You actually want me to...

With increased training volume and time, even the frequency of his harassment of Meiko rose to a whole new level. If it weren't for the fact that most of his questions were indeed professional, Meiko would have almost thought he was a male ketogen.

As for White Crescent, he was quite pleased to see this situation. Although he didn't quite understand why the simple words "mad dog" could change a person so much, the fact that he could influence the training atmosphere of the rest of the team was simply wonderful.

TES still faces significant overall problems.

On a larger scale: issues such as player cohesion, player hero pool limitations, immature command, and player mental state are all things that are difficult to resolve in a short period of time.

On a smaller scale: 369's hero pool is insufficient; Karsa becomes confused and emotionally sensitive in disadvantageous situations; Knight is under too much pressure and lacks roaming ability; the support Roland is strong at seizing opportunities in team fights, but his laning ability is not up to par.

As for AD, let's not talk about it.

These are real weaknesses that TES needs to address before the playoffs.

As for its advantages, it's not without them:

The current version is one where the jungler controls the early game, and the mid and bot laners provide damage in the mid and late game. However, players like Knight and Karsa are almost unaffected by version changes. They can pick the champions they need and make them effective, instead of picking champions just to fit the version and then finding them useless.

One more thing to mention is that Karsa can actually play jungle carry.

When he was the carry player during his time at FW, he played jungle carry. After joining RNG, he started playing map control. Finally, he ended up at TES. So, he can play whatever the team needs him to play.

In general, as long as the current meta doesn't shift to a top lane carry meta, TES's performance shouldn't be too bad. However, due to weaknesses in the top and bottom lanes, they also won't be too strong.

However, reality always seems to like to play tricks on people.

As the TES team spontaneously increased their training intensity, the team's performance plummeted, just like the predicament TES encountered in the original world. The history of consecutive losses was once again played out for TES in this world.

Three consecutive losses.

First they lost to RNG, then to DMO, and finally to OMG.

Having gained experience from playing against the previous strong teams, each team has figured out how to deal with the current TES. To put it simply, if your entire team only has one carry in the mid lane, I'll just defend your mid lane.

It's that simple.

By blocking the left hand and applying pressure to both the top and bottom lanes, this strategy had an absurdly high success rate against TES. In these three games, the few games that TES won were all due to the individual skill of the players who broke through and created the situation, which is commonly known as the "carry mode".

But it was no use. Individual bursts of skill could only win one game at most, but the match was a best-of-three series. The harder they tried, the worse they lost, which in turn affected the players' mentality. Although Roland and White Crescent were trying their best to adjust the team's state, the team's morale was still somewhat affected by the shadow of the losing streak.

Especially after losing to OMG, online opinions exploded instantly.

To be honest, TES's performance is truly baffling.

[The bot lane is a mess, the AD is useless and the support feeds kills. Their disjointed team fights were hilarious.]

[While the bot lane is weak, it's barely acceptable for a trainee. But this is the performance of your expensively acquired duo of K and K? That's outrageous!]

[It would be better to buy Xx back; he was at least the star player for TES last year.]

Without a doubt, the above comments are the beginner's version of the most offensive comments during S10. While the LPL's two consecutive championships gave domestic players confidence, they also attracted too much attention from capital, and this capital, like the stench of the fandom, followed.

But there was nothing they could do. Despite seeing all sorts of chaotic and confusing content as soon as they opened their phones, the players had no choice but to endure it.

That's how esports is; if you're bad, it's your original sin, and there's no room for explanation.

[This is so tough, I've lost three times in a row.]

[I saw it; the bot lane played terribly as always.]

Right, you also think the bot lane is weak, right?

[I've taught you for a year and it's all been for nothing. With your limited perspective, I could scatter a handful of rice on a keyboard and a chicken could do a better job. The more you learn, the worse you get.]

【. . . 】

Unsurprisingly, this WeChat message earned him another round of complaints from Brother Shui, but Roland seemed quite happy to accept it, even counting down the time until Brother Shui arrived.

This is a world-class AD carry.

Although he often dies suddenly, his individual skill level is truly world-class for an AD carry.

If he had a world-class AD carry in the bot lane, would he still be suffering like this? Roland had been holding back a lot of anger about being constantly suppressed in the bot lane.

In this meta where bot laners prioritize lane control and dragon control, a weak AD carry is truly frustrating. Just as Roland was about to play a little more, White Crescent suddenly announced a meeting from the training room, so he could only hastily put away his phone to see what the meeting was about.

"This is the usual pre-match meeting, but the next opponent is a bit special. I expect the pressure from public opinion will be quite high if we lose, so I'm giving you some information to review in advance."

"Special, pressure? Is it EStar?"

"Yes, it's EStar."

With the white crescent moon confirmed, all the contestants in the room immediately became serious.

At this point in time, EStar was a rather complex team. In addition to carrying the name of PDD, it also carried the background of XX Glory, and on top of that, its players all had their own backgrounds.

Top laner Xiaobai and bot laner Wink both came from RNG's second team. Wink later went to IG to play mahjong, while Xiaobai ran away from home for a while before returning to RNG.

Jungler Wei and mid laner Cryin both came from the esports training camp YM, and later joined RNG. Looking at it this way, RNG is the team with the strongest desire for revenge against EStar, having completely emptied out the entire ES team.

ShiauC, a support player who came from the Stray Wolf and Electric Wolf Project, is known for his Thresh jinchūriki and roaming abilities.

Despite being a newly formed team, they don't resemble any typical new team. They possess strong execution capabilities and a solid tactical system, and have done considerable research on other LPL teams. They even defeated a number of LPL powerhouses at the start of the Spring Split.

Their overall playstyle leans towards macro-management, relying on the jungler and support to set the pace, emphasizing ganks, and capitalizing on economic and equipment disadvantages. Perhaps due to their obsession with victory, the five players generally avoid any risky attacks or reckless, impulsive actions. Also driven by this same determination, their execution is remarkably strong. This is evidenced by their constant refrain of "slow down, slow down" in voice chat and their performance in the two matches against IG.

This is the team that will soon become TES's next opponent, so it's no wonder that White Crescent held an unusual emergency meeting. Keep in mind that almost half of the LPL audience is watching this team, wondering which LPL powerhouse can defeat them. Therefore, at this critical juncture, the pressure from public opinion has reached an unprecedented level.

The victory will sweep away the previous losing streak and allow the team to bounce back.

A loss would elevate ES's status further while simultaneously demoralizing TES.

As a newly formed team, the limited video footage couldn't fully reveal their problems. Roland, being a transmigrator, knew to ban Jarvan IV and Thresh, but if you asked him to elaborate, he genuinely forgot.

Seeing the tense atmosphere in the training room, Roland hesitated briefly before calling out to the group who were about to leave.

"coach."

"Ok?"

"I want to play basketball, oops, I have a strategy I might try tomorrow?"

"???"

The next day.

When the time finally came for the TES vs. ES match, the number of viewers in the live stream was increasing rapidly at a visible rate.

【Here it comes~】

[TES vs. ES, hopefully Knight can step up this game.]

[Ueno, step up your game! Ueno's already taking so much tactical advantage; you can't keep putting all the pressure on Knight and Ban's initiation.]

[TES can even lose to DMO, how can you expect them to beat ES? 2-0 is a good bet.]

Despite the continued negative reception from LPL fans, ES is undeniably a formidable team. Their impressive teamwork and tactical awareness make it difficult to identify a consistent opponent capable of defeating them in the short term. Even a powerhouse like IG was completely dominated by ES throughout their match, failing to find an opportunity to execute a miraculous team fight.

"Brothers, anyone good at carrying today?"

"No, next one."

"Wait a minute, didn't we agree that you and Knight would carry this game?"

"Huh? Using it in the very first round?"

"Use it, but don't let them get carried away."

Ever since Aban proposed the new strategy yesterday, the entire TES team skipped all their practice matches for a whole day, spending the entire day researching and refining the new strategy.

Similarly, at this point in S10, the only new strategies that can be introduced are new heroes or reworked heroes, which rely on information asymmetry.

Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that a hero was reborn in March, he really wouldn't know how to deal with the upstart ES team.

First round of bans:

ES: Sett, Senna, Elise

TES: Jarvan IV, Thresh, Mordekaiser

There's not much to say. At the start, both sides will target each other's hero pools. The only difference is that due to Roland's presence, TES started banning the opponent's two signature heroes, Jarvan IV and Thresh, earlier.

One round of PICK:

ES: Aphelios, Rumble, Lee Sin

TES: Gragas, Miss Fortune, Renekton

In this round, TES's ideal top laner would actually be Ornn, who can initiate team fights and ensure the late game. However, 369's Ornn was really bad, so White Crescent hesitated for a long time before switching him.

Second round of bans: Nautilus, Taric, Irelia, and Jayce were all banned.

In the fourth pick, ES chose Bard as support. Bard is a special champion; he is a very strong laner and also has roaming ability. However, he requires a high level of skill. A skilled Bard can be incredibly annoying, while an unskilled Bard can be incredibly detrimental.

With the last two moves, attention turned to TES.

In their last two moves, TES didn't hold back, revealing their signature heroes: Nightmare + the new Fiddlesticks.

Locked successfully!

[Holy crap!? Is Aban practicing new heroes in the competition again?]

Good grief, I knew that any hero who gets reworked can't escape A-Ban's clutches.

Wait... what about this combination?!

[Is this team planning a game of jumping jacks in the dark???]

Almost the instant they saw these two things, these four words immediately popped into the minds of countless people, and the more they thought about it, the more they realized that it was indeed true.

ES added Maokai as their final pick. The lineups for both teams are as follows:

ES: Top lane Maokai, Jungle Lee Sin, Mid lane Rumble, Bot lane Aphelios + Bard

TES: Top lane Renekton, Jungle Gragas, Mid lane Nocturne, Bot lane Miss Fortune + Fiddlesticks

The game started normally. Since ES's jungle route is relatively open, they usually farm from top to bottom and gank the bottom lane. So, in this game, Karsa definitely gambled on Roland.

Since Fiddlesticks is a newly released hero, most people are still focusing on his mid-lane and jungle roles. They haven't fully explored his item builds and skill point allocation for the support role yet. This is a good opportunity to see if Roland can use this information gap to gain lane control.

If he gets it, he'll invade the enemy's lower jungle at level two.

If he can't get it, he'll just keep refreshing the page.

In mid-March, the beloved champion Fiddlesticks, a favorite among countless Bronze and Silver players, was officially reworked and became the new version of the hero. Although his skills remain Q, W, and E, corresponding to terrifying lifesteal and silence respectively, the joy of his bouncing attacks has quietly disappeared.

This rework of Fiddlesticks can be understood as an increase in difficulty of operation, an improvement in gameplay experience, and a greater reliance on his ultimate skill for fighting.

Of course, since it was just reworked, the current Scarecrow's stats are still very high.