Tong Yao went back to the break room and simply sat there, feeling rather down.
Her teammates were all quite attentive and her emotional state was soon discovered by the team’s support, or “nanny”, Little Fatty--- Little Fatty stuffed the crackers in his hand into Lu Sicheng’s and turned around to ask Tong Yao: “What’s this?”
Lu Sicheng offhandedly lifted up Tong Yao’s chin and stuffed the crackers into her mouth. Then he tepidly said: “Haven’t lost enough times. Once things go against the wind, she shivers and is afraid of taking the blame. She’s scared to go on.”
Little Fatty was taken aback hearing it. But then he quickly changed his expression to indifference as if to say “oh, what’s the big deal, don’t scare me.”
“I’m not afraid of taking the blame.” With the crackers in her mouth, Tong Yao couldn’t speak clearly. She stared at Lu Sicheng, then chewed on the crackers as if they were Lu Sicheng’s head. After swallowing the crackers, she also took a sip of the green tea latte the staff had bought for them. The latte was sweet, but it didn’t save her from feeling miserable. She couldn’t think straight: “I’m nervous. I’ve never played such an important match. To make matters worse, I’ve met an insidious player like Ai Jia who I can’t really handle. I thought about this while playing the match earlier and couldn’t come up with a better solution, so I thought it might be better for Lu Yue to go on.”
As she was talking, her fingers were scratching on the edge of the paper cup she was holding in her hand. Her movement indicated that she was still fretting.
Lu Sicheng nodded: “You spoke so much. You just haven’t lost enough.”
Tong Yao rolled her eyes and collapsed back into the chair.
Lu Yue giggled as he stretched out his long legs, just like his brother’s, next to her: “What, you want me to go up by yourself? It’s better if I go on, I can hide from Ai Jia all the way till the end of the match.”
Tong Yao picked up an empty cup next to her and threw it at Lu Yue. Lu Yue dodged and asked, still snickering: “This isn’t the first time you’ve lost to YQCB. We’ve lost to them once during the summer season. Besides, before when you were bullied by TAT’s Ah Tai and shivered whenever you saw him, what happened next? Is this how you reconstructed your confidence?”
“That time it was just a group match that we lost to YQCB. Besides, so many things had happened afterwards, I didn’t even have the time to really savor the taste of losing. As for Ah Tai, I just keep thinking he’s also a human being so I’m not that afraid of him anymore. Ah, but, nowadays whenever we have skirmishes with TAT, we never won if I was on. Ahhhh, what's the use of not being afraid of him, I simply can’t beat him. What to do, I’m quite desperate too!” Tong Yao looked up to take a look at Lu Sicheng who had pulled over a chair to sit right in front of Tong Yao. He leaned back into the chair and quietly looked at her. Tong Yao hesitated for a moment before continuing: “Besides it’s the finals. I wasn’t doing well just now. I’m afraid that I can’t adjust myself in time for the next match and hold all of you back.”
Everyone in the break room all looked at each other after hearing Tong Yao.
“My friend, there are all kinds of opponents in the esport world. You think you’re the legendary professional mid Faker who had never met an opponent equal to him. Even Faker dies in game. In your professional life, you're bound to meet an opponent who you can’t handle. At times like this, besides trying to run away, you should learn to stay low and give the chance to carry to the other teammates.” Lu Yue pointed at Lu Sicheng’s stone face: “During a match, you have this kind of person sitting right next to you. Haven’t you ever had the urge to just sit there and wait to win the game?”
Tong Yao: ........
She never did. All she was thinking was I’m mid, I have to carry, I can’t mess up, I can’t just do nothing, I can’t hold others back, all of those things were not allowed.
Before she had the chance to say something, Lu Sicheng pushed Lu Yue’s hand away with a cold face. Lu Yue took his hand back and said: “Don’t always think that you have to carry in order to win the game. You can’t carry the team your whole life. My brother’s right. You just haven’t lost enough. If you’ve seen enough ways to lose a match, you’ll realize that everyone has the chance to take the blame. It’ll be your turn sooner or later. Our teammate Old Cat’s being called our team’s weak point everyday. You’re a newcomer, what are you afraid of?”
Old Cat humphed: “Yeah, just sitting there waiting for the win makes me happy.”
Ming god raised his thumb at Lu Yue: “I’ll issue you a graduation certificate from kindergarten after we get home.”
L
u Yue rolled his eyes at Ming god, then turned his head back: “If you keep thinking that you’ll lose the game if you don’t carry it, then that means you don’t trust your own teammates. Shorty, it’s really chilling to think that you don’t trust them even though you’ve played for a whole season with them.”
Lu Yue’s words made Tong Yao jump up from her chair.
Lu Sicheng: “Sit down.”
Tong Yao sat right back down.
Lu Sicheng: “He’s a retard, but only this time his words make sense.”
Tong Yao lifted her eyes to glance at Lu Sicheng, then lowered her head.
Lu Sicheng’s flat tone of voice sounded over Tong Yao’s head: “The two mids in our team, one is so shameless. I’m talking about you, Lu Yue. You get over here and sit down. You even think about laying low during the game and waiting for others to win the game for you. You can go back home, our team doesn’t need someone that only fools around. And the other mid cares too much, afraid of being unable to carry, afraid of losing, afraid of holding teammates back.”
He suddenly picked up the coffee cup on the table.
After a long while, he sighed and his tone of voice suddenly softened: “When can the two of you grow up? It’s quite normal to have wins and losses in professional matches. No one’s blaming you. Don’t imagine things.”
Tong Yao moved a bit and looked up.
Lu Sicheng happened to reach over to pinch her nose. Tong Yao subconsciously opened her mouth. Lu Sicheng moved the coffee cup closer to her and poured a mouthful of iced coffee into Tong Yao’s mouth. The icy, bitter coffee flowed past the tip of her tongue. It was quite bitter. The bitterness seemed to have cleared her head a bit.
Lu Sicheng: “Are you a little sober now?”
She nodded.
Lu Sicheng: “Do you still want Lu Yue to play for you?”
She shook her head.
Lu Sicheng: “You did mess up in the last match, but who has scolded you?”
She shook her head.
Lu Sicheng: “Who blamed you?”
She shook her head.
Lu Sicheng: “Now, do you understand why we always lose to TAT in skirmishes if you’re playing against Ah Tai?”
She nodded.
Lu Sicheng: “We’ll meet them at S6, do you still want to lose to them then?”
She shook her head.
Lu Sicheng: “Can you trust your teammates to carry the rest of the rounds? Do you accept the method of winning a match without having you as the carry?”
She nodded.
Lu Sicheng: “Do you know how you were wrong?”
She nodded.
Lu Sicheng stopped talking, but mumbled “what’s the use of drinking all this sweet stuff.” He grabbed the latte from Tong Yao’s hand and stuffed his iced coffee into her hand, making sure she drank it up to clear her head. Tong Yao held the cup in hand and used her feet to drag herself with the chair to a corner to think everything over. The rest of the team gathered together to discuss their strategy for the next round. In the middle of discussion, Little Fatty looked up to take a look at Tong Yao, then glanced at Lu Sicheng: “Captain, you’re so harsh, you deserve to be single.”
Lu Sicheng: “You've been single since you were born, what right do you have to judge me?”
Little Fatty: “I’m worried that you can’t get up once you’re dumped. It’s alright if the mid can’t carry, but if the ad can’t carry either, then there’s no way to play the damn game.”
Lu Sicheng sneered: “You worry too much. If you have the time to worry about this then why don’t you worry about your own champion pool. The support from the team next door plays Bard pretty well especially when he initiates fights, did you notice it? Take a look at your own Bard, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
Little Fatty: ......
It was obvious to onlookers that in the second round, ZGDX had made some changes to their core strategy. In the early game, their mid stayed low while the jungler focused on top and bot. However, ZGDX seldom used this method to play games whenever Tong Yao was in the line up and Tong Yao wasn’t used to playing like this either. She would still find chances to counter attack Ai Jia. She failed in some of the attempts and was successful some of the other times. Yet, facing a weasel like Ai Jia, she had more failed attempts than successful ones. YQCB wasn’t a weak team to begin with and ZGDX ended up losing the match at the 45 minute mark.
After the round, the commentators were still talking about it.
Commentator B: Actually, it kind of feels weird to me. We obviously could see that Smiling was playing like her hands and feet were bound. If that’s their strategy, then why not let Lu play? His playstyle is more suited for that.
Commentator A said after considering it for a moment: ZGDX always has more than two sets of game plans. We can only say that this one is generally better suited for Lu to play. I feel the reason why ZGDX insisted on not switching players is probably for Smiling to learn how to face a player whose play style is something she can’t counter. It’s possible that a player can’t learn how to play against the wind or deal with being under a clampdown, no matter how hard they try. Yet they have to experience it in person so they aren’t thrown into disarray when they encounter the situation again. It’s as simple as that, you can’t win, but you have to stay there.
Wait till they’re at the world tournament, they’ll meet even more types of professional players. As far as I know, just within the Korean and European regions, there are two more highly skilled players whose play styles are a combination of both Smiling and Ai Jia. What would ZGDX do then? Which player should they use, Smiling or Lu? They can’t simply rotate the players to get enough of an advantage at mid to carry the game.
I think this match today clearly shows that ZGDX’s management and captain are very aware about this and that is a good thing.
Commentator B: Oh. So it’s just to prepare for the world tournament afterall.
Commentator A: Right, it’s just to prepare for the world tournament afterall. Smiling has lost way too few matches! For some truths, there’s no use talking about it nor is there a way to mentally prepare for it. You have to truly experience it on your own, then you can understand what it is.
Commentator B laughed: It’s a bit overboard to use the finals of summer competition to get their player prepared mentally.
Commentator A patted his shoulder and said with a laughter: It’s all worth it for the world tournament one month later.
Sometimes, the commentators could be very positive as well.
Sometimes, one sentence from them could make public opinion go against a certain player or a certain team. Sometimes, they could also use a simple sentence to ease the emotions of the fans.
At least after the commentators’ discussion, many fans who had posted right after the round under the ZGDX official Weibo site went on again to delete comments like “if Smiling isn’t playing as the team’s core strategy, why not let Lu play”. They had calmed down a bit.
The third round began.
In comparison to the restlessness she felt after the first round, Tong Yao had calmed down quite a bit after losing the second round. She had used the ten minutes break time to calmly sum up the problems of the last round. She didn’t assume all the mistakes were hers. Instead, she remembered to recall the overall situation of the last game and found out that they had lost the round because of some minor details and mistakes.
As long as they could avoid them, they would be fine.
Tong Yao took a deep breath, put on her headphones, and the third round started with the ban & pick phase-- --
As she had promised her teammates, in this match, she would try to find chances to carry the game, but if unable to do so, she would stay low to make sure mid lane remained intact. Certainly she wasn’t used to the latter, yet she would try her best to do so. This was probably the necessary method of survival when facing a strong team. She had to be flexible.