League of Legends: League of Unknowns

As soon as Luocheng came online, the viewer count in the QT room started to grow dramatically.

Seeing the numbers easily surpassing 100,000, Luocheng knew that he made the right choice in deciding to invite Shallow Dream to duo with him.

It was true that Luocheng was the leader of the LPL champion team, however, LoL wasn’t like any other game. No matter how mechanically skilled you were or how well you played, there was always the possibility of you losing due to a feeding teammate, and so, a player’s strength would only show its true colours after multiple matches.

Playing in the Korean Diamond I rank, if his teammates didn’t randomly disconnect and there weren’t any major early-game mishaps, Luocheng could confidently say that he had a solid 80% win-rate, but whether or not he could perform well three games in a row, that was up to whether or not Luocheng had been a good boy that week.

That’s why with larger events like these, Luocheng had brought along his most trusted partner to make sure that he could show the world what he was really made of.

***

There weren’t any analysts in the QT channel, it was left to Luocheng to commentate over himself.

Luocheng logged into the game, turning on his mic.

“Greet everyone, Fighting Hawk, greet everyone,” The host told Luocheng through his headphones..

Luocheng straightened himself up and cleared his throat. “Yes, hello everybody, I’m Team Skycrown’s Fighting Hawk.”

Just a few simple words and the chat went wild. The managers had already restricted each person to only be able to send one message every 5 minutes, but it was still scrolling by faster than Luocheng could even process. He had wanted to try and spot a few cute girls through their ID’s but he didn’t even have the chance

“Wait a few more minutes, guys, my partner’s going to be right here. They’re usually pretty punctual, so we’ll start at 7 o’clock sharp,” Luocheng told everyone.

Shallow Dream was indeed very punctual, and her Korean ID flashed green as soon as 7 o’clock came. Luocheng immediately invited her into his lobby.

“Who’s this?”

“Is it Sky Swan?”

“No, I’m at Demacia Cafe right now, Captain Yu isn’t duo-ing with Sky Swan.”

“Woah, isn’t this that awesome ADC that busted down the gates of Korea with our Leader all that time ago!?”

A few long-time fans quickly spread the news, typing into the chat window, “This…this is definitely the Number 9 Challenger player in Ionia, Shallow Dream!”

Quite a few people still didn’t know much about the higher ranks of their country. Many of them quickly searched up the ID that was leaked, and lo and behold, the ninth spot on Ionia’s top Challenger players list was none other than Shallow Dream, an ADC main whose MMR was only second to Bai Feng, even going as far as to have a higher win-rate than Bai Feng.

On the top Challengers list, a vast majority of them were professional e-sports players and it was obviously expected for the top 10 players to take gaming as their career,however, the ranked ninth Shallow Dream was an enigma. No matter how hard you searched and scoured the internet, you just couldn’t find out which pro-player’s account it was.

Most likely, countless teams and even competition organizers had invited the Shallow Dream account to participate in their tournaments, even offering fairly high prices just for them to show up, but sadly, not many had had the luxury of playing more than a few games with the mysterious player.

“D*mn, Luocheng would be able to invite the old God. They didn’t even accept my friend request!” Back at his training site, Xie Lianda was very unhappy about this.

Lianda’s number 1 spot had already been stolen by that Hades, because no matter what, Hades was still the biggest boss of China.

As Luocheng was the one streaming, naturally a couple of pro-players were tuning in as well. When everyone saw that Luocheng was able to invite the most elusive yet powerful player within the country to act as his special guest, their eyes lit up! With these two teaming up, Korea had better be ready for what was about to come their way!

“Okay, let’s start queuing up. Hopefully we won’t have to wait for too long,” Luocheng said into his mic.

As soon as he did, the people over at Xuhui Cafe started to snicker.

We wouldn’t dare keep you waiting, in fact, we’ve prepared over 50 people to make sure of this! Start queuing up if you dare!

***

Luocheng clicked ‘Find Match’, and at the same time, fifty or more pairs of hands did the same, each with a big grin on their face, waiting for the show to begin.

With the familiar sound of a match being found, Luocheng and Shallow Dream were swooped into the ban screen.

The speed surprised Luocheng a little. Even though there were many pros in the Korean server, his account was already almost Challenger, there should’ve been a much longer wait.

He counted it up to his luck, maybe there were just a lot of people queuing up just then.

Luocheng was first pick, so he banned the strongest champions of the current patch without much hesitation. When playing ranked with randoms, he didn’t really need to give much thought to who he should ban, you couldn’t really go wrong with cutting off Lee Sin, Kha’Zix, or Elise.

On the enemy team, most of the stronger champions this patch were banned. It didn’t look like they gave it too much thought either, however, the Vayne ban did leave Luocheng with a few questions.

Why ban Vayne? That champion was extremely difficult to play with randoms.

Luocheng had a pretty decent Vayne, but he also needed his teammates to last at least 20 or so minutes for him to get a few items. A game with randoms obviously wouldn’t be as coordinated as an actual team, so Luocheng wouldn’t normally pick the ADC to play. Shallow Dream was the same way too. If you didn’t want to lose, don’t pick Vayne, even your “hard mechanics” wouldn’t be able to carry you in this day and age.

***

“Who’s in the game? Tag yourself in the group.”

In the Korean group, with over 50 people queuing at the same time, it was as though 50 people were rushing their way out of a single door, there was bound to be at least a couple of people who made it through.

As expected, they could tell from how the opposing side had banned Vayne. Li Jinai and Xue He were both in Luocheng’s enemy team. One of the other three was also a member of their stakeout while the other two ID’s were familiar but weren’t in on their plan.

Yisheng was very annoyed that he wasn’t a part of the game, but seeing that his teammate, Jack of Hearts, was in Luocheng’s team, all of his anger was washed away.

Yisheng was over the moon!

It was time for the slaughterhouse, you Chinese pig!!

Yisheng cackled to the skies.

Jack of Hearts didn’t know about their plan, but seeing as Yisheng was his teammate, the latter quickly went over to Jack of Hearts’ chatroom.

“That doesn’t sound right, I’m a man with principles.” Jack of Hearts wasn’t too pleased with their arrangement.

“I’ll take you somewhere fun tomorrow night.” Yisheng gave him a look all men knew.

Jack of Hearts’”principles” completely flew out the window, and he happily agreed to Yisheng’s terms.

Jinai was playing Support, Xue He was Top. With Xue He and Jack of Hearts in the game, Yisheng’s Team STG was all set to control the tides of battle. And thus, the game began.

***

Luocheng and Shallow Dream defaulted to their most comfortable roles, the bottom lane. They didn’t always play bot when playing ranked with randoms, for as the saying goes, nothing may be worse than a duo going bot. After all, with two skilled players going into ranked, they should try their best to take control over two different lanes to make sure they didn’t have any major difficulties later in the game.

Luocheng and Shallow Dream trusted these Korean Challenger players, and so, they let them pick their roles first, and as luck would have it, they both ended up with the bot lane.

“You ADC.” Shallow Dream told Luocheng.

“What, you’re planning on eating while playing again?” Luocheng asked.

As he asked, he had already picked the Arrow of Retribution, Varus.

Shallow Dream chose Lulu.

Seeing their opponents choose a Leona Support, Luocheng and Shallow Dream started to discuss how they wanted to play their early game.

***

Entering the game, everything was normal. Luocheng got Shallow Dream to tell their Jungler to start at the Blue Buff in Korean.

Luocheng found it weird too, why did Shallow Dream speak Korean? He thought she had some decent translating app or something. Luocheng had tried asking her for it several times so he could have a better time watching some videos, but Shallow Dream just thought he was crazy.

“What’s Captain Yu and his partner doing?”

In the Demacia Cafe, players lounged in the hall with an ice coffee in their hands, looking up at the big display screen showing Luocheng’s stream.

“It looks like they’re camping in a bush to try and get first blood?”

Luocheng and Shallow Dream weren’t playing as they usually did. The Jungler was starting at the Blue Buff, so they didn’t need to help them leash Red. The duo quickly made their way to hide in the bottom lane bushes, really looking like some preschoolers who had yet to reach Level 30, waiting to get first blood.

Minions had already made their way to lane and the two still didn’t move. They waited until the enemy Support Leona and ADC Lucian appeared, and then suddenly attacked!

“The hell, who fights someone at Level 1 in enemy minions!?”

Lulu used her Q-skill while Luocheng’s Varus used his E-skill to slow the enemy. They were only Level 1, yet, Luocheng and Shallow Dream stood in front of the minion wave, attacking the insanely strong duo of Leona and Lucian!

Unexpectedly, it was Leona and Obama who lost the trade! They were cowering under their towers, not even walking up to get experience!!!

Everyone was completely stunned!

How did that happen???

“Look, Leona is a strong champion, but her Level 1 is pretty bad. If you’re using a ranged champion, just start wailing on her. A Level 1 Lucian isn’t too great either, he has a shorter range too, so just muster up some courage and attack them at Level 1 past their minions, they’re not gonna be able to trade back,” Luocheng knew that everyone was confused, so he explained it through his mic.

The skirmish immediately became one of the highlights of the stream.

Leona was an absolute beast in the bottom lane, so much so that countless players were getting bullied by her every single day! But apparently, they just needed to fight at Level 1, it was as though Luocheng had shown them a whole new world!

The professional players from China watching were equally as surprised, Luocheng was one hell of a strategist, being able to think up a plan like that.

The bot lane duos in the LPL were sweating as well. Thankfully this guy hadn’t pulled off a stunt like that during his competitions, they might have just AFK-ed right then and there! Just take a look at Leona and Lucian who were still at Level 1 with 0 CS and you would know how disgusting these two were!