LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 552 Intelligence Suppression

At this point, IG is not faced with a choice, but rather with a necessary balancing act.

If Irelia doesn't go to the mid lane, she'll definitely have a tough time laning against Fiora in the top lane, given the clear champion counter.

This isn't a bronze or silver game; it's not a game where you can easily defeat a veiled opponent.

So, IG has to accept the reality of this shift: their mid laner is now an AD carry, so who will fill the AP damage gap?

Should the jungler or top laner come to fill the gap?

With Taliyah gone and Gragas stolen, it's clearly not a realistic option for IG to fill the jungle position with AP damage.

So it seems like the only option is to fill in the top lane with a champion like Swain?

But TheShy hasn't played it.

The key point is that in the subsequent ban phase, EDG simply banned Swain as well.

This forced IG to take another extreme path: let's play a physical damage team together.

In team fights, everyone just needs to perform their own actions.

Otherwise, what other options are there to force a top laner to pick an AP champion that doesn't fit the meta and bully your own team?
Seeing EDG pick Galio on the fourth floor, IG decisively picked Nocturne first.

If they don't contest it and let Nightmare go, then pairing him with Galio for EDG would make this lineup almost perfect.

Therefore, taking Nightmare was the only option.

As for the last top lane position, IG completely changed their minds because of Fiora's appearance.

That means we can't protect the top lane anymore, so let's focus on the bottom lane.

So, in IG's fifth pick, TheShy once again picked Sion, a champion he hadn't played in a while. Using this tanky champion to face Fiora in the top lane made the laning phase much easier.

Next, with EDG locking in Leona in the fifth pick, the lineups for both sides were finalized.

Wang Duoduo, watching the draft pick game from the commentary booth, found it extremely exciting, with both sides displaying a completely new look.

As for which side did a better job on the draft.

I think they each have their own merits.

Wang Duoduo offered a very rational analysis: "EDG has gained an additional split-push specialist, which is somewhat different from their usual playstyle this season. The 4-1 split push strategy relies heavily on the team's macro-management."

"Although IG is a physical damage team, this lineup is both durable and powerful, with initiation capabilities and a core carry, so it's not weak on paper."

In summary, there are fun things to do on both sides.

"IG, blue side, top lane Sion, jungle Nocturne, mid lane Irelia, bot lane duo Xayah and Rakan."

"EDG is on the red side, with Fiora in the top lane, Gragas in the jungle, Galio in the mid lane, and Kai'Sa and Leona in the bot lane."

"Alright everyone, the draft phase is over, and the first battle of the finals is about to begin. Let's wait and see what the ultimate showdown looks like!"

After Guan Zeyuan followed up with the lineup, the scene erupted into a frenzy of cheers and excitement. The world championship final, a historic event for the LPL, was about to unfold in Summoner's Rift amidst the attention of everyone.

The logos of EDG and IG resounded in every prominent position in the Wenhe Arena.

After all ten members of both sides were ready, they descended into the canyon, poised for the decisive battle to come.

"Alright everyone, this is the 2018 League of Legends World Championship Finals. The match has begun."

In the LCK commentary box.

Roaring Emperor was as passionate as ever: "Both sides lined up in a row at level 1, without any group invasion moves. However, the Xayah and Rakan duo was still very strong at level 1, attacking from the bottom river tri-bush and forcing the EDG bot lane duo to reposition."

“IG still had some ideas at level 1, leaving vision in the river near the entrance to the red side's jungle.”

In the eyes of the Roaring Emperor, this vision was placed very effectively for reconnaissance. As long as Gragas moves from the bottom jungle into the river around level 3, he will be detected.

This undoubtedly provides a safety measure to prevent IG's bot lane duo from pushing too far.

And there is no way around it.

Nightmare is unlikely to make any significant moves before level 6; he tends to focus on quickly farming jungle camps to level up before he can initiate ganks.

This means that the IG bot lane duo needs to be fully prepared for pushing lanes before level 6.

In this regard.

Ning, who planned to focus on quickly farming in the jungle, chose to start with the F6 camp in the bottom half of the jungle, then take the red buff and the Krugs, adopting a full-farming strategy.

This allows the duo to go online earlier and complete all their assigned tasks without needing to help each other.

the other side.

Lin Ruo, in the upper half of the map, was farming in the red buff area with the help of Fiora.

Following the jungle clearing strategy of F6-Wolves to Blue Beast, then take the Rift Scuttler in the lower river to apply vision pressure while exposing vision in the lower river.

Lin Ruo then blatantly headed towards the bottom lane, helping her team duo successfully push back the minion wave and gain their first chance to recall and catch their breath.

A gank doesn't necessarily have to result in a kill to be considered successful.

At least with IG's bot lane playing very cautiously, this helped relieve pressure on their own bot lane while also invading the jungle to pinpoint Nightmare's location.

Lin Ruo has done everything.

Nightmare's jungle route was exactly as he had planned, and even Ning, who liked to gank, didn't dare to show his face before level 6.

During the time Tiamat is unavailable, GimGoon in the top lane will definitely be pushed by Sion.

However, his health remained quite good, so much so that Prince Ning had virtually no chance of capturing him.

The only option is to turn around and kill the river crab, then clear all the monsters in the upper half of the map before returning to town to heal.

Lin Ruo followed almost the same pace, turning back to the jungle to take the Gromp and then returning to base to farm.

Neither side's initial jungle ganks resulted in any substantial kills.

Both junglers appeared near the mid-lane river area when they rejoined the game.

Ning Wang manipulated Nightmare to advance first and placed the red square ornament eye in the river grass.

At this moment, Lin Ruo had already arrived at the bushes along the path below the back of his own area, Blue Pit.

However, he did not intend to do anything to attack from both sides and cooperate with Galio to arrest Nightmare.

One of the reasons is that Irelia was still too strong at this point.

Lin Ruo chose to remain still and observe Nightmare's actions first. Seeing Ning Wang turn around and walk down after clearing the vision of the river bushes, he sensed something and immediately placed his wards, then walked back and used his E to cross the wall and enter the blue pit.

Sure enough, the next second Ning walked into the bushes on the red team's path.

Without finding any trace of the barrel, a rough judgment was made: since there are no jungle monsters in the lower half of the map, the barrel should not be in the jungle at this time.

So, in the bottom lane?
No, the bot lane didn't give them any opportunities. Gragas should have gone up, since that's where the jungle is farming.

He only came down because there was something going on below.

Prince Ning pinged, then retreated without hesitation, leaving his only ward hidden in the bushes along the path.

Rookie's Irelia placed her ward in the upper river bush.

As the two returned to their respective positions, Ning retreated to his own jungle to clear the newly spawned F6 camp.

Lin Ruo's figure had already entered the river from the blue zone and was openly heading towards the river bushes in the middle lane.

The path offered no view of the barrel, and the person would never know that Nightmare had barely left before he was already hidden in the tall grass along the river.

At this moment, Rookie, who was completely unprepared, was doing his best to show off his dominance with Irelia.

After pushing past the midline, Q followed by E was to prevent Galio from eating the cannon minion in front of him.

Scout reacted quickly and charged up his W, ensuring that he wouldn't suffer too much damage while being controlled by the Twin Blades.

Rookie also used his W skill while charging up to avoid being stunned and taunted by Galio after the Twin Blades skill was dispelled, thus avoiding being hit by a full combo from him.

What he didn't expect was that the appearance of the barrel shattered all of this possibility.

"Lin Shen, he's here!"

In the commentary booth, Ji De had already started shouting.

Having just witnessed how Lin Ruo evaded Ning Wang's vision, he knew that the mid-lane Irelia was already dead.

With this attack, there's a high probability that the first blood will be won.

The Irelia was mocked.

Although his charged W ability can mitigate damage, it doesn't prevent him from being knocked up by Galio's Righteous Punch.

Lin Ruo, who was manipulating the barrel, naturally showed no mercy. She activated W to take a sip of wine, then used E to push up, used Q to explode the barrel, and then used W to smash it down.

The Irelia's health dropped to half in an instant.

Then Galio's Q skill, Gale Force, followed by a powerful basic attack.

Rookie's situation is precarious.

What to do? Run!

Rookie's actions at this point were already very detailed. He first used Q to move to the side and create distance from the minions, and then flashed towards the top river to maximize the straight-line distance.

Galio was indeed unable to catch up after that.

However, Lin Ruo remained completely calm, as evidenced by the straw sandals she had bought for 300 yuan in her equipment inventory.

Do you know what the marks on straw sandals are?

"There are predators in the forest, Rookie, you're in trouble."

In Guan Zeyuan's opinion.

It's better not to use Flash, because there's really no way you can outrun Gragas.

Because of the double slow effect of Gragas' Q (one barrel) and the red buff, although Irelia managed to create a small distance using her Q skill, she didn't actually gain much of a step.

The subsequent flash attack truly opened up the gap.

It's not that Lin Ruo can withstand the attack just like Shan, but she can withstand it even without Shan.

Because the Blade Girl, who hadn't returned to town even once, didn't even have 300 gold worth of straw sandals.

Lin Ruo not only has straw sandals, but can also use the Predator to double his charge speed.

This made Rookie feel like his legs were fake. His Flash not only failed to shake off the Gragas behind him, but also allowed the Gragas to catch up in less than two seconds.

With that big beer belly, you can still run so fast? Do you think you're Usain Bolt?

There's no way Irelia can escape.

He was brought to near-death by a single W from the barrel that came up while he was drinking.

Rookie had no other choice but to charge up his W skill again while simultaneously unleashing his Twin Blades at the moment the skill ended, attempting to control the barrel.

However, Lin Ruo, with great anticipation, easily dodged the Twin Blades with a slight twist.

Then a bucket was thrown out and secured the kill on Irelia. First blood.

First blood is born.

At that very moment, as the roar echoed throughout Summoner's Rift, the Wenhe Arena was once again filled with frenzied shouts from every corner.

EDG fans are ecstatic.

"Oh my, Lin Shen, how come he's so good at finding opportunities?"

In the commentary booth, Guan Zeyuan almost felt an urge to worship him.

Who can play jungle like that? He uses vision advantage to completely outmaneuver the enemy jungler.

Before this, Ning and Rookie had no idea that Gragas would appear here.

They thought they had taken complete precautions to protect their vision, but little did they know that in Lin Ruo's eyes, their so-called vision was full of loopholes.

After all, when I'm watching your every move from the shadows, you're the prey.

Rookie was the prey lured into the trap, and he never understood the whole story until his death.

He could only think to himself, "Ning, are you providing vision for the opposing team?"

Ning, who had just finished clearing the jungle, was also a little confused.

What's going on? Did Gragas go to the bot lane to counter-gank for a while? There weren't any jungle camps there, otherwise how could he have missed his vision scouting?

I don't understand, I really don't understand.

However, this does not change the fact that the first blood has already been given to EDG.

This reminded Ning of his terrifying days in the LPL, where every time Lin Ruoyi got first blood against EDG, it marked the beginning of their miserable journey.

Will it be the same this time?

"No, no, no," Prince Ning tried his best to reassure himself, while saying, "Everyone, please stay vigilant. Lin Ruo is a very cunning person."

They need to be more careful in any case, especially the bottom lane, which is the most vulnerable lane.

As he spoke, Ning, who was only level 5, went to the bottom lane.

He should have been level 6 before taking action, but after dealing with the stone beetles, firstly, there were really no wild monsters left to farm in the lower half of the map, and secondly, Lin Ruo's actions provoked Ning Wang.

If there's a third reason, it's that JK just went back to her old habits again.

Even though Baolan's Rakan had already recalled to base, Xayah, who was alone, pushed the lane too far forward and was caught by the returning EDG duo, losing half her health and needing healing.

This led to the lane being pushed back again.

This prompted Ning to decide to come to the bottom lane to check and clear vision.

Meanwhile, EDG's bot lane had already pushed the lane past the mid lane. Ning could clearly tell from his movement into the river bush that EDG had no vision there.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have continued pressing down after he entered the riverbed.

However, the EDG duo showed considerable caution in their observation, noticing the possible arrival of Nightmare through Rakan's forward pressure, and quickly began to retreat.

However, for Luo, retreating is clearly not something he can do at will.

Using Nightmare's E skill to get close to the EDG duo from the bushes, he dashed in and then easily reached Kai'Sa's feet with a W skill.

iboy reacted very quickly, using Flash to dodge the fatal attack.

Otherwise, if Rakan lifts him up, and Nightmare comes up and puts a chain on him, then even if he uses Flash, Nightmare will likely use Flash to inflict the fear effect. If Xayah comes up to supplement the damage, it will be troublesome.

"Let's fight Leona."

Seeing that he couldn't kill Kai'Sa, Ning wisely turned his attention to Leona.

Then he immediately regretted it, because the Leona actually used her E skill on him.

Look back.

Oh, so there was a teleportation point on the midline. That's all right.

I was just passing by, I won't kill you, okay?

With Kai'Sa's healing, Leona's health was quite good at this point, and there was no possibility of her dying while she had time to teleport.

Therefore, the first thought of the IG trio was to retreat as quickly as possible. As things stand, they had indeed pursued too deeply, resulting in a very slow retreat.

However, Ning didn't think he was in danger. Although he was being entangled by Leona, he had Flash.

It's hard to die, okay?

That's true. So, Tianye changed his mind after initially using his E skill to control Nightmare.

In fact, his E Nightmare wasn't meant to kill Nightmare; it was just a way to use his body to teleport, like Rakan did, and there was only one target he could get close to.

That's the rosy dawn without a flash.

Using Nightmare to close the distance, Leona followed up with a crisp Flash, and her Q skill's auto-attack landed on Xayah's head, who didn't have Flash.

JK was instantly frozen in place, unable to move.

Just as Baolan was about to help, Scout's Galio, who had already teleported, landed and immediately used his W skill to charge up and stun, followed by a reverse Justice Punch to instantly knock him up.

With a series of control skills and the combined damage from three people, by the time Lin Ruo finally arrived at the bottom river, Xia was already in the fountain preparing for her resurrection cooldown.

EDG has secured another kill, and it's Xayah's kill, the future core of IG's damage output.

All of this originated from the gank in the mid lane. It was because Lin Ruo helped Galio catch Irelia that Scout was able to successfully push back the minion wave, thus preserving a teleport to teleport to the bottom lane in time to do things.

Otherwise, if Irelia were pushing the lane normally, Scout would have to recall and teleport down to deal with the minion wave.

Therefore, the bottom lane support would not have been able to secure the kill on Xayah.

This was clearly a huge loss for IG.

However, the real loss is yet to come. If IG only considers this a loss, then they are being too optimistic.

Who let Lin Ruo come?

How could I possibly give up the jungle monsters in the top half of the map just to come and wander around the bottom lane? That's impossible.

Because there was no vision in the triangular bush, Lin Ruo quietly waited for a while. After Galio left, the remaining jungler and support duo of IG thought about blocking the minion wave to prevent such a large wave from going into the tower and causing Xayah to explode.

The one who stepped forward was naturally Luo.

Just as Tianye was about to return to base, he saw Luo coming up to block the minion wave and prevent him from entering the tower. He immediately turned around and used his E to point at Luo again. With the help of iboy's Kai'Sa, who had moved forward using his E skill, he managed to land a small combo.

Baolan was forced to use his W skill to retreat into the turret.

Knowing he couldn't hold out, Ning immediately chose to return to the city.

Baolan was also planning to return to base, but he knew that the EDG bot lane duo had already entered the tower.

It's obvious they want to kill him, Luo, who only has less than a third of his health left.

So Baolan could only retreat towards the second tower. Logically, the EDG duo shouldn't be able to catch him, but unfortunately, Lin Ruo kept chasing him.

From the moment Luo returned to the tower, Lin Ruo cleverly prepared to block the road behind the tower.

Thus began a top-level psychological battle.

Lin Ruo, who successfully blocked Luo behind the tower, remained very calm and did not immediately use E-Flash to engage, because Luo also had Flash available. At this point, the tense Baolan would likely be able to react and switch Flashes.

Therefore, Lin Ruo chose to use Q to slow down Rakan with the barrels.

While Baolan was still hesitating whether to use Flash or not, fearing he might get entangled and killed, and whether he used Flash or not, he would be followed up with Flash, Lin Ruo suddenly used Flash-E to directly control and kill the unresponsive Rakan.

Baolan didn't need to use his dodge skill anymore, because Lin Ruo, who had just taken a sip of wine, killed him instantly.

Within 6 and a half minutes of the start, EDG had already achieved a remarkable 3-0 lead.

"Wow, IG completely messed up in the bottom lane. The bot lane duo is dead, and Xayah can't even get a wave of minions."

The Roaring Emperor seems to see the shadow of GRF in IG's performance.

Yes, GRF was also crushed in the semifinals in the same way. Could it be that IG will suffer the same fate?

No, no, in terms of who got humiliated like that first, IG did it much earlier than GRF.

But that's not important. What's important is that viewers on Korean websites have caught a whiff of that familiar rhythm again.

[Damn, it's happening again. Is GRF's disastrous situation about to repeat itself?]

As expected, every team seems at a loss when facing EDG, because EDG's pace is simply suffocating.

[However, this was probably IG's own mistake. They chased too far and got blocked by Galio with his teleport ability. Also, Rakan's blocking of the minion wave was too obvious, and even though Nocturne had more health, he didn't dare to go in.]

[Regardless of what happens, EDG is terrifying. Are they really incapable of making any mistakes? Can't they make one and show me?]

Yes, watching EDG crush IG like this, what worries me more is what will happen to LCK if EDG continues like this next year? Will we have to endure another year of darkness? Ugh, I really can't take it anymore, I see absolutely no hope.

[I'm afraid that next year we in the LCK won't even be able to beat IG. Look how easily they beat KT. There are more and more strong teams in the LPL now, while we in the LCK are getting weaker and weaker. I really feel like the future is bleak.]

...

IG, who were on the field, probably never imagined that the most desperate people at that moment were the LCK netizens who were crying and shouting in despair.

However, they knew who was the most excited at this moment: the EDG fans in the stadium, whose shouts had already filled the entire venue.

Just like in the game, EDG, who established a significant advantage early on, was unstoppable.

How should we play now?
The Prince of Ning has already started to lose his rhythm.

The first dragon in the lower jungle is the Fire Dragon, which should have been easy for them to contest. However, the fact that the mid and lower jungle were ganked and destroyed one after another made the contest much more difficult.

In particular, the bottom lane priority was pushed back, and Kai'Sa, who had previously secured a kill, had a much greater ability to push lanes against Xayah, who was behind in development.

One Q skill cleared the entire minion wave; that's the effect of Kai'Sa getting fed.

With Lin Ruo's Gragas occasionally ganking the mid lane, Rookie became hesitant to push the lane.

With pressure coming from both sides, IG had no choice but to concede the first Infernal Dragon.

They had no choice.

Even with his ultimate move at hand, Prince Ning was powerless to do anything at this moment.

At this time when his nightmares should be starting to rage, he felt utterly powerless.

However, Ning knew at least that the only lane he could gank now was the bottom lane, and the only lane he had to gank was the bottom lane, because Xayah needed to be protected in her development, and Rakan could help him gank.

By sacrificing his own jungle clearing efficiency, Ning successfully initiated the first wave of Nocturne's momentum at the 9-minute mark, which was by catching and killing iboy's Kai'Sa in the bottom lane.

Loka Nightmare makes initiating team fights and ganking too easy.

Moreover, iboy's Flash cooldown was still a little short at this point, which further facilitated IG's gank on the bottom lane.

Ning breathed a sigh of relief after finishing his task, and IG finally managed to turn the tide in the game.

(End of this chapter)