Chapter 390: The Insult Incident
The domestic teams were all dumbfounded. How could this happen?
In reality, the domestic teams had also arranged training matches among themselves, but not as frequently, because they also needed to schedule training matches with foreign teams, leaving them with limited time. Moreover, the domestic teams hadn't thought too deeply about it and didn't share their respective strategies and tactics.
After all, these tactics might be used in future semifinals or finals. If they were given to a brother team, and that brother team used them in the group stage, wouldn't that mean they themselves would lose a tactic to rely on?
So, while feeling surprised, each domestic team was also shocked by this kind of "unity" among the Korean teams.
Chen Mo wasn't surprised by this at all.
The clubs and players in this world didn't understand the true nature of Korean teams, but Chen Mo knew it very well. If he had to describe Korean teams in one sentence, it would be: they would stop at nothing for victory, valuing the championship above all else.
It wasn't just the clubs and professional players; the entire e-sports environment on the Korean server was like this. When they lost a match, domestic haters might at most send some spicy sauce to the players, but Korean haters would actually send razor blades and dead rats.
Moreover, Korean haters would even trash-talk championship players without mercy. When Faker lost the Intercontinental Championship, fans cursed his entire family with the most vicious language. When Bang said, "I earn more than a hundred of you combined," he was roasted by fans and eventually had to say, "I will spend the rest of my life atoning for my sins."
This shows just how much the Korean e-sports circle values the championship.
Many people think that Korean teams also have fierce competition among themselves and wouldn't share tactics, but this is a completely wrong idea.
In Chen Mo's previous life, the reason Korean teams didn't share tactics was because NRG's support player, Muffy, used Alistar, Blitzcrank, and Zyra to cause immense trouble for VSG. In the decisive game, NRG simply banned two supports and first-picked Alistar, completely restricting Muffy's champion pool, and then won the match through stronger mid-jungle synergy.
The viewership for the semifinals reached new heights because two Korean teams were eliminated in the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, the domestic teams had accumulated a large fanbase during this period, so the viewership for these two semifinal matches even reached 7.8 million!
For others, this number might not seem significant, because the group stage viewership had already reached 7 million. With the domestic teams performing so well and securing two spots in the top four, an increase of a few hundred thousand viewers seemed normal.
But for Chen Mo, this number was already very satisfying, as it was close to the viewership of the League of Legends S2 World Championship in his previous life, which was 8.3 million.
The reason was that League of Legends was incredibly popular domestically, and Chinese players made up the vast majority of the viewership. Chen Mo had avoided many detours in creating League of Legends, and this S1 World Championship also incorporated some classic ideas from his previous life, successfully attracting the attention of a massive number of players.
For the two semifinal matches, the venue was completely packed, and the atmosphere was exceptionally heated.
NRG's match was played first. After losing the first game, they adjusted their state well. With their strong mid-jungle synergy, they eventually won three consecutive games to take the match, successfully advancing to the finals.
It could be said that after winning that match against VSG, NRG's team cohesion and tactical discipline had made a huge leap. In particular, they learned some fast-paced strategies from MAD, which made VSG very uncomfortable.
Although VSG's mid-laner, Pure, had strong individual skills, under NRG's fast-paced playstyle, the European method of stalling for development seemed very sluggish. In the end, they could only watch NRG advance to the finals.
The match between IF and SOT attracted the attention of a huge number of viewers. Everyone hoped to see IF successfully advance to the finals, completing the feat of two Chinese teams meeting in the championship.
But the match was full of twists and turns.
These two teams could be considered rivals. In the group stage, IF and SOT had a record of 2-1, with IF securing first place in the group only through a tiebreaker.
After that, SOT cleanly swept the veteran North American team WBG 3-0 in the quarterfinals. It could be said that SOT had improved further compared to their group stage performance.
After IF won the first game, SOT turned the tables by winning two consecutive games. In the fourth game, IF tied the score again, and the two teams entered a decisive fifth game with a 2-2 record.
In the decisive game, the two sides engaged in a 54-minute tug-of-war, but in the end, SOT emerged victorious, and IF narrowly lost.
Although the audience felt sorry for IF, they still gave SOT a warm round of applause for their outstanding performance.
If the whole incident had ended there, it would have been fine. But the key issue was the post-match teamfight microphone segment, which caused an explosion of online public opinion!
Starting from the semifinals, the event organizers began releasing some microphone recordings from teamfights. These recordings were mainly from the winning side of the teamfight, allowing viewers to better feel the atmosphere of the players winning the fight and the joy of victory.
The teamfight microphones from both semifinals were released together in a mixed edit. The earlier microphones were fine, but the problem arose with SOT's segment.
In the final critical teamfight, SOT completed a 3-for-5 trade, wiping out IF and seizing the match victory. But during this teamfight, the Korean team's voice chat featured up to six instances of audio being bleeped out.
Although the translated Chinese subtitles were all normal, the audience wasn't stupid. Clearly, those bleeped-out words weren't anything good, which was why they were censored and not translated.
The audience was outraged. Many people were guessing what those bleeped-out words actually were, and an increasing number of viewers demanded that the organizers must clarify the matter. If SOT had indeed insulted IF's players in their team voice chat, shouldn't there be corresponding penalties?