League of Legends: League of Unknowns

A comfortable cool wind blew in the lazy afternoon and the curtains by the window waved in response. The dormitories were new and the entire building was neat and clean. Due to Jingtai’s interest, their room had a lingering smell of candle fragrance.

Bzzt! Bzzt!

The phone vibrated as a call came in.

“Luocheng, where are you now?” Xiao Bei’s voice came through the receiver.

“In the dorms, is the schedule out?” Luocheng asked.

“Yeah, I’m at the club room, come on over.” Xiao Bei replied.

“Alright.”

Pulling on a jacket and combing a hand through his hair in an attempt to tidy himself, Luocheng left the room and headed toward the club. It had been almost a week since Luocheng had entered the club room, and there were so many more members in the club now. You could often see several people playing, and a group of others watching as they stood behind them. It reminded him of the days that he used to frequent the internet cafes.

Upon reaching the club, you could see a red-haired beauty in the front row shouting in an unladylike manner.

“Kill him, yes, kill him! Let this asshole who bullied me see, now you know my great strength, eh?” Meiqi exclaimed.

Luocheng glanced over and found Xiao Bei seated in front of Meiqi’s computer, playing ADC and using the ID ‘Horse Loves to Run’.

He could imagine what had happened, when Xiao Bei had come to the club looking for him, Meiqi, who was playing ADC had probably been beaten by somebody had then shouted for Xiao Bei to help her destress.

Xiao Bei’s freckled face was flushed red completely as he played, Meiqi’s body pressing close on his side as she cheered. This little virgin boy probably couldn’t stand the intimacy and temptation, and his blood pressure was probably shooting to the sky making it hard for him to play properly.

“Luocheng.” Xiao Bei was clearly relieved when he saw him, hurriedly standing up from the chair and giving it back to Meiqi.

Luocheng nodded his head in greeting, and the other fifty to sixty members in the room who were playing hard also raised their heads to greet him. In the E-sports Club, Luocheng was still very popular.

“This is the schedule, have a look.” Xiao Bei said, handing over the sheet of paper.

“Let me see, let me see!” Meiqi excitedly bounced over.

Naturally, Team Skycrown was playing in professional competitions. Shanghai University E-sports Club also had an understanding with Team Skycrown, so of course they would band together to go and watch their matches.

“It’s the single round-robin method which is best of one, yeah, it’ll go faster this way.” Luocheng muttered to himself as he looked over the schedule.

This method was the most direct elimination method, and it was also the most efficient one. The two top teams needed to be selected from hundreds and thousands of participating teams after all, and it was necessary to employ this method. The competition would run from December to January.

In the early stage, the strong teams that could qualify could be described with the Chinese proverb of ‘The carp has leaped through the dragon’s gate’. Many carps swim upstream against the river’s strong current, but only a few are capable or brave enough to take the final leap over the waterfall.

And when the top two teams were finally selected, only they would be eligible to enter the preseason to compete with the few top teams from the other competitions to obtain the qualification to enter the LPL Spring Season!

There would be many games to play in these few weeks for the Media War competition, and Luocheng roughly looked through the schedule. From this Friday onward, Team Skycrown would be participating in the first elimination bracket in the first week.

Once the first bracket was over, there would only be 500 teams left from the thousands that had first participated. After the second bracket, only 250 teams would be left. After the third bracket, there would only be 120 teams left.

In other words, from this Friday to the next, Team Skycrown would have three elimination matches to play.

They couldn’t lose any of these three knockout matches, losing one would mean being eliminated from the competition. If they wanted to enter the preseason or LPL, they would have to wait for the next year.

Team Skycrown didn’t have any initial capital and if anything were to happen in the process of entering LPL, it would deal a fatal blow to them and effectively crush their road to e-sports.

Luocheng believed in the strength of Team Skycrown, but with such a tightrope system match up in this competition, it still made people inexplicably nervous. Three elimination matches that had to be won at all costs, and it was all best of one…

Those participating in the competitions would be players from all over the country who were aspiring to be professional players, and these players would definitely have varying strengths, some would even be masters. Team Skycrown couldn’t afford to let their guard down at all in these elimination matches.

“During the match, maintain your finger speed and feel as well as your reaction timing. I’ll arrange a special training schedule, and you guys will follow the schedule. There’s no need to continue playing premade games, generally professional teams won’t appear anyway. I will try to arrange some matches with other teams for combat practice too.” Luocheng said.

“What’s combat practice?” Meiqi asked, never hearing the term before.

“Professional team practices are generally divided into basic training, combat training, and free practice.” Luocheng explained, knowing that Xiao Bei was not very familiar with these terms either.

“Basic training refers to farming and last hitting, finger speed, and reaction time amongst others. This part of the training is the most boring but also, the most important training. You have to have at least three hours of this every day, once in the morning, in the afternoon and at night. It will be extended according to your own shortcomings.”

“Combat practice is basically actual combat practice. Generally, we would arrange matches with teams who are more or less on par with your own team, and the games are played in a competitive manner, so there is no room for slack. Twice a day, two matches each time. In other words, you have at least four matches of combat training, and this is aiming to train your own strength, coordination, and tactical plays.”

“The last part is free practice, which as the name implies, you can use your own account to play ranked games, whether it’s in the Korean or US server. You can think of it as personal training because you will meet all kinds of players in ranked games.”

Luocheng was explaining and summarizing the training methods seriously and systematically, and he didn’t notice that all the members in the club were looking at him in surprise and listening attentively to him.

Meiqi was also one of them who wore a surprised look on her face, asking, “Why didn’t you use the same method when training our team?”

“Students are not professional players and they will be unable to perform such rigorous systematic training regimens. Team Skycrown is a professional team, and that’s why they require such strict training.” Luocheng said, scratching the tip of his nose nervously, not knowing why all eyes were on him.

“For Fudan University to get that strong, was it because they trained like this every day?” Meiqi asked.

“Logically it should be, plus, they would probably also have a more complete training regimen.” Luocheng replied.

“Listening to your explanation on the trainings and comparing it to ours, I feel like our team’s training is just like playing house.” Xiao Jia said as he walked over to them.

The method that Shanghai University team used to train was to keep playing matches continuously, and occasionally, they would arrange practice matches with other universities. The timing for these matches were mostly uncertain and it was all over the place. It wasn’t one bit like the training schedules and methods that Luocheng had just explained, which were divided carefully and clearly.

“For the combat training, I’ll need your help to think about it. There are more professional teams in your network, if there’s an opportunity, I would like for them to train with us in the afternoon.” Luocheng said instead.

“No problem. I can’t get you first-tier teams, and second-tier teams are a little difficult, but I can get third-tier teams easily every day to serve as your sandbag!”

“Yeah, before Team Skycrown becomes more known, I’ll be counting on you.” Luocheng said.

Wanting to do combat practice with other teams, you would require a certain amount of strength and fame. You couldn’t just casually pull out five random players to train with, which would defeat the whole purpose of the combat training.

Team Skycrown didn’t play against Shanghai University team anymore because there was nothing more to improve from doing so. Luocheng was hoping that Xiao Jia would be able to get the champion of the University League—Fudan University team to practice with them. It would be very helpful for their development.

“Wu Sen mentioned that he could get Team Stardust to play a round with us.” Xiao Bei said.

“Isn’t Team Stardust one of the top eight in the previous LPL? It’s a first-tier domestic team!” Meiqi exclaimed.

“Wu Sen was originally from Team Stardust and he would be more familiar with the members. However, they will also be participating in the preseason, and one of the tickets into LPL has basically been taken by them already. If we could have a match with them before the actual competition, it would be great. That way, we have a way to gauge how far off we actually are from a first-tier team.” Luocheng said.

Team Stardust was not as famous as Team Revelations, Team Daemons, Team Sky, or Team 71, who were the top four. However, to be able to rank in the next four, their strength was something to be reckoned with.

Team Skycrown could take on a third-tier team with their abilities now, and could most likely hold their own against a second-tier team. They hadn’t had a chance to truly play against a first-tier team up till now, and if Wu Sen could really get a match with them, it would definitely be a rare opportunity.

“Don’t you have a good relationship with Team Daemons, Luocheng? Why not ask them to have a practice session with us? If it’s for you, they would probably take some time out to play against Team Skycrown, right?” Xiao Bei asked.

“Our abilities right now are too far apart from theirs, it isn’t necessary,” Luocheng said, shaking his head.

For Team Daemons, they only needed to meet in the battlefield!

Moreover, if they couldn’t even make it to LPL, how could Team Skycrown even think of playing against the top team in their country?

The past was in the past, Luocheng was fully aware that Team Skycrown was starting from scratch. They were just one among the countless other teams that were trying to get a footing, and Team Daemons was a top tier team at the peak of a mountain.

If he were to rely on his past connections to let such an excellent team play against their Team Skycrown who was currently worthless, it wasn’t just an insult to himself, but an insult to the most respected opponents!

Team Daemons, we’ll see you at LPL!