章 84: CHAPTER 84
The next day was their scheduled training match against Team OP.
Despite being a practice game, Tong Yao and her teammates were of a particular mindset going into the game after they witnessed the Qing Dynasty incident last night-- --The Korean team OP happened to schedule the match at a time when the entire ZGDX team was itching for a fight against Korean players. The entire team had gotten up early to play ranked matches to get into the mode...
They were only one third of the way through the Chinese regional competition and the world tournament was still a long ways away. It wasn't easy to have the chance to play a match against the Koreans. All they could do was try to arrange skirmishes against Korean teams-- --
After getting up in the morning, Little Fatty sent a moving and seemly inspirational Weibo post-- --
[Have you ever seen Shanghai at 7 am?]
Most of the ZGDX fans in Shanghai had similar replies:..............Who hasn't, except you?
Tong Yao: "I have never seen Little Fatty at 7 am, that's the truth."
"Don't say anything. You're the one who got up last today, coming down at 9. I've already played two ranked games. Tell me, do you not want to win today?" Little Fatty punched his keyboard without looking up. "Come on, come on, this idiot AD. Ahhhhh, he's afraid to go in, then why are you playing AD, just go play snake-- --I recommend that you buy the book <On self-improvement as an AD>, written by Lu Sicheng."
Tong Yao went behind Little Fatty and quickly hit tab to check the AD's stats, 0 kills, 4 deaths, and 1 assist. The match was already at the 12 minute mark, no wonder Little Fatty was going crazy-- --
As Tong Yao was watching, this AD was still busying farming and died again to the enemy jungler…...The entire team, including Little Fatty, began cursing the AD in chat.
Tong Yao: "...Why get so angry."
Little Fatty: "I'll fall back to Diamond One if I lose this match."
Tong Yao: "Oh."
Little Fatty: "This month's pay is walking away again."
Tong Yao became quiet after hearing Little Fatty. She stepped back from Little Fatty's chair. Little Fatty sensed her silence and sadly glanced back at Tong Yao: "Tong Yao, you've changed. When you first came here, you were willing to play duos with me at the time."
"That's true." Tong Yao twitched the corner of her lips: "Until I saw you use Orianna, Yasuo, and Leblanc as support…...Honestly, isn't it quite scary that you, a support, have such a similar champion pool as me, a mid?"
Lu Sicheng happened to come out from the kitchen and heard the conversation between Tong Yao and Little Fatty. He took a sip of his coffee before putting down the cup and said: "Little Fatty, don't you feel ashamed mentioning your past history of bullying a newcomer."
Little Fatty deflated his mouth and went back to his games.
Lu Sicheng went to sit down in his own seat: "You up."
Tong Yao: "Uh."
Lu Sicheng turned his head: "Duos?"
Tong Yao: "I'm at Challenger, can't play duos."
Lu Sicheng calmly said: "Oh. Lu Yue helped you drop back down to Masters yesterday."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng: "Duos or not?"
Little Fatty: "What's wrong with you two playing duos everyday."
Lu Sicheng: "Get more points."
Little Fatty: "Can't you help me, the poor little support? I never see you this enthusiastic when playing with me. Tell me, are you looking down on the support?"
Lu Sicheng: "When I want to lose some points, I'll play with you."
Little Fatty: "..."
Little Fatty: "I know why Tong Yao has changed. It's all your fault Cheng Ge. You're the one who made her become unfriendly to me."
"Oh." Lu Sicheng subconsciously glanced at the person at his side after hearing Little Fatty. He saw Tong Yao squint her eyes trying to look for a certain id on her friend list, then she clicked the name-- --On Lu Sicheng's computer screen, an invitation jumped out on the lower right hand corner. Lu Sicheng clicked ok and nodded in satisfaction: "I'll take the blame."
Tong Yao: "What?"
Lu Sicheng: "It's nothing."
Tong Yao: "?"
...
Then the two of them started playing duos. Since both of them had high ranks, it took a longer time for them to get into a match-- --They were only able to get in two matches before noon.
Lu Sicheng stood up after the second match to stretch his wrists. Tong Yao sat in her chair, still checking the stats of the match they had just played. She kept clicking the mouse and asked without looking up: "I should try to get to the top of the Korean server sometime…..Hrm, when is the skirmish with OP?"
Lu Sicheng: "12:30."
Tong Yao stopped clicking and looked up at Lu Sicheng with uncertainty: "What time?"
Lu Sicheng replied without much emotion: "Right now."
He clapped his hands and spoke with a voice, which was loud enough for everyone in the base to hear, to get ready for the skirmish-- --Ming god walked downstairs with Tong Yao's little notebook and a clipboard. Coach Ah Hou also came over with his own notes. Xiao Rui stood up from the sofa with Dabin in his arms…...Xiao Rui was there purely to spectate.
Xiao Rui: "Relax. It's Team OP, it's not a big deal to lose to them. Progress comes from setbacks."
He was also making sarcastic remarks.
Tong Yao rolled her eyes as she prepped for the match. She watched the Korean players also getting into their seats-- --After greeting each other, both sides didn't waste much time talking but immediately entered the ban & pick phase right away.
Since players on both sides have large champion pools, they seemed rather casual about banning champions. However, it seemed both sides dreaded the other side's bot and banned three AD champions: Ashe, Jhin, and Sivir, at the outset. Then both sides banned other stronger champions. They quickly moved into the pick phase-- --
The first thing the Korean team picked was Yasuo.
Tong Yao was shocked. She figured Jin Yuguang had a huge champion pool and he had picked Yasuo. If that was the case, then she figured she should make a safe choice to ensure that her champion would have a good chance to develop at mid while laning in the early game. After thinking it over, she decided to choose Azir, which had just helped her overcome her fear of Korean players. She locked her choice in.
About 5 seconds after Tong Yao had locked Azir in, the other side suddenly chose Taliyah. Tong Yao was dumbfounded.
Tong Yao: "Shit, Taliyah! Isn't it Yasuo, hello? ! Then what's the deal with Yasuo? For top? Top! How many players use Taliyah? He even dared to use it, shit!"
Lu Sicheng took his time to lock in Ezreal. His eyeballs rolled around a bit: "I seemed to hear the same talk not too long ago, where did I hear it-- --Where? Oh, when someone was exclaiming how Jin Yuguang was using Cassiopeia."
Tong Yao raised her eyebrows: "No one uses Taliyah and Cassiopeia at competitions!"
Lu Sicheng: "Syndra was seldom used at competitions before you joined. Aren't you still quite proud of yourself because of that? Taliyah can move quickly to support her allies, snowballs in the late game, has long reach and is a great nuker. In addition, she's a champion who can counter the popular Azir in competitions. How could you say no one uses it? You shut up."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Yue who was leaning against Tong Yao's chair jumped in: "How do you feel being nitpicked about your champion pool? Welcome again into my world."
Tong Yao: "You shut up."
When the ban & pick phase ended, ZGDX had chosen Trundle for top, Rek'Sai for jungler, Azir for mid, Ezreal for ad, and Braum for support. Team OP had chosen Yasuo for top, Gragas for jungler, Taliyah for mid, Cho'Gath for ad, and Taric for support.
Seeing the enemy's unusual champion choice, ZGDX became very quiet-- --
Little Fatty: "Yasuo, Taliyah, Gragas, and Taric, these choices are really gay."
Old Cat: "I'm fine with Yasuo."
Old K: "They're making it look like people still use Gragas. Are we in a dream?"
Tong Yao: "You guys, take a look at Taliyah, look at Taliyah. A champion I never even encountered in rank matches, now I'm seeing it in skirmish."
After their moment of silence, they collectively started to sigh. Only their captain paused for a while then said with a stone face: "I really want to throw all of you out to work on a sweet potato field."
Everyone: "..."
Tong Yao and her teammates had to admit that they were shocked by Team OP's courage to randomly choose their champions-- --It was a strange feeling for them. While they were playing their daily ranked matches, if they saw the opposing team with a lineup like Team OP, they would think the opposing team was going to give them an easy time from the beginning. But as they started playing against Team OP, they found that it was far from easy.
-- --Though Team OP didn't catch ZGDX completely by surprise in the ban & pick phase, their trick switching Yasuo from mid to top did give Old K and Tong Yao difficult times in their respective lanes…...They couldn't kill their counterparts and had a hard time surviving at the same time. It was a depressed feeling that neither Old K nor Tong Yao had experienced before.
When Tong Yao's Azir and Taliyah reached level 3, she found that her opponent had a much stronger presence. She took a look at Old K who was busy protecting his own jungle. Tong Yao sighed, gave up the idea of attacking, and went back to base…...She moved the camera to check on bot, which was the lane that would most likely lead ZGDX to victory in this match.
She saw the enemy Cho'Gath was wagging its tail like a Pekingese.
Tong Yao felt despair all of a sudden.
-- --Cho'Gath was a special kind of champion. When a player played this champion with quick hands, they could move and slash at the same time. The move had a special term in the game "move A." It was a basic skill for top ad players to have. When a top player was using Cho'Gath, the animation of the champion's movement couldn't match up to the actual action because of how quickly the inputs were being sent to the game. The result was that the movement and tail wouldn't appear at the same time on screen, thus making it look like the tail was wagging.
An ad's Cho'Gath that was wagging its tail was evidence that this ad was at least one of the top ads in the major league. They could handle a hard to maneuver champion and were fast on the keyboard.
-- --Team OP's ad didn't pick Cho'Gath randomly, he was on equal footing with Lu Sicheng.
The line up of Tong Yao's team actually lacked carry. In late game team fights, only Lu Sicheng could carry them-- --Team OP seemed to have figured this out beforehand. Their jungler kept attacking ZGDX's bot in the early game. Though OP's jungler failed several times, Lu Sicheng was losing his patience. When his champion reached level 6, he failed a tower dive and died to the enemy Gragas, resulting in two kills and one of ZGDX's turrets.
ZGDX's disadvantage was obvious ever since the enemy started to solely target bot.
Lu Sicheng said with eyebrows crossed: "This round is mine."
No one said anything. ZGDX was in a difficult situation and all they were trying to do was to drag the match into the late game-- --They had made up some of the gap between their economy and dragged the match till the 35th minute...
The ratio of kills was still the initial 2:0.
At this point, both sides were focusing on farming, grabbing resources in the jungles, and continuing to develop their champions.
There was a period of five minutes when neither side had crossed the river...
Towards the later part of the match, Tong Yao was so drowsy that she couldn't think straight.
Finally, it was the last team fight; whoever won this team fight would win the match. Because Lu Sicheng had positioned himself further ahead of the team, when Tong Yao attacked Cho'Gath, she pushed Cho'Gath into Lu Sicheng's face. The mistake caused ZGDX to lose the team fight. Team OP pushed ZGDX's base and ZGDX lost the skirmish-- --
The sound of the bursting of the nexus started playing.
Tong Yao had taken the blame for their loss which would have fallen on Lu Sicheng for his impatience earlier. Tong Yao threw down her mouse and started to bite her fingers.
Lu Sicheng watched his own team's nexus blow up, then took a glance at Tong Yao: "Do you have anything against me?"
He was laughing at her last mistake despite it taking his life.
However, Lu Sicheng seemed quite relaxed, unlike the dark face he normally had when they lost to Korean teams in previous skirmishes-- --Tong Yao scratched her head, carefully took a look at him. She guessed that perhaps he was somewhat satisfied with the fact that the team was able to survive the pressure in the early game and successfully dragged the match to the point that they had victory within their grasp...
In comparison to the other times when the team had no hope at winning whatsoever, perhaps they could win the next match.
Even if Team OP picked an unusual line up again, at least ZGDX was prepared for that.
Additionally, Tong Yao had decided to practice all the mid champions except Yasuo.
In her mind, she had reviewed her performance in this match and knew what she needed to do to improve. She backed out of the game and let Lu Yue join the rest of the team for the second match. She held her knees and watched at the side as her teammates got ready for the second skirmish.
There was a ten minutes intermission.
Tong Yao was more relaxed now since Lu Yue would be the one playing. While the others were discussing the upcoming ban & pick phase, she took the chance to take her cell phone out to check Weibo.
She was going to watch some news.
After she refreshed the page, there was truly big news there…...After what had happened last night, Qing Dynasty finally posted an official announcement about Xu Tailun on their Weibo official site-- --
[ <Public announcement about one of our players' violation of regulations>
Recently, our club has received many complaints regarding the behaviour of our player Xu Tailun. Our club has undergone investigation on these complaints and found some of the complaints to be valid. Our club would like to make the following explanation.
Xu Tailun joined our club during the 2015 winter transfer period and has become the first jungler in our club. However, ever since he joined the club, he hasn't acted in accordance with the expectations of the club: respecting his other teammates, the club, and accepting the decisions from management. He has on various occasions made insulting comments about his teammates, his club, and even China.
The club has on several occasions advised and corrected Xu Tailun's behavior, but Xu Tailun has refused to correct his behavior. In addition, his messy private life has also caused a public opinion storm against esports players, creating extremely negative press towards the esports business. All of the above behavior is in serious violation of our club regulations.
Our club is dedicated to clearing the air about the current situation and will never tolerate a foreign player who doesn't respect his teammates and shows contempt for China. Our club has decided to deduct all of the bonuses for the later half of this year for the player Xu Tailun and has placed him as a substitute, forfeiting all of his rights to play this whole season so that he may reflect on his wrongdoings.
Considering that player Xu Tailun has contributed greatly towards this club's standing in the 2016 Spring competition, the club has made a special arrangement to allow Xu Tailun to participate in the match against Team Huawei this Thursday as a final official farewell towards him and his fans.
Even the wings of a mayfly can shake a big tree.
For the long term healthy growth of the esports business in China, Qing Dynasty has made the above decisions of its own accord.
The club wishes to thank all the people who have supported the Chinese esports business and Qing Dynasty all this time. Our club will do whatever it can to work with all of you to contribute our might to the Chinese esports environment.]
Tong Yao: "..........."
Tong Yao: "Oh, my god, ahhhhhh, what great news. Xu Tailun got banned! ! ! !"
Everyone in the base was shocked by Tong Yao shouting. Lu Sicheng, who was sitting nearest to her, accidentally banned the champion Calista, the champion he was going to pick because his hand shook from Tong Yao's sudden shout. His face instantly turned black: "What's the fuss, get lost. If you dare shout again, I'll go next door and borrow Doli's muzzle to put on you."
Tong Yao: "..."
Doli was an Alaskan Malamute kept by the next door team's boss. Ai Jia and Jinyang's cat, Ah Mao, often stood on the back of Doli to show off to the envious Dabing-- --
Tong Yao: "How dare you to put a dog muzzle on me!"
Lu Sicheng: "Wrong, I want to put two muzzles on you. The first is to keep you quiet, the other is to fortify the first one."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng: "Another team bans its jungler, what does that have anything to do with you? You're so cheerful after losing a match, can't you go reflect on your own performance? Even if it's only for show. You knew how to cry after losing skirmishes before-- --Now, you're so elated, who are you planning to irritate?"
Tong Yao: "...Oh."
Tong Yao put down her cell phone.
She remained completely silent during the second skirmish match. She started to play solo, trying to figure out how to play Taliyah. She successfully played the role of someone who had a guilty conscience and didn't want to irritate her captain.
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット