League of Legends: League of Unknowns

Team Stardust was formed at about the same time that League of Legends was launched. After two years of development, they transformed from an unknown team into one of the LPL powerhouses with their own fan base.

During last year’s LPL, Team Stardust managed to consistently maintain a ranking of at least sixth or seventh place.

The team’s key figure, Earth, was the main reason that Team Stardust managed to uphold their enormous popularity for so long. Being one of the top Solo Mids in the country, it would not be an overstatement to say that he had single-handedly carried his team this far.

“We were completely crushed the last time we played them,” said Xiao Bei.

Wu Sen had used his connection with Team Stardust to set up a friendly match with them after the pre-season tournament ended. That game ended with Team Skycrown’s miserable defeat. They were mostly on the losing end throughout the game and despite a few occasional sparks, they were inevitably defeated by Team Stardust’s solid teamwork.

“I’ve been watching many of Team Stardust’s replays recently. They are particularly aggressive in attack, with the mid player as their most iconic finisher. Earth’s favorite heroes are Zed, Fizz, Ahri, etc. — those that can charge in quickly and are especially powerful at creating solo-kills,” said Yu Luocheng, sharing his observations with the team.

“They usually follow Earth’s lead in initiating team fights. His targets are usually random. He would not hesitate to jump on a Tank and unleash all available skills if he’s confident that he can instantly finish off the target,” continued Yu Luocheng.

Wu Sen nodded. “Indeed. Earth’s champion control and his ability to instantly kill the opponent is unmatched. He definitely lives up to his title: ‘The Lord of Sudden Death’. Their main strategy depends greatly on his play. More often than not, they will quickly follow up Earth’s initiation in a team fight and focus fire on a single target to create subsequent five vs. four situations.”

Xiao Bei and Lin Dong were especially familiar with such tactics. In the last game alone, both of them were instant-killed by Earth at least five times each. His timing and approaches were unpredictable. As skillful as Xiao Bei and Lin Dong were, Earth managed to catch them by surprise time and time again.

Even when they thought that they could perhaps absorb the damage and retaliate, the screen would mercilessly turn colorless the next second.

“Oh ya, someone compiled his best plays into a single video. Let me bring that up.” Jian Feng suddenly recalled a replay he watched and quickly logged into his account.

Jian Feng would often save highlight videos on his own hard-drive. The information available on the internet was simply too vast. He sometimes failed to retrieve the content he wanted even with Baidu. So he developed the habit of downloading videos of interesting or instructive game plays.

All six of them gathered close together and watched the replay with great curiosity.

“This one’s about Zed. Let’s watch.” Jian Feng clicked on the play button.

The background music immediately came to life. The song blasted rhythmically as Zed paced steadily towards the Baron’s pit.

Zed’s four other teammates had been killed and were waiting to be resurrected, while all the five opponent players were still alive. Team Stardust had apparently just lost a devastating team fight.

“He was going after the Baron!” exclaimed Lin Dong.

Zed had neither vision nor Smite. He was on a suicide mission!

Schwaff!

Zed’s shadow appeared out of thin air. The dark shadow dashed straight into the Baron’s pit. Earth’s Zed strolled along the river just outside the Baron’s pit. He tried to disrupt the opponent by casting skills through the shadow.

Unexpectedly, Malphite, who was attacking the Baron, suddenly turned around. With an earth-shattering roar, Malphite transformed into a red-hot meteor and dashed right at Zed!

Malphite’s Unstoppable Force came as a surprise. Nobody would have guessed that he still had his ultimate available after the team fight.

Poof!

Milliseconds before Malphite hit Zed, Zed’s figure abruptly turned into a silhouette. The shadow disappeared after the impact. Malphite was left stunned at the crash site, gazing at the thin air in front of him. His R-ulti had missed its target!

Where was Zed?

Turning back, Malphite was surprised to find that Zed had reunited with his shadow inside the Baron’s pit. Amumu was the first to react and he immediately cast his R-ulti in an attempt to trap Zed. Yellow amulets spread across the land and formed a giant entangling ring. Yet, once again, Zed successfully got away right before he could be confined by the spell.

Earth’s perfect execution of Death Mark had allowed Zed to become untargetable for 0.6 seconds and thus he escaped the second close-range ultimate! His R-ulti wasn’t aimed at Amumu, but at the ADC Vayne who was single-mindedly attacking the Baron!

Forbidden technique—Death Mark Shadow!

Blade of the Ruined King!

Ignite!

Razor Shuriken!

Shadow Slash!

The skill combo unleashed by Zed was dazzlingly quick. Vayne had no chance to react and sustained all the damage. After the barrage of attacks, The Night Hunter, with her Barrier activated, used Flash without hesitation.

Zed did not continue the pursuit as he was in equally bad shape after the short encounter. With a swift press of the R key, Zed returned to the shadow summoned earlier and relocated to the edge of the Baron’s pit.

In the next second, he triggered Flash and fled the scene. While he was heading to the mid lane, Zed wasted no time and used Cleanse to remove the slow debuff on him.

Argh!!!

Not long after Zed escaped, Vayne suddenly let out a painful scream and fell to her death with blood gushing out of her chest.

Zed’s ultimate leaves a mark on the target which detonates after three seconds. The resulting physical damage is equivalent to the percentage of pre-mitigated damage dealt by Zed to the marked target within that period.

Team Skycrown was astounded as they watched how Zed was able to bolt safely after he elegantly ended Vayne’s life within the enemy siege.

First of all, he had cleverly used the W-skill to evade Malphite’s dash. Then, he barely dodged Amumu’s ulti with the less than 0.6 seconds invincibility he got from using his own ulti.

After unleashing his carefully calculated combo on Vayne, Zed didn’t bother to chase the fleeing Night Hunter and instead once again promptly swapped places with his shadow to retreat. Three seconds later, Vayne could not escape her ultimate fate and was killed by the explosive mark.

He freely strolled in and out of the Baron’s pit like the enemies were non-existent. This guy named Earth sure is a heck of a player. They thought he was going after the Baron but in fact, his aim was the opponent’s ADC all along!

Vayne was killed even when her position was well covered by the other four teammates. Worse still, they had allowed Zed to recover back to mid-lane and continue pushing.

After the first excerpt, the scene in the video cut to another setting.

This time, Zed once again showcased his ability to finish off the opponent in a flash. He first hid a W-shadow in a corner and used his ultimate to finish off the opponent’s AP within the crowd. Subsequently, he activated the second cast of Living Shadow and silently returned to the hidden location.

Amusingly, the opponent team kept pointing fingers at their AP every time they lost a team fight. In other words, they were not even aware of how their AP was killed on several occasions!

The next excerpt was a skirmish on the lane at level 6. Earth had used Zed’s Living Shadow to clear the creep wave, but this opening was seized by the opponents. Their Jungler and Top quickly closed in to corner him.

Earth used Flash to withdraw but he was eventually slowed by the opponents’ barrage of skills. When everyone figured he would not make it out alive this time, Zed suddenly swapped places with his shadow and unpredictably appeared in front of a hastily-approaching Orianna.

R-Ulti, Blade of the Ruined King, Ignite, and the classic turn back after the combo. A lantern emerged on the bottom left and Zed calmly lit it despite having barely any HP left. Not more than a second after Zed landed safely beside Thresh, the mark detonated and wiped Orianna off the map.

He manipulated his enemies with Flash, making them believe that he intended to flee to his tower. When his enemies took the bait, he suddenly switched places with his shadow that he earlier used to clear creeps, and dealt with Orianna who was left too far behind by then. Like clockwork, Thresh arrived just in time to get him out of the tight spot.

After they watched the three short clips, there was pin-drop silence in the room.

‘What the f*ck did I just watch?’ was their common thought at the moment.

‘Like hell we’re going to win against someone like him!’

“F*ck! Ban it. We must ban Zed when we play against them. Or else we’ll definitely lose!” Da Luo was the first to blurt out his thoughts.

He was right. Earth’s mastery of Zed was beyond horrifying. If this champion was let loose, then Team Skycrown’s core strategy would be effortlessly dismantled by Earth.

Yu Luocheng nodded solemnly.

Frankly, he too was dazed by Earth’s individual skill. Judging by Earth’s performance using Zed, he reckoned that whoever used ADC or AP against him would end up with post-traumatic stress disorder after the game. He had never met someone so ferocious and purposeful in securing an instant-kill.

Earth was simply unstoppable. Once he made up his mind to target you, how many allies or skills you have wouldn’t matter. What’s even more unbelievable is that he even flawlessly planned his escape before charging in.

He is insanely good at sensing danger too. He always managed to abort seconds before the situation turned hostile, making it almost impossible to lure him into a trap.

Earth from Team Stardust was undeniably a giant threat to Team Skycrown. Yu Luocheng’s concern grew immensely after he watched the video. Skycrown’s new strategy greatly depended on the team’s cohesiveness. The game plan would be completely useless if Earth were to focus on and frequently kill any individual member of the team.

They needed a quick fix to suppress the overpowering captain of Team Stardust.

“What’s your take laning against him?” asked Yu Luocheng, looking at Lin Dong.

“I think not being killed is already a huge win. To be honest, I’m not fond of dealing with mid-lane assassins. Yu Luocheng, you’re pretty good at using Zed too, right? Train with me over the next few days so that I familiarize myself with an assassin play style in the mid-lane,” requested Lin Dong.

“I don’t think that I’m anywhere near his level. But I guess it’s still better than nothing. I will spar with you using AP and the assassin that Earth is good at.” said Yu Luocheng.

“By the way, how are we going to counter their strategy?” asked Zhou Yan.

“Their tactic mostly revolves around Earth. Once they take down an enemy, they will immediately gather and force a team-fight with their numerical advantage. Our Jungle Dominance strategy may not be effective against such a style. I think we should go on the defensive in this one and wait for a chance to counter-attack,” replied Yu Luocheng.

“Wouldn’t that be too passive?” questioned Da Luo.

“We have no choice. First of all, we cannot expose our main strategy too early into the tournament. At the rate of how Team Sky is spying on us, they are definitely going to analyze all our games thoroughly. Besides, that tactic won’t work against Team Stardust anyway. They are more experienced than us in terms of outnumbering the opponents. Infiltrating their jungle is no different from feeding Earth. His sixth sense and insight are simply too powerful,” explained Yu Luocheng.

The others nodded.

The LPL was just around the corner. This was the breakout opportunity Team Skycrown had been yearning for. It was guaranteed to be a thrilling competition between the Top 8 LOL teams in China!