You're Poking Me

Although Lin Heng and Danny both wanted to put together all kinds of different team compositions to keep their opponents guessing, that was easier said than done.

Several veterans on the team were a little too slow at learning champions to keep up with the demand.

That was especially true of Uzi. His strengths and weaknesses in champion selection were too obvious and easy to target.

That wasn't to say his champion pool was too small. He had plenty of champions he could bring out, but if they wanted to try anything unusual, Uzi would have a hard time learning a new champion quickly enough.

Among the others, the two junglers could rotate to cover the team's jungle champion picks.

Rookie's speed at learning champions could only be called average. He wasn't fast, but he could still learn some if necessary.

Only TheShy was relatively quick at learning champions.

As a result, both Lin Heng and Danny were more inclined to have TheShy and Lin Heng build compositions around the other players' champion pools.

Of course, that was already remarkable. Having two players on the team who could constantly switch things up was enough to give every opponent a headache during Ban and Pick.

Starting the next day, Invictus Gaming began preparing for BLG.

During the regular season, many clubs only put a little effort into preparing for their opponents.

Most were more focused on improving their own play, addressing their weaknesses, mastering their own compositions, and practicing Ban and Pick.

Invictus Gaming had done the same last year. This year, though, with Lin Heng's arrival, even though he had only played three best-of-three series and a large number of scrims,

They had already established a routine: before facing each opponent, they held a meeting to study that opponent's tactics and weaknesses.

Besides the coaching staff, Lin Heng also took part. Of the other five players, they brought in whoever was needed for a particular task.

Most of the time, the others were left to practice champions and stay sharp.

Most importantly, Lin Heng had too much influence over gameplay, vision, and Ban and Pick. He was also the team's primary shotcaller, so his input was very important to the coaching staff.

"Lin Lin, come on. I've seen you following BLG's matches these past few days. Tell us what you think," Coach Danny said. He pulled up a stool for Lin Heng, flamboyantly pushed him down onto it, then stood behind him and looked at the screen.

"Hey, distance makes the heart grow fonder. Your gun's poking me," Lin Heng joked from his seat.

"Oh? What gun?" Danny clearly hadn't understood what Lin Heng meant. He looked quizzically at the interpreter beside him, who only smiled and had no intention of translating.

"It's nothing. I was complimenting you, bro," Lin Heng said with a smile.

"You brat, you definitely didn't say anything nice." After spending so much time together, Danny clearly knew what Lin Heng was like.

"I think BLG is our biggest opponent in the first stage, so I've been paying extra attention to their matches." After joking around, Lin Heng grew a little more serious.

"I think so too. This patch really suits BLG, and their players are individually very strong." Danny stopped joking as well and spoke seriously.

"They're a team with an extremely high ceiling, but also an extremely low floor. They're unpredictable, too, and depend far too much on how their players perform on the day. So we have to prepare on the assumption that they'll play very well," Lin Heng said.

"Yes, everyone who's faced them knows their weaknesses, but relying on others to make mistakes in order to win isn't a healthy game strategy." Danny agreed with Lin Heng's assessment.

"It's up to us players to seize the opportunities when they make mistakes in the game. For pre-match preparation, we should focus on strategy, habits, and vision." Lin Heng set a general direction for the tactical meeting.

BLG could be described as half angel, half demon.

For all their strength, they would always fall flat on their faces where you least expected it. Last year in particular, their results were worse than even their haters had anticipated, and various off-the-rift incidents had utterly destroyed the club's reputation.

Although Bin often made strange remarks, most of the time, if you viewed him as a four- or five-year-old child, the logic behind his behavior all made sense.

That wasn't something that would affect the club's reputation.

But the KTV incident, as well as the constant resetting of the honeymoon period by rotating junglers and launching the Jungle-Support Revolution, had definitely done enormous damage to the club's image.

On top of that, the behavior of some extreme fans had completely ruined BLG's reputation among casual viewers last year.

This year, however, the club had restored some of its reputation with one simple move.

They had bought Viper.

First, sending away Elk, who had been at the center of controversy and under constant attack last year because of the "showing Shaco" incident, had restored some of the club's image.

Signing Viper, a former LPL contributor, had improved its image further.

Viper had been one of Edward Gaming's two carries. Unlike the other, who had ended up notorious, he was very popular with LPL viewers.

Not only was he strong, but he was also professional and upright, and his Chinese was quite good.

That had always made him a beloved ideal in the eyes of LPL viewers, as well as one of the super mercenaries of the bot lane.

Of course, no one cared what the truth was. Even if the viewers had misunderstood, it no longer mattered.

For the club, a problem that could be solved with a single signing was no problem at all.

And for BLG as a whole, Viper was a more stable bot laner than Elk.

There wasn't a bot-lane duo in the entire League scene that could crush Viper during the laning phase.

Even if he fell behind early, Viper was also very good at farming back up. He was the kind of player who could let his teammates feed however they pleased while he held steady and kept hope alive for the late game.

That was an absolute upgrade for BLG as they were now.

If the guys crushed their opponents through individual skill, then he would play a supporting role.

If the guys crashed because they got carried away or played too aggressively, then he would be there to bail them out.

That was Viper's role on BLG now.

Lin Heng had figured that out when they scrimmed against BLG.

That was why he thought more highly of BLG this year: they had clearly raised their floor by a great deal with just one signing.

"What kind of strategy do you think would be more suitable for us?" Danny asked.

As head coach, Danny surely had his own judgment, but he still needed to exchange ideas with the rest of the coaching staff and with Lin Heng, a player whose understanding was exceptionally unique, before he could confirm whether his direction was right.

Lin Heng had already prepared his answer in his head, and he spoke with absolute certainty.

"The best way is definitely to open things up through the jungle, but with Ning Wang and Feidun in their current form, I think they'd have a hard time against Xun. Besides, the other side will definitely be prepared. They know very well what their current weakness is.

"So my suggestion is to take a risk and break through Top Lane directly!"