Chapter 56: From This Moment On, Disciplining the LPL!

In the Magic City, within the Zhabei District, stood the Huanwei Multimedia Valley!

Unlike the regular season stage, the LPL preseason was not held in Taicang, but rather in the studio complex of Gamefy in the Magic City.

Outside the large building, quite a few spectators were waiting to check their tickets and enter.

As the inaugural professional League of Legends tournament, Tencent, considering the need for early promotion, distributed the preseason tickets in a manner akin to a half-sold, half-free giveaway.

Those who came to line up and watch the esports match at this hour were predominantly nearby college students and young people.

During the wait, some social butterflies struck up conversations with each other and soon began discussing the teams they favored.

"I think teams like IG and LGD will definitely have no problem advancing through the regular season."

"PE's overall strength is also decent; I honestly even think they're stronger than IG."

"Pfft, PE is just okay... Bro, did you not watch the earlier LPL TGA streams?"

"Ah, LPL streams?"

"Doesn't the LPL only start today? Where were there any streams before?"

"My brother here is talking about the LPL qualifier trial broadcasts. That match where NXG played PE, I happened to catch it."

"It was a massacre. NXG was fiercely unhinged, playing against five Grandmasters like they were bots."

"No way, PE performed really well in the previous offline tournaments. They got stomped by NXG?"

"The final match of the qualifiers has a replay on Tencent Video. NXG nearly gave PE a shutout."

Once the topic was broached, the volume of discussion among the crowd grew louder and louder.

Centered around the two male college students who started it all: "NXG is definitely a preseason overlord-tier team. Look at the sheer discipline of their entire roster; other teams simply don't compare."

"Playing a game with the feeling of a military operation, this is the first time I've ever seen it."

"Their tactical understanding is on a completely different level compared to other teams as well. JM, as the number one player on the Chinese server, is both the mid laner and the coach. Look at some of the other teams—they don't even have a coach."

"I specifically came all the way from Jinling this time just to watch NXG play."

"Indeed, speaking of which, this guy JM is seriously awesome. I followed his advanced tutorial videos for half a month, and my rank jumped by a whole tier directly."

"Dare I ask what rank the honorable brother is currently at?"

"This humble one is unaccomplished, currently Gold I at the Golden Elixir stage, with Platinum ascension crossing the tribulation in sight!"

"Six six six!"

Just then, a cry of astonishment suddenly came from the right side of the queue.

"Holy cow, the NXG team even has their own branded team bus?"

"Isn't that kind of thing exclusive to those foreign CS esports giants?"

The spectators' positions were some distance away from the parking lot in the back designated for team vehicles, so Jiang Ming and his group had not noticed the commotion in front of the multimedia building.

Driving from Jinling to Shanghai took them over four hours on the road, and they only arrived in the urban area around two in the afternoon.

Fortunately, Senior Sister Lin was reliable in her handling of matters. Knowing they couldn't directly travel back and forth to the team base after today's matches concluded, she had rented a cheap motel in advance.

After dropping off their luggage at the motel midway, everyone had an afternoon meal before driving over to the competition venue.

"I'm going to go check-in first!"

Putting on the NXG team manager badge, Lin Jingyi, who was wearing a professional office-lady skirt today, was the first to step out of the car.

"Take your personal belongings with you, don't leave anything in the car," Jiang Ming turned around and said to the team members behind him.

"And Uncle Zhou, sorry to trouble you to wait outside for us a bit longer. You can move around freely in the meantime, but don't wander too far in case of any emergencies."

"Got it, Boss."

The LPL preseason lasted for a total of seven days, but in reality, counting the opening ceremony, there were only five days of matches.

The first two days were mainly organized by LPL officials for various teams to undergo match-related training, as well as playing scrims between teams.

There were twelve teams in the preseason in total, comprising the 3rd and 4th place teams from the three City Hero Tournaments, the 1st and 2nd place teams from the media qualifiers, and the top 8 teams from the server tournament, making 12 squads in all.

The preseason consisted of two rounds. The first round was a double-elimination tournament, with the 12 teams divided into 3 groups of 4 teams each.

Teams with two wins advanced directly to the Spring Split; teams with two losses in the group stage were directly eliminated, while teams with a 1-1 record were kept on standby to participate in the subsequent six-to-three single-round-robin elimination tournament.

NXG was assigned to Group A, meaning that if they could secure victories in both of today's matchups, they could finish early in the preseason and prepare for the subsequent regular season.

The strength of Group A's opponents was not particularly formidable. Aside from Star Horn Royal Club and the veteran LPL team LGD, the other two were Dodo Club and the street-netcafe team BLQG.

Their very first opponent was a skirmish against the team named BLQG (Violent Cut-Cake).

...

Inside the building, within the esports competition demonstration hall.

Heavy metal music featuring a style characteristic of around 2013 echoed all around. On the central big screen hung the promotional photos of the two teams.

NXG vs BLQG!

However, the spectators who entered the demonstration hall all twitched the corners of their mouths the moment they laid eyes on the big screen.

Just by looking at their appearances, the two teams had an utterly massive disparity in terms of visual presentation...

On the side of the screen bearing the team name BLQG, the five players struck chunibyo poses in the image, wearing cheap T-shirts with text printed on them that cost ten yuan from a Taobao shop.

In stark contrast, their opponents NXG not only had trendy team uniform designs and off-the-charts good looks, but also featured sponsor information on their right shoulders.

It gave off the uncanny vibe of a heavyweight dynasty clashing with pathetic ants...

Of course, purely based on appearances, some novel fans might automatically imagine a underdog-counterattacking scenario where a team of nobodies slays the giants.

That didn't seem quite right either; NXG was also a newly established team with zero honors, so they couldn't be considered giants by any stretch of the imagination.

...

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the live broadcast of the 2013 League of Legends Pro League Preseason."

At the caster desk, a male commentator with a slight regional accent read out the opening remarks by the book, while simultaneously pushing forward the historical wheels of the League of Legends Pro League.

"Alright, let's first take a look at the data of the players from both sides in today's Group A match."

"On the blue side, Team NXG: top laner norsha, jungler stone, mid laner yihan, AD sorry, support door."

"On the red side, Team BLQG: top laner BladeCrusher, jungler RampageBoard, mid laner SugarTyrant, AD NovaSlash, support LayeredGuardian."

"Oh right, I forgot to introduce—we also have another member on stage for Team NXG... NXG head coach JM!"

The phrasing was rigid, an excessive amount of time was spent introducing the players' IDs, and they even forgot to mention the head coach of Team NXG.

Such a series of mistakes—which in later eras would be enough to get a caster flamed into immediate retirement—were nothing more than the utmost normality back in the 2013 preseason.

Today's casters were the combination of Doll and the generation-one toxic-jinx Joker; strictly speaking, neither of them was a professional expert.

"We now see the director has provided some data for the five players of Team BLQG."

"In the previous LPL qualifiers, BLQG also delivered a very impressive performance, oh—six matches, four wins, and only lost two."

"Next is the player introduction. BLQG top laner BladeCrusher, ranked ladder points: Diamond I, 55 LP..."

(PS: Since the casting proficiency during Season 3 was extremely poor, descriptions tend to appear rather awkward. Lao Qing will try to minimize or avoid issues of this nature.)