Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 235 Nobody understands top-level tug-of-war better than me!

The Chinese team's lineup and the South Korean team's lineup can be said to be evenly matched.

Once the combination of Twisted Fate and Shen is drawn, it's like when the Chinese team picked Shen in the first game. When both of them have their ultimate abilities (R) in the early to mid-game, it's difficult for the Korean team to make a difference based on their numerical advantage.

However, the choice of Taliyah as the jungler is a bit puzzling.

If we really consider the characteristics of the champion, Taliyah can actually be classified as a jungler who supports the entire map, thus fulfilling the core of the Chinese team's lineup.

But the problem is:

"Taliyah jungle? I've never seen that before? It feels like she and Lee Sin have no chance in the jungle."

The doll looked at Xiangguo's Taliyah jungler with a puzzled expression.

"I don't know," Miller shook his head, indicating that he had never heard of Taliyah playing the jungle role.

"Taliyah is a champion with strong wave clear, and she should be able to handle jungle monsters even if she goes to the jungle. The problem now is that Taliyah needs to figure out how to deal with Lee Sin's jungle invasion. After all, this champion is an AP mage, and if she doesn't have a mobility skill in the jungle, she'll be in serious trouble if she gets caught."

The commentators didn't know. Of course, besides the previous members of the Chinese team, even Kkoma couldn't understand why Taliyah was chosen.
Is it just for the sake of assembling a team? Forcing a global strategy?

Taliyah jungle first appeared in a regional league when an LCK team called BBQ used her in a best-of-three series against Griffin.

That version was released right after the Asian Games ended, and it was updated to 8.11.

This version was also RNG's darkest version in history, with the introduction of Pyke, a significant reduction in the overall attributes of all AD carries, the rework of Infinity Edge, and the introduction of Stormrazor.
Of course, Taliyah is also a victim in this version.

Because Taliyah's many advantages are very strong in professional matches, but only so-so in regular ranked games.

Much of her advantage comes from her Q's wave clear ability, so Riot's mechanic changes revolve around this skill. After the changes, Taliyah now needs to work harder to clear waves and roam, giving opposing champions more room to punish her roaming playstyle.

The removal of Taliyah's Q ability from dealing area damage, the removal of additional rocks from dealing less damage to minions, and the reduction of her mana cost to 1 will make Taliyah extremely difficult to play against champions with even a little bit of wave clear in the mid lane.

Even champions like LeBlanc, who are not good at pushing lanes, couldn't push the lanes. As a result, some Taliyah pros developed this champion and made her shine in another role.

Jungle position!
In just a few days after the version update, Taliyah junglers emerged in droves, with extremely fast support capabilities, unpredictable burst damage, clearing jungle camps like flying, and her ultimate skill being a powerful tool for splitting terrain in the mid-to-late game.

Of course, this is just the nerfed Taliyah. If she hadn't been nerfed, she would only be stronger, not weaker, if she were moved to the jungle position.

In the LPL, which was a version behind, the first player to play Taliyah jungle after the 8.11 update was SN's jungler H4cker.

But now, under Li Luo's guidance, Xiangguo has won first place.

The match officially began, with Kai'Sa and Nautilus facing off against the Xayah and Rakan duo. From the start, Li Luo brought Fleet Footwork, trying to ensure he wouldn't fall behind in terms of poke damage.

Since his AP Kai'Sa became popular at MSI, most players, whether in ranked games or professional matches, no longer opt for the old-fashioned three-item build of Runaan's Hurricane, Infinity Edge, and Spear of Shojin. Instead, they bring Shojin, Runaan's Hurricane, and Nashor's Tooth to ensure Kai'Sa's strength in poke damage.

Ultimately, ADCs need to ensure they can output damage from a safe position, and Kai'Sa, with only a 525-range attack, is no exception.

There was no level 1 team fight between the two sides, which was very stable. After helping their junglers, they came to their lanes and opened their tabs. Li Luo was delighted.

Deft's Xayah surprisingly used the exact same runes as him, sacrificing Lethal Tempo for damage output and using Celerity to ensure mobility and sustain.

In addition, Kai'Sa chose Doran's Blade, while Xayah chose Doran's Shield.

"Very good, Mr. Dai is starting to resemble the Ruler Emperor."

Xiao Ming, seeing this from the side, also smiled and said something.

Is Deft good at playing Xayah? Fans familiar with Deft, or viewers who frequently watch his streams, would unanimously say:

"I have some food!"

Just like Uzi couldn't play Xayah before Li Luo came, AD players from the early versions didn't have a good grasp of Xayah; to put it bluntly, they were bad at it.

A player's playstyle is something that takes shape within a year or two of first entering the competitive arena. No player's style changes constantly, so it's obviously not going to work for Deft to consistently try to emulate Ruler's sneaky playstyle.

One statistic clearly shows that in all of Deft's career games, he played Xayah 46 times, but his win rate was a paltry 52%.

At first glance, it seems okay, but in a match, this win rate means that you have no ability to influence the game at all; you're just a slacker.

In comparison, his Lolita had 35 appearances with a 90% win rate, while Kog'Maw, Ashe, Corki, and Varus all had a 70% win rate. It's obvious which one is stronger.

Only Deft himself knew he wasn't playing well, so he chose the most conservative approach, prioritizing stability, avoiding fights, and farming to avoid falling behind in the laning phase.

In the mid-to-late game, there will be virtually no difference in skill level; everyone will know what they need to know.

On the contrary, Mata's Rakan has performed well throughout his professional career, and it is expected that the two will have differences in their playstyles.

Without Rakan, Xayah has remained a champion with a mediocre pick rate and win rate in both competitive and ranked games.

Also in the next version, Essence Reaver will be added so that after using your ultimate, your next basic attack within 10 seconds will grant the Essence Reaver effect, which lasts for 8 seconds, grants 30% attack speed, and refunds 20% of the remaining cooldown of your non-ultimate abilities with your basic attacks.

It was the passive effect of the Mana Drain Blade that brought Xayah back to the T1 tier.

The only difference between the current version of Xayah and the reworked version is that she lacks sustained burst damage, making it easy to suffer losses in early trades. Secondly, she doesn't have enough room for error if the opponent has a champion with crowd control abilities.

Why dare to pick Kai'Sa against Xayah? What are the advantages?
Li Luo's answer is—
distance.

The reason why Kai'Sa keeps getting the short end of the stick in lane is not only because her early game skill animations are bad, but also because her attack range is only 525 points.

With a finishing move and positioning, using the speed boost from Swift Footwork to pull forward, he caught Xayah during her normal last-hit animation, silently closing the distance and landing a basic attack on her.

Because of the presence of the support, ADCs absolutely cannot suffer in silence. Deft turned around and counterattacked, using QA to initiate.

However, Kai'Sa easily dodged the two feathers flying towards her with a right-angle movement, and then used a basic attack to pull away the minions, releasing her Q skill missiles that all hit Xayah.

Li Luo unleashed his Q skill, then retreated knowing when to stop. Because Xayah also had a 525-point range, attempting to auto-attack Kai'Sa again would require her to move forward. Capitalizing on this movement, Kai'Sa turned and auto-attacked Xayah again. As Xayah responded, Kai'Sa continued moving forward.

Now, the distance between the two has narrowed to 450 yards, meaning you can hit me with your bare hands, and I can hit you with mine in close combat.

However, Deft could only use his healing spell to retreat hastily, because Kai'Sa's passive had already accumulated to four stacks during the skirmish.

If Xayah is hit by Kai'Sa's fifth stack of passive damage, even if she heals to escape, she can only return to base to replenish her supplies before she can continue fighting. Deft is very clear about which is more important.

Having achieved a satisfactory result, Li Luo didn't linger in the fight and returned to the minion wave to begin a slow push.

Throughout this exchange, Kai'Sa landed a total of four auto-attacks and one Q skill, with all of her Q missiles hitting Xayah.

Xayah only managed two basic attacks on Kai'Sa throughout the entire match, and the total damage dealt was barely a little over 100 points.

What is the reason?

It means the attack range is blocked.

Like Kai'Sa, Xayah's attack range is a paltry 525 points, making her a short-ranged marksman as well.

In other words, as long as you can maintain the right distance, if you can hit me, I can hit you too. In other words, if I hit you and you retreat, and you don't initiate an attack immediately, you definitely won't be able to hit me.

It sounds a bit convoluted, but putting everything else aside, in terms of attack range, after inheriting the puppy's ability, even Deft can be easily outmaneuvered.

The way professional players see operations is different from how ordinary players see operations. So-called R-flash, EQ-flash, and lightning-fast QA are just the most basic.

Distance, stun, positioning, acting skills, and the ability to switch roles are all fundamental skills for a player.

Deft, who had already lost two games in a row, started to lose control of his game in the third game due to a combination of psychological and physiological factors. He was then completely outmaneuvered, and his hands started trembling.

Deft himself is also a master of controlling the attack range, and this ability is also a specialty of professional AD players. In ranked games, Deft also played Xayah against Kai'Sa and managed to kill Kai'Sa without her even being able to hit him once.

This has become a famous scene that Mr. Dai boasts about in many videos, and he himself has always been proud of it, often bringing it up in his live streams.

But now that someone else is using the same hero to humiliate him, Mr. Dai says he's about to explode.

Having had her health swapped by White, Xayah should have played it safe and waited until she was fully equipped or returned to base to replenish her supplies before engaging in combat. However, now that she had used a health potion, regained two-thirds of her health, and reached level 3, Deft was itching to make a move.

With replies from multiple sources, including Blue Shield and Luo, the pilot completely forgot his original intention: to be steady and cautious.

Deft's mind was filled with repression, but soon he tasted the bitterness of setbacks again.

In the top and mid lanes, positioning might rely purely on individual skill, but in the bottom lane, the coordination between the two professional players, namely the ADC and the support, is even more important.

Deft wanted to fight, but Mata didn't think so. The strength of the Xayah and Rakan combo lies in their mid-game control and burst damage, allowing them to eliminate one opponent first.

But that's no reason for the Xayah and Rakan duo to do whatever they want in the early game!
You have to understand that the enemy's Titan is no pushover. If he hits you with his Q, with Kai'Sa's passive, even if you don't die, you'll be severely injured.

Xayah moved forward to engage, leaving Mata with no choice but to control Rakan to follow up. At the last possible distance, Mata used his W skill to try and lift Kai'Sa up, but at that distance, even a high-elo solo queue player could react quickly enough, let alone a professional player.

Kai'Sa, having unlocked her E skill, calmly used the speed boost from her E skill to leave Rakan's W range. After casting her Q skill, Rakan could only repeat his previous tactic, using his E skill to fly back to Xayah.

But Xiaoming's Titan is no pushover either. You're just showing off your fancy flying around in front of me. Are you dreaming?

Titan took a step forward and fired a straight Q skill at Xayah's face, but unexpectedly, he didn't hook Xayah, but instead pulled Rakan, who had just flown back, into his arms.

Without his WEQ skills, Rakan was just like a minion, so the two players focused their damage on him, forcing him to use Flash.

They'd only just reached level three, one side still had all their supplies, while the other had used up all their health potions. One had no Blink, and the other had no Heal—it was a truly miserable situation.

The so-called Xayah and Rakan combination failed to deliver any results, proving as fragile as a piece of paper.

The bottom laner abandoned the minion wave and went back to replenish supplies. Helpless, Li Luo could only watch the two go back. After all, in the early game, if the opponent wanted to avoid fights, it was basically impossible to tower dive and kill them without a jungler.

Xiangguo's Taliyah also wanted to come down, but in this game, both sides traded blows very frequently on all three lanes.

For the champion Taliyah, it's better to gank a solo lane than a duo lane. Mid laners like Twisted Fate and Galio are okay, as they trade blows with their abilities. But top laners like Shen and Gangplank are much more extreme.

Just like in the first round, the two engaged in direct physical combat.

Although the director wanted to focus the camera on the bottom lane, the trade of blows in the top lane forced them to switch to that lane as well. When the camera switched to the top lane, Wawa immediately exclaimed in an exaggerated manner:
"Wow, what's going on with these two? Dude, they're only level four, and they've already used their teleports. The key is, they didn't even go back to buy equipment? And they just went back online and started fighting?"

"Smeb probably really wants to prove himself, after all, he had a really frustrating game last time, he didn't do anything the whole time and Vayne stole his base. To be honest, it was his fault. If he doesn't play aggressively this game, I'll seriously suspect he's just here for a vacation."

The two men made sarcastic remarks, believing that using the captain as a hero to prove themselves was incredibly stupid.

"cough cough"

The tone of the complaint was so strong that even Ren Dong could tell, so he had to quickly change the subject.

"Hmm, both junglers seem to be trying to make a move on top lane. We can see that Taliyah and Lee Sin are both headed for top, but Letme's positioning is a bit too deep. Lee Sin should arrive before Taliyah."

The Chinese team was on the red side. Xiangguo started with the blue buff. After clearing both buffs, he went to the bottom half of the map to protect the bottom lane and also cleared the river crab in the bottom half. After observing that the bottom lane was difficult to gank, he recalled and headed to the top lane.

However, the blue team's Lee Sin started the game in a solo lane, clearing the jungle alone. He started with the blue buff, then farmed the wolves, raptors, red buff, and golems, without taking the top side's river crab.

It was this time difference in fighting the river crab that allowed the blind man to arrive at the top lane first and gank.

In the current version, Lee Sin is a Tier 1 jungler with strong ganking and farming abilities, especially with Conqueror for terrifying sustain and damage output. In the mid-to-late game, Lee Sin with a warrior build also deals considerable damage.

Of course, Peanut believed that even if Taliyah came, Shen and Taliyah wouldn't deal much damage, so there was no reason for him to back down and gank.

Take action brazenly!

These videos showing the attack range of characters can all be found on certain anime websites (lol) or Douyin (TikTok). Interested readers can search for them and check them out!
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(End of this chapter)