You actually want me to...

First Encounter: Chapter 73: Tearing Open the Wound

The next day, as the TES team was ready again, their match against FPX was about to begin. While the previous winning streak was partly due to JackeyLove's arrival, the fact that they hadn't faced any strong teams was also a factor.

FPX is different; they were last year's champions.

As we all know, the previous year's champion usually has a shelf life from the Demacia Cup to the Spring Split. Basically, it's just that the players are too indulgent, and the team's dominance is generally still there.

In addition, FPX is characterized by consistent performance in the regular season but fluctuating performance in the playoffs. Therefore, FPX at this point in time can serve as a significant indicator of TES's performance.

[Wuhu, here we come!]

[Mid lane: Doinb vs. Golden Left Hand; Bottom lane: Two former champion AD carries clash; today's anti-carrying forum can gain more experience.]

[Here's a question: If LWX uses the Kai'Sa championship skin and JackeyLove uses the Vayne championship skin, who would have a harder time in this bot lane matchup?]

I don't know who's more upset, but I know a chubby kid would be pretty upset if he saw this (doge emoji)

[Waiting for a Monkey King support hero.jpg]

At this point, it was already the middle of the Spring Split (April). With the version change, another new hero was reworked: Monkey King.

The newly reworked monkey has some truly outrageous attributes.

The passive ability grants higher health regeneration as the hero's health decreases, with regeneration efficiency nearly matching Mundo's ultimate, even boosting Wukong's level 1 strength. The clones can synergize with the main body's damage output and the second stage of the ultimate, resulting in an epic buff for Wukong in both burst and area-of-effect damage.

To what extent has this hero been buffed?

Before the rework, the top Monkey King player in the Chinese server didn't play Monkey King in high-level matches; after the rework, the top Monkey King player in the Chinese server can't play Monkey King in high-level matches.

This is the difference.

Clearly, upon seeing this new hero rework, countless viewers immediately thought of Roland, even though this hero seems to have nothing to do with the support role on the surface.

"What do you mean by today?"

"The same old thing, just keep selling water."

"No way, do you have any shame?"

"No, Big Head, I want to protect you too, but the other side is charging at you like they're after money. It's really hard for me to protect you."

Hearing Roland's words, Ah Shui also fell into deep thought. Heaven knows why the opposing team was so resentful of him. In every game, different teams would focus on killing him. He thought that AD carries weren't very useful in this version. They just started with the same 300 gold as everyone else.

"Alright, everyone, get serious. This time, the opponent is the world champion." White Crescent reminded his teammates as the draft phase was about to begin.

If it weren't for his desire to interfere so much, and given that the natural disasters are gradually being overcome and the agenda for LPL matches to return to offline events has already been put on the agenda, it's definitely better for them to get back into sync sooner rather than later being ridiculed in a physical venue.

First round of bans:

FPX: Zoe, Sett, Qiyana

TES: Luna, Kalista, Renekton

There's not much to say, just continue banning strong champions. Sett is an absolute must-ban for TES in the current patch, firstly because he counters meta top laners like Ornn and Mordekaiser, and secondly because if TES gets him, they can flex their lanes (top, mid, support), essentially stunning the enemy team.

One round of PICK:

FPX: Varus, Aatrox, Lee Sin

TES: Monkey King, Gragas, Miss Fortune

WarHorse had clearly studied 369's champion pool carefully, discovering that he either frequently picked Aatrox and Gangplank, or he frequently picked Ornn and Mordekaiser. WarHorse directly targeted him by following his champion pool strategy. However, 369 was not flustered and immediately picked Wukong.

The Monkey King pick is pretty much a noob if you take Ignite against a Sword Master with Teleport. But if you take Ignite, the Monkey King pick becomes less meaningful. So in this game, 369 also took Teleport, intending to compete with GimGoon on the details.

Second round of bans: Excavator, Olaf, Tahm Kench, Braum

This is easy to understand: one is afraid of being charged, while the other is not afraid of being charged at all.

In their fourth pick, TES drew Jarvan IV.

With TES picking an AD jungler, FPX has to decide which AP mid laner their final pick will be. Currently, the AP mid laners that are available and not banned in this patch include: Rumble, Syndra, Corki (hybrid damage), Thief, Akali, Azir, Galio, and Ryze.

With Rumble as a top pick, many AP mid-lane champions are not easy for Doinb to pick. Rumble is undoubtedly the best choice, making FPX's mid and jungle incredibly strong. The downside is that if the opponent picks Sylas, FPX will have a lot of trouble in the mid and late game.

However, everyone knows what FPX is all about.

If the mid and jungle players aren't strong enough in the early game, the team is basically doomed, so without hesitation they picked the Rumble + Thresh combination.

TES's last move was a steal against the male player.

FPX: Top lane Aatrox, Jungle Lee Sin, Mid lane Rumble, Bot lane Varus + Thresh

TES: Top lane Wukong, Jungle Jarvan IV, Mid lane Lucas, Bot lane Miss Fortune + Gragas

At the start, since both sides had similar lineups, neither side dared to actively engage in fights. After placing a defensive ward on each other, they both chose to farm from bottom to top.

There's not much to say; in the early game, we must focus on the top lane.

In a lane matchup between Aatrox and Wukong, expecting them to farm peacefully is impossible. Fights will inevitably break out suddenly and gradually escalate. In this situation, both junglers have no choice but to gank the top lane as much as possible; there's no other option.

Back online, Roland and Ah Shui started competing for experience with the opponent as soon as they logged in. Relying on the area damage of Miss Fortune's E and Gragas' charged Q, it wasn't a big problem for the two of them to reach level two first.

I'm not going to waste time talking to you, I'm just going to go for second place and drag you into the fight.

If you analyze FPX carefully, you'll find out exactly where their weaknesses lie. And because they are the S9 champions, FPX is one of the most thoroughly studied teams in the LPL.

The problem FPX faces is actually quite simple: none of their three lanes can exert continuous pressure on the opponent like a traditional dominant player, influencing the opponent's decision-making. They might occasionally win their lane, but in most high-stakes matches, they are either even or losing. In short, they can't gain an advantage in the laning phase.

At this point, you can choose to call for help from the jungler, but calling for help often leads to a risky situation. Once the opponent's support arrives, the team that initiated the attack will lose all initiative and fall into an economic disadvantage. In the entire LPL, only IG dares to gamble on player plays when at a disadvantage; the others don't dare, as they need to have an economic advantage.

This is FPX's weakness, but in order to solve this weakness, they deduced a solution: synergy, complete synergy.

Doinb completely abandoned the laning phase, and Si Shao didn't focus on protecting LWX's development. To ensure that "the team's initiative to find opportunities to help relieve pressure on the lane or turn the tide" would be successful, the mid, jungle, and support formed a highly mobile roaming team that could create numerical advantages everywhere on the map. When necessary, the two carries who were farming could also abandon the minion wave to provide support.

Doesn't that sound amazing? Because this tactic sounds simple, but to execute it, your players need to have extremely strong resilience, the ability to catch up in development, and the ability to initiate team fights.

But putting all that aside, isn't your core weakness still in lane?

So TES's approach is simple: we'll just dominate your lane. It's hard to say whether we'll target your Rumble in the mid lane, but our Miss Fortune and Gragas bot lane is a sword hanging over your AD carry's head.

If your Thresh dares to roam, I can counter with Gragas' E-Flash engage and Miss Fortune's damage, clearing your bot lane in one go. But if your support doesn't roam, Lee Sin and Rumble alone can't gain much advantage over TES's mid and jungle in the first six levels.

Because of Rumble, Doinb also had to be especially careful of the combo control skills of Jarvan IV's EQ flash + stealing Manta Style's E skill.

The tactics form the battle formation, and the players are the flags, cooperating with each other while also restraining one another.

Finding the opponent's weaknesses and using them as a breakthrough point to continuously tear open the wound—that's professionalism.

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

PS1: IG is still IG after all.

PS2: The opening ceremony of the Crazy Cup tonight didn't go very well. The chefs were generally too conservative and didn't meet my expectations. What I wanted to see were those unpopular heroes that had never appeared before, strange builds that could produce a little bit of an effect, and chefs who could be seen to be trying hard but were actually really bad.

All I can say is, keep up the good work.

First Encounter: Chapter 74: The Golden Moment

Roland was on high alert in the bottom lane match.

On the surface, it seems like the enemy picked Thresh to protect Varus, but if that's all you think of, you're sorely mistaken. What's JKL's nickname? It's "Q-catching Hot Dance"! This guy isn't thinking about protecting his own ADC; he's thinking about killing the enemy ADC.

Therefore, while maintaining a parallelogram-shaped stance, Roland's Gragas was also intentionally or unintentionally keeping a distance where he could actively follow up his Q with his E skill, thinking that if there was really no other way, he could help block it.

Fortunately, they picked Gragas, who can poke and push minions. If they had played a different support, their bot lane would be getting pressured right now. Varus has a range of 575, which is 25 yards longer than Miss Fortune's 550. Add to that his Q's long-range poke, and if we only consider 1v1, Da Congming could easily bully JKL in the early game.

But that's not important now, because unless Ah Shui gets hooked, neither side can get any kills in the bottom lane in the early game.

It was generally accepted that both junglers would head top, and the top laner Aatrox and Wukong were already locked in a fierce battle early on. These two relied on one's passive ability to recover more health as his health decreased, and the other's innate lifesteal ability. They hadn't backed down at all since the start of the game, causing the director's camera to be almost always locked on the top lane.

"369, how does it feel?"

"No problem, GimGoon's dominance has indeed decreased." As someone who laned against GimGoon in S9, 369's experience in this Spring Split match, combined with his usual scrims, clearly shows that GimGoon's dominance has declined.

What hero has Gongzi used the most in his professional career?

First, Gangplank; second, Fiora; third, Renekton; fourth, Gnar; fifth, Aatrox; sixth, Kled; and then Poppy and Maokai.

He has used heroes like Aatrox quite a lot, so theoretically he should be very dominant. However, in 369's current perception, although he still has the dominance, it is not as intense as before. This is the decline in overall ability brought about by age.

Even ordinary players can feel that the difference between the reactions a few years ago and now is huge. At least when they were young, they didn't feel anything after staying up all night. Some even (whom I have personally witnessed) could fight in the Rift for 24 hours straight, and after going out for breakfast, they still had the energy to rush back to the battlefield.

Now, these former champions are living a life of quiet contemplation, putting goji berries in their thermos cups and never mentioning their past glories again. Professional gamers are human too, and they encounter similar situations.

Although GimGoon stabilized the game with his massive ranked games and veteran experience, it is undeniable that his skill level is declining.

Just to clarify, laning and battling are two different things.

Many players can withstand pressure in lane, but that doesn't mean they are on par with the opposing top laner in terms of overall skill. While it's tough to play under pressure, it's actually quite easy to do if you don't act recklessly, don't get greedy, and the opponent doesn't gank. A good example is that in the early days of the LPL, they hired so many foreign top laners, yet they still managed to go toe-to-toe with most of the blue-collar players.

However, laning is different. If you want to gain an advantage, you need to calculate damage, level, summoner spells, the positions of the enemy mid, jungle, and even support on the map, whether the enemy has any global support skills, and how the minion wave will move if you win the fight, how the minion wave will move if you lose, whether you gain or lose experience, and so on. These are two completely different concepts.

To put it bluntly, it's about awareness, reaction speed, overall perspective, and hand speed.

Of course, with Karsa's help, the top lane should be able to hold its own in the early game. Although the Prince and Wukong are not as strong as the Aatrox and Lee Sin, they are not easy to bully either. With the experienced Karsa on the team, 369 should have no problem just holding the lane.

Seeing that the time had come for the bottom lane to reach level three to four (around four and a half to five minutes), Roland began to pay attention to the minimap.

This point signifies many things.

When a jungler returns to base for the first time, they might change their jungle route.

There's a possibility of a clash in the mid lane, with both junglers potentially clashing in the mid lane. If there's an opportunity, consider roaming to the mid lane.

The bot lane is a good spot where you might be able to push the lane and recall to replenish your resources. Usually, the AD carry will have around 30 CS, enough to buy one or two more small items. If you don't recall at this point, you'll have to wait until around 5:30, by which time, if you've farmed well, you'll generally have around 1300 gold.

These two time points are also known as auxiliary golden time points.

Because the support champion Gragas consumes a lot of mana, Roland and his team were the first to return to base when pushing the lane. However, when they came out again, Roland let JackeyLove go down the lane first while he went to the jungle to wander around and try his luck.

Yes, it's all about taking a chance.

While the two roaming opportunities for the support role are extremely valuable, roaming at these times doesn't guarantee success. For most supports, roaming at these points is purely a matter of luck. If they land a gank, they gain a huge advantage; if they don't, they lose some experience, which in turn affects the bot lane matchup.

Considering that this match is a support vs. support game, and FPX is known in the LPL for its 4v2 ganks in the bot lane, it would be more sensible to roam and look for opportunities rather than just waiting to be ganked in the bot lane.

Is there any chance in the middle lane?

"You can try, I'm on my way." Karsa's Prince marked a signal that he was on his way and was running towards the mid lane. At the same time, 369, who saw this, began to play more aggressively in his lane, thus drawing the attention of the enemy jungler to the mid lane gank.

The coordination on the field, the establishment of a plan, is usually a strategy performed by several players on the field. Seeing that Monkey's position was a bit prominent, Xiaotian also shifted his attention to the top lane.