Top Lane Succubus

Lin Heng smiled and explained, "The main thing is, when I pick some of the champions I play as support, my teammates dodge immediately, so I can't practice those champions anyway."

Lin Heng then rubbed his chin, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. After taking a long drag, he said:

"Support has a much smaller presence in this patch. Only by playing other roles more can I learn what to do as a support to make the game more comfortable for every role. That's the key to playing this patch. No matter which lane we focus on when the time comes, I'll be able to play my part better."

Uzi nodded thoughtfully. "True, jungle and support were nerfed pretty heavily in this patch, but top-tier junglers and supports can still bring their own play to the game."

Professional players generally went to bed late and got up late. By three in the morning, only Lin Heng and Uzi remained in the training room.

Uzi took off his headset, rubbed his aching wrists, and glanced at Lin Heng, who was still fighting intensely beside him. "Aren't you going to bed?"

"Yeah, you go ahead. I'll play a little longer." Lin Heng raised his head slightly to acknowledge him, then turned back to the screen.

Uzi stood up and went behind Lin Heng. He saw that Lin Heng was playing lethality Varus, but he was playing him in the top lane.

He was constantly harassing the enemy Gnar by kiting back and forth.

Gnar couldn't land a single boomerang, couldn't go All-in, and couldn't win a Poke battle. He was having a miserable time.

Uzi glanced at the minimap and saw that Lin Heng was pushed up very far, but hadn't placed a single ward in the river.

Isn't he afraid of getting ganked by the jungler?

Just as Uzi thought that, Lin Heng's Varus hit Gnar with another Piercing Arrow, bringing his health down, then took a turret plate.

His laning details really are good, and his spacing is top-tier too. It's a shame he plays support, Uzi thought.

After taking the plate, Lin Heng returned to the second brush and began recalling. As he did, he muttered to himself, "It's still a little hard."

Lin Heng had kept his headset on the whole time, so he seemingly didn't know Uzi was still watching behind him. After buying his items, he returned to lane and resumed tormenting Gnar.

Uzi was curious. What exactly had he meant when he said it was a little hard?

After watching a little longer, Uzi grew too sleepy to continue and went back to bed.

The next day, everyone got up, got ready, and headed straight to the venue for their match. Fortunately, both yesterday's and today's matches were scheduled in Shanghai, so the players could get a little more rest.

Seeing Lin Heng pass out as soon as he got on the bus to catch up on sleep, Ning asked curiously, "How late were you two practicing last night?"

Uzi glanced at Lin Heng. "I don't know. I went to bed sometime after three."

"He's so hardworking," Rookie said.

"Do you know what this kid was playing before I went to bed yesterday?" Uzi asked with a smile.

"I wouldn't be surprised no matter what he played." Ning slapped his thigh, looking as though he was used to it.

"Top lane Varus," Uzi said without keeping them in suspense.

"Oh? Top lane Varus is pretty strong." Apparently interested in the topic, TheShy turned around and joined the conversation.

"He had the enemy Gnar too scared to last-hit, and he was still muttering, 'It's still a little hard.' Gnar couldn't even get any farm. I don't know what he was having trouble with," Uzi said curiously.

"I know," TheShy suddenly chimed in.

"The hard part is... keeping the enemy top laner suppressed... while also... watching the other lanes and guessing where the enemy jungler is." TheShy gestured as he spoke, seemingly worried his teammates wouldn't understand.

"Can't you just ward?" Rookie asked.

"Too risky." TheShy waved his hand and continued.

"When you play a top laner like that, you can't go deep into the enemy jungle to ward. If you get caught, you'll feed. But with a ward in the river, when you're keeping the pressure up and taking plates, by the time you see the enemy, it's already too late. You might as well save it to control vision in lane."

"So most of the time, you guess where the enemy jungler is?" Rookie continued.

"Aiya~ If you can see him, of course you don't have to guess. When you can't see him, you have to guess, right?" TheShy replied.

Then he smiled and added, "But sometimes, if you guess wrong, you die."

Everyone understood. Then Wei said, "So some junglers are especially good at and especially like ganking you because they've studied your habits, and they come for you when you think they won't?"

"Mm, yes, uh... Kanavi, I think? He really likes ganking me. Even when killing me with a gank isn't very useful, he'll still come. Even when they're playing around bot lane, he'll still come gank me," TheShy said helplessly.

Everyone understood completely.

So the hard part was analyzing the enemy jungler's movements while laning. A jungler always had to help the lanes where that help would be useful, especially a tempo jungler.

The first ten minutes were the truly golden window. If a jungler couldn't get anything done, he would only grow weaker and weaker.

So, based on both teams' compositions and how each lane was playing out, he had to guess what the enemy jungler might choose to do.

"No wonder I remember there was a period when you often seemed to have a negative KDA, but you still won games," Uzi said in realization.

"When I was at Weibo Gaming, they really liked ganking me, but our win rate was actually pretty high. Light had a very comfortable game." TheShy gave a thumbs-up as he spoke.

Everyone recalled that year. Weibo Gaming had indeed finished as runners-up at Worlds.

On that team, TheShy was indeed the player most capable of carrying, so for a time everyone targeted him.

At one point, TheShy's record became a jar of pomegranates, but he seemed unconcerned in the face of all the criticism.

He was still aggressive when he should be, and still fed when he should.

It turned out that, in his understanding, getting ganked and killed or solo-killed a few extra times didn't have that much effect on whether they won or lost the match.

One could only say that people really did understand League of Legends very differently.

But there was no denying that it had also been almost certainly the best year of Light's career.

Every team was studying that "go and he'll give" TheShy, while few paid attention to their reliable AD carry.

Sure enough, just as people outside had said, TheShy really did draw too much fire.

The Top Lane Succubus lived up to his name.

Before long, everyone arrived at the venue. Uzi shook Lin Heng awake, and Lin Heng greeted the fans waiting outside the venue with a tired look on his face.

"Why does this kid look so drained? Look at those dark circles. He didn't go to a KTV last night, did he?"

Some fans were gossiping about the young support player behind his back.

But he was completely unaware. He had already pulled Coach Danny aside to discuss today's Ban and Pick.