All-Round Mid Laner - Chapter 111-1

Chapter 111.1: Training Match

In the afternoon the next day, Coach Lin sent a message in the group chat: “@Everyone, gather in the training room at three p.m. today punctually. I’ve made an appointment with a team from the Korean division for a training match.”

Two days ago, Coach Lin had already said that Tianhuan’s next Group A matches were with CYC, Jixuan, and Xueying. They should be able to win relatively easily against these teams. They can take the opportunity to make an appointment with the teams from the Korean division for training.

They didn’t expect Coach Lin to be so efficient and had already made an appointment this quickly.

Chi Shuo asked in the group: “Which team?”

Ye Shaoyang also typed at the same time and sent: “Which team?”

The two messages were sent out at the same time. As for things like Tianhuan’s mid/jungle duo’s brain waves being in-sync with each other, they were already used to it as they saw it occurring quite often.

Qu Jiang sent a ‘face with hand over mouth’ emoji and texted, “I also wanted to ask but my hand speed wasn’t as fast as the both of you.”

Coach Lin replied: “TIP team.”

The strongest in the Korean division currently is the ATB team led by Choi Hyuk and Park Wonseok who was also last year’s world champion. The TIP team that Coach Lin had made an appointment with used to be an elite team in the Korean division. Later, they had a performance decline and were eliminated from the playoffs so they didn’t manage to get a placement in the world championship.

Their captain was also someone whom Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shuo knew——back when the both of them were in the international server playing ranked and had happened to run into Zhou Jiawen and Kim Minjun. Kim Minjun was TIP’s captain and had learned a little bit of Chinese from Zhou Jiawen. They often duo queued in the international server together.

Coach Lin said: “TIP’s performance in the last season wasn’t good but the new marksman and mid laner they had signed from the training camp are all excellent. Their results in Group A are currently not bad, and there’s hope that they might get into Group S.”

Lin Feng paused, then continued: “I actually wanted to make an appointment with the ATB champion team, but they ignored me when I chatted with their coach privately. They gave me the feeling that they looked down on Tianhuan.”

Ye Shaoyang smiled: “We ran into Choi Hyuk and Park Wonseok during ranked with Captain Chi yesterday. They’re indeed pretty proud and arrogant. Rather than saying that they look down on Tianhuan, it’s more like they look down on all the teams in the Chinese division. They probably think that playing a training match with us is just like a King-ranked player abusing a Bronze-ranked player, very boring.”

Coach Lin sighed: “Ai, we only have ourselves to blame for failing to live up to expectations, never winning the championship before.”

The way he said it sounds a little sad. It was pretty difficult for Lin Feng to make appointments for training matches internationally, and he won’t be able to make an appointment with the champion teams in each division at all. He could only arrange training matches with teams whose strength was on par with Tianhuan.

TIP was a team in the Korean division that could enter the playoffs but may not necessarily be able to get an award. They were quite similar to Tianhuan so when Lin Feng sent a message over to them, they straightforwardly agreed.

Chi Shuo asked: “How many rounds are we playing?”

Coach Lin: “Two rounds as usual, we can practice the comps.”

Everyone had their lunch before swiftly making their way to the training room to gather. Coach Lin looked at everyone and said, “Korean TIP team’s captain is Kim Minjun, and Chi Shuo had played against him before. He should be pretty familiar with his strength.”

Chi Shuo agreed. “Mn, Kim Minjun’s playing style is more inclined towards steadiness and is the typical development model for junglers. He won’t fight too fiercely in the early game but once he had leveled up steadily, he would seek out chances to clear his jungle camp and snowball.

Coach Lin nodded and said, “TIP’s strength in this season was far greater than their last season. The jungler Kim Minjun has a lot of experience playing in major competitions while the mid laner Jeong Chang-uk has a deep hero pool. The marksman Han Seungsoo is a newcomer who made his debut this season, but his performance was outstanding, and he currently has many MVP titles under his belt. He has the strength to compete for the Best Newcomer Award in the Korean division.”

When Cheng Xing heard this, he couldn’t help but lower his head secretly——both of them were newcomers, and while Han Seungsoo had an outstanding performance and was able to get the MVP which turned the tides, he had always depended on Yang-ge and master for victory. It really made him feel ashamed.

Coach Lin noticed Xiao Xing with his head lowered, then said, “Xiao Xing, the reason why I arranged for a training match with TIP was to let you practice dueling in the bottom lane.”

Chi Shuo and Kim Minjun had played against each other before. If Tianhuan really played against TIP seriously, they just have to play a jungler core vs jungler core or attack the jungle with a mid/jungle duo to have a possibility of winning the match. But training that way would be meaningless.

The key focus of this training match was to dig out their weaknesses.

Tianhuan’s current weakness was actually on the outer lanes.

Although Old Qin was stable, his performance wasn’t of much brilliance.

Cheng Xing’s play was very average. His average damage output per game was less than 30%, his KDA score wasn’t high, and he completely relied on the mid/jungle duo to set the rhythm. He hasn’t reached the standard of an outstanding marksman and can only be said to be barely qualified.

Tianhuan’s Riyue was too dazzling, making it difficult to see Xiao Xingxing’s might in games.

Thus, the reason why Coach Lin arranged for a team with a strong marksman to play a training match with them was to develop Cheng Xing, and to also let Cheng Xing mature as soon as possible. Even if he couldn’t reach the standard of a top marksman, he should at least become an outstanding one.

Cheng Xing understood Coach Lin’s intentions. He raised his head and said seriously, “Coach, I’ll play well.”

Coach Lin advised, “In today’s training match, the jungler and mid laner will refrain from helping the bottom lane out. Let Cheng Xing and Qu Jiang do the confronting. It doesn’t matter if we win or lose, what matters is for us to figure out the problem we have with our bottom lane’s cooperation quickly.”

Qu Jiang nodded, “Understood.”

Coach Lin: “Okay, let’s go to the training room to warm up and start the match on time at three.”

Everyone sat down in the training room and opened the A.I training match mode, practicing their rotations casually. It wasn’t until half an hour later that Coach Lin said, “Everyone, log in to the international server. I’ll post the accounts and passwords in the group.”

Coach Lin had a memo in his hand that specifically contains the passwords of their alts. After he copied and pasted it into the group chat, everyone logged into their accounts according to their respective positions.

The five alts they were using were all bronze-ranked, and the same as the ones used for the training match with America’s FNO team, back when they played against Mitchell.

Coach Lin created a room and pulled in the coach for Korea’s TIP. Both sides then started pulling people in.

Tianhuan’s side was very uniformly named TH001~TH005 and was all bronze-ranked. On Korea’s side, they used the naming method of TIP-A and TIP-B, and all five of their alts were also bronze-ranked.

Coach Lin turned on the voice channel, following which a young man’s voice drifted into everyone’s ears, “Hi everyone, I am, Kim, Minjun. It’s a pleasure, to get to know, everyone.”

Everyone: “…”

Ye Shaoyang held in his laughter and said, “This broken sentence of his sounds like it took a lot of effort.”

Chi Shuo replied, “Zhou Jiawen taught him.”

Captain Zhou was known as a social butterfly in the international server, and he was familiar with the professional players of each country. Mitchell, Kim Minjun, and others were all very familiar with him and had also learned some Chinese and emoticon packs from him.

Coach Lin replied politely, “Hello, hello. Our side has already finished preparing. Do we start now?”

Kim Minjun: “Okay. Do you, want, blue, or, red?”

Everyone was stunned.

Qu Jiang was full of doubts, “He directly asked if we’re going after the blue or red first? Does he want to steal?”

Coach Lin finally reacted and said, “I think what he meant was to ask us if we’re choosing the blue or red side first.”

Everyone: “…”

Coach Lin said, “We, take, blue first. Next round, you, take blue?”

Kim Minjun: “OK.”

Coach Lin was also led astray by Captain Kim and kept breaking his sentence after speaking

a word, as if he was out of breath. But they at least understood what the other party was trying to say.

Hence, Tianhuan was set as the blue side for the first round and could choose their heroes first. There wasn’t a huge impact on the order of hero selection in training matches as both sides were practicing their comps. They could choose the heroes they liked.