Chapter 796: The Poisonous Kespa Cup (Happy Birthday, Sister Hua)
After spending two days in the apartment, Lin Cheng returned to the club to prepare for the Kespa Cup.
The Kespa Cup is similar to the Demacia Cup of the LPL. It has been added to the Korean LOL competition since 2015, and this offseason competition has always been a graveyard for strong LCK teams.
Since the first Kespa Cup, SKT has decided to name the K Cup the Korean Rollover Cup.
At the end of 2015, SKT, which had just won the S Championship, participated in the Kespa Cup with all its main players under the spotlight. However, they were eliminated by the Internet Cafe Team in the semi-finals.
Netizens at the time were shocked. Little did they know that this was SKT's best result in the K Cup.
Later, SKT was beaten badly every year in this tournament.
So strictly speaking, Faker did not win the theoretical club Grand Slam, at least he did not win the championship in the K Cup event he participated in.
Not only SKT, but other strong teams also frequently failed in this event.
No team has ever been able to win the LCK championship and also win the K Cup championship that year.
Teams that win the Kespa Cup often have many difficulties in the new season. They either fall apart the next year, or their results are not as good as expected, or they simply fail.
Last year's K Cup champion AFS only lost one game in 16 games. At that time, everyone thought they would be one of the candidates for the 2020 LCK championship.
As a result, this year AFS has seen all kinds of crotch extensions, going high and low all the way and swooping down into the lower half.
Therefore, it has become everyone’s consensus that K-cup is poisonous.
This year, the one with the highest claim to win the Kespa Cup is KT. However, since no one can break the curse of the K Cup, everyone is only cautiously optimistic.
Moreover, it is not clear what the new KT will be like.
According to gossip, the team that has performed the best in recent training matches seems to be the newcomer T1. However, T1 is busy filming commercials to announce that the second team will participate, so at least it will be difficult for T1 to revenge against its old rivals in the K Cup.
T1 fans have been harassed by KT fans for a year, and they can no longer hold it in any longer. They are eagerly looking forward to Faker leading his teammates to kill Lin Cheng, the guy who covets the throne.
With the start of the alliance, this year's K Cup schedule has also been changed.
There are no Internet cafe teams participating this year. Only the ten LCK teams after the alliance participate, which can be regarded as a training opportunity for each team in the new season.
Of course, the embarrassment of being eliminated from the Internet cafe team is gone.
The ten teams were divided into two groups and competed in a single round-robin competition in Wave 1. The top two teams in the two groups directly entered the semi-finals, and the last two teams in the group were directly eliminated.
KT was placed in Group B.
On October 22, KT made its first appearance in the Kespa Cup.
KT’s two wave 1 opponents today are BRO and GEN·G.
Since the epidemic situation has improved a lot, this time the K Cup will be held offline at LOL PARK, but there are still no live audiences.
Everyone is watching the performance of the new champion KT, wanting to see if KT can still be as dominant as it was in the summer split.
If KT is still suffocating after changing four players, the other teams can just go to sleep.
However, KT's performance today did not meet fans' expectations, with one win and one loss.
Although the process of defeating BRO was very straightforward, anyone with a discerning eye could see that the defeat was purely based on personal skills. KT defeated the opponent in the laning phase.
BRO is a team that entered the league after being formed into a league. Even though one of the investors includes Kim Heechul, a well-known artist in Korea, all the members are newcomers to the LCK or newcomers, and no one thinks they are competitive.
So KT's defeat of BRO is nothing to be happy about for the fans.
On the contrary, losing to GEN·G was a bit of a torture.
KT performed very well in the early stage. Lin Cheng was still the God of War who made all the difference in the top lane. In the laning phase alone, Lin Cheng and Chovy already had a clear advantage.
But when the game entered the operational period, KT began to feel uncomfortable.
It was obvious that the players' tacit understanding was not enough. The five KT players on the field did not seem to form a unit, and they often ended up with fewer players than their opponents for no apparent reason.
Lin Cheng was also in a hurry. He ran twice in a row to kill Rasal alone, but was tricked by the opponent, resulting in a wave of Baron rhythm being sent out.
That's not all.
Lin Cheng's wave is just the beginning.
After Lin Cheng has done Chaowei, he will do it, and after Chaowei has done Mr. Dai, he will do it.
Then, the scene where Little Peanut and Effort Nosuke ran to fight two against five were shown.
The advantage that was originally good in the early stage was forced to be destroyed by KT's people.
Looking at such game scenes, KT fans almost have a heart attack.
Is this still the invincible KT team from the summer?
How did our operation that suffocates the whole world become like this?
This guy who sends them away one after another is outrageous.
Is it possible for the jungler and support to go from two to five, an operation that professional players can do?
Some T1 fans couldn't wait to jump out and ridicule.
"I declare that KT is a C78. Lin Cheng will definitely pay the price for his blasphemous remarks."
"Is this God? Why is God beaten like a dog?"
"Is that all KT? It seems that the training match said that KT is in general condition and it's true."
KT fans naturally did not allow Lin Cheng to be attacked and jumped out of the lane one after another.
Your team has been beaten by us to the point where you no longer dare to compete. How dare you talk so loudly?
Let me put it here: This K Cup may be your only chance to defeat KT1, but you did not cherish it, and letting the second team participate in the K Cup is destined to be another year of crying for T1.
Even with a poor start, KT fans are still optimistic.
After all, it's just a K Cup. It doesn't matter if you don't want the trophy. It's good to let the team get used to it.
And even though Lin Cheng was tricked by the old man Rasal twice and sent out a big rhythm, it can be seen that Lin Cheng's personal condition is still fine.
As long as Lin Cheng's condition is okay, then KT will get back on track sooner or later.
All KT fans believe that as long as the new teammates understand who is the father of the team, KT will be on the right track under the leadership of Lin Cheng.
However, on the second match day of Group B on the 24th, KT once again achieved a record of one win and one loss.
The winner was the second team of T1, and the loser was AFS.
The winning rounds were clean and tidy, but in the losing rounds someone always got sick, and KT fans watched as their blood pressure soared.
Of course, the loss to the African team was not that outrageous compared to the previous loss to GEN·G.
This game was once KT's side's advantage, but at the critical moment when the opponent even snatched the big and small dragons, it can only be said that they were unlucky.
In this way, KT barely entered the knockout rounds of the K Cup with a record of 2 wins and 2 losses.
Fortunately, BRO and T1's second team, which lost all four games, are at the bottom. Otherwise, KT's record would be a bit uncertain.
In fact, KT's tacit understanding in training games has gradually become good, but it has been a long time since there has been an official offline game, and everyone seemed to have some problems when they suddenly came to the LOL PARK scene.
Lin Cheng came down and reviewed the K Cup group stage matches with the team.
"You're too focused on the lane, brothers."
"You can't join a team if you have a slight disadvantage."
“The decisions we make are more cerebral than the other.”
