Chapter 44: You Can't Ghost Jump, Yet You're Playing Infiltrator?
"Whoa, that W—why did AK place a W there?"
"That Point Target Demolition was worth its weight in gold!"
The casters went crazy.
Was this really a fight even the casters couldn't read, so the players had to create it for them?
That deadly Point Target Demolition directly blew Gnar, who had been preparing to engage, into Mega Gnar form. Of course, that wasn't the most important part. The crucial thing was... the tiny window of time created by that W gave PPGOD a chance to react.
Whoosh! Flash!
He followed with E, Apex Blade, then cast R, Solar Flare. At that point, PPGOD had completely stopped worrying about bullshit like using his ultimate to lock down the Carry Position. In a crisis like this, protecting his own Double C was the top priority.
Only then did Qing Tian, who had been blown away, react and prepare to use his ultimate to salvage the situation.
Unfortunately... once the opportunity was missed, it was missed.
Another flash of light appeared. Luo Zhen's Ziggs flashed aside, while Graves used Quickdraw to pull back. Then Gnar slammed his ultimate toward the wall, only managing to knock PPGOD's Leona into it.
From that moment on, TES was done for.
Holy shit, wallhacks!
Footsteps. He absolutely heard the footsteps!
I demand a piss... no, a referee! Shouldn't someone check whether there's a rectangular box on his screen?
Hmph, so young. You could tell this Gnar had never played CF. Anyone who had played Ghost Mode knew that when an Infiltrator fought a Defender, you had to Ghost Jump before going in for the knife. Flashing in like that just gave yourself away instantly.
It was impossible to understand, impossible to believe, yet the absurd truth played out right before everyone's eyes.
With no threat from the Frontline, V5's three-artillery lineup instantly transformed into a massive war machine on the battlefield. Corki's Yordle Snap Trap and missiles, Graves's shotgun, Smoke Bomb, and explosive ultimate, Ziggs's Bouncing Bombs and Minefield—within moments, the entire map turned from the Summoner's Rift river into a Syrian battlefield, with V5's firepower everywhere.
TES exploded.
It wasn't that they lost on a technical level. They had been completely crushed at the composition level.
They couldn't engage, had no room to deal damage, and even their flanks got caught. In every sense, TES had been denied any space to perform.
0 for 3.
Other than the Double C at the very back, who immediately fled the battlefield and saved their lives, the other three who entered the fight were basically dead. Watching V5 move on to secure the Elemental Dragon and Baron Nashor, JKL and Knight wanted to stop them.
However...
"Try the big one!"
His R skill had come off Cooldown again, and Chibaku Tensei was fired straight at Aphelios. When the burn damage from the double masks blew off nearly a quarter of his health, the Sailor combination completely gave up on contesting Baron Nashor with their lives on the line.
What followed was a one-sided push.
Once V5's three-artillery composition was fully online, they marched up to TES's high ground with Baron Buff soldiers in tow. Faced with the endless sea of minions and bombs, the TES members experienced, for the first time in an actual match, the overwhelming pressure of a composition from the special mode known as "Infinite Cooldowns."
1:0.
V5 took the first victory and won a game!
"Woohoo! That felt good!"
The moment the Nexus exploded, nearly everyone in V5's player booth broke into smiles at the same time.
Rich, Rookie, and Luo Zhen had all had a blast that game. They were just throwing out skills like it was Infinite Cooldowns—or, more bluntly, you could call it ARAM. And brawling was something that brought people joy. Karsa and PPGOD felt much the same. They only needed to defend, and PPGOD could occasionally throw out an ultimate as if he were lining up a bombardment. With Luo Zhen's chuunibyou rambling beside him, he kept throwing them until it somehow started to feel downright inspiring.
For a team, atmosphere was a very important thing.
Take LNG's seven consecutive BO5s in the summer of 2012. Doinb's presence had absolutely played a major role. Although they ultimately failed to reach the World Championship, that wasn't his fault.
Rookie and Karsa were mild-tempered, PPGOD needed someone to liven up the mood, and Rich seemed slightly withdrawn due to the language barrier. At times like this, Luo Zhen's nonstop chuunibyou lines over the headset began to show their value.
After all, who could refuse having a passionate idiot on the team?
"Good job. First game was solid."
The moment they returned to the lounge, Hong Mi gave the players high praise.
For a coach, managing players was like raising kids. You had to discipline them appropriately at the right times, but you also had to encourage them after they got results. After all, profession aside, the people in the room were merely young men with an average age below twenty-two.
If they had followed the usual path of Nine-Year Compulsory Education, then at twenty-two, they would only just be preparing to graduate from college. They still hadn't endured society's harsh beatings and were innocent as hell.
Of course, their bodies might have been pretty innocent too. After all, more and more people couldn't find girlfriends these days.
"That's because Coach's BP was good. By the way, Coach, do you have any more fun setups like that? Let us have another good time?" PPGOD had completely let loose. Being a brainless support felt pretty comfortable, honestly. He wished every game could be like that, where all he had to think about was dropping his ultimate on people.
"That won't do. We already played Ziggs last game, so we can't possibly pick him again next game. If I play Ziggs and Senna every game, am I weaker than their ADC?" Upon hearing that, everyone in the room paused, then turned to stare at Luo Zhen, who had said it.
"What kind of confidence lets you say something like that at this point? It makes me feel like you have the beauty of someone missing part of his brainstem."
"No, shouldn't you guys be hypnotizing me into believing I'm the Number One AD right now? This isn't how the scene is supposed to go."
Luo Zhen was stunned.
In his Previous Life, whenever he watched those match vlogs, every coach, analyst, and teammate seemed to be trying to awaken their Mangekyo Bloodshot Eye bloodline, then hit their own top laner, mid laner, or ADC with a Tsukuyomi-style brainwashing. Why had these bastards suddenly decided to speak nothing but the truth when it came to him?
"Although I'd love to feed you chicken soup and put a curse on you, JKL is indeed much stronger than you at this stage."
Even though the first game hadn't given JKL room to perform, Hong Mi had still been able to see his form clearly from God's perspective.
It couldn't be called amazing, but it wasn't bad either. Overall, he was maintaining a fairly good level compared to other players.
That alone was already terrifying.
In many seasons, JKL's ADC damage conversion stats had ranked first in the league. That showed just how frightening his baseline strength was.
"Fine, I actually knew that too." Since even Hong Mi had said so, Luo Zhen quickly returned to normal. "Sadly, showing off is a bad habit, but I don't seem able to quit it."
"Ah, indeed. Getting slapped in the face is a bitter consequence, but you don't seem able to live without it."
The Bot Support duo began bickering line by line, making everyone in the room laugh again. With such a good atmosphere to ease things along, Hong Mi began discussing the next game at the appropriate time.
"Next game, Bai Seyueya will probably pick a lineup they're most familiar with to bring the score back. If they go down 0-2, the pressure on the players will be too great. Given Xiao Tian's current condition, he'll probably struggle to get over that hurdle." Tapping the player IDs on the small blackboard, Coach Hong Mi spoke casually from his chair.
"Oh, I get it. Coach means we should completely crush Xiao Tian's mental state, so in Game 2, we'll just fight them head-on?" Luo Zhen raised his hand like a student and asked curiously.
"About that, it might be a little different from what you're thinking."
"Huh?"
Looking at his puzzled players, Hong Mi's smile became even more confident.
"Next game, our task is to defend against all of their offensive momentum."
Chapter 45: The Three Things Men Talk About
Things beyond match tactics were called strategy.
If they had the strength, Hong Mi naturally hoped to win the series 3-0 and go home early. Wouldn't that be nice? If the environment hadn't been so rough these days, who wanted to be a Compulsive Worker and let their boss drive a Range Rover at such a young age?
Unfortunately, their raw strength was indeed a little lacking.
For Game 2, Hong Mi picked a composition that had something to say in both the early and mid game. They still played around Top Mid Jungle while giving bot lane Functional ADs, but this game's demand of Luo Zhen and the others was to stall.
Yes, stall mindlessly.
Slow down the enemy's offense and prolong the game. It felt strange as a tactical arrangement, because V5 was originally a team afraid of the Old Man Ao Tactic. Why had they suddenly decided to play like this?
The answer was simple. If they were merely stalling rather than trying to win, V5's energy expenditure was actually lower than TES's.
Before discussing that, they first needed to understand the difference between Red Side and Blue Side.
Because Blue Side had a direct jungle path from mid lane to bot lane, its mid laner could support bot lane more quickly, which affected the entire lower half of the map. In other words, Blue Side's rapid bot-lane support indirectly affected control over the Elemental Dragon. At the same time, Blue Side had first ban and first pick, giving it certain advantages in contesting Meta Heroes.
Red Side could simply be understood as the opposite.
Thus, in Game 2, TES requested Red Side.
The Counter Pick in Red Side's fifth slot could make Qing Tian's top lane more comfortable, helping them counter V5's Top Mid Jungle system. And because their bot lane was JKL, they didn't fear whatever slight BP advantage V5 had in bot lane, regardless of side. They would simply crush them with raw strength.
Since they couldn't seize initiative over Mid-Top-Jungle BP and winning would require enormous effort, worsening the players' exhaustion, V5 simply let it go!
But they couldn't let it go for free. They still had to drain the enemy players' energy.
Top-tier coaches all had this sort of malicious BP hobby. Just like how Kkoma loved letting opponents have something in the first game at the World Championship to see how it worked. It looked like you had gained something, but in reality, you had already lost.
All that could be said was that every one of those old foxes was a master of dark psychology.
Under Hong Mi's calculations,
TES successfully took Game 2, bringing the score to 1-1.
Luo Zhen's stats in this game weren't very pretty. Since bot lane was in the Sacrifice Role and he lacked Ziggs's long range and fast wave-clearing advantage from the previous game, he was practically facing JKL head-on.
Then... not only did he get pushed around like a Dog in lane, his team-fight damage was also utterly crushed by the enemy.
His usual advantage in CS leads was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he fell behind by dozens of CS. If he hadn't been playing a Functional AD and retained the last shred of dignity that gave him, his reputation would have been ruined after this game.
The Sailor combination was still strong.
Little Uzi was ultimately not Uzi. He was still too young when facing JKL head-on.
V5's offensive tempo this game was so strange. Why did it feel like the entire team suddenly lost all rhythm in the mid game? Like stagnant water.
Their shotcalling probably had problems. Karsa's Radar constantly malfunctioning was nothing new, anyway.
The viewers couldn't understand any of the Mind Games happening outside the match. They only saw V5 suddenly lose their rhythm in the mid game, then, amid both sides' delays, TES's Double C successfully scaled up and took over Game 2.
It just... felt natural. There wasn't even any major clash involved. It was like Boiling Frog—before anyone knew it, the frog was cooked.
However.
Inside V5's lounge, the atmosphere was nothing like that of a team that had lost. The players were even chatting and bragging to one another.
"Hey, let me tell you guys, I was fucking amazing that game. Knight had such a huge lead in mid, but he still couldn't kill me with one combo. I dodged one skill, and he got so mad he used Flash."
"Wait... why can you even brag about that?"
"Why can't I? Put any other ADC there, and they'd have died if they failed to dodge that skill, okay? At least I forced him to use Flash too."
"Tch, that's still worse than me. Seriously, if you weren't so bad and holding me back, I definitely could've solo killed their support in a 1v1."
Luo Zhen and PPGOD kept chattering away, yet neither looked remotely dejected over losing the game.
They were executing the strategy, after all.
The strategy wasn't focused on bot lane, and they really were weaker than their opponents mechanically, so losing lane was perfectly normal. There was nothing to say about being less skilled. But if you thought that would stop them from bragging? Then you truly underestimated men.
Men only talked about three things: careers, family, and dreams.
Of course, in less emotionally intelligent terms, they could also be called greed for money, lust for women, and bragging. The meaning wasn't that far off, anyway.
"So, how did it feel facing JKL properly?" Hong Mi sat beside Luo Zhen and asked him kindly.
Luo Zhen paused upon hearing that, then gave his honest feedback. "It felt a little different from what I expected. We both just came back from break, so I don't know where his actual ceiling is. But right now, his laning is really strong. It feels like I triggered his ordering passive, but it also feels manageable, because I keep thinking that if I were more focused and more careful, bot lane could hold on."
That was right.
Although he had exploded in Game 2, the bigger reason was that his coordination with PPGOD wasn't good enough and they gave away too many opportunities. It was true that he had fallen behind in CS, but if it was only a CS deficit, then a Functional AD falling behind a hypercarry ADC in CS when their strength wasn't equal couldn't be called collapsing. It was perfectly normal.
Besides.
Most of the pressure in bot lane hadn't come from the ADC, but the support. Judging from their laning experience, Zhuo hadn't put much pressure on them.
So they could fight their matchup!
Hong Mi's question was simple. They had used one game as a safety net and one game to test the waters, so by all rights, Game 3 should be the time to buy at the bottom.
That was right.
From this game onward, their real contest against TES would begin.
"Then starting from Game 3, shall we try properly competing against them? No problem?" Hong Mi's gaze remained warm and full of trust. Against enemies, his tactical BP was the nightmare of many teams. Yet toward his own players, he was often like a teacher from their childhood. Even when his students were about to face a terrifying trial, he still trusted them completely.
"No problem. Put me in—I'll hard carry!"
Meanwhile, in a hotel room outside the venue, LWX calmly got out of bed and turned on the livestream. The tiredness on his face showed that he had apparently just woken up. Then, when he saw the score on screen was 1-1, he froze for a moment before making a call.
"Hello?"
"Hello."
Before you continue