"I want a comeback in the fifth game, understand?"
SS team coach Park Hae-sung politely asked the official photographer to leave in the name of team tactics, and after closing the door of the lounge, he said to the players,
"You are much stronger than your opponent. I will give you a late-game lineup. Play conservatively in the early game and don't fight for resources. You should at least wait until 25 minutes before counterattacking. We want our fans to see that our game was very difficult and it wasn't easy for us to win. Do you understand?"
The players of Team SS were silent.
As a professional player, why would you be willing to mess around in the world competition?
Shouldn't we play to our best and win the game with great success?
But they dared not question it.
Because all the players of the SS team know that their head coach Park Hae-sung is the illegitimate son of their boss. He has absolute say in the team and always has the final say.
The World Championship is a thrill-seeking playground for these rich second-generations, but for them, it is their dream and pursuit.
Therefore, they were powerless and dared not to resist. Although they knew that this practice was against the rules, they had to obey.
"Very good, the dejected look you have now is exactly what I want."
Park Hae-sung was very excited. "Be obedient. After this game, I will not say anything more in the next game against WDG. I will let you play to your heart's content."
Park Hae-sung is the head coach of the SS team, and he is also a businessman.
In the Korean division, there is the big devil team PAO, and no other team can compete with it in terms of strength and results.
The SS team has always been suppressed by the PAO team, and it has a bit of a tragic heroic color. If they can use this world game to hype themselves up, it will greatly increase the popularity and attention of their team.
Park Hae-sung wanted to bring the setting of the tragic hero to its extreme, so he chose to suppress first and then praise.
When facing the European No. 2 seed team, who everyone thought was much weaker than them in strength, he had the players deliberately let up and fight their opponents to a draw, just to make Korean fans dissatisfied and distrustful of them. The louder the scolding at this time, the more attention they would get when they beat the WDG team, and the louder the cheers would be.
After that, no matter whether they can beat PAO in the finals or not, they will still get a lot of attention.
If they win, they are the kings who climb up from the bottom with more courage after more setbacks;
If they lose, they will be the most tragic heroes in the Korean region and will be sympathized and loved by their fans.
In Park Hae-sung's view, this is a sure-win deal and a great opportunity for him to demonstrate his business talent. As for the e-sports spirit, it means nothing to him.
Every audience member watching the game could see that the expressions of the SS team players were not right. Even the usually harsh Korean commentators took the initiative to speak for them, hoping that the audience would not put too much pressure on the players. For e-sports players, being able to make it to today's competition is already a very good result.
The players of Team SS were all holding back their anger. They did not dare to openly resist Park Hae-sung's plan and tried to endure it for 25 minutes. Then, amid the commentator's concerns, they suddenly exploded and won several team battles in a row, directly turning the situation around.
"What the hell, is this the SS team from before?"
Roll, who was watching the game, widened his eyes in surprise, "How could he have been in this state long ago and still have to wait until this moment?"
Yan Jin didn't say anything, but stared at the screen with deep eyes.
Lin Mi turned his head to look at Rong Zezhou. Rong Zezhou's face didn't look very good, but he still nodded at him.
In the game, the SS team had already flattened the main crystal of the European second seed team and advanced to the semi-finals, but their players did not celebrate with each other excitedly. Instead, they quickly shook hands and left as if they were in a hurry.
Roll suddenly felt something was wrong. He turned around and saw Yan Jin: "No way?"
Yan Jin adjusted his glasses and said, "I hope not."
"Coach, what are they talking about?"
Zhuo Yang asked Brother Hai curiously in a low voice. Brother Hai laughed and said, "Nothing. It just means that when we fight SS, we can't let our guard down just because we have an advantage. After all, they have a strong ability to "come back."
The three kids all had questions in their heads, but the others didn't want to talk about it. Roll turned off the live broadcast and urged the players to continue training.
Even though they have doubts in their hearts about some things, they shouldn't speak them out without evidence.
No matter what, their semi-final opponent has been decided, and all they have to do next is try their best to win the game.
…
This year, lpl fans finally raised their heads again.
Among the four teams that advanced to the semi-finals, two are from LPL. Compared with last year's annihilation, this is a huge improvement.
The fans are not greedy. Although they secretly hope that the name of the LPL team can be engraved on the Summoner's Cup again, they say that they just want to try to get the opportunity to go to the finals to cheer for the LPL team.
This expectation naturally falls more on the WDG team.
After all, the DZG team will face the in-form PAO team in the semi-finals. Even the most biased fans cannot say that DZG will definitely win.
However, WDG's opponent, SS, had performed poorly in the previous quarterfinals, so it doesn't seem difficult for WDG to defeat them.
But what all the audience don’t know is that the most difficult thing is not winning the game, but whether the game can go smoothly.
Upon hearing the news that all members of the SS team were taken away by the organizer for investigation, some members of the WDG team understood, but some were confused.
Ji Feng looked left and right and asked a question: "I finally won the coin toss, which gave us the priority to choose the side. What if there is a problem with the SS team? Does that mean the coin toss doesn't count?"
Roll was shocked by the train of thought of Ji Feng: "If there is really a problem with the SS team, wouldn't we have advanced directly? Why are you still struggling with the coin toss?"
blast:……
That makes a lot of sense!
However, Lin Mi did not think that Riot Games would allow them to advance directly.
Ever since he felt something was not right while watching the game that day, Lin Mi had specifically looked up how to deal with this kind of issue. There had indeed been precedents where one party was allowed to advance directly because the other party was suspected of match-fixing, but that was just a small match after all, and now, it was the semi-finals of the World Championship.
If a match-fixing incident really occurs in such a high-level competition, it will have an unpredictable impact on the credibility of all League of Legends e-sports events, and the fairness of every game will be questioned from then on.
This is something that Riot Games will never allow to happen, and it is also something that all hard-working e-sports professionals do not want to see.
"The game will not be cancelled,"
Yan Jing, who once worked at Riot Games, had the same idea as Lin Mi. "Don't think too much. Just prepare for the game normally. No matter what the final result of Riot Games' investigation is, it has nothing to do with us. All we have to do is win the game tomorrow."
Just as Yan Jin said, the members of SS team went back to continue training that afternoon, but their head coach Park Hae-sung had not returned yet.
When the starting lineup was announced in the evening, the head coach of the SS team was temporarily replaced by their assistant coach;
This instantly caused an uproar on the Internet.
A small number of people believed that the head coach was temporarily replaced because SS team's BP was not done well in the previous game, but the vast majority of people linked the SS team's last-minute replacement of players with the rumors that they were taken away for investigation, and speculated whether something had gone wrong with the SS team.
Of course, Riot Games would not clean up the mess for the SS team. Unable to withstand the pressure, the SS team hastily issued an announcement saying that their head coach was not feeling well, so they made a temporary substitution. However, it is unknown how many people believed it.
The top management of the SS team has been in contact with Riot Games, hoping that if they don't have solid evidence, they will release the players before the game starts. Even if Park Hae-sung cannot play in the BP, he can appear in the locker room to give an explanation to the fans.
However, Riot Games rejected it without hesitation.
Don't they have any evidence?
No, they really do.
Park Hae-sung thought that if he kicked out the official photographer, no outsiders would know what he said to the players in the locker room. However, he overlooked the biggest difference between this year's World Championship and previous years.
This year, the venue in H City that hosted the World Championships has installed many surveillance devices, including cameras and radio equipment in the lounge, which will be turned on during breaks between games to facilitate the recording of some on-site highlights, and will not delay the time for each team to arrange tactics due to interviews between games.
These were all written in the match instructions sent to the team in advance, but Park Hae-sung did not read them carefully.
So he arrogantly drove away the official photographer, but he didn't know that all his actions were recorded by surveillance cameras.
In fact, no one noticed this at first.
The tactics of the SS team were all arranged in advance by the team, but he had originally planned to play the fifth game normally, but changed his mind at the last minute and suddenly asked the team members to play a comeback game. Unexpectedly, the players of the SS team were holding back their anger and were too abrupt when they made the comeback, which aroused suspicion from others.
After the game, Riot Games retrieved all the surveillance footage from that day and heard Park Hae-sung's remarks in the locker room.
Although this evidence can prove that Park Hae-sung is suspected of violating the rules, Park Hae-sung can also attribute it to tactics, because the SS team players did not intentionally give away kills, and there is no relevant evidence in the other four games, so the league cannot make a judgment on this matter.
So the league let go of the players of the SS team, allowing the semi-final to proceed smoothly, but detained Park Hae-sung and did not allow him to have any contact with the players to avoid affecting the outcome of the game.
Although this matter has not been determined, it is a big blow to the players of the SS team. In particular, the assistant coach refused the heroes requested by the SS team players during the bp because he was afraid of taking responsibility and insisted that they choose a very stable but unremarkable late-stage lineup. The players of the SS team finally couldn't help but explode.
The members of the WDG team saw the bp interface suddenly disappear, and then they all looked blankly in the direction of the SS team as if a conflict had occurred.
The jungler of the SS team stood up and said something to the coach in dissatisfaction, but the top laner was pulling him, trying to make him sit back.
"Referee, what happened?" Zhuo Yang asked curiously the referee standing behind them.
The referee frowned: "The players of Team SS request a new BP."
"What?" Roll was a little dumbfounded. "It's already the second round of bans, how can we restart the BP?"
This is the semi-final of the World Championship, are the SS team kidding?
"Of course we won't start over again," the referee quickly explained, "Their players said they picked the wrong hero in the third pick."
In this game, WDG team chose the blue side first. According to the bp order, the hero selected by the red side SS team as the third player will not affect the WDG team regardless of whether they re-select it or not.
Roll was relieved and said carelessly: "If you choose wrong, just choose again. Isn't it allowed according to the rules?"
The referee was also helpless: "But their coach said that he did not make a wrong choice, so the two sides started arguing."
All members of the WDG team: n faces are confused.jpg.
This is really eye-opening. It is unheard of and even more unseen that a coach and a player could argue on stage over hero selection.
"Who should we listen to now?" Brother Hai also started gossiping with great interest.
The referee gestured to them to stop: "Don't talk for now, turn back and wait patiently. The referee will make the decision."
The final referee's decision was to maintain the original BP unchanged.
According to the rules, if you really choose the wrong hero, you must tell the referee within the specified time and tell him the hero you originally wanted to choose, and you can start over.
However, since the SS team coach insisted that he had not made a wrong choice, it was equivalent to the SS team not making it clear to the referee which hero they wanted to choose within the specified time, so the referee ruled that the bp should continue and was not allowed to be reopened.
The bp on the field continued, but the audience's attention was attracted by the referee's penalty information synchronized by the commentators.
League of Legends competitions have been held for so many years, and except for the first two years which were quite chaotic, there have never been such outrageous situations in subsequent competitions.
It is ridiculous that a team that can reach the semi-finals of the World Championship would have disagreements between the coach and players on the hero selection during the game.
The SS team, which had finally excused itself by saying that Park Hae-young was unwell, was once again pushed to the forefront of public opinion. This time, their management didn't know how to explain it.
However, these off-field factors had nothing to do with the WDG team playing on the field. They followed the rules and selected the lineup they had discussed in advance, and conscientiously implemented the tactics arranged by the coaching staff. They were not affected by the suspension at all.
In comparison, the SS team, which got a lineup they didn't want, didn't play so smoothly.
It’s not that they played passively on purpose, but the assistant coach gave them a lineup that they used most often in the Korean division in order to avoid taking responsibility.
Their winning rate with this lineup is indeed very high, but that was in the Korean division, and they were facing a Korean team. Both sides were focusing on development and team fighting, so there would definitely be no problem using it, but now they are facing the WDG team.
The SS team, which was still living in the previous version of the lineup, was unable to resist the WDG team's violent attack in the early stage. After playing a bo5 offensive battle with the HOT team, the WDG team's offensive strength was further improved, almost suffocating the SS team.
In the first match between WDG and SS, the official match time was not as long as the suspension time. SS team collapsed completely before their lineup could fully exert its strength, and lost very ugly.
The fans who were already dissatisfied with the SS team became even crazier. The assistant coach also received a call from the team's top management, demanding that they must fight back in the next game. In desperation, the assistant coach simply gave up and directly proposed to let the players do their own bp from the next game.
He knew that after what happened, he could no longer stay in the SS team, so he had to plan for himself. He was determined in his heart that the SS team would lose today, and he wanted to put all the blame on the players.
The players of SS team did not refuse.
They are different from assistant coaches, they want to win.
Instead of leaving your fate to a selfish coward, it is better to take it into your own hands.
Even if they can't win, they will die standing upright!