League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“I get it now!” All of a sudden, Xiao Bei exclaimed enthusiastically.

“What are you talking about?” Lin Dong turned to him with a puzzled expression.

“Yu Luocheng played like that on purpose,” Xiao Bei claimed.

In the past, Xiao Bei had always squatted behind Yu Luocheng to watch him play. His playstyle had never been this wild and non-cooperative.

Yu Luocheng had named himself Fighting Hawk and his gaming style was just like his nickname—ferocious, courageous yet retaining his wits, cautiousness, and the sharpness befitting a ruler of the sky.

However, in this game, Yu Luocheng’s Vayne was nothing like that. He was savage and solitary. It was an individualistic performance. He seldom teamed up with the group and often created his own position to attack without relying on his teammates.

Only Xiao Bei realized that he was not doing it to show off his personal skills.

In Team Liaoning’s lineup, Nocturne was the jungler, Renekton was in charge of securing the top lane, Orianna was at mid, while the bottom lane was covered by the ADC Varus and SP Sona. Among these heroes, three had large area-of-effect control skills and two had targeted disabling skills.

A great player could easily predict and estimate the cast-range of these skills, nevertheless, if Orianna, Sona, and Varus were to use their ultimates together with Flash, it would be difficult to nullify this much hard crowd control ¹ with the limited use of Cleanse.

The hatred toward Vayne was definitely the most potent in a team fight, and even Xiao Bei had no confidence to evade every hard CC and survive the battle if the opponents were to focus everything on Vayne.

Thus it was entirely reasonable for Vayne to stay uninvolved in a team fight until these hard CCs were used. Yu Luocheng’s decision to arrive late for the team fight was to lure the enemy into releasing all of their CC skills when they believed that they had the advantage of numbers.

Once these skills went on cooldown, these heroes were no longer a threat to Vayne, signaling that this was the best time for Vayne to intervene in the battle. With invisibility during Final Hour, Vayne could go straight to the backline and easily finish off the opponent’s main damage dealer.

Then, Vayne could proceed to throw punches at the other enemy champions, only needing to be cautious of Orianna’s skill. If it was executed properly, Vayne would be close to unstoppable.

“Are you saying that he’s attempting a new playstyle?” Lin Dong found it rather unconvincing.

“That’s right. Vayne is beyond capable of being a finisher. In certain situations, she can be even more horrific than the heroes that can instantly refresh their skills, because without any CC available, even a tank is fragile in front of her.” Xiao Bei voiced his opinion.

Listening to Xiao Bei’s analysis, Zhang Aijing fell into her own train of thought.

She glanced at Yu Luocheng who had his headset on and murmured in a low voice, “We did try this strategy before but it was extremely difficult to make it work. Utilizing the ADC to wrap up a tight team fight halfway is unpredictable and dangerous. First off, the ADC might be accidentally killed in the process, and secondly, initiating a team fight without the ADC might lead to insufficient damage output, causing the team to be wiped out before the ADC is even in position. Take the previous fight for example. Vayne’s entrance was too late, as four of the opponents were still alive. Team Shanghai might have lost the game at that point if it weren’t for his perfect maneuver.”

Zhang Aijing was an analyst herself, and the way she saw it, such a strategy was too good to be true. Not only did they need a god-like Vayne player, but the other members in the team also had to be resilient enough to survive a 4 vs 5 situation regularly. The slightest error would result in a disastrous defeat.

“That’s why he is still experimenting… Don’t forget, Yu Luocheng has no clue that this is a professional game.” Xiao Bei replied sheepishly.

Zhang Aijing was stunned. Indeed, Yu Luocheng might just be practicing a novel playstyle as he didn’t have the slightest idea that this was actually a national semifinal!

“We’ll figure it out soon enough,” Lin Dong said.

The match was far from over, but if Yu Luocheng was trying something different, he would definitely play like a lone ranger again in the subsequent team fights.

Zhang Aijing nodded, her interest in this unique player growing stronger.

On the contrary, He Jin and Liu Zhangming who had been listening to them speak still found it hard to agree with what was going on. It was hard to blame them seeing as this game that was worth 200,000 yuan was being used as an experimental training ground by some random guy. Anyone would have felt the same.

‘This is too much for our delicate hearts to take!’

***

In a balanced match, the Baron’s canyon was where most skirmishes often took place. If an SP was caught warding carelessly here, the opposing team would definitely carry on defeating the Baron and subsequently take down all the outer towers.

Sneaking into the pit and dancing with the monster risked getting caught at the scene, and that was a rather unwise option as well.

Warding, counter-warding, Sona’s disruption, Diana’s provocation, Thresh’s blind hook, Renekton’s baiting—both teams played it safe and dared not make the first move recklessly. They were both looking for the perfect initiation.

The atmosphere was extremely tense.

However, one person always found himself contradicting the stressful situation.

While the other nine players were camping around the Baron, preparing for the impending clash, he cheerfully pressed the mid-lane and almost arrived at the opponent’s high ground.

This was akin to two knights fighting mightily to turn a princess’s head, only to realize that the stableman was already holding the princess’s waist and stripping her of her crystal girdle.

Such a disgraceful act was even more unforgivable than Master Yi stealing the Nexus.

Team Liaoning was not about to allow Vayne to destroy the Nexus Tower freely. They were forced to fall back to defend the base seeing as they were unable to find a satisfactory opening.

“Team Shanghai is now using a four-one split strategy. Four players are controlling the Baron’s area, while Vayne is given the space to push the minions into the opponent’s base. Team Liaoning can only play passively for the time being,” Qi Qiao pointed out what was going on to the audience.

As Qiu Jingtai was a rookie player, naturally, he did not understand such a complex strategy. He quickly asked Jiang Jiu, “Why is Team Liaoning being so passive now? Can’t they just ignore Vayne and go straight for the Baron?”

“The Nexus Tower might be destroyed if they go for the Baron now. Giving up the inner turret in exchange for the Baron is not entirely justifiable,” Jiang Jiu responded to his question.

“Then why not fight the other four players from Team Shanghai? Without Vayne, they should be able to win the team fight,” Qiu Jingtai queried further.

“That’s not necessarily the case. Team Shanghai might retreat immediately if Team Liaoning tries to force a fight, and by doing so, Vayne would be given more time to take down the turrets. Besides, I don’t think Team Liaoning would be able to wipe out the entire Team Shanghai since the latter have Thresh in the SP position. At best, they could probably only kill one or two of them.” Jiang Jiu explained patiently.

“Okay. Then they should send one player back to the base for defense while the others fight them 4 vs 4,” Qiu Jingtai blurted out his thoughts.

“Send one player back?” Jiang Jiu laughed incredulously.

Qiu Jingtai was confused at first, but then, he immediately realized how stupid that suggestion sounded. Vayne had been able to fight four heroes all at once before this, sending one player back was no different than feeding her an easy prey.

Quite frankly, judging by Vayne’s horrifying display of power, even two or three champions might not be sufficient to take her down. Worse still, the game would be done for if they continued to be counter-killed by the formidable ADC. Besides, the other four members of Team Shanghai were no ordinary players.

Now, if two people were chosen to go back and defend the base, Team Shanghai would still have Jax’s high damage output and Elise’s damage by percentage. They could either swiftly put down the Baron, or a 4 vs 3 team fight would work in their favor too.

More importantly, the two people that were sent back might also be slain by the brazen Vayne. One glorious Ace and the game would end in a flash.

Team Liaoning was clearly in a huge dilemma now.

“This is how a high-end game looks like. Even if you play solo, as long as your skill is convincing enough, the other four players will willingly follow your footsteps. They will control the map, divide the enemies, and ultimately, create an opening where you can outmaneuver the opponent’s team,” Jiang Jiu continued to explain the strategies.

Qiu Jingtai was not a slow learner, he now realized why Team Shanghai was ready to sacrifice their economy in Vayne’s favor even though Cat Eye was playing awfully at first. He also finally understood why nobody in the team blamed Vayne for his solitary playstyle.

Though this seemed like Vayne’s solo performance from the surface, the entire Team Shanghai was accounted for by setting up the stage for her. As long as they could win, the other four didn’t mind to play the sidekick role.

This was the true spirit of a team!

A good player did not require long-winded explanations, they would instantly understand you and have faith in you.

Everybody could tell how dreadful Vayne was in the early game. The other four members of Team Shanghai knew full well that Cat Eye was not the actual player. Of course, they did have their doubts as to whether the ghost-gamer could be depended upon or not. In spite of that, they did not hesitate for even a second when the team decided to give up their own economy to nurture Vayne. This was because they shared a common understanding—To win this match, they needed a well-farmed Vayne.

***

During the Lecheng Grand Finals, the reason Yu Luocheng had shut off the voice chat was due to Team Scarlet’s ignorance toward the importance of team spirit. They had begun to point fingers at each other the minute the game became unpleasant.

In this current match however, although Yu Luocheng was unaware that this was an official game, he could tell that his teammates were true LoL players, owing to their prompt coordination with him despite his unpredictable and unconventional solo play.

They had shown no sign of frustration at any point in the game, instead, using their actions to tell Yu Luocheng that they were fine being the lesser ones. They were happy to contribute from the dark corner where the spotlights would never shine on them, and where the audiences would never notice them.

All they asked for was a victory. Whether they stood out in the process did not bother them at all, so if Vayne was performing a stunning solo dance, they didn’t mind being her escort behind the scenes! Yu Luocheng could recognize his teammates’ strong desire to win through their actions even though they had not conversed much.

‘So you wanted to win this bad? Then allow my Vayne to pave the road to victory for you! We shall hunt the vicious enemies down and turn them into frightened prey!’

***