6000... 4000... 2000
At this point, both junglers had 900-damage Smite available.
A quick note here: in patch 11.10, Smite received its biggest mechanical change in ten years—its damage was no longer tied to the jungler's level, becoming a fixed 450 before upgrading and 900 afterward. Ever since Smite began upgrading after five uses, junglers on the Pro Scene had basically all started taking Cosmic Insight as their secondary rune. Without Cosmic Insight, the fifth Smite came at 7:30, and 900-damage Smite became available at 9:00.
With Cosmic Insight, however, the fifth Smite came at 6:35, making 900-damage Smite available right around eight minutes—far more favorable for contesting the Rift Herald fight.
So in this exchange, both junglers were effectively standing at the same starting line.
"It's up to you, Brother Ka."
"I'll do my best. Make some room for me to get in."
"No problem."
Since it was a Smite Duel anyway, as long as he got into the Dragon pit, anything was possible in this gamble. As the Rift Herald dropped to its final two thousand health, Karsa's Xin Zhao activated his ultimate and fiercely marked the Rift Herald at the pit entrance with his W skill.
Then... just as Trundle predictively cast E skill, trying to interrupt Xin Zhao's E skill entry—
"Whoosh~" He did the opposite and Flash Forward.
Then—
"Bang~" Smite and the giant claw came down.
By the time Sofm finally realized this had been a feint and prepared to contest with Smite, everything was already too late.
Xin Zhao had slain the Rift Herald.
Karsa had stolen it!
I Am Hope!
"Holy shit, Brother Ka, that was sick!"
"World's Number 1 Jungler! Brother Ka is the World's Number 1 Jungler in my heart this game!"
"No, no, that's not what I want you guys evaluating! Someone save me! Save me!"
"Alright, Brother Ka has spoken. Everyone, obey orders: collapse, retreat, sell him out, run! Brothers, get out!"
???
"No, I'm the hero here! The hero! You're just selling me out like this?"
"Don't say another word, Brother Ka. We loved you~"
What mattered to V5 was that the enemy didn't get the Rift Herald. As for who got it, or whether anyone picked it up, that didn't matter.
The enemy had gathered all five members, while they had only sent four. As long as they didn't lose too many people, stealing the Rift Herald was pure profit.
WBG couldn't take it anymore.
Corki immediately activated his Yordle Snap Trap to hold people back, while Trundle used his ultimate, raised his club, and charged toward V5. As for Xin Zhao, who had entered to steal the Rift Herald, he was currently being blasted Face-to-Face by the enemy Graves.
"Can we run? Can we run?"
"No. That damn Yordle Snap Trap was placed at too good an angle. We're tangled up."
"Can we turn and fight? How's 369's position?"
"My position's fine, but we don't have enough damage!"
With Xin Zhao already certain to die early, how much damage could a Level 6 Kennen ultimate do by itself? Even with Rookie's Poppy, they could at most pick off one or two people before everyone else got chased down and killed.
Unless another damage source came in.
Wait!
Another damage source?
"Something's wrong. Xiao Zhen, where are you? Karsa already stole the Rift Herald, why haven't you arrived?" As everyone fled like drowning dogs, Rookie suddenly remembered someone.
The top and mid lane damage really wasn't enough, but wouldn't it be different if they added the AD carry?
Thinking that, they swept their eyes over the map and were shocked to discover that their AD carry was currently beneath the enemy Mid Lane Turret, quietly munching on the enemy's turret plating.
The sight made Rookie's eyes go wide.
"Holy shit, Xiao Zhen, you..."
"Cough, well, I saw how focused you all were on Steal Dragon, so I couldn't bear to interrupt. But it's fine—I already shoved the mid wave in. Their mid laner loses one wave, while I gain one wave by pushing in. Rounded off, that means we're two waves ahead of them. Pure profit."
V5 members: ???
Of course he had seen the situation in the upper river. Deep down, he had been ready to join the Team Fight, but Samira was really hard to bring in for cleanup before Level 6, so he had been catching up on farm.
Farming alone in bot lane, then catching the even mid wave, had already fully made up for the experience he had lost from dying earlier. He had even pulled slightly ahead.
So...
Another Auto Attack left a Soldier low, and only then did the Level 5 Samira begin moving toward the brush near the upper side of mid river. The instant he stepped around the corner, the newly arrived melee Soldier died, and the glow of Level 6 finally appeared on Samira.
In an instant, the V5 members stopped panicking. They stopped shouting. Even their retreat movements became far more elusive.
Ah, this damn sense of security!
Seeing that, PPGOD's Titan turned around and threw out a hook, looking as though he was ready to trade his life for his teammates' escape. WBG chased even more aggressively.
They had already lost the Rift Herald, and Corki had already used his Yordle Snap Trap. If they didn't hit back hard here, they would truly be losing their shirts.
Just as WBG's Backline caught up to its Frontline and the group prepared to charge in together, kill people, and take Dragon—
369's Kennen moved!
Flash Over Wall, Lightning Strike activated. Just as the quick-reacting ON realized what was happening and prepared to use his ultimate to carry him away—
"Whoosh~"
Flash plus W skill. Rookie's Poppy moved even faster than ON, flashing into the fight in the opposite direction and fearing Xin Zhao in place.
What did that mean?
Rookie's Flash fear left WBG completely unable to understand V5's intentions.
Their support had clearly prepared to sacrifice himself so they could run, yet their mid and top Double C had turned around and charged back like idiots. Did they really think an eight-minute Kennen had enough items to pull off a Famous Scene with Heavenly Thunder?
No way, right?
Just as everyone was stunned by Kennen and waited for the Control Time to end so they could go on a slaughter—
From the brush appeared a character they had never expected: a Level 6—Lucian!
WBG members: !!!
Before they could figure out why this damn AD carry had suddenly hit Level 6 after being gone for one moment, Luo Zhen had already stacked his style rating at top speed, transforming into a spinning top and charging straight into WBG's formation.
A + Flash + Auto Attack + W + E + Q + R
Then came... R, Seventh Wing Movement!
When Luo Zhen's Samira transformed into Lucian and unleashed the awakened Seventh Wing Movement amid the crowd, creating the Famous Scene of Blade Storm—
The situation changed.
Heavenly Thunder, storm, and fear descended.
V5's Three-Core Lineup combined their skills perfectly, becoming terrifying weapons of battlefield cleanup as WBG's formation began to collapse.
There was no helping it.
A Level 6 Heavenly Thunder didn't deal enough damage, and a Level 6 Blade Storm's damage was equally pathetic. But when the two ultimates were combined, alongside Poppy whose R skill could refresh endlessly from kills, the combo became absurdly unstoppable.
A three-for-five exchange.
After sacrificing their top laner, jungler, and support, V5 somehow turned the fight around and won a four-versus-five Miracle Teamfight. When Poppy returned to the Dragon pit, he even picked up the Rift Herald Karsa had left behind after Smiting it.
V5 had made a massive profit from that fight!
Holy shit! AK! It was him again!!!
Here he comes, Big Brother is spinning! Big Brother is insane!
That ultimate combo was way too good! Did Pinxi xi throw this new team together?
V5 Boss: Do you understand the value of a sixteen-game bounty losing streak? hands on hips!
Originally—
Everyone had thought Karsa stealing the Rift Herald was the final highlight. Depending on what followed, it would only be a question of whether two or three people died. In terms of kills, V5 had lost out, but strategically, V5 had definitely profited.
The problem was... how had this AD carry suddenly reached Level 6?
"Did you see that? What did I say before joining the team? I'm V5's Savior! You know Savior, right!? The Savior who starts the game with a grenade launcher and wipes out two Zombies in one burst!" After cleaning up the battlefield, Luo Zhen immediately puffed himself up.
Honestly, calling his rapid Level 6 counterattack a textbook AD carry play wouldn't be an exaggeration.
Once this Famous Scene spread today, wouldn't his market value immediately soar? The thought made Luo Zhen excited!
"You've watched Marvel, right? There was once a purple potato freak who said: with finite parallel universes, everything is meaningless; with infinite parallel universes, anything is possible."
"And I... am hope!"
The Willing Will Take the Bait
When the RA members, thousands of kilometers away from the match venue, saw WBG get turned around by V5 in one fight, every player in the RA room burst out laughing almost simultaneously—and they laughed especially wildly.
They still remembered how, just last week, they had lost a Rift Herald fight because the enemy Lucian had somehow hit Level 6.
Only one week had passed, yet the enemy had used the exact same trick to take down another team. With such a high-profile WBG serving as the cushion ahead of them, surely no one would mock them anymore for Team Fighting without vision.
This time, V5 had directly played out a win-win Team Fight.
The wipe at the Rift Herald fight was unquestionably disastrous for WBG.
Kennen, Poppy, and Samira formed a Three-Core Lineup, and all three V5 carries had picked up massive amounts of kill and assist gold. Once their gold and levels started rolling, WBG was in serious trouble.
First was Poppy.
Originally, he needed to calculate damage extremely precisely with his teammates to take enemies down. But once his items updated, it became different. He could fly around however he wanted, and someone else only needed to add a bit of damage. If Poppy kept snowballing and built Philosopher's Hat (+120 Philosophy Power, +35% total Philosophy Power, +30% critical philosophy damage), wouldn't he just one-shot anyone he saw?
There was even less to say about Samira.
What had been nerfed were her various early-game damage values, and her weakness had always been her short range, which made it hard for her to survive the early and mid-game farming phase. Now that she had suddenly come online, Samira had transformed from V5's weak-point ATM into their Big Carry pick.
She could now stand on the flank alone and look for opportunities. If they engaged on her, she had W skill. If they ignored her, she could find an opening and charge in to Go Berserk. She was extremely difficult to control.
And that was only from the perspective of individual cases.
If they looked at the whole picture, V5's five-man engage composition gaining such a massive advantage was like discovering that, on a basketball court, the opposing power forward was Giannis Antetokounmpo or Karl Malone, the small forward was LeBron James, the shooting guard was peak Kobe Bryant, the point guard was Isiah Thomas or John Stockton, the center was Bill Laimbeer, and the substitutes were Draymond Green, Bruce Bowen, and Zaza Pachulia.
Come on, experience what it meant to face the good boys' squad.
That was the pressure V5 was putting on WBG at this stage.
And after gaining the advantage, V5's plan was simple. They directly began the strategy Hong Mi had first laid out: pressure every lane at once and squeeze Sofm's farming space. As long as Sofm had no jungle camps left to clear, his style would make him start losing his mind for no reason.
Then came the Military Training.
For the next nearly ten minutes, Luo Zhen's Samira farmed the jungle and watched the enemy's movements. As for everyone else, they all invaded the Upper Jungle to cause trouble for Theshy.
WBG's strategy had never changed from beginning to end.
They had never considered playing around top lane, much less after giving their top laner Graves, such a Jack of All Trades. But V5 had considered it. As long as Graves got caught until he Collapsed and couldn't immediately turn his gold into an item advantage, he would push side lanes slowly. WBG would then be unable to use Graves as a split-push point to contain V5's mid lane offensive.
And WBG was also a bunch of brutes with nothing but gold in their eyes.
Das Kapital said: when profit reaches 10%, some people begin to stir; at 50%, some dare to take risks; at 100%, they dare to trample every law of mankind; and at 300%, they are not afraid even of the gallows.
Were minion waves tempting?
They were.
Was the jungle tempting?
It was too.
Then when Theshy and Sofm faced danger, would they choose to wait in the Depressed Bush for the wave to arrive, or simply give up their own farming to protect the Double C's development?
Obviously not.
Because they were Theshy and Sofm, they would definitely risk danger to take that seemingly dangerous gold.
Then Rookie would fly over with his teammates and collect them.
"I suddenly understand why WBG bought Theshy." Only after flying over and killing the enemy top laner three times in a row did Luo Zhen finally understand the arrangement WBG's owner had made behind the scenes.
Before you continue