Commentator D: "Let's think about which Mid Laner champion G4 will ban this game—hahaha, that's right. After successively defeating two LCK teams centered around their Mid Laners, my focus is entirely on ZGDX's Mid Laner now."
Commentator F: "Just say your heart is set on the girl already."
Commentator D: "What else? Should I set it on you?"
Commentator G: "We can see ZGDX first-banning Aurelion Sol, being very upfront about G4's proficiency with the champion while they themselves aren't skilled at it: 'I can't play it, so I won't pick it, and I won't let you pick it either!'"
Commentator G: "It's the finals already, can you two commentate properly?"
Commentator G: "Focus on the key points."
The Ban & Pick Phase proceeds smoothly. ZGDX starts by banning G4 Mid Laner gogone's Aurelion Sol, a champion that had consistently strong performances in previous regular and quarterfinal matches. Once, with its lane-pushing dominance, it completely suppressed YQCB's Ai Jia for an entire game, leaving Ai Jia with such severe PTSD that he now bans Aurelion Sol in ranked games despite teammates spamming '???'... In response, G4 retaliates by banning both Leblanc and Twisted Fate. Regarding this, Tong Yao remarks: "It's become routine, but if I don't use Leblanc in the finals, what about my Championship Skin (*The team that wins the annual championship receives a special set of Championship Skins with team logos from Riot Games, requiring the champion to have been used in the finals)? Later, when we're up 2-0, let's send someone to ask the other team to let me play Leblanc in the third game so I can get the skin."
Tong Yao: "Captain, I choose you."
Lu Sicheng: "Are you stupid? I'm not doing something that'll get me beaten up—I quit as captain, someone else can do it."
Tong Yao: "You also hold the important position of my fiancé."
Lu Sicheng: "Is it too late to call off the engagement?"
Tong Yao: "Too late."
Lu Sicheng: "..."
Little Fatty: "I think the rules have changed now. Champions used in the regular season might also count—and everyone knows our team's Twisted Fate and Leblanc duo. What can we do if we can't get them?"
Old K: "Yeah, yeah, these rules really aren't fair—except for Old Cat, the blue-collar brick moved wherever needed, who doesn’t have a signature champion? Of course, they won’t let it through!"
Old Cat, hearing this, gets furious: "Screw you! Without me carrying you through the Meme team crisis, would you even have the chance to spout nonsense here?"
As soon as he finishes speaking, a file folder smacks each of the five members on the head, starting with Lu Sicheng. Over the team voice chat, Ming Shen's calm voice rings out: "You just jinxed yourselves hard. What’s wrong with you? What’s G4, anyway? Even if they’re just Noobs from the West, they’re still the little giants among Noobs who sent two LPL teams home in the quarterfinals and semifinals. The match hasn’t even started, and you’re already discussing Championship Skins! If we lose this—"
Tong Yao: "Ouch!"
Little Fatty: "Ouch!"
Old K: "Ouch!"
Old Cat: "Ouch!"
Lu Sicheng: "This data analyst—can’t he speak properly? I propose we kick him out and handle Ban & Pick ourselves."Ming Shen: "...The enemy team banned Kalista in their third ban. Alright, no skin for you. Old K, they left Nidalee open for you. Congrats."
Old K: "Grab Nidalee, grab Nidalee! Get it for me, Cat God!"
After Old Cat secured Old K's beloved Nidalee, the enemy team picked Mid Laner Orianna and Support Alistar. Orianna's ultimate pulls enemies in, and Alistar has his QW combo—both Champions with strong crowd control for team fights... ZGDX responded with Top Laner Gnar and Support Braum, adapting flexibly to avoid being completely helpless if caught. Tong Yao locked in Syndra, while Lu Sicheng picked Sivir... The Ban & Pick phase concluded smoothly, and everyone quickly adjusted their runes and masteries. The current Ban & Pick situation was as follows—
G4 Bans: Leblanc, Twisted Fate, Kalista
ZGDX Bans: Aurelion Sol, Ryze, Ekko
G4 Picks: Rumble, Kindred, Orianna, Ezreal, Alistar
ZGDX Picks: Gnar, Nidalee, Syndra, Sivir, Braum
The ten players loaded into the game, and about twenty seconds later, the Champions spawned in their respective fountains with a series of "bang bang bang" sounds. Tong Yao clicked her mouse, spinning her Champion in a circle inside the fountain, then immediately flashed an emote: "Fighting to avenge my ex-boyfriend!"
The team voice chat fell silent for a moment before Lu Sicheng scoffed. "Looks like you don’t want to win. I’ll AFK bot lane then."
"Negative gameplay gets fined, you know."
"You think everyone’s as broke as you?"
The two bickered back and forth, lightening the team’s mood—after all, the general consensus was still LCK > LCS. Having taken down two LCK teams to reach the finals, ZGDX’s players were now on a completely different level, both in skill and mentality, compared to their Summer Split finals performance!
As they chatted, everyone headed to their lanes. The early game was cautious, knowing European teams loved to pull off cheeky level-one strategies. They immediately warded key bushes—sure enough, Old K spotted three enemies lying in ambush near their buff with a ward. Little Fatty, playing the strong early-game Braum, wasn’t intimidated. He went straight in, tanking upfront while landing abilities, forcing the enemy AD to burn both Flash and Heal!
Lu Sicheng: "Old K, after clearing half your jungle, come bot once. Their bot lane is done this game."
Just as Lu Sicheng predicted, the enemy bot lane thought that without their Summoner Spells, Old K wouldn’t bother ganking them. But before they even hit level three, when Lu Sicheng’s duo hit level two first, a Nidalee leaped out from the bushes, landing a spear on Ezreal, followed by Sivir cleaning up the kill!
Meanwhile, Braum and Alistar—two hulking tanks—were locked in a tedious slap fight. Seeing his AD dead, Alistar used his E to heal himself on a sliver of HP and tried to retreat. Sivir and Braum gave chase, but Alistar headbutted Braum away. In his panic, however, he walked into the minion wave—normally a decent move, but he forgot he was facing a Sivir. A single Q ricocheted off the minions and finished him off!
Double Kill! With Sivir securing two kills early in the bot lane, a Champion that was supposed to focus on farming and playing safe suddenly became a lane bully—starting from the fourth minute, G4’s bot lane never stepped out from under their First Tower… Commentator D: [This is what they call: give me one kill, and I’ll give you the world.]
Commentator G: [Chessman really is a reliable man, uh uh uh, I wanna marry him.]
Commentator D: [Weren’t you the one telling us to focus on proper commentary?]
Commentator F: [I think G4’s bot lane is in serious trouble this game. If their Mid Laner Orianna doesn’t find opportunities to roam and support… I hope they can at least play smart—Orianna’s farm is decent. Come on, G4, come on, gogone—]
Commentator D: [Ah, speak of the devil, here comes the Mid Laner!]
Commentator D: [ZGDX’s Mid Laner.]
Commentator F: [……………………………………]
Commentator D: [HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!]
Amid Commentator D’s bellows of laughter, Smiling’s Syndra roamed to the bot lane at seven minutes, pushing the two cowering under their tower out of safety with a barrage of orbs. The well-farmed bot lane duo Tower dived, coordinating with Tong Yao to secure a clean kill—Lu Sicheng and Tong Yao each took a kill, while Little Fatty happily pocketed two assists!
The score was 4:0 at the start, and after taking the First Tower, the gold gap widened to 2,500!
Only seven minutes in!
A 2,500 gold lead at seven minutes!
Tong Yao: “If there were Live Comments right now, I bet they’d be flooded with ‘66666’… How’s my roam timing? I pushed the wave and pretended to recall for items—their Mid Laner even peeked at me. When he saw me recalling, he recalled too, HAHAHAHAHA, and then I came bot! HAHAHAHA, top-tier acting. He must be fuming!”
Lu Sicheng ducked into a bush to recall: “We’re stomping them. How did Li Junhe and Hu Die even lose?”
“How did they lose?” Old K chimed in gloomily. “Just open the stats panel and take a look at our unusually quiet Top laner, who’s been silently…”
Tong Yao checked the stats and finished his sentence: “Silently down 20 CS—no wonder Old Cat’s been so quiet this game. How’s the view up there, buddy?”
“This guy’s Rumble is cracked. He’s bullying my poor little Gnar into oblivion. While you guys were thriving bot, no one remembered there’s a starving, freezing Top laner…” Old Cat had just been forced to recall, missing half a wave and falling a whole level behind the enemy Rumble. “And our damn Jungler still hasn’t ganked top. Picks Nidalee and just farms all game!”
“Nidalee clears fast. What else is she supposed to do?” Old K chuckled.Old Cat didn’t say much. Even after being zoned out early, his mentality seemed fine—somehow, he remained this optimistic. If he had been facing the top laners from TAT or OP, he’d probably be speaking in clipped, one-word sentences by now…
At twelve minutes, Old K secured the first Elemental Dragon and swung by mid-lane to help Tong Yao shove the wave before recalling to assist top—just as Gnar transformed into Mega Gnar. Together with Nidalee, they pinned the stubby-legged Rumble against the wall and pounded him. Orianna arrived a step too late—her ultimate only managed to catch Nidalee as Rumble flashed away with a sliver of health, leaving Nidalee also critically low… This was a case of mid and top coordination falling out of sync. Had Orianna arrived just a bit earlier, her burst damage could’ve easily turned the fight, securing a counter-kill on Nidalee and the shrinking, underfed Gnar.
Old K: "Nice. Unless I’m wrong, their top and mid are either arguing right now or sitting in dead silence. Awkward."
Old Cat: "Rumble’s probably thinking, ‘Why didn’t you wait till my corpse went cold before showing up?’ Meanwhile, Orianna’s like, ‘You trash Rumble, ahead by dozens of CS and still overextending like an idiot—what did you expect?’"
Tong Yao: "We used to be like that too. Unless we took the initiative, our rotations were always slow, leaving us looking like clowns. We lost so many games because of it."
Lu Sicheng: "Less talking. Take Rift Herald, then group mid and knock down Orianna’s tower."
By the 18-minute mark, the gold gap had widened to 4.5k in ZGDX’s favor. With one tower and one dragon secured, Sivir had completed one and a half major items, giving her formidable teamfight presence—a terrifying stat line for this stage of the game.
Unlike LCK teams, G4 struggled with macro wave management, making their defensive play in a losing game particularly weak. The match steadily fell into ZGDX’s rhythm:
Tower dive.
Kill.
Push turret.
Clear waves, take objectives.
It became a straightforward, methodical game—so much so that even Bronze spectators could predict ZGDX’s next move. Their item leads allowed them to play on autopilot…
At 30 minutes, the moment ZGDX secured Baron, the screen abruptly snapped to G4’s team headquarters—before the audience even processed what was happening, G4 had surrendered.
Caster F: ["What can I even say? I’m speechless."]
Caster D: ["Uh… well, maybe it’s to preserve mental, or maybe there’s another reason, but G4 has chosen to surrender—let’s congratulate ZGDX on taking the first game!"]
...
Meanwhile, international forums erupted—
Watching a 30-minute stomp was exhausting enough, but G4’s last-second surrender shattered viewers’ patience.
[66666666666666 First time seeing a surrender in Finals.]
[We can’t even mock LPL for surrendering in S5’s opening match anymore. Let’s be real—surrendering in Finals is way more embarrassing…]The S6 World Championship had long concluded when ZGDX defeated TAT—what's happening now? Just some All-Star exhibition matches for fun. The Ice team (*All-Stars only divides into Ice and Fire teams, mixed-region 3v3 combos) surrendered. Has nothing to do with LCS, don't pin this on us.
You guys mention this point—aside from the utterly humiliating embarrassment, isn't this just ABB having a mental breakdown? I was farming top lane perfectly fine, looked up and bot lane had already collapsed into utter chaos.
I don't know anything, I know nothing at all! I'm a ZGDX fan, I can speak loudly now, so happy hahahahahaha!
Amidst the chaos.
This battle was crowned the "First Surrender Battle in History" and entered into the annals of LCS regional shame. In this tense atmosphere, everyone quietly awaited the start of the second game.
Author's Note: Here we go, here we go, here we go.
No update yesterday—I already took leave on Weibo [the day before yesterday, one day in advance].
If you didn't see the leave notice, routine reminders are fine, but cut the passive-aggressive nonsense about treating authors like subhumans—disappointed? Won't read my works after this? Blah blah blah. Honestly, when I started writing romance, modern romance wasn't some daily-update-or-die genre. I missed one update, and even took leave—what's the big deal?
Who exactly have I wronged to deserve this interrogation?
And saying I don't even give reasons for missed updates now—come on, if I don't update, obviously something came up. Do I really need to report my every move to you guys...?
OpenNovel