Rise

The waters of the Ionia server ran deep. Those murky depths were where the Diamond 1 and Master players gathered. But one could never know exactly what kind of monster they’d run into fishing in those waters deep. There were a lot of professional players, streamers, and famous gaming content creators at this level, waiting for the chance to finally step up to Challenger. The truth was that they weren’t hard stuck at this depth because they weren’t good enough to become Challengers. That was the furthest thing from the truth. These were the best players in all of China, some of them were even among the best players in the world.

But League of Legends was a game built around teamwork. Especially at this level. Sometimes, a game would be lost because one player on the team was having an off day, and that was enough for the opposing team to gain an advantage and snowball. Most of these players had hit the peak of individual ability in the game, so their advancement to the top of the Master rank was based more on how well they managed to synergize into a team with four other people. Some days, they’d get lucky and find the perfect team. Other days, not so much.

But climbing up to the top of Master wasn’t the only obstacle in the path to becoming a Challenger. There was a fixed number of players who could get to Challenger. In order for a player to move up from Master to Challenger, one of the current Challengers had to be forcefully thrown back down into Master. The battle never ended for those in the Master and Challenger rank. They had to fight constantly to get up to Challenger, and then keep fighting to keep their place. A single moment of weakness and all of the silent monsters hidden in the depths of the Ionia server would come out to feast.

Beyond the hurdles, there was a more practical reason why most of the professional players never bothered to hit Challenger or retain their spot once they hit it for the first time. They rarely had the time to sit around and play in solo queue. Their focus was on winning tournaments, and to do that they needed to constantly play together with their team. Playing alone in the Challenger pool would actually be detrimental to them. Their focus was on practicing as a team and scrimming against other professional teams. It built team synergy, one of the most important aspects in tournaments. Between that and all the time they spent travelling across the world to attend tournaments, they just didn’t have the time to worry about their solo queue rank.

On the rare occasion when a professional player did show up in solo queue, the entire server would start bubbling as the monsters swarmed around. Especially if the professional player belonged to a team that was playing in the LPL. Streamers would spectate the game and provide play-by-play commentary to their viewers. Fans would debate and cheer across chats and social media would end up flooded with memes and clips from the game.

That was the situation that Su Xue’s stream was in right now. The people watching the stream had completely lost their minds! The name of the player who had fifth pick! It was one of the most recognizable names in all of China! Everyone knew it! HoG Nightsong. Bleakwinter Nightsong. The ad-carry for Hand of God and one of the top three ad-carries in all of China!

The viewers spammed the chat in their excitement. They weren’t reading what other people were saying or responding to them. They barely knew what they were typing. This was literally the most exciting thing that could happen while watching a stream, and it was happening to them! Nightsong was their idol! Watching him play in solo queue was a dream come true! And now they’d get to see him play on the same game as the streamer they were watching, on the same team! And to think that only a minute ago they were complaining that Lin Feng hadn’t queued up with a professional player yet. The gods had heard them!

But under the waves of excitement was also a weak undercurrent. One that started gaining traction as the initial hype and shock of seeing Nightsong’s name in the champion select faded and chat regained some composure. More than a few viewers didn’t buy that this Nightsong was the real Nightsong.

「isnt nightsong supposed to be in london right now? why isnt he scrimming with his team?」