Studying AL

After the match, outside the lounge.

Shi Yue, the host handling today's fan interactions, found Invictus Gaming and invited everyone to film some videos for her social media.

TheShy and Wei were willing to take part, and Wei also dragged Lin Heng over.

After helping Shi Yue film a few awkward dances, everyone chatted and joked for a bit.

"How old are you, Lin Heng? I couldn't find your profile, but you seem pretty mature," Shi Yue asked with a smile.

"Are you saying I'm old?" Lin Heng joked.

"Not at all. You're a young hero, charming and dashing. It's just that the champion you play is too shady." At that, Shi Yue giggled.

"Of course. A bright, cheerful big boy should play a bright, cheerful big boy," Lin Heng replied.

"I'll practice Shaco jungle too. Then when we pick him, we can flex him between us," Little Wei said with a smile, patting Lin Heng.

"Shaco? Actually, Shaco can go top too. I can play him as well. A flex pick?~" TheShy said with a smile.

"All right, all right, so you're all bright, cheerful big boys, huh? Come on, big boy, add me on WeChat," Shi Yue said with a smile.

As they joked around, Lin Heng suddenly turned and saw Elk watching them from nearby.

His expression was somewhat complicated, and Lin Heng could tell it wasn't simply because of the game.

When Elk saw Lin Heng and the others looking over, he forced a smile, his face somewhat stiff, before walking into their lounge.

Lin Heng glanced at Shi Yue, whose expression was similarly awkward, and seemed to realize something...

The match against Weibo Gaming had come to a perfect close.

That let the fans breathe a huge sigh of relief. They had all been looking forward to seeing this lineup.

But everyone had to wonder how Ning and Uzi would perform. Their age was a factor, and they hadn't played competitively in a long time.

Although Uzi had indeed played a lot of ranked games to get back into form before returning to the stage,

a match was still a match. Even if he could dominate in ranked, he was bound to struggle a little in competition.

After those two games, the fans could only breathe a small sigh of relief.

The two had performed adequately in both games, but their performances couldn't be called good.

On one hand, the support, mid, and top positions had played exceptionally well. On the other, the rebuilt Weibo Gaming hadn't shown particularly strong competitive ability.

So the games hadn't really proved much.

Quite a few fans left comments on the team's official account, urging them to consistently pick up points against weaker teams during the early period as the lineup learned to play together and try to squeeze into the playoffs.

Once they had played a few real best-of-fives there, presumably they would be more or less back in form.

But according to the schedule, Invictus Gaming would face the biggest dark horse of 2025, Anyone's Legend, the very next day.

When the team was first formed, no one thought it could achieve so much.

Even when they eventually reached Worlds, they took T1 to a full five games.

Although they ultimately only made the quarterfinals, no one could bear to blame them. Their hard work was plain to see.

This team played around its jungler and support. Their floor was extremely high, but unfortunately, their ceiling wasn't quite as high.

After all, their two carries were Xiangkes and Hope, formerly Team WE's two carries. They had played for so many years without achieving particularly good results.

In League of Legends, if you couldn't achieve a pretty good result within three years of your debut, that basically showed where your ceiling was.

Of course, that didn't mean they had to win a championship. But at the very least, as the two most important carries on the team, they should have been able to drag their team into Worlds together.

Yet in 2023, Team WE, led by Xiangkes and Hope, had gone out in the first round of the playoffs in both spring and summer. Of course, judging by their performances at the time, the blame lay with someone else.

Their top laner, Flandre, had indeed been excellent in his prime. He could hold his own against any top laner and occasionally hard-carry a game or two.

But throughout 2025, top laners could be said to have endured their toughest year ever, with carrying games proving extremely difficult.

And Flandre had always been known for his "slippery" style rather than aggressive laning, which put him at a serious disadvantage in a patch where top lane had such a major presence.

So for them to reach the Mid-Season Invitational and Worlds in 2025 was already an incredible achievement, and they really had put in a tremendous amount of work.

Of course, the greatest credit went to the jungler and support. As the team's undisputed main carry, Tarzan had mastered almost every type of jungler and playstyle over the past year.

Carry junglers, tempo junglers, tanks—he picked whatever the team needed.

And the support, Kael, had even been jokingly described by netizens as someone who "must never be allowed back to the LCK."

As a rookie support, his performances throughout the past year could be described as top-tier.

Champion pool, engaging, roaming, protecting—he perfectly demonstrated everything a support was supposed to do.

And unlike another well-known LPL support, ON, Kael was notably more consistent.

That evening, Invictus Gaming was working overtime to analyze Anyone's Legend's overall style and formulate tactics.

There was no denying that the team had been assembled to draw attention, but the five players and coach present weren't about to slack off because of that.

"Be careful of their jungler. He's a little formulaic in the early game, but his thinking is very clear in teamfights.

"If we pick a more late-game-oriented composition, we can avoid clashing with them early. But when it's time to fight over objectives, we need to establish vision earlier than we would against other teams, or it'll be easy to get the worst of it."

Coach Danny pointed to footage of Anyone's Legend's previous games as he cautioned them.

"I think we should focus on playing the lanes well first. After trying things out today, we're actually in pretty good form. I think we can pick some more aggressive champions tomorrow," Rookie said.

"You think Shaco wasn't aggressive enough?" Ning laughed from the side.

"I mean the other lanes," Rookie said with a laugh.

"I agree." Lin Heng, who had been sitting in the corner listening to everyone's analysis, suddenly spoke up.

The others and the coach all turned to look at him, wanting to hear what he had to say.

"I think we should strengthen our laning, in all three lanes."

"?" Ning scratched his head and looked at Lin Heng. "Then who do I help?"

"Anyone. Just gank whoever you think is easy to gank," Lin Heng continued.

"Why?" Coach Danny was the first to ask. "Someone always has to make a small sacrifice in a match, and there's no way to get a comfortable champion for every lane in draft."

"I don't think we should get too hung up on the points right in front of us. Everyone here is among the best in the LPL, so I think making the playoffs should be easy enough for us."

Lin Heng first slipped in some flattering praise, making his teammates feel good, before continuing.

"I don't think we should go against the designers. They added the quest system this patch and boosted ADC gold and top lane experience. They want to see that kind of individual heroism in matches, where one person carries the game alone."