You Call This 'Steady'?

A few days before the Regular Season began, a piece of Transfer Period news quietly slipped into everyone's view.

TES, JDG, and V5 swapping top laners had ultimately become public knowledge. When people saw V5 trade away Rich and welcome back 369, countless onlookers were left dumbfounded.

This... wouldn't make their top-jungle duo start fighting on the spot?

What kind of move was swapping Rich for 333? Had V5 gone insane?

LMAO, 369 had already been dragging things out, and after all that dragging, the jungler was still Karsa.

V5 was done for! Wouldn't top lane become the enemy's breakthrough point?

Rumor had it that 369 had been personally picked by Coach Homme. Trust Homme, alright? Trust Homme.

Online, opinions on V5's move were divided, but there were still more people who thought poorly of it. After all, S11 369 had genuinely been playing terribly. It didn't really have much to do with Bai Seyueya—he simply had an attitude and wasn't playing well.

To be fair.

The reason Homme was later able to coach 369 so successfully might not have been entirely unrelated to Bai Seyueya. Bai Seyueya may have successfully borne the brunt of 369's rebellious phase, leaving Homme with half a decent hand.

And the way public opinion fermented was also terrifying. Words could give people imagery and easily leave fixed impressions in their minds. You might not understand right away, but it was fine. All I needed was one example for you to get the picture:

[When he plunged the knife into my abdomen]

[I finally realized this wasn't a joke]

[As I watched him ride away on his electric scooter]

[My body gradually began to grow cold...]

See? You could feel it now, couldn't you?

Of course.

No matter how online discourse developed, Luo Zhen and the others had to put it aside and face something far more important that was about to arrive.

Because the Spring Split was about to begin.

Release Notes

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AD's Path of Advancement

With the arrival of the brand-new S12 season, the entire Summoner's Rift had also been given a chance for a major reshuffle.

First came the birth of the new Elemental Dragons, the Chemtech Dragon and Hextech Dragon. The Chemtech Dragon Soul could basically be understood as a respawn dragon: after dying, you gained something similar to Karthus's passive and could keep fighting for several more seconds. Its practical strength was absurd. By comparison, the Hextech Dragon was strong too, but not quite that broken. Its Dragon Soul was roughly a slowing mini-Statikk Shiv effect.

New Mythic Gear had been added, with the focus being Crown of the Shattered Queen, the cornerstone of the New Tiger Three Item Set.

Rune updates, with the addition and changes to First Strike, Lethal Tempo, and Glacial Augment.

Teleport had changed. Before fourteen minutes, it could only Teleport to defensive towers. Top lane had completely become an orphan lane from then on, basically cutting off the possibility of using a top-lane advantage to influence the other lanes.

Then there was the most disgusting thing of all—strategic points.

No matter how Homme, the Assistant Coach, and the data analysts calculated things, they could not determine when strategic points would appear or what factors caused them. The only thing they could confirm was that when one side had taken more dragons, the other side seemed more likely to trigger a strategic point.

That made things troublesome.

You couldn't say this thing wasn't important, since it handed out gold across the entire map. But if you said it was important, you still couldn't pin down its trigger pattern. It was incredibly disgusting.

And with the new patch's Dragon Souls being so bugged, if you didn't take dragons while the enemy got a Dragon Soul, you couldn't beat them. If you took dragons but the enemy triggered a strategic point to trade resources with you, you would lose out massively. You might even lose a single teamfight and watch that strategic point hand over every advantage you had painstakingly built up.

The entire patch could be summed up in four words: encourage fighting.

Homme was lost.

Of course, it wasn't just him. Nearly every LPL team was the same. Nobody could understand whether the New Patch Designers had garbage or shit stuffed in their heads. They spent ages studying strategic points and still figured out absolutely nothing.

Still, it wasn't as if they had gained nothing at all.

The Rift Scuttler experience had been changed, which effectively forced junglers to GANK more in the early game. It was a typical tempo-jungler environment, which was good news for Karsa.

As for everything else, it seemed to test the players' Laning Ability even more.

Watching Coach Homme's expression grow increasingly grim, Luo Zhen quickly forced a smile. "It's fine, Coach. It's just a Lane Matchup, right? I won't claim much else, but I can guarantee that I'm absolutely the AD with the greatest potential for improvement in the entire LPL."

The rest of V5: ...

Ah, that was true.

It sounded strange, but the more they thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense.

He was the only rookie AD in the entire LPL. If he wasn't the one with the most potential, then who was? But the problem was that during the Regular Season, they would face quite a few teams with strong laning.

It was like fighting.

When everyone was still playing dirty, the strongest moves were obviously eye gouges, groin kicks, stomping toes, breaking fingers, and other dirty tricks.

But once things became formal, those tricks couldn't be used anymore. Usually, you either used a Mud Truck outside the venue or poisoned the enemy so they couldn't compete. Otherwise, you just pulled out a gun in the arena and gave them some American Iaido. There was no chance to play those underhanded tricks.

That was exactly what made V5 so miserable right now.

Their macro and lane-swapping were originally very strong. Even if 369 hadn't fully improved yet, as long as they followed Homme's plan, there wouldn't be much overall change. But the patch changed, everything was thrown into disorder, and now they were being asked to fight Lane Matchups in all Three Lanes. That exposed V5's weakness in both side lanes.

With the major patch changes, Homme and the others were busy researching data and temporarily had no time to hold meetings for everyone. Still, they set aside a short period for Luo Zhen and 369, intending to brainwash them.

Well, or, to put it more nicely, give them psychological counseling.

After listening, Luo Zhen summed it up as the kind of persuasive nonsense found in Xuanhuan Novels: I can see that you have the bearing of The Emperor. You simply haven't fully unlocked your power yet, so you must work even harder, and so on.

Of course, Homme also didn't forget to tell Karsa and Rookie to reduce the frequency of certain activities. Especially Rookie—just look at what Rookie looked like back in S5, then look at his official photos when he won S8, and then look at how thin Rookie was now.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

All he could say was—everyone loved the immortal's cave, never knowing it was also called a coffin crack.

Aside from that, what Luo Zhen needed to practice was simple. Or rather, it was something every Player who wanted to climb higher had to practice—Kiting.

This needed some explanation.

First, most AD Kiting came in two forms.

One was right-click Kiting, while the other was Ground Slam Kiting.

Both had their pros and cons. Right-click Kiting was easy to operate, but its weakness was that you could easily hit the wrong target, and it made Last Hitting awkward. It disrupted your CS Rhythm and could make you walk right into the enemy's face while autoing. If the enemy used Zhonya's Hourglass or a skill that made them untargetable, you could instinctively end up moving your character forward and get melted by AOE damage.

For this type, one entertainment-focused setting was recommended. It prioritized reducing inputs or making things foolproof, making it suitable for lower ranks. You simply used the right mouse button to move and the left mouse button to auto attack. There was an advanced hotkey setting for it—just enable it.

When you wanted to attack someone, press the ~ key to automatically lock onto enemy Heroes.

Easy and beginner-friendly.

As for Ground Slam Kiting, its advantage was greater operational stability, while its disadvantage was that it was extremely hard on the hands. If you weren't trying to climb, you could change attack-move to the A key and use A plus right-click for Ground Slam Kiting. That saved one use of the left mouse button, though you could sometimes lose your target.

Of course, it was best to know both. Right-click Kiting was generally better when chasing someone, while Ground Slam Kiting was better when counterattacking while being chased. Mastering both made climbing easier.

Everything above involved changing keybinds.

It wouldn't instantly make you stronger, but it could make you more comfortable according to your own rhythm. What Luo Zhen needed to practice was increasing his Ground Slam frequency without changing any keybinds, because altered keybinds would occasionally display attack range, which interfered with his Kiting.

Why was Uzi so strong in lane?

Because he could Ground Slam five times while taking a single Last Hit. That was also why his hands were more damaged than those of any other LPL AD. Back when Xiejian was still Crystal, he played the same way, so one BO10 plus bloodletting therapy was enough to send him straight off the stage.

Meanwhile, when Luo Zhen maintained lane pressure against players at professional strength, he could only manage three Ground Slams.

But it was fine. There was still time to practice.

Just as he had said himself, he was currently the LPL AD with the greatest potential.

Talent determined the platform. Hard work determined your position on that platform.

As long as you could still clearly recognize that you needed to change, then nothing was too late!

First Match and the Shortcut

The LPL Spring Split was divided into the Regular Season and the Playoffs.

The Regular Season lasted ten weeks. Judging from the schedule, winning at least eight series gave a team a chance to reach the Playoffs. V5's goal for this season was simple: make the Playoffs and secure a decent placement.

As for the Champion title?

They certainly had to aim in that direction. But with both their top and bot lanes being weak points, while their Mid-Jungle form was inconsistent, it depended on what Coach Homme could ultimately make of the team. At the very least, management's goal was simply to reach the Spring Split Playoffs.

So, winning eight series was V5's primary objective.

And the first opponent they had to face was RA, which had also gone through a round of adjustments.

Why emphasize that it was their first match?

Because the match would take place on January 16. Historically, on January 16, 2015, Rookie played in the opening match of the LPL Spring Split with IG and claimed victory. It was also his first LPL match representing IG. Later, Rookie served and remained with IG as a Player for nearly seven years, and fans once called him the team's "Team Soul." Seven years later, Rookie would once again take the LPL stage with V5 in his first official match after transferring.

See? The hype was right there.

The Incheon people were in tears.

Considering that it was the first match of the new season, and while RA wasn't particularly famous, they happened to have well-known players holding down their Two Side Lanes, taking them seriously was only natural.

As Homme gathered the players for a meeting, he also briefly introduced the opposing lineup:

Top laner Cube, honorary owner of Nasus Bar and Kayle Bar's sworn enemy. He had the same type of substitute personality as 369: with jungle help, he could establish an advantage, but when his condition acted up, he loved feeding too. In S11, he, 369, and Bin were known as the Three Great Madmen. He was the Big Brother, an equally strong coin-flip player.

Jungler Leyan, the league's unpaid-wages spokesman. Rumor had it that he was the ex-boyfriend of the virtual streamer Mikuya. He was the grass-element Qiyana Jinchuriki, the LPL's only Daddy Core Player. He single-handedly overturned the LPL's jungle system. Even now, though this domineering daddy had forgiven Bao Sang, he still had not forgiven the LPL!

Mid laner Strive, a rookie mid laner. His best debut statistic was 9.2 CS per minute, ranking first among all LPL mid laners. He was a professional-level farming machine, but aside from that, he had no particularly outstanding performances.

Bot lane iBoy and Zorah. This one was hard to describe. Back in 2017, there had once been talk of the Three Great ADCs of the New Generation. At the time, iBoy had been sharply praised as the foremost of the Three Great ADCs of the New Generation—the other two were JKL and Zou A. And the result... one shot straight toward World Champion, one plunged into the secondary league, while he was left stuck somewhere in the middle.

As for that support, all I could say was that he was even worse than Yuyanjia. Could you believe Yuyanjia joining RA later actually counted as an upgrade?

Compared to V5, that lineup wasn't particularly outstanding, but it couldn't be said to pose no threat whatsoever. At the very least, in this new patch emphasizing laning, V5's side lanes couldn't be said to have a stable advantage over the enemy's scaling.

"So tomorrow's match is just free play?"

After listening for so long without hearing Coach Homme's arrangement, Luo Zhen gradually began to feel confused.

"More or less. We still haven't figured out how strategic points are triggered in the new patch. On top of that, RA looks decent, but their raw strength probably isn't as strong as ours. So I want you to test things out first. If you lose, we'll immediately change our approach."

Simply put, simulations required material as samples, and they had too few samples right now.

They played plenty of Ranked Matches every day, but the rhythm of Ranked Matches and actual competition were entirely different. They also needed further data before they could conclude what kind of trigger method strategic points would have in professional matches.

What else could they do? They could only send their own people in to play first.

The V5 players looked over their respective lane opponents and felt little psychological pressure. Only Luo Zhen looked at iBoy, his opposing laner, and calculated just how strong the other side really was.

JKL in the Demacia Cup was only a reference, because his support had been too poor. That meant they couldn't determine what level LPL bot lanes were actually at.

Thinking of that, he couldn't help recalling the new Hero League of Legends had released a few days earlier—Zeri.

On January 20, Zeri officially launched on the National Server in Patch 12.2. Since newly released ADCs in League of Legends had always been overtuned, V5 had already sent people to gather information on the Hero during the days after her release.

Their conclusion was: hard to say.

Her numbers seemed to wildly swing between dealing even more Scratching Damage than Ashe and being flashier than Vayne. Due to her unique mechanics, her Auto Attack and Q skill nearly drove countless traditional AD players insane. Yet she had High Mobility that few other ADs possessed, which meant she would most likely appear in competitive play.

Thus, Luo Zhen had been practicing her like mad lately, because he keenly sensed an opportunity.

No matter how hard he worked on traditional ADs that had already been released, he could never be better than professional players who had played thousands upon thousands of games on them. But with a new Hero, everyone stood on the same starting line. As long as he put in enough effort, she might become a signature pick unique to him in the future, just as Draven was to JKL.

"I told you, this Hero has flaws." Homme looked at Luo Zhen's screen, rare hesitation in his eyes.

"I know, Coach. But this may be one of my few opportunities."

Luo Zhen naturally understood what his coach meant. Zeri's Q skill had an 800-range, while her Auto Attack only had 500 range. Combined with Zeri's low early laning damage, when she needed to squeeze out damage for a kill, she had to alternate one Auto Attack and one Q skill to make up the damage. Combined with A-key Kiting, that meant playing this Hero well required two things. First, you needed an extremely clear Sense of Distance and had to control your damage Tempo Point.

Second, it was hard on the hands. Very hard on the hands.

With traditional ADs, your hands might only start getting tired in the fourth or Fifth Game. But with this one, you might start struggling by the second game.

Without knowing how future patches would develop, Homme actually wasn't too willing to let him start practicing so early. But he also understood that this might become a Sea Calming Needle in Luo Zhen's heart, allowing him to play more confidently in the LPL bot lane. Thus, he fell into hesitation.

"Is it worth it?" Homme asked.

"Of course it is. As long as this Hero has even a ten-percent chance of appearing, I think she is worth it. Compared to the Predecessors on the competitive stage, I need to put in far more effort to catch up to them."

"And Zeri is the Shortcut."

Don't Ask, My Idol Taught Me