This was humanity's innate ability to adapt to its environment. Naturally, it applied just as well to the center of a match.
LWX was anxious.
Very anxious.
On the surface, V5 had a bunch of veterans. As long as FPX honestly used the Old Man Ao Tactic, they could send them off successfully. FPX should have held the advantage.
But... that depended on which team was using the Old Man Ao Tactic.
If it were an experienced LPL team, then naturally they could follow that template. However, FPX was currently nothing more than a Dean team made up of rookies, and new players themselves had one fatal weakness: their patience was poor, and they desperately wanted to prove themselves.
In the first three games, they had already made plenty of basic mistakes.
Once this game dragged on and affected his teammates' mentality, then even if LWX fully developed, he would still be powerless to turn things around while surrounded by teammates lacking confidence.
So, he wanted an advantage.
Even while laning against a Caitlyn with 650 range, he tried to build up a sufficiently large early advantage, going Full Power for it.
But...
Why could that AD on the other side stay so calm?
What truly shocked LWX was not whether the enemy snuck in Auto Attacks, but that the enemy could resist the temptation to do so, avoiding several dangerous Tempo Points—especially Karma's.
If he sensed danger, he would give up the minion. If he felt he might get hit by a Q skill, he would not Auto Attack. He always maintained an incredibly delicate distance from Hang's Karma, only making small movements on that basis, such as sneaking in an Auto Attack.
As a rookie, he was far too calm.
And as an AD, how experienced did he have to be with support poke and engage patterns to constantly maintain such an absurd distance?!
"Not bad, bot lane. I thought you wouldn't be able to resist attacking."
Karsa was undoubtedly the most comfortable one with the current bot-lane situation. Strategically speaking, playing around Caitlyn would definitely be V5's main game plan this match. But if they wanted their tempo to flow comfortably, they could not show up bot too early.
Because the other side understood that too.
The more anxiously LWX and Hang played, the more likely FPX's jungler was nearby. After communicating with Luo Zhen, Karsa chose to do the opposite and power-farmed the Upper Jungle.
Why was he so bold?
Because Viego had almost no ability to Tower dive Jinx and Karma early while Luo Zhen was healthy. All he had to do was stay steady, wait for Trundle to finish farming, and then come down for a three-versus-three after Karsa gained a level advantage. They could beat the enemy with their feet.
Delayed gratification was also one of an AD player's compulsory lessons.
"Of course. We're refined people. Our patience is exceptional."
"Cut it out. It's only because you can't beat them." PPGOD only spoke the truth, immediately exposing Luo Zhen's real situation in bot lane. If Luo Zhen could keep up with the professional pace, the pressure on the support would not be this great. After all, it was Karma. As Lulu, it was genuinely too difficult to gain an early advantage against her.
"That's different. You're a veteran with tons of experience, so naturally you should shoulder more." Luo Zhen did not care about saving face. They were all adults; results were what mattered. Although he felt embarrassed by being unable to out-poke the enemy Jinx as Caitlyn, as long as he won the match, could he not hype himself up however he wanted after the game?
So he shouted at PPGOD:
"Bearing such great talent, you should embrace a grand vessel. A mere keyboard, less than three feet long, how could it carry your literary brilliance? Take heaven and earth as your pen, sun and moon as your ink, and with every stroke display the true colors of the Yang Aikun Army. Let the lingering ink reveal the burning passion of a trainee, displaying your dashing elegance."
"Speak normally!"
"Normally, even if I can't beat him right now, give me enough time and I'll definitely become stronger than him. After all, they call me Superman Qiang—the more I surpass Superman, the stronger I become."
PPGOD: ???
Adaptability Style
If FPX could not find an opening in bot lane before Level 4, then after Level 4, bot lane completely stopped being their business.
Once Trundle finished a full clear, upgraded his items, and returned fully loaded, no matter how much LWX wanted to go dark, he did not dare take this fight against V5. He could only hurriedly shove the wave and recall, then use the chance provided by pushing first and recalling first to let his support roam and see whether there was an opportunity.
Because from this point onward, bot lane would be purely a Resist Pressure lane.
Meanwhile, Luo Zhen's muttering in V5 team voice chat gradually changed from "My bad, my bad," to "Huh? What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong?! Come out here, let's Auto Attack each other another eight hundred times!"
Reminder: Both Jinx and Karma were Heroes without mobility.
Once Karsa decided to protect bot lane, it meant that even with Karma present, FPX would not dare casually push the wave out. But V5 was different. With protection, Caitlyn and Lulu had no fear of pushing the lane.
Once they secured Bot Lane Control, gained Azir's Lane Control mid, and had the jungle-support duo establish vision in the Bottom Jungle and river—
The entire Bottom Jungle instantly became a terrifying place.
"If their jungler still dares come bot at this time, I'll make sure he returns in complete defeat!" Karsa was extremely confident. Double Lane Control in mid and bot, plus an Ornn top who could still contribute to a Team fight even after Collapsed—if he simply stood bot lane, he did not even know how they could lose.
"Let me translate Brother Ka's words: if you expose your position in the Rift Forest, you'd better be prepared to be eliminated. Is that right?"
"What Dark Forest Law? Are you a Three-Body alien or something?"
Luo Zhen and PPGOD both mocked him, but they were delighted by such a huge advantage. When the gap between the players on both sides was not large, the advantage a coach could provide through draft was truly enormous.
The current situation was that V5 held the right to attack in the Bottom Jungle.
At this point in time—
Either the enemy mid lane had to open a breach, or their jungler had to seize an opportunity. Otherwise, coming bot would only lead to a few possible outcomes:
Brothers were close at heart, but when trouble came, the phone could not get through.
I've survived this long on three things: being cowardly enough, having no loyalty, and selling out my brothers.
I feared my brothers suffering, but I also feared them driving a Range Rover.
My brothers and I were heart-to-heart; I put my brain to work on them.
When my brothers had minor matters, I tried my best to help. For major matters, I could not help. For small matters, I did not want to help.
Yes, exactly. If the jungler returned to bot rashly without choosing the right timing to attack, he would only get sold out by his teammates. The jungle was pitch-black, bot lane was full of people, and the Rift's brush was now a place where anyone who entered died. There was no bluffing involved.
And the foundation of all this was that the AD had held firm early.
Such steady tempo. Teams with lots of veterans were really ruthless.
Three veterans on one side, only one on the other. A three-to-one advantage—very reasonable.
This New AD was genuinely interesting. He dared to charge when it was time to Create Miracles, but he could stay steady when the strategy required it. Were all ADs coming up from the LDL this outrageous now?
That was indeed the case. There were plenty of ADs waiting outside for teams, yet he seemed to be the only rookie AD who had truly broken through.
Compete, then. Compete fiercely within the league.
League of Legends had been played for so many years, and its biggest problem was that as the game gradually became understood, veterans who refused to leave lost their drive, while new players kept down also lost their drive. For years, the entire LPL had just been the same group of people over and over again. Of course, the LCK Region was basically the same.
The benefit was increased stability. At the very least, veteran players guaranteed a baseline for a team's results.
And the downside?
Viewer fatigue, a vicious cycle, and no ambition.
Therefore, most people still viewed V5's New AD positively. Even V5 as a whole had the support of most viewers, who wanted to see them go further.
Because V5 had no fans, and they had suffered sixteen consecutive losses last season, they had not offended anyone either.
For the small number of deranged fans, rather than watching XXX advance, they would rather see V5 make it. It was the same mentality people had during the World Championship: rather than watching the LCK win, they would rather see G2 lift the trophy.
But when initiative returned to Luo Zhen in bot lane—
The tempo changed again.
From steady and conservative to full aggression, from avoiding whenever possible to trading whenever possible, his style transformed in an instant.
The moment he raised his hand, Lulu shielded him.
Auto Attack, retreat, reposition, then turn back to trade an Auto Attack with Jinx.
Perfect damage-free poke.
He feigned a Last Hit, then turned his angle and fired a predictive Q skill the instant the Auto Attack went out. He pressed forward with an Auto Attack-E-A combo, and the trap dropped.
A small tip: following a Basic Attack with W was a very practical combo. You could not see the W casting animation at all.
Just as LWX wanted to retaliate, Trundle's silhouette appeared in vision. After throwing RQ, Karma tried to retreat. Lulu fired her Q skill. As Karma tried to sidestep it, Caitlyn's previously placed trap happened to block her escape route. Lulu followed with a Polymorph, forcing her to take a wide detour, then two more Auto Attacks flew out.
Lethal Tempo activated, the Headshot passive formed, and FPX's bot lane completely stopped daring to fight.
The sudden change in playstyle immediately caused the duo, accustomed to V5 bot lane's steady style, to suffer a huge loss.
But the question was: why had it suddenly changed so drastically?
LWX could not understand it.
An AD's style was constant. Some ADs were all-out aggressive from their debut, and they would remain aggressive for years afterward, like JKL. Some were fully defensive from the beginning, and they would likely continue down that route in the future, like Bang.
But the way you switched modes—were you playing with a vibrator or something?
"See? I told you. We play steady for a few minutes first, then suddenly transform and hit them with something big!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. This trade was definitely worth it. Definitely worth it."
From the beginning, Luo Zhen had agreed on this style with his support, PPGOD. Unlike JKL's berserk aggression or Deng Huang's steadiness, Luo Zhen's style had always been adaptive—or rather... borrowing a tiger's might.
When Big Daddy was around, he could Flash Forward and gamble on a fight with the enemy.
When Big Daddy was not around, he could behave himself and avoid giving the enemy openings whenever possible.
And if it was a desperate situation?
If it was already desperate, what was there to think about? Charge up and fight. Better to live toward death than wait in place for death, right? At least, even if he lost, he wanted to lose while attacking.
Thus, ever since the Demacia Cup, Luo Zhen's style had always been steady in lane, ruthless in Team fights, and fierce in desperate situations.
But did that mean his style was not aggressive enough?
That only meant you had not played enough AD.
For the vast majority of bot-lane duos and players, this kind of AD style was the most aggressive, because it was difficult to find an opening in bot lane.
"Alright, don't rush. Slow down for another wave. They just got caught off guard, so they're on alert now. Let's leave them alone for a minute or two first, then go in once their mental guard drops. It'll also give our jungler some room to operate."
"Wait... bro, we're playing a match. Why are you studying psychology too?"
PPGOD was a little dumbfounded.
The AD he had been matched with before, the one on a sixteen-game losing streak, had been crystal clear mentally. If he could not win, then he could not win. If he could win, then he would pressure as hard as possible. He might have been bad, but at least his mind was simple.
But this one—
"First, bait him this time. Once he takes the bait, then we fight."
"This time, wait for the jungler's position. Once the jungler comes, we get in his face. He won't dare fight back."
"The enemy support has a good idea this time. He thinks he can control me. Come on, act with me and bait out his Control Skill first."
If he had to describe what it felt like to duo bot lane with Luo Zhen, PPGOD had only one word for it:
"Deceive!"
His grasp of fundamental mechanics and precise understanding of the enemy's mindset—ever since lane phase, he had constantly borrowed momentum from his teammates to stabilize the lane. Even when it came to the enemy support's poke and engage patterns, he could think of more responses than PPGOD himself.
Was this... a monster?
PPGOD was shaken inside, but the light in his eyes grew brighter and brighter.
"Don't rush, Diao Shen."
"Huh?"
"We're just waiting for our turn right now. Once I collect all four suits, I'll definitely let LWX know what it means to take a general's head from an army of ten thousand!"
"???"
Now, This Place Is One-Way Only
At seven and a half minutes, the match's most famous Herald Tempo timing, the previously calm Rift finally began to change.
When we played games, we also needed to pay attention to several key timings, such as: Level 3 at 2:40.
Rift Scuttler spawned at 3:15.
Level 4 at 3:20.
The first group of jungle camps respawned at 4:20.
The first dragon spawned at 6:00.
The second set of BUFFs respawned at 7:40.
Rift Herald at 8:00
Before you continue