Studying the Opponent's Movement Habits

Landing Xerath's skills actually depended heavily on prediction.

His Q in particular was easy for opponents to sidestep while he charged it, but experienced Xerath players could often predict their opponents' movements and land it.

Against professional players who were essentially among the best, landing even one or two of Xerath's Qs when they had room to dodge counted as top-tier prediction.

But Xerath's W was instantaneous. Even if he couldn't hit with the center, landing the edge was still fairly easy.

Even against Faker in his prime, if he had no mobility skills and you dropped three or four Ws on him, he would still take edge damage from two of them.

So what was Lin Heng and Uzi's strategy?

They looked for an opening with the relatively easy-to-land W, using it to slow their opponent.

Then, the instant Xerath opened with W, he charged his Q. Uzi's Yunara used the slow from Xerath's W to cast her own W and increase its chance of hitting. Once it landed, its 99% slow made Xerath's Q almost certain to hit unless the opponent used a mobility skill.

It was a very simple combo, but highly effective.

Xerath's long range and the sustain from his passive quickly secured lane priority for Yunara and Xerath.

The main thing was that Xerath's skills were unbelievably accurate. Almost every W and Q hit BLG's bot-lane duo.

That put the two BLG players under immense pressure to dodge.

They had picked Neeko to wear down their opponents' health and secure lane priority, but Xerath's pinpoint accuracy completely turned things around. Instead, Invictus Gaming's bot-lane duo gained the health advantage and took lane priority.

That left Qiyana, who had pathed down from her first clear, with no chance to gank or dive the tower. After all, Jarvan IV had also pathed down from his clear, and with her own duo lacking a health advantage, a gank could easily blow up in their faces.

At six and a half minutes, after both mid laners reached level six, BLG immediately started the dragon. Their bot lane had recalled and replenished their health, while Akali at level six was extremely strong at fighting and picking up kills.

After all, with the lineup BLG had picked, an early dragon was inevitable. Their bot lane hadn't gained the advantage it needed, and if the game proceeded normally until the carries had three items, things would start going steadily downhill for them.

Invictus Gaming had no standing to contest this dragon, so they chose to give up the first one.

Ning chose to counter-jungle two of Xun's camps in the top half of the jungle, mitigating their losses somewhat.

While their opponents took the dragon, Invictus Gaming's bot lane quickly pushed the wave under the tower, then recalled and swapped to the top lane.

That move showed that Invictus Gaming intended to at least consider contesting the Void Grubs when they spawned at eight minutes.

After clearing the wave under his tower, Corki also swapped to the top lane.

The next minute of laning was especially crucial. If BLG's bot lane could stay in very good shape, Invictus Gaming still wouldn't be able to contest the Void Grubs after all.

Compared with Neeko, Xerath lacked engage and crowd control, but in exchange, he had plenty of range.

Lin Heng constantly poked his opponents in the top lane. When his Q was hard to land, he dropped W on them as they went for last hits.

To maximize its effect, Lin Heng went straight for the 400-gold Amplifying Tome.

In the mid-to-late game, he only needed to work with Jarvan IV to establish vision and add some damage. Their team would have an easy time fighting.

After several rounds of poke, Corki, who already had short range, was down half his health.

At BLG's base, even a player as levelheaded as Viper was getting so annoyed by the constant poke that he could barely take it.

"Is this guy scripting?! His skills are way too accurate! Is he predicting every single one?"

On was also struggling to keep his composure. "Who is this guy? When he picked Camille, I thought it was Ming. Weren't they talking to Ming and Uzi? But this Xerath feels kind of overtuned. Those don't look like the plays of someone who hasn't played in ages."

On had always been confident in his bot-lane laning, but after being put through this two games in a row today, he was a little bewildered too.

Although On usually liked to fool around for entertainment, he thought through the supports in the LPL and couldn't think of a single one who made laning this miserable for him.

Xerath was actually very difficult to bring onto the professional stage because his skills were so hard to land.

A famous Xerath one-trick streamer had once tilted after Chovy dodged countless skills while laning against him in mid.

There was no question about professional players' ability to dodge.

But bot lane was different from mid. There were two players, and the AD had to last-hit while dodging, whereas the support could focus on poking the opponents. That was why champions like Neeko and Xerath had a place as bot-lane poke picks.

But with both his mechanics and game sense brought up to 90 points, plus his exceptionally high proficiency with the champion, he could make perfect use of Xerath's strengths.

At eight minutes, the Void Grubs spawned, and Qiyana immediately came over and started them. But to her surprise, Invictus Gaming's bot-lane duo arrived first.

Another glance at their Corki showed he only had a third of his health left.

Given that Invictus Gaming's top laner, TheShy, had already entered the river and headed up despite the possibility of losing a wave, BLG had no choice but to give up the Void Grubs.

Similar scenes kept playing out throughout the rest of the game.

Taking skill after skill irritated Viper at first and affected his form to some extent.

But once Viper calmed down, he dodged several of Xerath's skills in succession.

Beside him, On found it strange that Viper, who had kept getting hit just moments ago, had suddenly stopped taking any skills at all. Still getting hit himself, he asked curiously, "How are you doing that? Why did your dodging suddenly get so much better?"

After taking several sharp breaths in succession, Viper said something in disbelief that sent a chill down the spines of all four of his teammates.

"This guy... has studied me... He seems... hiss... really familiar with my movement habits... I forced myself to change how I moved a few times just now, and all his skills missed."

"What? Studied other people's movement habits? Where did he get so much time to study that?" As a professional support player, On knew all too well how many things a support had to study every day.

Opponents' vision habits, meaning where and how they placed wards and used their sweepers; practice on strong and meta champions; the opposing jungler's ganking habits and thought process, and so on.

Of course, an analyst and coach could handle all of that, but that was for middling supports. Top supports had to be sufficiently familiar with everything from vision to their opponents' attack tempo and habits.

But those things alone were already enough to take nearly all of a player's mental energy.

"Studying professional players' movement habits? How is that possible? There are so many pros. Could he study every one of them?" On asked again, somewhat incredulous.

He had considered doing the same, but sometimes, just staring at one opponent's recordings for two hours was boring enough to drive him mad. Surely Viper was overthinking it.

But on some impulse, he stepped forward and tried moving in a way completely different from his usual habits. He actually dodged Xerath's W.

"A... coincidence, right?"

On was stunned!