Chapter 127 - Watch gege carry you to victory.
The official announcement was posted the next day, which was also the last day of the group stage.
They used the same justification that they had provided to Ding-ge backstage: Rish's map was lacking vision, and the referee believed that this bug severely affected the progression of the match over the next few seconds. After obtaining the agreement of both teams, the officials used Chronobreak to restore the game to the time 21:18.
Apart from that announcement, there wasn't any further explanation.
This announcement was clearly a bit bare bones. Not only did it fail to calm down the collective fury, it actually exacerbated the situation. At first, Rish had stubbornly refused to delete that spawn camping gif, but because of this incident, a torrent of hostility rained down on him, and Rish deactivated his side account altogether.
But it was no use—
Due to unforeseen circumstances last year, two of TTC's starters had to step down from the match. You decided to hit them while they were down, and in the previous half of the year, you both explicitly and implicitly opened fire on the LPL during your interviews, documentaries, and on your social media. Now that your team ended up using this kind of cheap trick to win a match, let's just settle our new and old grudges at the same time.
If your side account is gone, then we'll look for your main account or the team's official account. In short, don't think that you're going to get out of this.
The pressure of public opinion was too great. In the span of one night, the Chinese streaming platform and gaming gear brands all expressed that they were going to terminate their contracts with HT. Most of the few Chinese HT fans also deserted them.
HT had already secretly blown up internally. Meanwhile, the other team involved remained completely calm; they continued to practice and compete, and they didn't spare a single glance at the competition officials or HT.
Because their enrage buff had too many stacks, TTC effortlessly won their last two group stage matches. Neither BO1 match took longer than thirty-two minutes to finish.
At this point, the group stage schedule had concluded. The top four teams with the most accumulated points directly entered the semifinals.
After they were done with the group stage, Ding-ge bluntly declined the Korean competition organizers' request for a private individual interview, using the excuse "we were not informed of this ahead of time." Then, he immediately left with the rest of the team members in tow. There wasn't any room for negotiation with a competition host that lacked a bottom line.
The sky was already dark by the time they got back to the hotel, and they were the only ones in the hotel buffet's dining area.
Ding-ge took a sip of his orange juice and said, "Even the interviewers from our own pro league have to get in line, so why do we have to be at their beck and call? They're just using this private interview to bring traffic to their official media accounts. It won't be streamed nationwide, you'd have to be a dumbass to agree to that. And also, aren't these organizers HT's own dad? They should go ask their son to do an interview."
Yuan Qian nodded. "HT really lost more than they gained from this."
"After obtaining the agreement of both teams, the officials used Chronobreak..." Xiao Bai was in the middle of reading the official announcement. Halfway through, he frowned and asked Ding-ge, "Ge, did you agree?"
"How could I have possibly agreed?! I only approved the pause, and then they hit me with the notification about the Chronobreak later!" Ding-ge waved his hand. "Whatever, let's drop the subject. It's ruining my appetite."
