Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 202 Stuns SKT! Fighting is all about development!
SKT's bot lane was not at a disadvantage this game. With Faker and Black's intervention, both sides were developing at a relatively even pace.

However, an Ezreal with only one Manamune is very weak from any perspective.

Seeing Ez jump up using Arcane Shift (E), Li Luo didn't let him get away with it.

The skilled AQWA left three feathers behind Ezreal, and the high damage instantly reduced Ezreal's health from nearly full to half.

Keep in mind that this is terrifying even without E.

If you pluck three feathers, the immobilization combined with the subsequent damage would almost instantly kill this Ezreal.

The damage occurred almost instantly, scaring Bang into scrambling back with a Flash, while Wolf's Tahm Kench quickly used W to devour his teammate.

"Holy crap, 2 against 4 and they're still this aggressive?"

"I'm dying of laughter. He used E to engage, but Uzi scared him so much that he immediately used Flash."

"Is this the world's number one ADC that the haters were talking about? That's really hilarious."

"Dog blows nmsl"

The chat erupted in arguments; wherever Uzi is, there will always be a battle between his fans and his detractors.

Bang, still shaken, returned to the screen. Even though he hadn't looked at the comments, he knew they were full of people mocking him.

He knew it was embarrassing to have his skills activated by such fright, but there was nothing he could do.

After actually playing with her, he realized that this Xayah build was simply ridiculously powerful.

Moreover, Xia's choice wasn't without reason.

In this version of the game, Ezreal's rune was still Kleptomancy, so his ability to fight head-on was not as strong as when he had Conqueror in Season 10.

Similarly, Xayah did not receive any of the subsequent massive nerfs.

Ezreal, an ADC who loses all mobility once he uses his E, will be completely dominated and unable to deal damage to Xayah if they try to fight her head-on.

Furthermore, Ezreal's burst damage is slow and ineffective compared to Xayah.

At the same time, Xayah's skill mechanism is different from Kai'Sa's. Her feathers are area-of-effect landing points. Even if a frog comes and eats her, Xayah's feathers can leave the frog behind.

SKT's four-protect-two strategy seems aggressive, but if Xayah's feathers pull one or two people under the tower, they can be taken down by Xayah.

The current situation is like both sides possessing a strategic nuclear weapon capable of annihilating the other; it's a matter of who makes the first move.

After Ezreal emerged from Tahm Kench's belly, his health was less than half, making him even more hesitant to engage Xayah in a trade of blows. With Janna's ultimate and Xayah's ultimate, the four players in the bot lane were temporarily unable to deal with the two opponents.

This domineering performance caused the Chinese audience at the scene to erupt in cheers and shouts, creating a chaotic scene.

On the other hand, many South Korean viewers watched the stalemate on the field with helpless expressions.

The SKT players couldn't go up, and Li Luo didn't plan to either. They were waiting for Xiangguo. Without Xiangguo's Lee Sin to make up for the damage, with their current equipment, it would be too difficult for one person to take on four opponents.

After marking the location of the ward on the opposite side for Xiangguo, Xiangguo also sneakily approached from behind, hugging the wall.

Once the hot pot was ready, Xiaoming immediately understood and began his performance.

A large wave of minions pushed into the tower, but the four members of SKT saw that Janna seemed to be using her E skill to shield the tower in order to protect its health from being whittled down.

Most importantly, it seems that Janna positioned herself quite far forward in order to bait out enemy attacks.

This time, even Brother Li was fooled by this Oscar-worthy performance.

Xayah is difficult to engage, but Janna is easy to engage. Despite her weak physique, if Janna can engage at the first opportunity, she will die before she can use her ultimate.

Similarly, without Janna's protection, Xayah naturally dared not defend the tower, and Skt's objective of ganking the bottom lane was achieved.

However, everyone habitually overlooked one problem.

Does Xayah still need Janna to pad her items?

Faker's Galio immediately used his E skill, but was interrupted by Janna's Q skill halfway through.

This further solidified Skt's belief in Janna's idea.

The pig-skinned bully behind her squatted down and crashed into Janna, and this crash was a Q-flash, which was extremely fast.

In an instant, Janna was sent flying by the impact.

The moment she descended from the sky, Janna activated her ultimate ability, a green vortex rising from the ground, bringing with it gusts of wind.

?
Wolf was a little puzzled that he hadn't been blown away by Janna's R.

Brother Li instinctively sensed something was wrong, but it was too late.

The moment R was activated, a flash of golden light appeared.
-
Janna's ultimate flash.

More specifically, it refers to Janna's Flash + R combo. In terms of skill mechanics, Janna cannot use Flash + R.

However, as long as your hand speed is fast enough, you can activate R the instant you flash, and the R skill, which has no pre-cast animation, will look just like an R-flash.

A green storm erupted between the four members of Skt, instantly slicing them all apart.

On one side of the wind were Li Ge and Xiao Hei, and on the other side were Bang and Wolf. The original formation of the four was blown apart by Janna's R.

Most importantly, Sejuani is still tanking the tower.

Seeing the opportunity from behind, Xiangguo immediately followed up, using his W to touch Xiaoming, and kicking Faker's Galio into the tower like a ball.

When Little Black's piglet realized that the target of everyone's attacks wasn't her, and when she saw that the blind man had arrived, she instinctively took a few steps back.

But it was these few steps that betrayed Faker's Galio. When the turret's attack hit Galio, Galio, who only had magic resistance, couldn't withstand it at all.

Details of the hot pot!
If this wave of attacks hits a half-health Sejuani, then Faker can easily release his hero to create a second wave of crowd control.

But the opponent was Galio, who had no ultimate and no Flash. Once he entered the crowd, the Skt lineup, whose follow-up damage couldn't keep up, was just like a super minion, posing no threat whatsoever.

Almost instantly upon entering, the combined damage from the three players and the tower brought Brother Li to the ground.

Galio's death and Sejuani's escape put Bang and Wolf in an extremely awkward position in the rear.

The two had just reached a position where they could deal damage, but after the three of them executed Galio, they had no choice but to retreat.

Can we go?
Li Luo, who was poised to strike, had already secretly left two feathers behind the two of them. It seemed like an unintentional act, but it played a huge role at this crucial moment of keeping them in place.

After W's attached feathers and a basic attack, E skill is triggered, instantly immobilizing both people.

To protect Ezreal, the good brother Toad ate Ezreal, but he himself was trapped and was slowly killed by the heavy damage.

Ezreal tried to escape, but Lee Sin had already used his ward to get behind the tower, completely blocking his path. RNG's counter-gank was almost flawless, and Xayah's high damage output caught SKT completely off guard.

Ten seconds later, just before Faker's Galio respawned, RNG's jungler and bot lane duo, who had pushed the minion wave to the tower, managed to take down Ezreal. In a small team fight, Faker's Xayah secured a triple kill.

Skt's irrational four-man gank on the second team resulted in an economic deficit of 4000.
With Skt's core bot lane being shut down, the entire team's strategy fell into complete chaos.

"Damn it, this Xia is going to be invincible!"

After seeing Xayah, who had a score of 4-1, solo take down the bottom lane tower, Bang muttered in despair.

He wasn't clear about Xayah's damage output with this build before, but after being instantly killed under the tower with half health, he, who is very sensitive to damage, immediately realized how much of a threat such a high-damage Xayah would pose after going back to buy more items.

After taking down the first tower, the previously even bottom lane instantly turned into a huge advantage, with the gold difference between the two laners reaching an astonishing 1800 gold.

Xiaohu in the middle lane also took the opportunity to take down the middle lane tower.

With the income from the two towers and the three kills, Li Luo returned to the city and immediately crafted the Mana Drain Blade, also managing to acquire two longswords along the way.

With the arrival of the luxurious item, Mana Dagger, Xayah's damage output and frequency of attacks changed dramatically.

Because Xayah built the Essence Reaver too early, her AD was 100 points higher than Ezreal's.

Xayah built with assassin items doesn't need attack speed. By increasing her attack damage, she can deal almost incomprehensible damage using only her E skill, "Pull the Hair".

After gaining an advantage, RNG continued to use their old tactic of swapping lanes and pushing towers.

SKT could only react to each move as it came, allowing Khan's Cho'Gath to farm experience in the top lane and continue developing while facing only one enemy in the bottom lane.

SKT's duo doesn't have much ability to keep enemies in place, so Letme's Ornn is quite comfortable against them.

Sometimes, even a forward movement could startle Ezreal and Toad so much that they would retreat.

"Okay, I'll defend. I won't leave the tower; everything should be fine."

Upon hearing Li Ge's command, Khan nodded. He was already down 0-3, so dying twice more wouldn't matter.

What made him even more fearless was the Little Ice Heart and the Red Burning Gem on his body.

With armor, cooldown reduction, and health, Khan, as a top Korean top laner, is confident that farming experience won't be a problem for Cho'Gath.

Khan was under a lot of pressure in the top lane this game, and he didn't even have time to look at the bottom lane much, so he didn't see Xayah's exaggerated damage output at all.

All that could be heard was a loud bang, followed by complaints about the high damage output.

Khan thought it was a bit of an exaggeration.

Is this just acting to shift blame?

Is it really possible for Xayah to dominate you guys like this in the early game? Are you stomping noobs?
As for Xayah's mana drain and serrated dagger, Khan filtered them out.

"This Xia deals a lot of damage, be careful not to get killed by her, play it safe."

Bang, controlling Ezreal, was laning against Ornn while reminding Hanzi a couple of things. He felt much more comfortable facing Ornn, but the thought of two against one in the top lane made him a little embarrassed.

"Okay, don't worry, I'm very muscular now."

Khan switched screens and saw that Ornn was having a great time in the bot lane, which made him feel uneasy.

There's something wrong here. This is even worse than S7. Did they insist on playing in S8 because they bought off the betting sites to make easy money?

To undermine morale before the battle even begins is utterly despicable!
After Xayah and Janna arrived in the top lane, Hanzi knew that the enemy had good equipment, so he maintained a very close distance to gain experience.

They don't even replenish their troops, they just consume experience points. This distance is so far that it's despairing.

Those who have played Xayah know that, for a typical Xayah to land three feathers of stun, a bit of prediction is required.

Xayah's Q has two charges. To get the third charge, you have to position yourself and find a way to pull it. The enemy will definitely not stand still and fight. Therefore, in actual combat, this is still very difficult if the opponent is timid.

In the mid-to-late game, the huge insects might be difficult to maneuver, but at this stage, with only one passive layer, Hanzi is confident that he can easily dodge them.

Khan relies on positioning in ranked games to outplay and kill Xayah, sometimes more than a hundred times. At this distance, he doesn't believe Xayah can kill him.

However, just as a wave of minions pushed into the tower, and the bug was using QW to clear the minions as usual, Xayah suddenly made her move.

too fast.

Hanzi thought it was just a normal Q skill attack, but the third feather landed behind him instantly with the help of a minion, and an exaggerated red damage number jumped directly onto the bug.

Even with the armor from the Ice Heart, this E skill, combined with the subsequent basic attack, brought the bug down to less than half health.

After dealing damage, Xayah immediately moved behind the tower, completely blocking the bug's retreat.

As soon as Xayah's E skill was ready, she used her R skill, combined with the E skill's plucking effect, and Cho'Gath died instantly.

"..."

Even after dying 0-4 and returning home, Khan was still staring blankly at the spot where he died.

What is this? Why can't I understand the damage output of this Xayah build at all?

There's simply no room for maneuver. It's because Xayah's skill frequency is too short. If you get grazed even once, you have to go back to base. If you can't go back, you're definitely going to die in the next wave. Unless you're constantly focused on Xayah's movements, you simply can't dodge these insidious feathers.

Why was Xayah, an ADC, unable to appear in games during the mid-Season 8? What was her biggest weakness?
The problem is that Xayah's development period is too long. Compared to heroes with the Kleptomancy rune who can unleash their full potential in the mid-game, Xayah's damage relies more on her own items.

Xayah's high skill AD scaling makes her a late-game ADC.

Without Rakan's support, Xayah struggles to survive her weak mid-game and lacks mobility skills. Her only escape skill is her ultimate (R), putting her at a significant disadvantage compared to more agile champions like Ezreal, Caitlyn, Kalista, and Omega. Once her feathers are used to control the enemy, she becomes very difficult to defeat.

Furthermore, Xayah cannot use the overpowered runes Press the Attack and Kleptomancy in this patch. However, if Xayah's power spike can be brought forward, then Xayah can directly transform into the undisputed Tier 1 ADC of this patch, and there won't be many champions that can beat her.

"Your damage is ridiculously high. I reckon if the stats weren't normal, I'd be reported for cheating."

Xiao Ming marveled.

"It seems like SKT is easier to counter after changing their top laner. Khan doesn't seem like a good fit for SKT."

Letme, who was having a comfortable time in the bot lane, smiled with a relaxed expression.

Historically, only the old rogue managed to pull it off once, but the effect wasn't very good. After this, the version update also made this armor-piercing Xayah the old rogue's swan song.

After the giant worm died and the top lane tower was destroyed, RNG started to engage in fights with the opponent, following the tactics they used in scrims.

Ornn's initiation, Syndra's damage, and the unpredictable Xayah—as long as they group up and don't give Faker's Galio any space to roam and gank, the economic gap between SKT and RNG is widening.

(End of this chapter)