Hongmi's Response

Three days later, they faced Top Esports again, the opponent from their opening match.

This time, Takuya did not take part in the solo match, instead giving the opportunity to someone else.

Leave volunteered to play solo and picked Pantheon, but he lost to 369, a dedicated top laner who had picked Renekton.

369 was still better than Leave, who mainly played bot lane, when it came to the finer details and control of top-lane champions. Leave losing was only to be expected.

After Top Esports won side selection through the solo match, they chose blue side.

The BP phase soon began.

Hongmi had learned his lesson this time and once again banned three of Takuya's jungle champions before first-picking Vi.

Banning through picking effectively left Takuya with only one champion.

Takuya was not intimidated. He immediately had Shanji lock in the remaining Nidalee with the first pick.

As for mid lane, doinb picked one of his signature champions, Kled.

It had been a long time since doinb had played Kled. He had not used the champion once since the First Split began.

When doinb's Kled appeared, even though NIP had yet to pick a top laner, doinb's fans knew that this Kled was for doinb, not top lane.

For a moment, intense cheers erupted from the audience.

Hongmi sneered inwardly. What patch was this, and they were still playing mid Kled? After some thought, he had Creme pick Taliyah to deal with it. Taliyah only needed to use Q to clear the minions in mid.

Then they took Wolf Mother on third pick, forming a double-lockdown composition with jungle Vi's ultimate. Once they locked onto the enemy ADC together, there was basically no escape.

Seeing the enemy's double-lockdown composition, Leave immediately ruled out all ADCs without mobility.

Ezreal, Lucian,