TES's dual carries responded head-on.
0 > 3?
From the audience's perspective, there were two ways to interpret it.
First: Faker has three stars embroidered on his jersey—three-time world champion. Meanwhile, Brother Infinite Borders has only been in the scene for a little over a year, a rookie who just started making a name for himself, with no honors yet.
But at MSI, he 3–0'd the three-time champ and hard-stomped Faker—zero crowns greater than three crowns.
The sarcasm was off the charts. From this angle, the aggression was maxed out.
The second angle was a bit less aggressive, but it still slapped Big Fei's face swollen.
That is: in this series, SKT didn't win a single game. Yet in the interview, he still talked tough, forcibly flipping himself from loser into "winner," like he was the one who took the victory.
Either way, it worked—and it was a direct response.
Especially since before MSI even started, SKT had talked big on Twitter. The coach said every other team was useless, the trophy would belong to SKT, and some even mentioned TES, predicting SKT would 3–0 TES in the finals.
But the moment the rumble stage started and SKT got double-killed, they changed the "3–0" into "3–1."
It was pretty hilarious. Their selective amnesia was maxed out.
Then add the coach's whole mess in the interview—
Blaming the loss on the coin toss and not getting blue side, looking like a complete clown.
Compared like this, even Steak looked more pleasant.
Steak might not be great at Ban-Pick, but he never posts while losing, and he doesn't pull these circus tricks.
The second one to be "liquidated" by everyone was Faker.
He successfully went from Demon King… to Big Fei.
He brought up the "35 ping" issue. Even though he didn't explicitly say it affected his mechanics, when the reporter followed up—was ping the reason you lost?
They sat there in silence for a full three-plus minutes.
That already expressed the viewpoint: ping probably did matter.
Seeing them frozen like that, Zeus felt he had to break the stalemate, so he stepped up and answered.
And he specifically used "me personally," which was meaningful.
"Speaking for me personally, it had no impact at all."
After that, nobody else answered the question.
They hurried to end the final interview segment.
Simply put: ping was a decent fig leaf.
If just one person had admitted it had some impact, the pressure in Korea would've eased a lot. Plenty of fans would've shifted their anger toward Riot Games.
But nobody wanted to be the one who led that charge.
And for whatever reason, Zeus gave the exact opposite answer.
So Korean forums even joked: after he returns to base, Zeus should be careful.
Then they remembered his background and immediately relaxed—who in the club would dare bully him?
…
Tonight was destined to be sleepless.
On Weibo, fans flooded into the discussion, and the topic's view count kept climbing.
In the hotpot room, TES's vibe was just as fiery.
"Your mom's kiss—hurry, hurry, send me to the hospital! It's coming, it's coming… I think I'm allergic to seafood."
"Holy crap—you're allergic to seafood and you still ate like that?" Lin Fan was stunned.
"We just won MSI. What's wrong with letting loose? And I know my limits. I won't die—worst case my lips swell."
"Then those rumors on Weibo and Tieba about you eating spicy seafood and ending up in the hospital… they were real?"
"Yeah." JackeyLove nodded hard.
"Food is the one thing you can't betray. I'll just lie in the hospital for one night."
"Insane." Lin Fan gave him a thumbs-up.
Uchiha JackeyLove really wasn't joking. No wonder he could be a rogue ninja—he's that ruthless to himself.
But everyone had already finished eating. Sending JackeyLove to the hospital now wouldn't affect anything.
In the end, they were too lazy to run back and forth, so they stayed with him at the hospital overnight. The next morning they confirmed there was no problem, then returned to the club together.
Right around then, TES's official Weibo posted a post-match celebration video.
The heat was high, and as a traffic team, they had to operate properly.
Not to mention they'd won the title—in a moment like this, any targeted smear against TES would be crushed on sight.
So Guo Hao specifically had a cameraman follow them to film everything.
He stayed up all night editing. After reviewing it in the morning and confirming it was good, staff posted it to the official account.
"TES Championship Celebration Vlog — bonus Easter egg later."
A lot of people clicked as soon as they saw it.
Instant critical hit right at the start.
"Your mom's kiss—send me to the hospital!" JackeyLove shouted while sitting there.
Everyone was confused, not sure what was happening, and then the video cut straight to the hotpot shop.
The atmosphere was blazing—especially when the camera shoved right into Duke and Qingtian's faces. The two chubby guys were just chomping away, eating like it was the most delicious thing on earth.
"Damn, I'm drooling just watching. They eat like they're genuinely enjoying it."
"If Qingtian never gets stage time, I suggest he switches careers and becomes a mukbang streamer. Just look at that mass—you can tell he can eat."
"Hahaha, but Qingtian seems decent. I've seen his Olaf and Darius games, and his results are pretty good."
Every player showed up on camera.
But bot lane wasn't sitting together. JackeyLove sat next to Lin Fan, while Mark sat in the middle of the group.
"You can tell—JackeyLove loves his Brother Infinite Borders more."
"Do the math—if they're celebrating, this is probably when he posted on Weibo."
"Yeah. With those two sitting together, they definitely talked."
The on-screen comments kept chatting.
Then suddenly: "HIGH ENERGY AHEAD!"
It startled everyone. They got curious—what was about to happen? Was JackeyLove about to scream to be sent to the hospital again?
Lin Fan's voice came through in the video.
"Normal. His professional attitude is good, but when you lose, you can't say things the same way you do when you win…"
The camera zoomed in and focused right on Lin Fan's face.
"Like when the Roaring Emperor asked me how I evaluate Faker.
I could've said 'a pile of crap.' Even if it was extremely aggressive, domestic fans would call it 'true temperament' and wouldn't think it was wrong—that's the halo of winning.
…
To avoid that day, we have to win every match going forward. If we ever reach the day when we're powerless in every match, then yeah—it really is time to retire."
…
"Brother Infinite Borders is so clear-headed. The weight of your words comes from your strength. Honestly, even if he pointed at Big Fei's nose and cursed him out as trash, I could accept it—just a little arrogant, that's all."
"Winning gives you a halo. Domestic reference: S8 Uzi. When he was winning nonstop and taking titles, all the old black material vanished."
"Brother Infinite Borders is really awake. As a pro, only winning gives you a halo. The moment you lose, you'd better be ready to get flamed."
"Looking at it this way, Big Fei Teacher is kind of pitiful. He still hasn't realized he's already on the decline. He's still forcing himself to cling to what he thinks is his last dignity."
After hearing that, a lot of people didn't even care anymore about whether Big Fei was stubborn or whether SKT was making excuses.
It was just the last struggle of someone descending the mountain.
From now on, SKT would no longer be everyone's main threat.
Unless Faker truly realized it.
Realized he's already on the decline—and if he wants to climb back to the top, he has to do it with the mentality of an apprentice.
But judging from the interviews, he didn't have that mindset. He still couldn't accept losing.
The difference in "level" between the two mids was obvious.
Brother Infinite Borders was standing far higher than Big Fei now—they weren't even mids of the same tier anymore.
In the second half, a lot of people even spammed in the video comments:
Brother Infinite Borders, world's number one mid!
"Hahaha, JackeyLove is killing me. 'You want food even if it kills you,' huh?"
"That's his personality. Did you forget the news about him eating spicy seafood and ending up in the hospital?"
"But those were after matches. He's been careful since then. It shouldn't be too serious—feels like he already got discharged and went back to base today."
"Yeah. We were camping outside TES base filming—one bus brought all the pros back."
"All I can say is: as expected of Yu Wenbo."
Some people even reposted the vlog to Korean forums, just to see the reaction.
Then they reposted the reaction back—traffic on both sides, making a killing.
The first movers already had 50k followers on Bilibili.
People just love this kind of thing.
As for TES's parent company, watching the Weibo topics, everyone was grinning crooked. Investing in esports back then really was a smart choice.
The next day, more streamers started roasting Faker's interview.
The one who engaged the hardest was Douyu streamer Imp.
The moment he went live, even before he spoke, you could see his smile creeping up.
"Big Fei has always been pretending… Now he doesn't have the strength to keep pretending, and he can't accept it. Damn thing."
Even though he'd retired, he inherited Samsung's tradition.
Screw SKT. Screw Faker. All clowns.
On that day, no viewer could leave Imp's stream.
They got their full share of laughter.
So satisfying.
But Lin Fan still didn't go live that day.
It made everyone anxious.
Brother Infinite Borders just won—shouldn't he stream and chat with everyone a bit?
They didn't get the stream.
Instead, they got news: Korea server started banning LPL pros' super accounts.
All accounts logging in from domestic IP addresses were banned. In an instant, LPL pros had nowhere to train.
"What the hell? Korea's region is that petty?"
"Didn't this happen before? The moment China wins on the world stage, Korea server starts pulling tricks."
"Then what now? There's nowhere to train."
"I don't know about the others, but Brother Infinite Borders gets an epic buff, okay? He never plays ranked anyway."
"True. LMAO!"
Still, the Korea server account ban did affect the entire LPL.
To keep form, everyone could only go back to the CN server.
After just winning MSI, TES also told the players to strike while the iron was hot—stream more and build their popularity.
Lin Fan knew that if he went live first, he'd eat all the traffic, so he chose to wait until teammates each went live to take their share before he started.
Mark responded first, opening a stream on Douyu.
"Hello everyone, hello everyone."
It was Mark's first stream in a long time. Seeing the wall of comments, he was slightly nervous.
But the chat basically wasn't asking him anything—they were asking why Lin Fan still hadn't gone live.
Mark skimmed quickly.
"Fan-ge is still resting. He'll stream in a bit—everyone will stream in a bit. We can't play Korea server right now, so I'll play CN server for a while."
"How's JackeyLove?"
"He's lively. He's fine. We asked him during hotpot—he's had seafood allergies before, but it's always been within an acceptable range."
"Going to the hospital was mainly just for observation. Honestly, he didn't have to go. Once we confirmed he was fine, we took the bus back early in the morning."
"Recently, it's not just us—other teams also can't play Korea server."
"Hahaha, Fan-ge gets an epic buff. I'm seeing you guys in chat playing some pretty novel stuff."
After queuing for about eight minutes, Mark finally got into game.
His expression instantly turned serious.
First game, he had to carry. And what support carries best? Pyke, obviously.
Plus his ADC picked Draven, so Pyke fit perfectly. Hook them over, kill them.
The first match went smoothly. He ended 11–1–1 and carried the team to a win.
"Not bad. My form feels good today. Let's see how much LP I can gain. I'm Master right now—let's see if I can touch Grandmaster."
He immediately queued again.
It was almost time for other teammates to log in and take their recommended traffic. If the traffic got split, the effect would be much worse—especially once Lin Fan went live, everyone would get sucked away.
In Game 2, he saw his side pick Caitlyn and wanted to play fast push, so he took Lux.
He got lane pressure at level three, but after jungle came down, things went wrong.
Caitlyn walked up and ate a full Gragas combo, then used Ignite and exposed Lee Sin's position.
Seeing the enemy bot duo back off, Mark overreached—he flashed in to force-kill the enemy Kalista.
But he couldn't get the auto off. Instead, he got kited.
"Unlucky. If the auto went through, it was done," Mark said while typing in all chat.
"My bad."
"Your mom's bad. Is your brain broken?"
"Pull them over and it's a free kill."
"Running up to donate—aren't you disgusting?"
Caitlyn instantly started type-flaming at lightning speed.
Mark opened chat, about to say something, but Caitlyn kept spraying insults below.
Mark couldn't take it anymore and finally replied.
"Why are CN server players so clueless about their own skill level?"
"If JackeyLove were here, Gragas E-Flash would only deserve to eat shit."
The words "CN server players" seemed to set off his four teammates.
Random plane: "Stop with your CN server crap—how much LP are you on Korea server? I've queued so much and you're the most disgusting one."
Pig intestines: "Hahaha, now it's all Korea server this, Korea server that?"
"People can still argue about Korea server and CN server now?"
"Idiot!"
Top lane Renekton wasn't even there, but seeing four people gang up on support, he joined in immediately.
"Hahaha, this support is cracking me up."
"Don't let it be because of you that everyone thinks pros are all idiots!"
In the blink of an eye, four people were flaming Mark.
"Your mom's kiss—what are these four clowns?" JackeyLove, watching Mark, couldn't help cursing.
"What happened?" Lin Fan heard JackeyLove and asked.
Hearing his big bro speak up, Mark finally calmed down.
"It's nothing. Ran into four clowns."
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup