101: Chapter 101 The First Round of War Begins

Three days later, the competition officially began.

To accommodate the schedules of most players, the first round of regional qualifiers was uniformly scheduled for Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Although there was no official broadcast for the first round, the system required every match to keep a recording. league of legends officials also encouraged teams to stream their matches on Douyin to share with their followers.

There was one requirement: the stream must have a delay of several minutes to prevent opponents from gaining real-time information by watching.

Of course, no team would be foolish enough not to set such a restriction.

That day, a large number of league of legends match streams appeared on Douyin.

Every stream showed the same game footage, but the team names and player IDs were all different.

The names of these teams were quite strange. Anything that could pass the moderation filters was fair game.

There were teams named directly after players, such as A-Shui Team and Pride Team. There were also teams named "National Football Team," "Ultraman Battle," and "What's for Dinner Tonight."

There was even a team called "Win and Go Eat Hot Pot," but they were eliminated after losing three consecutive matches over the first weekend, despite the team being composed of five Challenger-ranked players.

The chat was filled with sympathy. "No more hot pot."

However, although there were many match streams on Douyin, the ones with stable viewership were still those streamers who already had large fanbases on the platform.

Shadow Zed's channel was one of them. His team name was simple: Shadow Zed.

He was a Challenger-ranked player himself and had formed his team early. His four teammates were top-tier players he had met while playing ranked games, and they had been practicing together for nearly half a month.

Today, they were preparing to start their first match.

Half an hour before the match began, the system would send both teams basic information about their opponents: team names, player IDs, and the commonly played champions and win rates from the players' previous ranked games. This data was enough for both sides to conduct targeted analysis and preparation before the match.

Shadow Zed carefully reviewed the opponent's data with a serious expression. "Their top laner most frequently plays Aatrox and Riven with a high win rate. Their jungler plays Lee Sin and Elise, and their bot lane combo leans towards the early game."

He flexed his fingers. "Their overall style is very aggressive; they like to fight early. We just need to play steadily in the early game and not let them dictate the pace."

The chat scrolled by rapidly. "The streamer is so scary when he's serious." "Is this really the same Shadow Zed I know?" "Hurry, hurry! Let's see how far the streamer can go."

Half an hour later, the match officially began. Both sides entered the champion selection interface and began the ban/pick phase.

During the ban/pick phase, Shadow Zed's stream had not yet set the delay, so viewers were still seeing real-time footage, as the official requirement only applied once the match officially started.

Meanwhile, the chat instantly became lively, with everyone waiting to see Shadow Zed bring out his signature champion to wreak havoc.

But the next second, the opponent locked in Zed as their first ban.

The chat exploded instantly. "It's over, the streamer is retiring on the spot." "A Shadow Zed without Zed is just a shadow." "The opponents did their homework well." "Homework my foot! Didn't you see the streamer's team is named Shadow Zed? Even if the opponents didn't look at their team's common stats, just by the name, they knew what to ban."

Shadow Zed glanced at the banned Zed, his expression unchanged—completely different from how he usually reacted when Zed was banned in ranked games. Instead, he made a clicking sound with his tongue. "I've practiced quite a few champions lately." "Do you really think I only know how to play Zed?" "This kind of move, specifically banning the opponent's strong champions, is the most boring. They should just let all champions through and face each other head-on!" "What I despise most are people who don't dare to lane against my Zed!"

After saying this, he retorted by locking Yasuo, the opponent Mid laner's best champion, into the ban slot.

Meanwhile, in another Douyin stream, A-Sao cursed and pounded on his keyboard.

But he quickly took a few deep breaths, muttered a few insults about how he despised such targeting and how targeting was boring, then spoke to his viewers. "Don't worry, I've practiced many champions during this time; Yasuo being gone doesn't matter at all!" "Shadow Zed is mocking me?" "Fine, fine, fine. Then I'll let him see the intensity of my training over these past two days!"

On this day, countless teams across major global servers began their first round of matches, charging toward the ten-million-dollar prize pool for the Global Championship.

You must know that the first league of legends tournament was a grassroots event with no restrictions. As long as you were strong enough and reached the Grandmaster rank or above, you could form a team to compete and have a chance to step onto the final podium and take home the ten-million-dollar prize.

Under this tournament system, the team players across major global servers came from all walks of life and backgrounds. Among them were streamers, students, and even white-collar workers who only had time on weekends, or mothers taking care of their children.

This group of people had only one thing in common: they were all skilled league of legends players. And on this day, they officially began their own esports journeys.

However, although the league of legends esports tournament had officially begun, the first round didn't generate much buzz, and the league of legends officials didn't do much extra promotion. The initial attention it received wasn't high.

Although many streamers were broadcasting their match processes on Douyin, the ones who could truly attract a stable audience were the big streamers who already had a fanbase.

For most casual viewers, the broadcast footage of these matches wasn't much different from watching streamers play ranked games. It was still the first-person perspective of individual players. This first round of matches did not use the "God's-eye view" that could get countless viewers' blood pumping.

Whether or not there was a "God's-eye view" had a huge impact on the watchability of league of legends matches, not to mention the lack of commentators. Therefore, the current match streams, in the eyes of many viewers, were just someone playing games with friends, winning or losing.

Therefore, apart from a wave of attention on the day it launched, the popularity wasn't very high for some time afterward. Many teams eliminated in the first round didn't even start a single stream. If they won, they kept playing; if they lost, they quietly withdrew. Except for a few friends around them, no one knew they had participated in the world's first true esports tournament.

However, all of this was within Qin Mo's expectations. The purpose of the first two rounds was simply to filter out the strongest teams in each regional server from the massive number of registered teams. This didn't count as a true esports competition yet.

Only when it reached the offline third round would things like commentators, venues, and the "God's-eye view" be fully rolled out in Langchao Group's promotional campaigns. By then, what the audience saw would no longer be a player's first-person perspective, but a fully presented match. Slow-motion replays of every brilliant play, panoramic views of every team fight, commentary analysis and shouting at key moments, and the deafening roar of the crowd in the stands—that was what true esports looked like. What Qin Mo was doing now was just lighting the fuse for the esports tournament. The real explosion was still far off.