You Call This 'Steady'?

With fear applied, Flash answered Flash, and Karsa easily triggered the fear effect of his E skill.

369 followed up by activating Counter Strike, then brought the stick down.

First Blood!

First Blood secured.

"That was sick, Brother Ka! Perfect tempo!"

After getting the kill, 369 immediately cheered. Even though he was no longer on that old team, he was still enjoying the same treatment as before.

Man, that felt good.

"Alright, you. If you get an advantage this game and still can't do anything with it, you know what happens... I have your QQ password. I'm guessing you don't want everyone seeing those embarrassing old stories of yours, do you, Mr. 69?"

"Can I give this kill back?"

"Sorry, it's too late!"

It had to be said that the Social Death Award proposed by the team manager was truly the ultimate punishment. Even someone as rebellious as 369 did not dare try it.

With the jungle GANK happening top, RA could only hastily shove a wave bot to stop their losses, then head to the river to help Qiyana take the dragon. In the current patch, dragon HP had not been increased, so a level three or four jungler could still solo it. But because it was Qiyana, bot lane had to come help out.

But with bot lane gone, Luo Zhen had it easy in lane.

He began rapidly cycling through his weapons to get Infernum. Then the bot-support duo held the wave firmly in front of their tower. Nothing else mattered—he was going to deny the enemy at least three waves before letting them touch it. With Infernum in hand, he was not afraid of Jinx using Cannon Form to shove the wave.

If you cleared the wave, he cleared the wave too. If you did not, he farmed freely.

With the wave set up like this, Qiyana was just wasting time in bot lane before Level 6. And since he had delayed his own growth by taking dragon, his jungle was probably a complete mess by now. His team tempo was great, but his personal tempo had already broken.

Ever heard of Rift Relativity?

This was it!

My Gun Only Charges Forward Under One Condition

null

There's Something Unclean in the Rift

"V5 and RA are about to fight here. V5 has the terrain advantage—aren't they going in first?"

"They gave it up. They want RA to start first. Will RA take it? They are! RA isn't scared at all."

"Here it comes, Nocturne ulted! Jax and Corki are both charging in. What perfect coordination!"

"Can RA react? Azir can ult from this position—wait... where's Azir's ult? Where is it? Strive, what are you doing? Your teammates got engaged on, why are you just watching? Where's your ult?"

With all of V5's visually overwhelming ultimates layered together, the two new casters handling this game could not clearly make out Luo Zhen's actions. After all, from the observer perspective, the casters were sitting on chairs looking down at tiny screens near the ground. Missing a few details was normal.

But Azir's ult failing to come out immediately caused RA to completely collapse in this fight.

A two-for-three trade.

Other than mid and jungle, all three of RA's remaining players were taken down by V5. They could not even secure the Rift Herald.

As for the two players V5 lost...

The price of Flashing in to provide crowd control was that he had no ability to resist Leyan's Qiyana. Luo Zhen could not even be bothered to use Heal, because he was certain that even if he did, Qiyana's full combo would still leave him owing the enemy several hundred HP.

Don't ask. It was just absurdly overpowered.

Holy shit, V5's ult effects were insane!

This lights-out-and-fire setup really had something to it. But why didn't Azir ult?

From the first-person view, it looked like AK rooted him with Gravitum.

AK stopped chambering rounds when he got on stage and started throwing flashbangs instead?

From the moment his teammates decided to go in, Luo Zhen had more or less understood his role. First of all, Aphelios at eight minutes had almost no combat power. Forget Red White Blade—even if Blue Blade Ult hit all five enemies, at most it would blow away two-thirds of their HP. Because of Aphelios's powerful late game, his early-game numbers were painfully weak.

Since that was the case, why should he care about his own life?

There were people in the way, so Thresh hooks could not easily hit Azir's position. But if the AD Flashed in and auto-attacked, surely they could not dodge a bullet too, right?

The advantage of a Three-Core Lineup was this: even if one lane died, as long as the other two still existed, there was still hope of turning the game around and cleaning up. That was how IG played back then.

"Well played, Xiao Zhen. Well played."

With several kills and assists going down smoothly, Karsa and the others could not have been happier. Rookie especially felt as though coming to V5 had brought him back to his old home—the home from several years ago.

Top lane dominated lane matchups, jungle protected top lane's growth, and bot lane sacrificed for the other lanes. When pushed hard enough, they could even occasionally step up and Take Over the Game.

Got it. This was IG().

Watching the three Big Brothers of his own top-mid-jungle laughing happily, Luo Zhen felt a little hurt but did not say anything. Mainly because he had not had his ult that fight.

If he had thrown out an ult, he could have gotten at least three assists.

But because he had not reached Level 6, level five Luo Zhen could only Flash in to lock someone down. With just one assist on him, he suffered Sudden Death. It could only be said that after that team fight, V5 might have lost only one unlucky bastard—PPGOD had even been smart enough to throw out his ult before dying, picking up two assists from the fight.

"It's fine, as long as the giegies are happy. Then this Herald..."

"Give it to 369. Bear with it for now, or go take some jungle camps on the bottom side."

Luo Zhen: ...

Though reason told him that feeding Jax top lane first with the Rift Herald was indeed the most cost-effective choice, when he actually saw his top-jungle happily taking enemy tower plates top lane, Luo Zhen could not help feeling jealous.

Then, he got instantly killed again.

Karsa went top to deploy the Rift Herald, so naturally they could not defend the second Elemental Dragon bot. Luo Zhen was dragged into the disaster as well. After the second dragon, the Rift terrain that triggered happened to be the terrain of the new Elemental Dragon, Chemtech Dragon—camouflage.

Try to understand it.

You were moving through your own jungle, and as you walked, an absurdly fed Qiyana suddenly appeared right in front of you.

Seriously, if you ran into that in a Ranked Match, you would be so scared you would want to throw your mouse.

She slammed him into a wall, threw out her Q skill, then Jinx from afar followed with her ult. Qiyana dashed in with E and hit another Q.

"Boom~"

Double Kill!

Even at the instant his screen turned gray, Luo Zhen could not understand what he had done wrong. Why did he have to suffer this pain for no reason at all?

Holy shit, busted!

Le Ye's Qiyana was as ruthless as ever.

Honestly, this terrain was truly too broken for assassins.

It was basically a horror game. You met and instantly died, while the Dragon Soul effect was absurdly strong too. How did Designer even make this game?

At the beginning of S12, the arrival of this new Dragon Soul terrain had been too sudden. It was so sudden that teams had no way to immediately update their defensive habits, and the traditional warding methods from previous patches were completely useless on this terrain.

It was an opportunity for Qiyana, but also torment for the carries on both sides.

Because they now did not dare enter the jungle recklessly, afraid of encountering something unclean in the Rift.

"This damn terrain is so annoying."

After dying twice in a row, when it came time to choose his Mythic Gear, Luo Zhen did not hesitate to buy Galeforce.

Don't ask. It was for survival.

Aphelios's itemization was simple. For Mythic Gear, buy the Zhuge Crossbow; choose the MP set; a bleed bracelet with abnormal status was better, giving both damage and sustain. If there were too many assassins, you could also buy Famous Blade of Life. Pair it with Gale intelligence, then mindlessly Charge Forward.

Of course, all of that was nonsense I made up.

In reality, for most ADs, Galeforce was a more useful defensive item than Shieldbow. The key was not healing, but mobility.

A lot of AD players kept their thinking stuck on the idea that as long as they were alive, they could deal damage. But they failed to understand what "being alive" meant.

The most fundamental thing for an AD was dealing the damage they were supposed to deal. Once they had dealt enough damage, they could die however they wanted. If they did not even dare auto-attack anyone in a team fight, then after all their teammates died and only they were left, how were they supposed to deal damage? At that point, if the enemy wanted to kill them, it would be as easy as chopping vegetables. When teammates went in, they had to Follow Up and deal damage. Hit whoever they could hit. They could not just give up on dealing damage in a team fight because the enemy had a Wukong or Malphite with an ult.

They had to understand.

When they faced threats, the enemy AD faced threats too. Both sides were competing to see who could deal with the other side's threats first. If an ADC did not want to die, they had to kill the enemy first and protect themselves with damage.

So if their teammates had a Forward Charge Composition, they had to find a way to Charge Forward with them.

The core idea was just one sentence:

Whoever charged the farthest forward was the Frontline; whoever fell furthest behind was the Backline.

Silent Mr. 69

With help from his teammates and the feeding from Rift Herald, 369's Jax became increasingly unstoppable.

Then came V5's most classic 4-1 strategy: let 369 go split-push alone.

TES's 369 could not play this way, largely because Knight in mid was an Earthbound Spirit. If their mid laner had been replaced with someone with strong Roam Ability, someone who could establish vision around top lane, then the original TES top laner might have been capable of mastering the 4-1 strategy.

Unfortunately, he could not change.

If Knight could change that flaw, then he would not be Knight. Just like Teacher Da B—if one day he stopped roaming and began focusing on lane, while picking heroes like LeBlanc and Syndra, no one would be pleasantly surprised. They would only think he had been possessed, then suggest taking him away for dissection().

But this was V5.

What Knight could not do, Rookie could.

So they set up vision, spread out their formation, and directly let Jax engage in royal city PK with the enemy top laner. Thanks to Counter Strike, 369 did not even need to worry about Qiyana ambushing him in this terrain. If the enemy dared come, 369 could even battle him.

"Pay attention, 369. The moment you see Qiyana, run immediately or activate your E skill." Perhaps feeling that the pre-match reminders from Hungry Light had not been enough, Karsa kept stressing that 369 needed to stay safe after they began the 4-1 strategy.

"Alright, alright. I'm actually Kiting, okay? Just look at the Minimap if you don't believe me."

"It's just that you haven't played much Jax. I'm afraid you'll suddenly go blank on him."

"What a joke. Jax is my signature pick. How could I possibly not play him much? You're just forcing slander."

With a 3/0 Jax top, 369's confidence had begun swelling to unprecedented heights. Though he feared Karsa's scolding, his scoreline was right there. As long as he did not lose his mind, he could brag however he wanted!

"Signature pick, huh? Fine, let me test you. What's Jax's ult called? Don't look at the skill description. Tell me immediately within three seconds!"

"Jax? Easy, Master's Strength!" 369 answered in an immensely proud tone, even repeating himself. "Jax's ult is called Master's Strength. Isn't that a beginner question? Can you give me something more challenging?"

Then everyone fell silent.

"Um... Brother 9, may I boldly ask how many games of Jax you've played?" After hesitating for a moment, Luo Zhen cautiously asked.

"Several hundred, why?"

"Nothing. Several hundred is actually a lot, but I've played less than a hundred games, and even I know Jax's ult is called Master's Might." The moment he said that, V5's Team voice chat completely lost it, and everyone burst out laughing.

Seeing 369 sitting there in stunned, silent despair, Luo Zhen hurriedly added, "It's fine, Brother 9. The great Player Ke Jie once said that people can suffer from intermittent memory loss. This really isn't your fault."

"Really? He said that?"

"No, but after our match ends today, I'll go to his stream and send an SC so he can read it out once. Consider it a loan."

"..."

V5's composition style meant that every time they wanted to make a play, they had to wait until everyone's ultimates were off Cooldown. Jax's unstoppable 4-1 split-pushing completely eased their awkward downtime between ultimates.

When we had ults, we fought you for resources. When we did not, we helped the side lanes establish vision so Jax could split-push.

With Nocturne Ult, the enemy had no way to avoid V5's engage.

How could RA withstand V5's kind of macro play? They had no Star Player on their roster, and their coach was not particularly well-known either. Aside from relying on Leyan occasionally catching isolated targets in the jungle to build small advantages, RA could hardly create any major effective tempo.

Simply put, their mid-game macro was atrocious.

Oh, it was not entirely nonexistent.

At least they had taken the first two Elemental Dragons. But just as they secured the third Elemental Dragon, something unexpected happened.

As a "ding" echoed through the Rift.

The various defensive towers and major neutral objectives on the map for RA suddenly gained layers of Chakra Cloak.

Their strategic points had been triggered!?

???

No, RA was only 3,000 gold ahead. Why had the bounty points triggered?