You call this thing stable?

"That's your problem then. Aren't they running Q-sniping dance? Where's your Q?"

"You're still playing dual guns, and you can't even kill the opponent?" PPGOD retorted, unconvinced. He had already hit the enemy Alistar with his Q. How could this damn AD be so greedy, actually wanting him to hit the enemy ADC?

"That's because I hadn't switched to combat form yet. You probably won't believe me, but I'm actually skilled in the Mozambique shooting method. If you give me a chance, I'll be the next Yan Shuangying."

"???"

Luo Zhen's temporary concession was for the advantage of his teammates across the map. The great god had already proven to everyone over the entire S8 season that it was useless to just get fat on one lane. If the other lanes couldn't stand up, they would still lose. Only when everyone could stand up could the entire composition have a chance in the early, mid, and late game.

This match.

He was responsible for holding up the early game strength until Gwen got her items in the mid-game and Azir completed his three-item build. Then they could directly start the 'Ouba Lei'.

At that time, Luo Zhen could throw down his cards and shout: "Gathered stars will connect the bond, and run towards the future with wishes! Transform into a shining path of light! Triangle acceleration synchronization! Come forth, Cosmic Dragon!"

Wouldn't that scene be more exciting?

Although TES had planned to focus on laning, the situation had deviated from the start. While Zhuo's mistakes were a factor, ...

JKL frowned, carefully recalling the hit rate of the enemy Lucian's skills.

Wasn't the enemy's skill aiming a bit too accurate?

From the first game of the BO5, TES's strategy had not deviated from one thing: using lane priority to transfer resources to teamfights, thereby avoiding their own lack of engage. Bai Seyueya was well aware that TES currently lacked engage, but with a few top-tier players, he could use the strategy of shifting contradictions to transfer this weakness.

But what if you lost lane priority?

Pushing the mid lane, pushing the bot lane if the jungler didn't come, and if Gwen on the top lane could farm peacefully, Jayce wouldn't dare to defend when split pushing later.

Not only would the 4-1 split push form, but they would also gain lane priority. More importantly, V5's composition was easier to kite with minion waves than theirs, and it wasn't easy to engage on Azir with his Sand Soldier.

By the time Bai Seyueya realized it, he had already stepped into the hellish painting that Coach Homme had woven for him.

He seemed to see a man holding a hand of cards, smiling and standing in front of him, saying:

"Choose, in the hell of suffering and pain."

Chapter 57: The Champion AD's Top-Tier Treatment

"AK's Q skill hit rate in the bot lane is so high. It seems he's practiced."

"More than that, and he's seized several opportunities very well. I'm a bit curious, is he really a rookie AD?"

"JKL hasn't missed too many last hits, but Tian's Viego has been in the bot lane for too long, allowing Gwen on the top lane to farm too comfortably."

"We can only say that V5's bot lane played really well this game, not giving the opponents any opportunities and putting on full pressure."

As time passed, the gap between the two bot lanes began to become increasingly obvious, so obvious that even the commentators didn't know how to smooth it over.

It's still the same saying, it's not that JKL isn't good, but that Zhuo is too good.

With the Luna combination, Lucian could freely choose when to go up and deal damage. At the very least, there was Nami's Q bubble for counter-engage. But with your Tristana and Alistar combination, would Tristana dare to W-dash in without Alistar being there?

If she dared, JKL must have lost his mind.

We've emphasized countless times that in bot lane matchups, it often comes down to the support's performance. If your support plays like a god, it doesn't matter who your AD calls to help. JKL is currently facing this situation.

He started to panic.

Logically, Alistar's W skill has a cast range of 650, while Lucian's attack range is only 500. The distance at which Lucian can auto-attack Alistar means Alistar's W should be a guaranteed hit. But the problem stems from that first blood earlier. Facing a Lucian with a Long Sword lead, Zhuo didn't dare to engage when the jungler wasn't there, and even maintained a Y-axis positioning with JKL.

This is very problematic.

If the bot lane support has disagreements, their combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced. This is also why it's so difficult for professional ADCs to pick supports. For example, when LWX chose a support, he was like picking a concubine, going through six or seven options before finally choosing Hang.

But JKL?

He had no choice. It was either Lan Ge, Zhuo Ge, or Yu Yan Jia, which completely broke him.

A champion AD reduced to this status is unique in the entire world.

"Let's play it safe in our lane. We'll go in after we see the enemy jungler's vision, and try to kill their bot lane in one go."

"No problem!"

PPGOD replied cheerfully. He keenly felt that this game was different from the previous four. Of course, he also understood Luo Zhen's fear.

Looking at TES's historical match records.

It's not that they haven't fought teamfights from an early game disadvantage, but every time they were at a disadvantage, they would inexplicably turn the tide with a few plays, as if they were cheating, second only to IG back in the day in terms of fantastical nature.

Therefore, the bot lane duo's thoughts were synchronized: they couldn't give the opponents any opportunities.

If the opponent had reached the third stage of Dou Qi, they would directly send a Dou God to eliminate them.

If the opponent started as a Caterpie, they would directly use the ultimate form of Caterpie, Rayquaza, to blast them.

If the opponent wanted to take flight, they would directly call Groudon to cast Precipice Blades.

They were determined to prevent the situation from going from "thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river" to "a terrible birth," "don't bully the young and poor," "don't bully the middle-aged and poor," "the dead are great," "the shaking of the coffin lid," "the tears of the tomb raiders," "reincarnation: my mom is Zheng Shuang," and so on.

Of course, they still had to play the scheduled teamfights.

For example, the Rift Herald fight at 8 minutes.

In terms of early game teamfight strength in the top, mid, and jungle, V5 was definitely inferior to the opponents. But with Luna in the bot lane, the situation would reverse in a 5v5. V5 thought, "Since our Luna has an advantage and is so strong early on, of course, we want to take it." While TES thought, "Our top lane Jayce and ADC Tristana have both damage and poke. Are we really going to give up this Rift Herald so easily?"

Thus, both sides tacitly decided to fight around the Rift Herald.

It's worth mentioning that due to V5's early advantage, Tian spent more time in the bot lane protecting Tristana as she farmed. Consequently, even though they had the stronger upper half of the map, TES managed to secure river vision first during this Rift Herald play, which was a critical mistake.

If you want to reclaim river vision, you have to group up and slowly push to clear vision. In that case, you can't manage the mid lane minion wave.

I'll clear the mid lane wave with Lucian and then return. The river vision will still be split fifty-fifty. But because my mid lane wave has already passed, your Viktor will definitely lose a wave of minions, and the tower's health will also suffer.

This is what we call macro play.

"How much longer?"

"A few more minions. I'll go farm the top lane. Don't engage yet."

Glancing at his experience bar, Luo Zhen unhesitatingly chose to push top lane alone. At the same time, Karsa wasn't in a hurry to contest the Rift Herald, and Rich had already finished his itemization at base, waiting for the team fight to begin.

It wasn't until Luo Zhen signaled that they could engage that Gwen finally used her Teleport.

"V5 is making a move, but the enemy has Jayce. Can they fight this?"

"Gwen's TP is in, V5 wants to fight!"

"Viego and Tristana are itching to go. TES doesn't want to back down either."

"What about the enemy carries? Wait! Lucian is level six already?"

Just as the Rift Herald was down to half health and Jayce had landed a decent poke, Zhuo's Alistar initiated, flashing in and using a W-Q combo to simultaneously knock up V5's Gwen and Xin Zhao. It looked like a pretty good engage.

As Tristana and Viktor prepared to follow up with their damage, Luo Zhen's Lucian finally arrived on the scene, starting with a "Holy Gun Face Wash."

"Adadadadadada~"

The sudden ultimate barrage caused TES's formation to disperse slightly. They couldn't understand how Lucian, who was level five just moments ago, had reached level six in the blink of an eye.

And it was precisely during this interval of TES members panicking and dodging that Rookie's Azir EQ'd forward for a flashy play.

Well, even though he only knocked up Jayce, it wasn't a big deal.

He wasn't going in for a five-man knock-up, but rather... to create terrain!

This ultimate was placed perfectly at the entry point of TES's two carries. A decent terrain isolation effectively blocked nearly half of the river area.

"Wait, this position!!!"

The sailor duo's alarm bells went off. On the surface, this ultimate would only delay their entry for one to two seconds at most, but the problem was... with that one to two seconds, the crowd control duration from Alistar's initial engage would have already passed.

R [New Moon Guard]

W [Threaded Arrow]

As V5's top and jungle duo activated their defensive abilities, coupled with Azir's ultimate, TES was surprised to find that these three skills had completely covered the width of the river.

It seemed they had nowhere to output damage!

The triple defensive skill deployment could only maintain a safe environment for about 2-3 seconds. But for Luna, 2-3 seconds was enough for Luo Zhen to unleash his entire first round of damage.

E [Tidecaller Blessing]

E [Cold Blood Pursuit]

Such a perfect terrain and skill obstruction was almost the dream output environment for every ADC.

And so, Luo Zhen went in.

At this moment.

The vanguard advances, the generals are slain, the city is captured, and the defeated army flees!

"Close-quarters combat, I shall leave none of you standing."

"Let's kill!"

Chapter 58: Siege and Reinforce, Victory Through Strategy

"Here it comes, Lucian's output environment."

"AK is engaging again. It looks like TES's front line is in big trouble this time!"

The double circles plus the minion wall almost completely blocked any possibility of the enemy coming in to deal damage. TES's backline couldn't get in, and their frontline couldn't retreat. The original 5v5 gradually turned into a 5v3 situation, like closing the door to beat the dog.

TES lost again.

A 0-for-3 team fight, and they even lost a Rift Herald. Looking back at the five games, this was almost the only game where TES didn't have an advantage in the early game.

So, the question is, what was the reason for the lack of early game advantage in this match?

All of TES fell into deep thought.

[TES, doomed!]

[You suppressed them for four whole games, and you couldn't hold on in the last one?]

[All I can say is that Bai Seyueya really wanted to replicate that famous scene from the World Championship, but unfortunately, the opponent wasn't Xiao Lübu, and he wouldn't fall for that trick.]

[These support and top laners should have been swapped out long ago. It's really disgusting to watch.]

At this point in time, TES fans vastly outnumbered V5 fans. Or rather, to put it generously, because normally V5 shouldn't have any fans at this point. V5 didn't hesitate, and after securing the Rift Herald, they chose to release it in the mid lane, taking advantage of the enemy's smaller numbers to chip away at the tower's health.

From a strategic standpoint, how quickly V5 could end the game really depended on how early this mid and outer tower could be destroyed.

Where was the breakthrough point for TES's composition?

It wasn't Zhuo; Zhuo could only serve as a breakthrough on the laning phase, not as a breakthrough for the entire game.

Their true breakthrough lay with the top laner.

For a full two years, ever since the "Sailor" duo was formed, TES had been weak in the top lane position. Especially in terms of split-pushing from the top lane, none of TES's successive top laners had been able to truly master split-pushing.

In other words, their understanding of converting minion waves into objective teamfights wasn't deep. They only excelled in lane, relying on their individual laning strength to force conversions.

Okay, understanding this point, it becomes very simple to target TES.

Without Baron, it's a 4-1 split; with Baron, it's a 1-3-1. Gwen can split-push, fight, and escape, but the only one on TES who can stop Gwen is Jayce. And Jayce wouldn't dare chase too deep, as it would make him vulnerable to ganks.

But if you send Jayce over, you can't beat me in a 4v4 frontal engagement.

If you want to force a 5v4 engage, oh, I'm sorry, I have Azir here with his Shurima's Last Breath and his ultimate, and the support Nami also has a counter-initiation ultimate. With two counter-initiations here, how can you engage me?

Is it Alistar flanking from behind?

V5's composition allows them to have an unassailable advantage during 4-1 split-pushing. However, to amplify this advantage, they must destroy the opponent's inner and outer turrets and push the frontline forward.

The deeper the push in the mid lane, the deeper the split-push can go on the side lanes.

Mutual influence, a positive cycle.

At this moment, V5 was like the Mongolian army of old, not attacking aggressively, but instead using macro play to achieve a slow, steady conquest.

What you thought of the Mongolian army: unmatched cavalry archers.

The actual Mongolian army: stacking armor, relentlessly stacking armor.

Then, those who could shoot him didn't have his armor, and those with his armor couldn't shoot like him; a dialectical invincibility.

On the stage, Bai Seyueya was gritting his teeth. They had already reached the final game. According to his plan, both sides should have revealed all their trump cards, with no more hidden strategies. But you, Coach Homme, are playing dirty! Are you like a weapons research institute selling arms?

Selling version one, using version one themselves, having a demo version, and a PowerPoint version. And the demo version is actually at the research institute, only to be brought out at a critical moment.