The World Championship begins! Unprecedented hype!

After the celebration, it was time to buckle down.

Making the World Championship was certainly worth celebrating, but if they got knocked out in the play-ins, they would become a laughingstock.

If they really crashed and burned, the more attention they got now, the worse the backlash would be!

LPL trolls might not be quite as ruthless as those in the LCK, who would send funeral wreaths and memorial portraits to hold a funeral for you.

But when it came to snide remarks, they were even worse. They could still easily flame you into an early grave!

So throughout this period, everyone at IG kept playing scrims to stay sharp.

Their main scrim partners were EDG, RNG, and WE.

They had also arranged some scrims with LCK teams, but since the two sides were not familiar with each other, they had not played many games. They had only gained a preliminary understanding of each other's regions.

Speaking of which, WE had been very decent about the whole thing. Even after being eliminated, they had not gone on vacation and were still willing to scrim with them.

Once the public learned about this, they naturally earned another wave of praise.

After all, this World Championship was being held on home soil.

If another region took the championship, none of them would look good.

The entire LPL had come together with a common purpose. At least for this stretch, everyone had agreed to set aside all their usual scheming and infighting!

"Chen, are you nervous?" JackeyLove sat in the training room, his face a mixture of excitement and nerves.

He was looking forward to the World Championship, but he was also afraid of losing.

"How could someone as steady as me be nervous?"

Lu Chen sat in his chair and gave him a strange look. "But you-what are you so nervous about? You're not the one playing."

"M-me? Nervous?" JackeyLove swallowed.

"Obviously." Lu Chen rolled his eyes. "It's written all over your face."

"Then I'll try to keep it under control." JackeyLove took a deep breath before continuing, "I heard we're flying to Wuhan tomorrow. I wonder what the venue there is like. Can it compare to Wukesong?"

The scene at Wukesong during the regional qualifier was still fresh in his memory.

The cheers of tens of thousands of people had erupted inside one venue, soaring into the sky.

It was hard to truly experience that blood-pumping feeling without being there in person!

"Don't worry." Lu Chen smiled faintly. "The hype around the World Championship will be far beyond anything you can imagine."

No regional competition, or even any other international tournament, could compare to the World Championship, no matter how popular it was!

Because it was a stage for audiences all around the world!

It was also the stage for the highest honor in all of League of Legends!

There were even plenty of viewers who never watched matches normally but always watched the World Championship every year!

The next day.

All of IG's players, along with their coaches, manager, team coordinator, and the rest of the staff, boarded the same flight and headed straight to Wuhan.

At this point, there were still three days until the World Championship officially began.

The upcoming play-ins would be held at Wuhan's sports center.

Teams from all over the world gradually arrived in the city.

Even spectators from other countries who had managed to buy tickets came to attend in person.

Blond-haired, blue-eyed foreigners could be seen all over the streets.

For a time, the esports atmosphere in the city steadily heated up.

The giant screens in public squares, the signs at bus stops, and even the subway stations were plastered with League of Legends promotions!

Even an ordinary seat for the play-ins was being resold online for thousands!

That showed just how much hype surrounded this World Championship!

Even its play-ins alone drew a level of attention other tournaments could never match!

As soon as IG landed, they hurried straight to their booked hotel. Once they had settled in, they prepared to continue scrimming.

Of course, their scrims over these three days would mainly be against the other play-in teams.

"Is it really this easy?"

After winning several games in a row, Ning Wang started getting cocky. He could not keep the grin off his face. "At this rate, we've got qualification in the bag."

That might have sounded arrogant.

But it really was the truth.

There was no helping it. The twelve teams in the play-ins came from twelve different regions around the world.

Simply put, most of them were wildcard teams.

The only teams that could pose any real obstacle were EU's third seed, FNC, and NA's third seed, C9.

As for the LCK, since they had won the MSI Mid-Season Invitational, all three of their teams skipped the play-ins this year and advanced directly to the group stage.

That was precisely why IG's journey through the play-ins seemed even more of a foregone conclusion.

"We still need to be careful," Rookie reminded him as the veteran captain. "If we underperform, we could get flamed even if we win."

Hearing that, Ning Wang finally reined in his growing arrogance.

It was true.

Far too many eyes around the world were fixed on the World Championship.

Most viewers back home would probably only watch IG's games. After all, IG was the LPL's only representative in the play-ins.

Even a tiny mistake might get blown completely out of proportion!

Soon.

September 23 arrived.

On this day, the play-ins for the S7 World Championship officially kicked off!

Twelve teams from China, Japan, Brazil, Latin America, Turkey, and other regions gathered together!

The play-ins were divided into four groups, with three teams in each.

The top two teams from each group, eight in total, would advance to the second round.

In the second round, each first-place team would be randomly matched against a second-place team, with the four winners advancing to the group stage.

For the World Championship's opening match, the organizers naturally scheduled the most popular home team-IG.

Their first opponent was LYN from Latin America!

As soon as Lu Chen arrived at the venue, he saw that the stands were already packed with spectators from all over the world.

A sea of people, with voices roaring everywhere!

Of course, most of them were still Chinese. This was their home turf, after all.

A closer look revealed rows of fans below, most of their support signs reading:

"Let's go, IG!"

"Go get them, IG!"

"C God! I love you!"

"C God, my husband, you've got to win!"

"Rookie, step it up!"

Even Ning Wang, TheShy, and Baolan had their own individual support signs waving in the crowd.

To be fair, IG's fan base was nowhere near this huge.

At least in their past league matches, there was no way most of an entire venue would have been holding up IG support signs.

The explanation was simple: IG was the only home team in the play-ins.

Who else would they support?

"Whoa, there are way too many people here." Ning Wang looked at the staggering crowd and could not help swallowing.

The bolder his boasts had been before the tournament, the more nervous he was now.

"Don't panic." As the only player on the team with World Championship experience, Rookie spoke with the air of a seasoned veteran. "It's just the play-ins. We only need to play like we normally do."

That was what he said, but anyone listening closely could hear the slight tremor in his voice.

A classic case of looking calm on the outside while panicking like crazy inside!

Although Rookie was always IG's most reliable carry, his mentality was not actually as steady as people imagined.

He could even forget to buy his starting items!

Finally, both teams began making their entrances.

The official livestream also displayed a comparison of the audience support for each side.

Unsurprisingly, IG's support rate reached a staggering 99.9%!

Meanwhile, LYN, made up of the guys from Latin America, had a pitiful support rate of just 0.1%!

It was an utterly one-sided comparison!

(End of chapter)