDG team from LPL.
To put it in a positive way, this draw means that the two LPL teams will not fight each other before the finals. If they play well, they may meet in the finals.
At worst, it might be like last year, when the top eight didn’t get drawn into a civil war and thought it was a good thing, but ended up being completely wiped out.
But we still have to wait and see how the second round draw turns out.
Grape took a deep breath and rubbed her hands again.
All the audience watching the lottery ceremony held their breath and watched Grape unfold the cardboard in his hand little by little, and then they all exclaimed at the same time.
The team that Grape drew for the PAO team was the fourth seed of the LPL, the LBG team that had finally climbed into the quarterfinals.
Brother Hai covered his eyes again and wailed in pain: "See it, see it, I am not talking nonsense, am I?"
Zhuoyang silently moved his chair away, trying to stay away from an old teammate who was casting a spell at the lottery ceremony, so as to avoid being accidentally injured.
When Luo Xiang saw the lot that Grape drew, the smile on her face almost disappeared.
"The quarterfinals group A, LGB team." Luo Xiang gritted his teeth and said, "Now please draw the group B team."
Among the second-ranked teams in each group, the stronger ones are Europe's No. 1 seed HOT and South Korea's No. 3 seed PCG, while LBG and Europe's No. 2 seed are relatively weak.
Now Grape has given LBG team to PAO team, so the easiest team to beat among the remaining teams is the second seed team in Europe.
All lpl fans were praying that Grape could draw a good draw for DZG team, and then Grape "lived up to everyone's expectations" and drew PCG team to DZG team.
Hai Ge lay weakly on the table, mumbling: "A wave of painful memories began to attack me. I tell you don't have to watch it. Grape will definitely give the HOT team to us."
"Shut up," Rong Zezhou could no longer bear it, "There is no such thing as metaphysics. I don't believe it—"
Before Rong Zezhou finished speaking, he saw Grape opening a piece of card with the HOT team's logo printed on it.
Rong Zezhou: ! !
Who came up with the idea of inviting Grape to draw lots?
This must be an undercover agent sent by South Korea!
There are four second-placed teams in each group, two are strong and two are weak. How can the strong ones be given to LPL and the weak ones to South Korea?
This is unscientific!
After the lot is drawn, everyone knows the group result without opening the last ball.
Grape reached out his hand tremblingly to open the last ball, took out the cardboard inside and carefully handed it to the female host who looked unhappy.
Luo Xiang read out the last team name with gritted teeth, then gave Grape a look that said, "Stay off the stage, don't leave. I want to have a heart-to-heart talk with you."
Grape:……
Help, I really didn't ask for this!
If you leave me alive, I'd like to be a guest commentator again!
…
This suicidal draw by the lpl veteran players made all the lpl teams feel under great pressure, especially the DZG team. If nothing unexpected happens, if they can defeat the third seed PCG team from South Korea in the quarterfinals, they will have to face the big devil PAO team in the semi-finals.
At this stage of the competition, the DZG team and the LBG team in the upper half could no longer arrange training matches with each other, and the Korean second seed SS team in the lower half was unwilling to play training matches with the LPL team, so the WDG team, which accepted all comers, suddenly became a popular team.
After playing two consecutive BO3 training matches in the afternoon, the WDG team members were lying all over the training room, listening to Roll's earnest summary of the training match that had just ended, all of them with a look of despair on their faces.
Both the DZG and LBG teams were practicing their late-game lineups. They were unwilling to fight in the early stages of every game and had to drag the game until thirty minutes later before officially starting. After playing for the whole afternoon, the souls of all the players on the WDG team felt like they were floating in the air, and they felt like their bodies had been hollowed out.
"Fortunately, the Korean team didn't schedule a training match with us,"
Brother Hai drank three mouthfuls of wolfberry and red date tea to calm himself down. "This is not training, this is staying awake."
As soon as Brother Hai finished speaking, Roll's phone rang.
Roll sat down in his chair and answered the phone: "Hello, sir. We are not accepting customers today."
The DZG team coach on the other end of the phone: …
Why is this guy's condition getting more and more serious? Is there any hope if I call 120 now?
"Speak properly," the coach of the DZG team didn't want to argue with a mentally ill person, so he got straight to the point. "The coach of the PAO team just came to me and said he wanted to schedule a practice match with you guys, and asked me to ask if you can play now?"
“I can fight!”
"You can't fight!"
Two voices appeared in the training room at the same time.
Roll looked at Yan Jin in surprise: "We are not in the same zone as PAO, why can't we play?"
Yan Jin had a lot on his mind, but he couldn't elaborate. He just took the phone and said, "Since the Korean team has agreed not to schedule training matches with our LPL team, then PAO team doesn't have to make an exception for us. The players are very tired after playing two training matches today. There's no need to practice more. Just decline."
"Okay, I'll help you reject it."
The coach of the DZG team immediately agreed, "I guess you guys can't agree to that either, but since he asked me, I can't just ignore it."
"Thank you very much," Yan Jing politely thanked him, "Thank you for your trouble."
After saying that, Yan Jin and the DZG team coach said goodbye to each other and hung up the phone.
Roll still didn't understand: "It's rare for the PAO team to take the initiative to arrange a training match, why not agree? It would be good to take this opportunity to help PAO with a set of tactics."
"Doesn't the PAO team know that our LPL teams have been scheduling practice matches with each other, which is basically equivalent to sharing tactics?"
Lin Mi asked back, "They are going to play against LBG tomorrow. Knowing this, why would they come to schedule a training match with us at this time?"
Yan Jing nodded approvingly at Lin Mi and took over the conversation: "Xiaomi is right. There must be something wrong when things are abnormal. The PAO team cannot reveal the real tactics to us at this time. They are here to arrange a training match now. They either want to throw smoke bombs and give us wrong information, or they want to test our bottom line and see if they can trick us into anything. So I think there is no need to arrange this training match with them. There is no point."
"One more thing," Rong Zezhou added, "If the PAO team really wanted to schedule a training match with us, they should have contacted our coaching staff directly and negotiated the time for the training match instead of using someone else to tell us to play with them right now. They don't even know the most basic respect and courtesy, tsk."
Brother Hai saw through everything: "In the final analysis, they just look down on us. They think that it is a favor for them to play training matches with us, and we should just lick their ass. How shameless!"
The three children looked at each other for a few seconds, and Zhuoyang spoke on their behalf: "You adults' world is really complicated, but I didn't want to play a training match with the Korean team. Their style is really too torturous. Playing in the game is enough, so please spare us in normal times."
In the PAO team office, after the PAO team coach hung up the phone with the DZG team coach, he spread his hands to a gentle-looking young man next to him.
"I said WDG team wouldn't agree, right?"
The PAO team coach said, "They are not stupid. How could they agree to play a training match with us at this time?"
This gentle young man is Park Hae-sung, the head coach of South Korea's second seed SS team.
Park Hae-sung shook his head with some regret: "Forget it, we are not afraid of them anyway, we just want to make more preparations. Thank you for your help, senior, I will take my leave now."
After saying that, he bowed and left without looking back.
The PAO team coach curled his lips and said to the analyst beside him: "Your idea is very good. As expected, when we used an impolite attitude to ask for a match, the WDG team directly rejected it."
The analyst of the PAO team smiled softly, "Park Hae-sung's BP is not very good, but he has a lot of small tricks to scheme against each other. If our team really helps him arrange a training match today, it will not only waste our players' precious training time, but if the SS team loses to the WDG team in the future, Park Hae-sung might drag us into it and make us take the blame."
"I agree with you. We e-sports people pursue victory through strength, not using shady tricks before the game to find a way out for ourselves."
The PAO team coach patted his analyst on the shoulder and said, "It seems that you are also optimistic about the WDG team. I admire the draft and selection style of their coaching staff. If possible, after the World Championship is over, we can have a friendly exchange with them. It would also be a good choice to arrange a training match next season."
The WDG team members were unaware of the intrigue within the Korean team. They quickly put the matter behind them and prepared seriously for the match against HOT.
Speaking of the HOT team, they are old acquaintances.
When the WDG team was first established, it happened that the HOT team was trying out new players, so the two sides arranged a training match. That was also Lin Mi’s first training match.
Although the training match was called off by the HOT team before it was completed, it did not affect Lin Mi's deep impression of this team.
Just like Roll and Yan Jing's judgment at the beginning, the bottom lane duo of HOT's trial was not strong enough, and their playing style did not match that of the other three players of the HOT team. So after that training game, the HOT team spent a lot of money to introduce a very aggressive bottom lane duo from North America.
It is precisely because of this decision that the HOT team was invincible in the European division in the summer season. Their average winning time per game was only 26 minutes. It can be said that they are a team with strong laning strength and strong snowball ability.
Although people are saying that HOT is the strongest team among the four teams that advanced as runners-up in the group, and that WDG’s draw was not good, the WDG team itself is actually quite satisfied with it.
It’s not because of anything else, it’s just because playing against the HOT team is more exciting and there’s no need to prepare a too complicated lineup.
For the WDG team, it is not only about winning in the quarterfinals, but also about not revealing too many tactics, after all, they still have to face other opponents later.
Lin Mi did not play in this quarterfinal match. The WDG team did not want to drag the game into the late stage with the HOT team, but chose to attack against the attack.
Their basic idea is to fight in the laning phase, using their personal abilities to curb the HOT team's snowballing strategy of using the laning phase advantage, so that the HOT team will collapse without any attack.
In order to implement this tactic, Lin Mi and the coaching staff simulated the bp for a long time, speculated on each bp situation, and matched many strong laning lineups. They also started a 1v1solo competition in the team, allowing the players to explore the hero restraint relationship on their own and find the counter for each hero that the HOT team might choose.
There was a lot of preparation work before the game, but after the bp started, WDG's ban and selection were unusually quick.
Because of Jifeng's little red hand, they flipped a coin and won the priority to choose the side, so WDG team's bp needs to be better.
They don't want to play 5v5, and they don't want to do operations, so when choosing heroes, they don't consider too many team factors at all. There is only one principle for choosing heroes -
It is easy to play in the laning phase and can cooperate with the jungler to gank.
It has to be said that WDG team has grasped the weakness of HOT team.
When HOT team failed to gain the advantage they wanted in the laning phase and was even at a disadvantage, the problem of HOT team making mistakes in the mid-term was magnified. WDG team firmly grasped the mid-term rhythm and took advantage of HOT team's mistakes to deal them a fatal blow.
The HOT team is aware of this shortcoming, but they have not been able to correct it in a season, let alone transform themselves in a short BO5.
Although HOT team won a game in the third game by focusing on the bottom lane, WDG team immediately changed tactics in the fourth game. When HOT team wanted to attack two with four in the bottom lane, WDG team directly counterattacked with a five-on-four attack, achieving a 0-for-4 exchange victory, which directly brought the game to a situation where HOT team was unable to resist and successfully advanced to the semi-finals with a score of 3:1.
Before them, in the upper half, PAO defeated LBG 3:1.
LBG team can be said to have won an honorable defeat. They were not completely powerless against PAO team. They fought hard for one round against PAO team, and the other three rounds were dragged on to after 35 minutes. However, the gap in operations and understanding of the military line was irreparable, and LBG team ultimately failed to advance to the quarterfinals.
The match between DZG team and South Korea's third seed PCG team was more intense. The two teams tied 2:2, dragging the game into the deciding game.
For the first time, the battle song was played in the World Championship arena, and the audience was cheering loudly for the team in their own region. In the end, the DZG team did not disappoint the fans' expectations, and successfully won the final game, eliminating the PCG team.
At this point, the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds of the LPL advanced to the semi-finals, the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds were eliminated, and the No. 1 seed of South Korea has also advanced, while the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds have been eliminated. The attention of League of Legends fans around the world is focused on the final quarter-final.
The hearts of the audience on both sides were in agony.
Korean audiences could not accept that their second seed was eliminated in the quarterfinals, and believed that with the strength of the SS team, they should have won the last semi-final spot with a 3:0 victory.
European and American audiences do not want to see the top four dominated by the LPL and Korean regions, so they place their hopes on the only one.
The lpl audience was indifferent and seemed to be trying to persuade the audiences of both sides not to quarrel, but they were actually secretly hoping that the SS team would fail.
Even if we didn't fail, it would have been nice to drag the game to the fifth inning and come up with more strategies.
After all, their team is still waiting for their opponents in the semi-finals. No matter who wins or loses between the two teams, the more they can show, the better.
Although each audience supports different teams, everyone knows that the second seed of the Korean division is definitely stronger than the second seed of the European division.
After all, in the group stage, the second seed team of the European division was evenly matched with the ZY team that temporarily changed its support, and was even crushed by the PAO team. The gap in strength is obvious.
However, to everyone's surprise, in this game, it seemed that all the members of the SS team were not in good shape. They made many mistakes that they would not normally make, and the game was dragged into the deciding game.