The Simplest Play
Because of the All-Star Class, Invictus Gaming's matches were already drawing exceptional attention.
Whether they were co-streamers or content creators who made a living off League of Legends, they were all sitting on little stools in front of their screens, watching this debut match.
When everyone saw Lin Heng hover Shaco, most of them wore the same expression as Guan Zeyuan.
But when Shaco was finally locked in, a lot of people's brains short-circuited.
The pick had shattered the logic behind champion selection in League of Legends matches that they had built up over so many years.
This didn't look like a professional match. It looked more like an ordinary ranked game they might play after work, when they sat down at their computers in their very own Silver and Gold ranks.
In one stream, a man was trolling up a storm. He was:
The only AD carry among the Huya Four Dogs, Gangzi;
The former prodigy AD carry, God K;
The streamer with the plain background, Flowerpot Bro;
A one-to-one recreation of an anime character, Lord Jaken.
He pointed at Shaco heading to lane on the screen, his mouth twisted and his eyes wide in an exaggerated expression.
"If I were Uzi, I wouldn't play this game. I'd slam my keyboard down on this guy's head and ask him, 'I've played four protect one for so many years. Who doesn't know I'm the absolute core of the team? And you pick me a Shaco support?'"
His theatrical commentary had his chat firing back like crazy.
[Keep trolling. Who the hell can outstream you?]
[Bro Gangzi's dreaming again. Uzi wins a trophy every year. Who the hell are you to be fantasizing here?]
[This is four protect one too. Four boxes protecting Miss Fortune.]
[Bro Gang, did you ever consider that when chat asked why other pro players had trophies behind them, they were talking about Uzi?]
[Confirmed: a streamer who lives in his own fantasies.]
Gangzi watched the chat erupt, secretly grinning. He looked even more like Lord Jaken.
In Weibo Gaming's voice chat, Elk's expression was somewhat grim as he went over the details of the laning phase with Erha.
"Erha, I'll stand a little farther back in a moment. If we don't see Shaco when we get to lane, make sure you hold your Q. If he uses Q to go invisible and comes up to auto me, hook him straight away. The two of us can kill him.
"If he doesn't use Q and goes to take the brush, you can hook him right away if you get the chance. We'll hit Shaco with a combo first. I'm running Lethal Tempo, and Miss Fortune isn't that strong at level one. Even if he Qs in, we'll focus Shaco first. He doesn't have Flash, so once he uses Q, he won't be able to get away. We can win the all-in."
Elk's analysis was thorough. Communicating ahead of time like this was the best way to improve their coordination once the fight began.
The match continued. The broadcast director knew exactly what the viewers wanted and kept the camera locked on the bot lane, without even showing the top-lane battle between Renekton and Yone.
"I secretly looked it up just now. I saw a Shaco one-trick say that if Shaco takes Q at level one, runs Hail of Blades and brings Ignite, he can force the AD carry's Flash in just three hits," Guan Zeyuan said with interest.
"I checked just now too. He really is running Hail of Blades and Ignite on Shaco. He even brought Exhaust," 957 added.
"See? A pro player really is a pro player. Elk isn't falling for it at all. He isn't giving Shaco any chance to Q in while invisible and auto him. Is Lin Heng still going to try to take the middle brush?
"...Nautilus makes the first move!
"Huh? Shaco's W blocked the Q, and Nautilus couldn't get away in time, so he got feared afterward!
"This... Joker goes straight in with Ignite! Three Hail of Blades hits, plus Miss Fortune's damage, and they've forced Nautilus's Flash too! Miss Fortune chases him down and lands two more shots.
"Ah!~ Last game he at least made it to level two before being sent back to base. This game he has to burn both summoner spells and go home at level one! Things are really rough for Erha, and he was the one who made the first move both times."
Guan Zeyuan narrated the action, and 957 added an explanation.
"Shaco's W, Jack in the Box, isn't stealthed for two seconds after it's placed, so it can block Nautilus's Q. And if Nautilus had pulled back immediately, he wouldn't have been feared by the box either. But after his Q hit the box, he autoed it once, and his first instinct was even to move forward. As a result, the box feared him."
"The main thing is, he probably really didn't expect Lin Heng to block the skill with a box. You can see Yunara moving forward at the time too; if the hook had landed, they were planning to all-in. But Lin Heng had calculated it perfectly again.
"Joker! How many more surprises do you have in store for us?"
"Using a summoned unit to block a hook is something we've all seen plenty of times. There was a period when Heimerdinger could be picked as a support specifically to counter hook champions like Nautilus and Blitzcrank. But no one's seen Shaco support before. When everyone saw he was actually running Hail of Blades, Ignite and Exhaust, they thought he might be going for some flashy trick where he'd sneak in and burst someone from invisibility. Instead, he gave us the simplest, most straightforward play: blocking a hook with W."
"But the most important thing is that the W worked. Nautilus lost two-thirds of his health and burned Flash in that exchange. If he doesn't recall, Yunara won't dare farm in lane until level three. But if he does recall, there's no hope of them making much happen in the early game again."
A lot of LPL fans were actually quite honest about what they liked.
When some strange champion was picked, the commentators and most of the audience wanted to see the champion get results.
Everyone liked to mock players who experimented in the chat, but most of the mockery was aimed at those who tried things without really understanding them.
When a player actually brought out a strange champion and made it work, viewers would vote him MVP even if he wasn't the best performer in the match.
That was the reward for the brave. Those who dared to try were more likely to earn respect.
Of course, experimentation always came with risks, but it also came with rewards.
Take the handsome guy who once brought Kalista into the top lane: his reward was that every enemy facing Invictus Gaming at the time had to reserve a ban for Kalista.
That was why viewers wanted players to experiment.
In Weibo Gaming's voice chat, Elk seemed to have calmed down a little.
He admitted that the moment the other side hovered Shaco, he had started to lose his cool.
In the previous game, he had picked Varus into Kai'Sa but hadn't gotten results, and being shut down by that Taliyah had made things extremely uncomfortable.
And now, in this game, the other side had once again picked a champion like Shaco and had even deliberately subbed Wei in. The deeper meaning was self-evident.
"Man, don't you think this guy's petty? Back then, I really just left my mouse over it without noticing. I wasn't throwing shade at anyone, I swear. And now he's come after me for revenge. It's kind of funny."
"..." As a newcomer, Erha fell silent for a moment, not knowing what to say.
"You guys just need to hold steady. No matter what, it's only a Shaco. He won't do much in teamfights."
As captain, Xiaohu spoke up to steady the situation. He understood that Elk's mental state was already having some problems.