Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 244 The Frenzied Rift! Keyboard Battle!
Although the queue times are slow in the Chinese server ranked games, the hero selection process is not.

In the Korean server, there's no WeGame feature that makes it easy to see teammates' skill levels, but it's very convenient in the Chinese server.

Looking at his teammates' ranks, Li Luo was surprised to find that although his account was a super account and Wu Wukai was a Grandmaster, he was matched with all the Kings.

Of course, having not played on the Chinese server for a long time, he only paid attention to the rank, but his fans noticed something else.

"The guy laning against the dog is Baozi, holy crap, and the jungler is Leyan, this is going to be a disaster."

"Wow, it seems like only one player, Little Dog, is a Master? How come he's ranked in the Challenger tier with hundreds of points?"

"The hidden MMR on the Super account is very high, right?"

"A showdown between Zed and Pyke?"

"Pyke has only been online for a short time, does the puppy know how to play him?"

The top players in League of Legends are mostly concentrated in high-elo ranked matches. Logically speaking, if you go in at this point and run into Baozi and Xiaoleyan's mid and jungle, you're really "lucky".

As the comments on the screen were going on, Li Luo glanced at it too, but didn't think much of it.

It's normal for viewers to find it difficult. After all, even a master player can lose when they encounter a smurf in a low-ranked game like Gold or Platinum, or when their teammates feed. Even if Uzi is strong, it's because of his strong bot lane. Can he really beat five masters with a new hero?
Looking at his teammates, they were all unknown random players. The bot lane was even more outrageous, with the support being a Riven pro player using Riven.

Soon, both sides entered Summoner's Rift. As soon as the game started, Li Luo typed some words of encouragement to the ADC in the bottom lane who had a mental breakdown.

"come on!"

The people opposite seemed to have noticed Li Luo and Wu Wukai's identities and greeted them warmly.

The atmosphere on both sides was surprisingly harmonious.

The online matchup has begun.

Whether Pyke goes mid or top solo lane, he must learn the Q skill at level one.

【Penetrating Bone Nail (Q)】

As the name suggests, the effect is that Pyke thrusts forward, dealing physical damage to the first enemy hit, prioritizing heroes.

Of course, if you choose to hold down the button, a charging effect will occur. Pyke throws his harpoon, dealing physical damage to the first enemy hit and pulling them towards him. The target will be slowed by 90% for 1 second.

In terms of skill mechanics, Pyke's Q skill is somewhat similar to Kled's Q skill.

Pyke isn't much of a threat at level 1; this champion can only start to shine from level 3 if he wants to poke and harass.

While the Q skill isn't very threatening in the early game, it does deal damage to minions and can be used to last-hit minions.

The reason Pyke was able to thrive in the mid and top lanes before the nerf was because his abilities could damage minions.

Pyke, the Bloodharbor Ripper, is the 141st champion in the game League of Legends.

However, in terms of the extent of the nerf, this champion is no less powerful than Irelia.

The two most drastic changes are to the instant-cast mechanism, which directly turns Pyke's Q skill AOE damage into single-target damage and removes the 15% bonus damage that instant-cast Q skills would deal.

The E skill, Phantom Wave, has also been significantly nerfed in terms of wave clearing ability, no longer dealing damage to non-hero units.

The reason why Pyke is so powerful in the mid lane is largely due to his wave clear ability. In the early game, he can farm as much as possible to make up for his laning disadvantage. Once the game drags on to the mid-to-late game and he has all his items, the balance of victory has already begun to tilt, and it is very difficult to turn the tide.

After this change, Pyke's Q no longer has AOE damage, and his E skill no longer works on minions, making it extremely difficult to quickly push down a wave of minions. Gradually, Pyke disappeared from the mid and top lanes.

But right now, this is Pyke's strongest period, a version where, according to legend, once Tiamat and Boots of Speed ​​are available, there's no one left in the lane.

When laning against Zed, it's a melee vs. melee matchup, and the most important thing is to control the distance and make the right choices when last-hitting minions.

For example, right now, Li Luo's Pyke made several attempts to go forward to last-hit minions, but then suddenly turned back at a certain position, baiting out the enemy Zed's Q skill, the shuriken, from an extremely short distance.

Pyke's keen control over the range of Zed's Q skill prevents Zed from easily trading blows with him.

The so-called decision of whether to last-hit is a trade-off between whether the last hit can be landed, what risks are involved, and whether it's worth the effort.

Clearly, Pyke needs levels; last-hitting is secondary.

"what"

On the other side, XTV Live.

Baozi and Leyan, a top player in the Chinese server, are also members of IG's second team and are duo queuing together.

These two are birds of a feather, and Baozi's livestream style is extremely vulgar; he never stopped talking the whole time.

As the two were talking, they suddenly felt their live stream viewership begin to rise, and at an increasingly rapid pace, which puzzled them.

"Wow! So many people have discovered how strong the streamer's Zed is today~"

Seeing so many people coming in, Baozi could no longer contain his excitement and started shouting in the live stream.

"Hey Bao, it looks like we've been matched with Uzi, and Wu Wu Kai too!"

Baozi was still in lane when he heard Leyan's words and immediately exclaimed, "Is the enemy ADC Uzi?"

He looked so excited, as if he had finally met one of his closest relatives!

No wonder, as Zed's jinchūriki and the ancestor of assassins, killing ADCs in ranked games is no different than killing chickens.

Anyone who can take down the world champion dog's head in the chaos will definitely be featured in tomorrow's highlights.

"Holy crap, he's laning against you, he's playing Pyke!" Leyan only realized this after seeing the chat. When he switched to the live stream, he was also excited: "It really is!"

"This is in the bag, bro, this is so comfortable!"

Baozi's competitive nature was immediately exposed. If he were to face the ADC in the bottom lane, he would yell "It's over!" three times. But as far as he's concerned, he's not completely useless yet, and he can still handle Pyke without any problems.

"His positioning and attention to detail are excellent; it looks like this isn't his first time playing Pyke. Help me gank him later."

Upon reaching level two, Baozi narrowed his eyes in surprise as he watched Pyke skillfully dodge Zed's Q skill with a right-angle movement and even land two last hits with the Q skill.

Zed, a champion like this, didn't gain any advantage at level one. After being tricked into using his skills several times, he actually got hit by an instant Q skill, which made him take it seriously and his attitude became less casual.

"Pyke is nothing, he can't possibly take on five opponents at once, especially since the enemy jungler is a 50/50 matchup, it'll be no problem."

Leyan responded and continued to control Nidalee, diligently working in the jungle.

“That’s true.” Baozi chuckled, realizing he had overreacted.

Uzi's skill is indeed terrifying, but that terror is reflected in the game and in his ADC heroes. As for the mid lane, the most infamous "feeding" moments circulating online all originated from the mid lane.

Moreover, Leyan has already been sent to IG's second team for intensive training, and his strength has greatly increased, making him practically a semi-professional player.

Even if the jungler is replaced by Spicy Hot Pot, they still won't get the better of him. After all, competitive matches are different from ranked games. He can go down to the bot lane to get some gold and then easily dominate the lane.

As expected, the first blood was quickly drawn.

The opposing Thresh and Draven also looked like Xiao Dai, and when the support Riven was lying on the ground, both of them still had more than half of their health left.

"Riven support? Do you really think you're playing in a Gold or Silver game? Don't you have any self-awareness?"

Players who play Draven tend to have high aspirations. To be precise, in the Chinese server right now, because the S7 FMVP was an ADC, the status of the bot lane players is far higher than that of other lanes.

Furthermore, this player's attitude while using Riven as support wasn't very professional, so the Draven player promptly added a critical hit in the public chat:
"?"

This question mark was like a fuse that ignited a powder keg. Before Riven could even get angry, it instantly enraged Ezreal, the ADC on Li Luo's side.

"I'll scatter some rice near the mouse, and even the chicken will move better than you."

Riven hadn't even gotten the top lane position yet, and now that she saw the ADC starting to complain, she wasn't going to let it slide.

"From Dunhuang? There are so many murals?"

"?"

"This platform has showcased your intelligence to the extreme; even a dog leashed beside you would be more useful."

"If your m isn't mass-produced, then I advise you to stay away from me. Go forward two lucky koi fish posts to pray your m doesn't die twice as often."

"."

Seeing Riven instantly transform into a Rift hunter, hurling insults at Ezreal under the tower, Wu Wukai, mindful that it was their first time streaming together, had no choice but to join in and try to mediate.

Seeing this, the other side realized they were arguing, so they went all out and started spamming the chat at lightning speed.

The bottom lane was arguing loudly, but suddenly the sound effects of a kill rang out in Summoner's Rift.

Blue team's Pyke killed red team's Zed.

The players who were still laning in the chat box quickly switched their view to the mid lane, and saw... Zed's corpse lying under the enemy's mid lane tower.

Pyke steals, gets a level 2 solo kill?

"What happened?! How did I die?" Leyan was completely bewildered, having not yet finished clearing the jungle monsters.

"Oh no, oh no, I was careless this time."

Baozi paused for a moment, then said apologetically.

This was a simple and easy-to-understand solo kill.

When the two reached level two in the previous wave of minions, but not yet level three, Zed's wave push speed was slightly faster because Li Luo kept baiting out Zed's Q skill.

Because Zed was afraid of Pyke's level 2 E skill coming at him, he didn't level up his W skill at level 2, but instead leveled up his E skill.

As time went on, at the point where they were about to level up to level three, both sides only had about 70% health left.

With 70% health, Zed is definitely a safe level in the early stages of the game; he can even withstand two hits from a tower without dying. Therefore, Zed didn't use the health potions he had on him.

Early game supplies are very precious, especially for champions like Zed who lack sustain. Being able to drag the game to level 6 in the first wave and get a solo kill to recall is very satisfying.

Conversely, if you, like a low-ranked player, use a health potion after losing only a small amount of health, you might get caught and have to go back to base.

Just as Zed was about to use his E skill to last-hit minions near the tower, but he didn't reach level three instantly -
"he died!"

Li Luo's hands, which were on the keyboard and mouse, moved quickly, and then he pressed Flash.

A flash of golden light, and a harpoon shot out, pulling Zed directly into the tower, followed by an E skill that enveloped Zed under the tower.

Just as the E skill was about to stun Zed, Zed reacted and immediately flashed to the side, trying to escape the tower while dodging the E skill.

"Yes, yes, yes... let the seawater drown you."

One ignite hit Zed, and the second turret attack landed just as Zed was reduced to his last sliver of health.

The judgment of the maximum health limit could never have been calculated so precisely or with such boldness if it weren't for the old Pyke.

When playing Zed against Pyke, Zed gains an advantage in early game due to poke damage. Even if Zed is a rank lower in skill, he can still lane safely in the early game. Conversely, when playing Pyke against Zed, the key is to figure out how to withstand pressure.

Otherwise, Pyke, whose health cannot be increased, will basically only be killed if Zed gains an advantage.

Leyan knew Baozi's skill level very well. Although he wasn't a true Challenger in the Rift, once he got Zed, he was definitely a top-tier player who could easily crush ordinary Challengers.

Is Uzi's Pyke even stronger than Baozi's Zed? What does that mean?
Parker's signature move?
When did professional players in other positions become so overpowered when they switch to a position and hero they've never played before?

Compared to the difficulty of playing Pyke, what's even more challenging is mastering Pyke's kill threshold.

In his previous life, Li Luo didn't have the talent to calculate such things, but now, with his explosive talent, he calculated the damage perfectly after using two Q skills.

If you don't have a movement skill, pushing Pyke's lane is extremely dangerous.

The operation is not difficult, and most veteran Pyke players can do it. However, in this version where Pyke was just released, until now, only Li Luo has been able to use Pyke in high-level games with such flashy moves.

Now, not only has the other side learned it, but everyone in the live stream knows about it.

"This Zed was too confident. Pyke's skills are easy to dodge, but he overlooked the slow effect of Pyke's Q skill and the tower's attack frequency. He thought I wouldn't make a move, but I was the one who made the move."

Li Luo casually used Pyke to last-hit minions with one hand, while adjusting the camera's angle with the other to reveal the keyboard: "Pyke's mechanics aren't difficult, but some of them are a bit flashy. You can record your screen and watch the key sequence twice to understand them."

"Pyke doesn't necessarily need to hit the opponent with his E skill. As long as he can use Q-Flash to pull the opponent into the tower and force Zed back once in the early game, Pyke can have a very comfortable time in the mid lane. However, since I've already killed him, I might try to solo kill him when I reach level six."

Barrage--
"I learned something new, awesome!"

"Wow, this puppy is so thin! Tsk tsk!"

"To be honest, I remember Uzi playing mid lane before, but I didn't expect him to be this good now that he's in ADC."

"Talent is a damn thing. Tell me, how many games of Pyke did you secretly play?"

Unlike the show's entertainment value, Li Luo's approach focuses more on teaching viewers some gaming skills. Of course, the abundance of comments and gifts in the chat room shows that this kind of live stream is quite successful.

However, less than one percent of the viewers vaguely sensed that this solo kill was not so simple.

The key to securing a solo kill lies in how to keep Zed under the tower, how to force Zed to stop leveling W, and how to use Q-Flash to hook him into the tower.

These details can only be understood by oneself. Once you understand them, your skill level will improve rapidly. If you don't understand them, even if someone teaches you step by step, it will be difficult to achieve good results.

This is also the main reason why commentary videos were very popular in League of Legends Season 3 and Season 4, but gradually died out as basic game knowledge became more widespread.

(End of this chapter)