When the SKT team base crystal exploded with a loud sound, Zeyuan and Hao Kai in the commentary box immediately gave their most hoarse shouts, and the excitement in their hearts was beyond words, as if it was the New Year!
"We won! Our LPL team finally defeated SKT!"
"Although it is only a BO1 victory, this victory can definitely make all LPL viewers feel relieved and let everyone understand that the SKT team is not invincible!"
Hao Kai was so excited that his eyes were wet, because in the past two years, since edg defeated skt in the 2015 msi mid-season, in the following time, the lpl team has never defeated the skt team again!
And this year, when the dark horse of the Lao Gan Daddy team emerged, they finally broke the curse of fear of South Korea, and finally completed the charge against the SKT team in an overwhelming manner!
"That's right, although it's just a bo1 victory, we have already felt enough confidence and impact from the Lao Gan Daddy team from this victory!"
"And judging from the current state of the Laogandaddy team, even if they meet the SKT team again in the finals and play a bo5, I think they can defeat the SKT team head-on!"
"Although we all know that the SKT team will perform even better in the Bo5, we should also choose to completely believe in the Lao Gan Daddy team and Manager Lu. I believe that they will never let us down in this MSI!"
"Come on, old godfather, come on lpl!"
Amidst Guan Zeyuan's impassioned cheers, the five players from the lgd team stood up one after another on the player bench, smiling and high-fiving in celebration.
The way of celebrating was not particularly exciting. After all, in their view, defeating the SKT team was a foreseeable event and not worth making a fuss about.
On the contrary, when shaking hands with everyone from the SKT team, they seemed extremely dejected, as if the defeat in this game was entirely caused by their own mistakes rather than a lack of strength.
But for everyone in Laogandaddy, the SKT team’s reaction is insignificant. If they are not convinced now, then in the subsequent games, they will be defeated!
Walking to the center of the stage, the five members of the Lao Gan Daddy team bowed and thanked amidst the cheers of the audience, and then returned to the backstage lounge together.
I originally wanted to celebrate with Manager Lu, but when I walked in, I found that Manager Lu and others had already packed up their things!
"Manager Lu, are you going too fast?"
"Look at this speed, you must have started packing up before the game is over?"
Seeing the situation in the lounge, Wei Shen asked, dumbfounded.
"When you get four kills on the top lane, we've already started to deal with it."
"If you still can't win after getting four kills, then I can only show that there is a problem with my judgment."
Lu Haoran said with a smile. On the surface he looked quite calm, but in his heart he was actually a little overjoyed.
Taking out Lucian in this round, he actually hoped that Wei Shen would suppress Faker's development, but he didn't expect that Wei Shen's performance in this round was so amazing that he even directly killed SKT with his own strength!
As a result, the game ended very quickly, ending in only 25 minutes and 57 seconds. As a result, he didn't finish the glass of water he poured before!
"By the way, when you are interviewed later, don't reveal too much information about Lucian."
"When it comes to the semifinals or even the finals, other teams will probably move your Lucian to the ban position."
"If they are not banned by then, then our Lucian can swing up, middle and down in three directions and shake them to death!"
"Old Wolfwalker, remember to practice more with Lucian in the past two days."
Lu Haoran said happily, although the first round of the group stage has just ended, he has already thought about the BP strategy for the following games!
After receiving affirmative responses from Langxing and Sima Laothief, the entire Laogandaddy team left the backstage lounge and returned to another preparation room to continue training, waiting for the second game of the day.
…
The first round of the group stage has officially ended, and the rankings have been officially released.
The LGD team ranked first in the group with a 5-0 victory record.
The second place SKT team has a record of 4-1.
The third-placed g2 team has a record of 2-3.
The fourth ranked tsm team has a record of 2-3.
The fifth-placed fw team has a record of 1-4.
The sixth-place gam team has a record of 1-4.
After the first round of the group stage, the LGD team and the SKT team have basically determined their places to advance to the semi-finals.
The other four teams all lost to the first and second place winners, and the score difference was not big.
This means that every game in the next second round of the group stage is crucial to the four teams. The victory of every small game may affect the final promotion situation!
Therefore, as soon as the second round of the group stage started, the intensity of the game suddenly increased and the fight was extremely intense!
In the first game, the g2 team fought against the tsm team again. After a fierce battle for 40 minutes, the g2 team finally won.
In the second game, the lgd team played again against the gam team. Although they were strongly blocked by the gam team, they still won the final victory.
In the third game, the fw team will face the skt team again.
In this game, the fw team unexpectedly overturned the skt team and won the victory, gaining a hard-earned point!
It also allowed the SKT team to suffer two consecutive defeats in one day, making their mythical halo instantly dimmed!
However, just when all the LPL viewers were fully expecting the SKT team to fail and go home directly out of the group stage, on the fourth match day of the group stage, the SKT team once again staged the return of the king drama.
After successively defeating the gam team and the tsm team, and after winning the sixth game, the skt team has 100% confirmed its second place in the group stage and can successfully advance to the semi-finals.
Later, in the first game of the last match day of the group stage, the SKT team and the LGD team met again.
In this game, the SKT team came to play against the LGD team with a revengeful mentality. In order to prevent the LGD team from being defeated again in the early stage of the game, the SKT team frantically adopted the LCK-style Shakespeare game mode again.
From the beginning to the end, it was almost always in operation. Not only did it not fight with the LGD team, it also did not give the LGD team any chance!
So, when the bladder round finally reached 50 minutes, as the first wave of team battles began, the SKT team finally forcibly pushed away the base crystal of the LGD team after killing two members of the LGD team.
With a head-to-head final record of 2-0, we completed our revenge against the LGD team.
…
"Damn, this SKT is so disgusting!"
"They are all professionals, how could they not fight during the whole game? How did they do it?"
"I'm so convinced. Are they all robots? Can they endure such a torturous competition?"
All members of the LGD team originally wanted to end the group stage with a score of 10-0, but they did not expect that the SKT team defeated them in such a rogue way, which made Xiaoning and others really angry.
I can’t wait to have a real-life PK with the SKT players.
"It doesn't matter. It's just that we lost a group match. It still doesn't affect our promotion to the top spot in the group."
"And since the SKT team is playing like this, it means that they are already afraid that they won't be able to defeat us in a head-on fight, so they came up with such a shameless way of playing."
"If you want me to say that if you lose in this kind of game, you lose. After all, it doesn't mean anything if they win."
Lu Haoran was quite normal about the loss in this game, and even hoped that LGD could lose to SKT.
After all, although they have absolute confidence that they can defeat the SKT team in bo5, they have to admit that once they get to b05, the skt team's combat capabilities will be improved to a higher level again.
The defeat in this game can also serve as a reminder to the players so that they can be more vigilant in the next games!
Although the players understood what Manager Lu meant, they were still a little aggrieved after losing the game and wished they could play again with the SKT team immediately.
Lu Haoran smiled and waved them away to prepare for the last game. While he continued to watch the next game, he was thinking about the next knockout stage. If the SKT team comes up with such a shameless lineup again, how should they break the tie.
…
Every game on the last match day of the group stage, except for the game involving the SKT team, which was relatively weak, the other games were very intense and exciting.
Although the LGD team and the SKT team had one win and one loss, because the LGD team took less time to win the game, they have actually locked in the first place in the group, and the SKT team ranked second.
As for the next four teams, except for the gam team, which has been steadily eliminated, the points of the g2 team, tsm team and fw team are actually very close, and any one of them may become the last team to be eliminated.
As the game progressed, when today's fifth game finally ended, the g2 team and the tsm team, which had already finished the game, actually had the same score and needed to play a final extra game!
What's more worth mentioning is that if the LGD team defeats the FW team again in the last game, then there will be a situation where all three teams will go 4-6, and all three teams will need to play extra games at the same time.
But if the LGD team deliberately loses to the FW team, then the FW team can directly become the third place in the group!
…
So, at the end of the fifth game, the lgd team was involved in a heated discussion in the preparation room.
A staff member stood beside Lu Haoran and analyzed in a serious manner.
"Manager Lu, this is the last game, otherwise we will lose to the Flash Wolves on purpose."
"In the semi-finals, the first place will play the fourth place, and the second place will play the third place. I think if SKT is allowed to play against Flash Wolves, they may lose. After all, the score between Flash Wolves and SKT in the group stage is also 1-1.
.”
"And the Flash Wolves, or the entire LMS division, are good at beating the LCK team. Maybe they can really overthrow the SKT team in the Bo5!"
"When the time comes and we are the Flash Wolves in the finals, won't the championship be within reach?"
"By the way, the most critical point is that the SKT team has always been slow to start in the World Series. They often do not perform well in the group stage, but the more they play, the better they get."
"Since we can't eliminate SKT in the semi-finals, it's better to let Flash Wolves come than to fight SKT at its peak in the finals!"
The staff member analyzed the matter seriously and clenched his fists. If the other teams hadn't been too tight, he really wanted to see the SKT team eliminated in the group stage!
In this way, there will be no suspense about Team Lao Gan Daddy’s journey to win the MSI Mid-Season Invitational!
"..."
"Did you deliberately lose to Flash Wolves and let them play against SKT?"
Lu Haoran frowned after hearing the staff's suggestion.
In fact, he had thought about this question last night, but he never got an accurate answer.
If you think about it from the perspective of winning the championship, then it is naturally best for the SKT team to meet the strongest Flash Wolves team in the semi-finals. Defeating SKT is equivalent to helping LGD eliminate its biggest enemy.
Even if we don't defeat SKT in the end, we can definitely force out some of the SKT team's trump cards, which is a good thing anyway.
Furthermore, the mentality of the members of the Lao Gan Daddy team was somewhat affected by the loss in the first game. If they play SKT again in the finals, some minor problems may arise.
Due to emotions and reasons, deliberately losing to Flash Wolf seems to be the best choice!
But what makes Lu Haoran extremely troubled is that he really doesn't want to make this kind of decision to "lose the game on purpose". Otherwise, what is the difference between it and the "Oscar Night" incident of the old godfather?
And if they don't face the SKT team in order to win the championship, maybe even if they win, they won't be recognized by the LPL audience, and they will get the sentence "I haven't defeated SKT in Bo5, why do I say LPL is greater than LCK?"
Something like that!
Is winning the championship important to LGD?
Very important!
After all, the LPL has not won a championship for two full years. The LPL, which is in a dark period, urgently needs a championship to restore morale!
But for Lu Haoran, it is more important to win the championship by defeating the SKT team head-on!
Only in this way can LPL's Korean phobia be completely eliminated, and LPL can come out of the darkness and enter a bright new era!
"Losing to the Flash Wolves on our own initiative is indeed more beneficial to our subsequent schedule, but I don't want to do that."
"First, because the players don't want to lose. Second, because I told them that it's OK to lose to SKT, but the provincial team must not lose. Third, if they deliberately lose to the Flash Wolves, this is actually disrespectful to them!"
"I know there are winners and losers in e-sports, and there's nothing wrong with using some off-field strategies, but this approach seems a bit shameless and immoral to me."
"So I will still let them try their best to win!"
"And if the three teams play in the playoffs, if the Flash Wolves are strong enough, they can still get third place."
"If they are not strong enough, we will take the initiative to lose to them and let them get third place. Instead, we will give skt a chance to abuse them and let them get up to speed faster!"
Lu Haoran looked at the staff and said loudly. The next moment, in their rather puzzled eyes, he went to the backstage lounge with the players, and then went on the stage together and won the last game!
At this point, the group stages of the 2017 MSI Mid-Season Championship Invitational are all over!
First place, lgd team, record 9-1!
Second place, skt team, record 8-2!
Third place, g2 team, record 4-6!
Fourth place, tsm team, record 4-6!
Fifth place, fw team, record 4-6!
Sixth place, gam team, 1-9!
In the final semi-finals showdown, which two teams will compete with the LGD team and the SKT team respectively depends on the final playoff situation!