Lin Fan's interview was flawless—he won a world-level title, carried the matches, and still didn't get inflated.
Everyone was happy hearing his responses to the casters. Only a pro like this could go farther. Compared to those players who win one or two games and immediately go to the sky, this was just too good—side by side, it was two extremes.
Especially on Canyon of Champions, the relationship between streamers and pro players can be like oil and fire, and a huge part of that was caused by some second-rate pros.
Clearly they had no real strength and could only mix in the minor leagues, yet their temper was terrifying. Just because they were "pros," they looked down on every solo queue player. The moment the game went slightly poorly, they would sandbag and leave game.
That poisoned the whole environment. Whether streamers or minor-league pros, a couple words and they'd start flaming.
Then add a bunch of people opening match-fixing odds, match-fixers running rampant…
To put it bluntly, Brother Tyrant being able to climb was, to a large extent, whether the odds-setters were on his side.
So the CN server got wrecked into a total mess.
It wasn't that pro players didn't want to train domestically—it was that the environment was just too awful.
The Roaring Emperor continued the interviews as usual, going down the roster one by one.
Zoom's chubby face was full of smiles.
Besides the MSI championship prize money, the club also arranged a 500,000 yuan bonus. This title paid off massively.
He never expected that even at the tail end of his career, he'd still have a highlight moment.
So in the interview, he praised Lin Fan and JackeyLove to the skies.
"Our mid and ADC are too strong. In top lane, I basically don't need to do anything—just make sure I don't die.
With teammates this strong, don't think about any random nonsense in lane. So even if you tied a dog to top lane, you'd still win!"
Instantly, the whole vibe leveled up. And thinking carefully, it wasn't wrong—this was exactly the top laner TES needed right now.
If you swapped in TheShy, you really couldn't form a trident.
The biggest reason was that mid needed to eat a ton of resources.
Jungle basically lived mid.
In other words, mid being a duo lane wouldn't even be a problem.
If top died in the early game while mid-jungle were making plays, TES wouldn't be able to play their preferred tempo.
That's a resource allocation issue.
Back on IG, it was obvious everything was for top lane.
Ning, for the first six or seven minutes, lived top to let TheShy exert his suppression. Rookie stabilized and then would also come help top.
Lin Fan was the type who needed to build an advantage mid before helping other lanes.
So viewers understood TES's game plan very clearly.
The moment Brother Infinite Borders went to help another lane, it meant mid was completely opened up.
The match tempo was firmly in TES's hands.
But that required insane individual skill, plus jungle helping a bit—icing on the cake.
Besides SofM, pretty much any jungler paired with Lin Fan would know how to play.
Backstage, Da Huang watched the interviews and felt sour hearing Duke's words.
If I went up, I'd definitely perform better than you.
But the coach never gave him the chance.
Beside him, Xiao Pang's Qingtian nodded thoughtfully. Duke's words seemed to give him a real insight, making his understanding of the game deeper.
Top lane has always been hard to climb on. Learning from a veteran's experience can save you from a lot of detours.
Next was Tian.
Tian didn't say much.
"My teammates played well, and we won together. I'm very happy to take this title."
After mid-top-jungle were done, the Roaring Emperor finally asked JackeyLove:
"JackeyLove, after 2018, you've won another world-level title. Now you have both a Worlds title and an MSI title. How do you feel?"
Yu Wenbo glanced at Lin Fan and smiled.
"Honestly, I don't feel much. My mood didn't swing that hard. Mainly because from the start I knew this title was definitely ours. As long as Fan-ge is sitting there, my sense of security is maxed out.
To me, he's the real deal—world's number one mid. In every match, all I have to do is CS bot, then wait for mid to come help. I've been lying down so long I've got osteoporosis."
Lin Fan saw JackeyLove sneaking glances at him and knew he'd try to stir something in his answer.
He really did… kind of wild.
Chat went crazy.
"LMAO, JackeyLove still has the most trash talk."
"The most classic one in my memory is 'your mom's kiss.' Today it turned into 'lying down until osteoporosis.'"
"There's also that one: 'If League of Legends didn't exist, the screws in the chair you'll sit on someday would be tightened by me.'"
"Hahahaha, TES's dual carries are really broken. Brother Infinite Borders looks like a macho man in games, slaughtering everyone—then in horror games he hides behind JackeyLove peeking around."
"JackeyLove's face is so clean-looking, and yet he'll suddenly drop 'your mom's kiss.' The contrast is unreal."
"This is domestic dual carries."
The last interview was Mark.
"I'm really grateful Manager Guo Hao gave me a chance when I didn't have a job, and let me prove myself. Most importantly, my teammates are all very strong!"
TES interview script: teammates are strong!
After the interviews ended, it was time for the final segment—Finals MVP.
During the interview, after discussion by four referees and data analysis, they determined today's most valuable player.
Since they weren't on site, there couldn't be an award ceremony.
Instead, the Roaring Emperor read it out from the card.
And honestly, his professional skill was maxed out.
Even though it wasn't the LCK winning, his announcement still carried full emotion.
"2022 Mid-Season Invitational Finals MVP is: dine~~~!"
A small group of spectators stood up, waving TES team emblems. Then they started chanting rhythmically:
"Brother Infinite Borders is awesome!"
"Brother Infinite Borders is awesome!"
Naturally, this got recorded too. Plenty of people planned to upload it to Bilibili later to scam some traffic.
On the big screen, they showed Lin Fan's promo photo and his full MSI aggregate stats.
Damage share: 34.1%.
KDA absolutely crushed every other pro, reaching a terrifying 39. If not for two games earlier that increased his deaths, it would've been even scarier.
With a mid laner of this caliber, TES winning MSI was completely reasonable.
Even the Korean spectators couldn't help but nod quietly.
Damn it—why isn't this mid laner an LCK mid?
Isn't our region supposed to mass-produce mids?
After all this, why are we still stuck with Faker's old face?
Players like ShowMaker should be popping up nonstop. Otherwise how can we call ourselves an esports powerhouse?
After the Roaring Emperor's wrap-up, he congratulated TES and hoped T1 could slowly regain form for Worlds.
This MSI officially came to a close.
TES's championship news shot to the top of Weibo trending immediately.
Especially since earlier, Lin Fan went to the Teamfight Tactics China Regional Finals.
The rumors around TES were all bad.
A lot of people were even hoping to watch a joke.
"TES is doomed—SKT will blow them up. Brother Infinite Borders is a big-stage choker. Not training before matches means he'll never be Faker's opponent."
People were making predictions before the match even began.
After TES won, all those takes vanished.
Anyone still daring to jump out now was a warrior.
And sure enough, there were still a few.
"Don't be fooled by Dine winning MSI and getting Finals MVP. I'm telling you right now—sooner or later he'll become brain-dead!"
"Honestly, OP is forcing the flame. What did Brother Infinite Borders do to you? Faker trains every day, and even then all Brother Infinite Borders said was that he's 'one of the strongest mids.' In front of him, Faker is nothing."
"Who can go undefeated across the whole event right now? Besides the three games handed by a 'shit hand,' Brother Infinite Borders is on a 54-game streak in individual games! Everything you're saying is nonsense. As long as he keeps winning, who cares if he doesn't train? Who cares if he played TFT?"
"Yeah. I think you people should reflect. Getting blown up by a pro who doesn't train—aren't you embarrassed? Answer me, are you embarrassed?"
"I'll say it: if Brother Infinite Borders wins Worlds, even if he goes to play Honor of Kings, I'll still support him."
"Didn't expect that even now people are still defending your Demon King, huh? I can only say Korea-biased fans are something else."
"Didn't expect people still flaming after a win. If they lost, would their citizenship get revoked?"
"I'm dying. I came to see if anyone would discuss TES's dual-carry interviews, and I never expected someone to still be posting while losing."
"After reading this, I can only say—why is the domestic scene so chaotic? Korea-biased fans are a huge part of it. They're insane."
"Everyone says Korea-biased fans have no brains. If they don't have a team they like domestically, they just want chaos and keep stirring narratives. Anyone still forcing the flame now is definitely not a normal fan."
In no time, Weibo threads exploded into the thousands, with huge crowds joining the discussion.
Lin Fan's fanbase was massive, and plenty of them were stan-circle types. If you say something bad, they'll come out and attack.
For a while, many Korea-biased fans got flamed until their heads buzzed.
The moment they opened Weibo, the notification dots on the side were all red-heart ellipses.
Their mental didn't take much damage, but one person can't out-flame that many people.
Just thinking about it felt disgusting, so they posted one line and immediately dipped.
Still, they held onto hope: sooner or later, TES would explode because of this mid.
Don't be fooled by how happy it looks right now—foreshadowing has already been planted.
The moment they lose, everything will blow up. That'll be their time to shine.
While China argued nonstop, T1's whole team sat at the big press dais.
Even after losing, there were still interviews.
Especially since this interview included media from multiple regions.
Of course, if they'd won MSI, this segment would've been even more explosive.
At least twice as many reporters would've shown up.
The reporter started with T1's coach, and the questions were sharp.
"First, can the coach give a score for our players' performance?"
The coach thought for a moment.
"Seventy-five. It's a pass, but they didn't play to their level. Still, I believe they can adjust for the matches ahead."
"Can you summarize the main reason for the loss?"
"Mm. Mainly that our red-side preparation wasn't sufficient. On this patch, blue-side advantage is too large. If we could start on blue, later games wouldn't be as stressful, and we'd have had a chance."
Hearing that, many reporters' expressions changed immediately.
So he was blaming the loss on blue-side advantage?
But the problem was, SKT lost on blue too—and it was a stomp.
And if you say that, then G2 has something to say as well.
It was a very interesting answer.
Since the coach opened that door, maybe the players would say more too.
If that happened, it'd be a huge headline. A massive narrative—wouldn't that be fun?
Especially Faker. Since mid got blown up, why not ask what he thinks of TES's players?
After all, LCK's post-match interview had asked Dine how he evaluated Faker too.
Dine's view was that Faker was still one of the strongest pros—a high evaluation.
"Faker, was there anyone on TES who left a deep impression on you?"
Faker adjusted the mic.
"I don't think any player left a deep impression. We just feel it's a pity we lost today. If we had made a few decisions better during the match, we would've had a chance."
Hearing that, Zeus couldn't help his mouth twitch.
He absolutely did have an "impressive" player.
"dine!"
If not for him, the finals really might have been winnable.
Every time he was about to open up an advantage top, that guy arrived like a divine soldier and pinned him down.
After the interpreter translated it back, viewers still watching the stream spammed question marks.
What do you mean?
After getting beaten into this shape, you still have no "impressive" player?
Didn't Brother Infinite Borders smash your head in?
You say you played badly and it's a pity you didn't win.
If you'd fought a five-game series, that would make sense—pity, sure.
But getting 3–0'd and saying that… is a little…
Then compare it to Dine's evaluation of him, and the difference was instant.
Many Korean viewers even posted Lin Fan's interview clip on the forums.
"How hard is Faker's mouth? 'No impressive player'?"
"This Bo5, I'll remember their ugly performance. The only one who looked human was Zeus."
Even LCK forums couldn't stand it. If you lose, just admit it.
"Faker, what was the biggest difference between this MSI and past MSIs?"
Hearing that, Faker was secretly delighted.
"The biggest difference compared to past MSIs was ping. Also, we started from the Play-In stage this time, which is different from before."
"Oner, can you evaluate Tian's Hecarim?"
"I wouldn't call it an evaluation. I think Tian is a very outstanding player, and his Hecarim is played very well."
"And one last key question: after four years, you returned to MSI again, but it ended in defeat. What does this loss make you feel?"
Faker thought for a moment…
"This match showed me my shortcomings. I will focus on training hard for summer."
The last reporter asked an especially sharp question.
At first they hadn't thought of it, but Faker mentioned ping.
So they pressed it.
"This question is for everyone: do you think ping is the reason you failed to win?"
Then came a long silence.
A silent silence that made the press dais extremely awkward.
Nearly three full minutes of silence.
Zeus glanced at his teammates. With his background—a big-chaebol heir—he didn't really fear anything.
He said his thoughts directly.
"Me personally, I didn't feel uncomfortable playing."
This interview—whether you watched it live or later as clips—instantly sparked massive debates across two major regions.
Mainly because after losing, LCK haters naturally crawled out.
"Damn, his mouth is so hard."
"Look at his three-game scoreline, okay? 0–19–3. What kind of confidence lets you say that?"
"LeBlanc in that game wasn't 'impressive'? Damn, that was literally shitting on your head, smida!"
Chinese threads popped up one after another too.
…
"Big Fei's mouth is really hard!"
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup