Gu Xing returned to the dormitory and planned to take a shower and take out a change of clothes from the suitcase. When he saw Ding Ran lying in front of the table, previewing college courses, he still couldn't control his curiosity.
"What did you say to your cousin this afternoon?" He was puzzled.
"Huh?" Ding Ran hasn't reacted yet.
"When I was chatting with Jack and I just now..." Gu Xing repeated Ding Jun's words again, "He said there was a problem with the League of Legends branch's team building ideas."
Ding Ran pulled his thoughts away from the math problem, thought about it carefully, and suddenly shouted in a long tone, "He still takes it seriously?!"
Gu Xing waited for his friend to calm down and then learned the cause and effect.
This afternoon, VG held a training match as usual, except that the opponent was changed to the strong league team EDG.
Although EDG failed in the spring split and failed to win the championship trophy, their runner-up performance was much better than VG.
And the staffing is quite luxurious.
The other party is willing to start a training match with VG because they also want to try out a new player - Scout, the substitute mid laner from SKT.
Gu Xing and Jack were both in IG at the time, so VG was the main lineup for the spring split.
As a result, he was beaten so hard that he couldn't find his way back.
There was no problem in the mid lane duel. Two former SKT mid laners met, and Easyhoon was as stable as ever.
Brother Long who is on the road even has some advantages.
But the bottom lane was completely beaten into a sieve.
EDG's Deft+Meiko combination is second to none in the 2016 LPL, and there is no doubt about it.
VG's current shooter Endless is stronger than IG's Rain, but his strength is limited.
In this collision, the difference is very obvious.
Dandy also helped the bottom lane twice in the early stage, but this only slowed down the duo's threading speed.
In less than 15 minutes, Endless was defeated and killed.
In the end, Deft's Ezreal successfully surpassed the enemy and forced VG to surrender by GG.
After three games, VG's bottom lane game exploded.
Ding Jun got up and took a look at the base. He was almost angry to death. He saw Gu Xing and JackeyLove leaving, and then went to Dota2 next door.
"I have been watching your training matches during this period, and I feel that I have some understanding," Ding Ran said with great satisfaction, "so I gave him some advice, which also used the theory you taught me.
"
"Did I teach you?" Gu Xing couldn't understand.
"That's right," Ding Ran imitated his tone, "When playing jungle in the qualifying match, first look at the winning rate of your teammates and find the strongest one to be the big brother!"
Gu Xing remembered that he did say that, but he was still confused, "But what does this have to do with making suggestions?"
"You also have to raise a big brother for junglers in competitions!" Ding Ran tugged at his fingers and told him, "VG Spring Split lineup, top laner Long Ge, is more blue-collar, right?"
Gu Xing nodded in agreement.
Brother Long is the kind of top laner who will never get into trouble if you don't help him. He is very stable. His burpee hammer in the Spring Split can only be described as reliable.
Although he is very strong and has certain offensive attributes, a bit like another top laner GimGoon, currently the top lane is dominated by the three fantasy gods, and Troll and top laner Ekko have also been popular for a while.
The style of the single hero in the first version is positioned as team battle control + damage tolerance, a role similar to a shit stirrer.
The benefits of these roles in the jungle are not high, and the laning period with the top laner is also very boring and lonely.
Ding Ran continued, "Mid laner Easyhoon, Hou Ye, the famous middle defensive tower, do you think he needs help from the jungle?"
It's really not necessary.
In most games, Easyhoon likes to focus on development and use his equipment to take over the game.
In the S5 season, this was the style of play in SKT, and they didn't eat the jungle at all.
In the first training game of VG, Gu Xing did help Easyhoon twice, but that was because he was so efficient in ganking that he almost put kills in front of the mid laner.
"Endless in the bottom lane..." Ding Ran felt that the opponent was a good person and did not want to give him a bad evaluation. "The strength is quite average. It is difficult to carry the game if I help him."
"The profit from playing in the top lane is small, I am not used to helping the middle lane, and playing the bottom lane has no effect," Ding Ran concluded, "Then tell me, who can the jungler help in the game? There is no big brother in the early game in the team!"
Gu Xing followed his friend's train of thought and figured out his logic, "Don't tell me, it does make sense."
If we play against a weak team, this kind of problem will not be exposed. After all, the other four people in VG except ADC are not bad in strength and can completely crush them.
When facing a strong team, it is inevitable that you will encounter the problems mentioned by Ding Ran.
The jungler has nowhere to help in the early stage, and no one in the team can shoulder the team's rhythm with him.
"So I told my cousin that we need to change the core of the bottom lane, that is, a jungler to help him, a top player who can give feedback to the team!" Ding Ran's eyes lit up, "I didn't expect that my brother would take it seriously!"
"How about it? Do I have to take 1/3 of the credit?" He still asked for credit with a shy face.
"Isn't this what I taught you?" Gu Xing reacted and raised his voice, not to be outdone, and shouted, "Without me, how could you understand this?"
"Both of us are great, okay?" Ding Ran smiled, but suddenly frowned, "The question is, who is the team looking for?"
The two discussed it for a while and felt that there were not many suitable ADCs on the market now.
It is impossible for EDG to release a top shooter in the league like Deft.
Even though he made a serious mistake in the S5 global finals by using Jess to teleport the lantern, there is no doubt about Deft's strength in the domestic league, and he is definitely EDG's treasure.
The topic came to an end.
After the two took a shower, they simply lay on the bed and watched the mid-season video that started recently.
The venue for this event is Shanghai, and the representative of the LPL division is the spring champion RNG.
Spicy Xiangguo, one of the members of the Seven Wolves of Ionia, is RNG’s starting jungler.
However, perhaps because he was too busy training and preparing for games on weekdays, Gu Xing hardly saw him speaking in the group.
"Xiaohu is so strong," Ding Ran sighed repeatedly, "he can actually kill Faker alone!"
Xiaohu, who was only 18 years old, entered the mid-season for the first time and showed his fierce character in the group stage. Faker Lee Sang Hyuk, who was single-killed by him, is a well-deserved legend in the League of Legends.
Combined with Xiaohu's wonderful performance in the last game of this year's spring finals - he took out the trick Enchantress, and even though he was restrained by the fat general Lulu, he still hit a super god + single kill in the opponent's position.
All this seems to indicate the rise of a domestically talented mid laner.
SKT, led by Faker, stumbled in the group stage and was double-killed by the Flash Wolves in the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan divisions.
"Brother Xing, do you think SKT won't even be able to make it to the finals this time?" Ding Ran thought about it, "Last year, they were crushed by EDG in the mid-season, so it's reasonable to be eliminated by RNG this year, right?"
"I think you should go to the LGD base opposite," Gu Xing said with a smile, "Join the Optimistic Family, be optimistic and you'll be fine!"
He feels that SKT, as the double champions of the global finals, has a deep foundation and poor performance in the group stage. Maybe they can adjust in the subsequent knockout stages.
After the LPL experienced a disastrous defeat in last year's World Championship, viewers are currently pessimistic about the strength of the division.
Ding Ran immediately retorted after hearing this, "You still don't believe it?"
He took out his mobile phone, found a picture and showed it to Gu Xing, "When we came to Shanghai, SKT even dared to eat Haidilao!"
The SKT players in the picture are smiling brightly and giving a thumbs up to the camera.
Gu Xing has been busy with trial training these days and has not surfed the Internet much. This is the first time he has seen this photo.
Haidilao mainly refers to the word "Lao", which is similar to the adjective used by domestic audiences to describe contestants who are dishonest.
"Do you believe these things?" Gu Xing looked dismissively.
Ding Ran thought he was being harsh, "Then when you become a professional, how about I treat you to a bowl of beef noodles?"
Beef noodles once sealed the soul of a top ADC at the time during the 2014 World Championship, causing him to fall from heaven to hell. It is also the most famous food curse in the League of Legends world.
Gu Xing shuddered and forced a smile, "Brother, I'm just kidding!"
…
In the afternoon of the next day, Gu Xing and Yu Wenbo went to the Pearl River Creative Center on Lingshi Road. There were many game industry companies nearby. Opposite was Activision Blizzard, and the Banana Project, which hosted this year's LPL.
The EDG base is also located here, they actually have a building!
This opened Gu Xing's eyes.
The two received a warm welcome, and Abu personally came to pick them up and drew them cakes along the way.
"Our second team, EDE, has already entered the LPL and plans to change its name to IM and transfer all the players there," Abu said in a high-pitched voice. "We will have to form a new team that summer."
"If you two can join together, the club can directly purchase an LSPL quota, ensuring that you will have games to play!"
The person he really wants now is JackeyLove.
But Abu was very smart. He saw that Yu Wenbo and Gu Xing had a good relationship, so he planned to buy them both together.
After all, Gu Xing is now one of the top five high-scoring players in Ionia. If he is at the qualifying level, there is no problem in getting it for youth training. It doesn’t cost much anyway.
The two had a trial training all afternoon and performed very well, which made Abramovich even more delighted.
"It's quite late, why don't you try our canteen?" Abu also wanted to build relationships while eating.
"EDG also has a cafeteria?" Yu Wenbo looked forward to it, "When I go to other clubs for trial training, they always ask aunties to do it."
Gu Xing also felt very strange.
EDG gave him a good impression. The club's decoration style is grand, the management system is strict, and the dormitories and training areas are separated without interfering with each other. It fits the image of a regular club in his mind.
However, when a group of people arrived at the cafeteria, he and Yu Wenbo were stunned.
"Why are you still standing there?" Abu said cheerfully, "We have many kinds of dishes here, you can choose whatever you want!"
Gu Xing and JackeyLove looked at each other again.
"All the canteens in our town are better than this," he muttered, "I swear."
"You don't need to tell me?" Jack glanced at Gu Xing and quietly added, "It's quite difficult to find a school cafeteria that's worse than EDG."
EDG's canteen environment is very clean and tidy, and the variety of dishes is indeed rich.
It's just that the quality is really worrying and makes people seem unappetizing.
The image of a luxurious and atmospheric club that Abu and others spent an afternoon building up in Gu Xing's mind was instantly shattered.