Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 246 A Stunning Lineup! Setting a New Standard

"We received a message from the broadcast director that IG, playing at home, has the first right to choose sides in the first game and has chosen the red side."

The game officially begins.

First came the routine player introductions. When the camera focused on IG's Ueno and Naka, the audience gave them enthusiastic applause and cheers.

Similarly, when the camera panned across RNG's mid, jungle, and bottom laners, the audience also applauded.

All five players today are starters. Although Wu Wukai came to the venue, he was just there to experience the atmosphere of the game and prepare for his future match.

"Wow, this puppy is really popular! I wish I hadn't retired back then."

Wu Wukai glanced enviously at the audience. At IG's home stadium, almost half of the people were holding up RNG signs, and nearly 80% of them were Uzi's fans.

"Brother Kai, don't think about it anymore."

Jungler Xiaotian bluntly retorted, "Skill gaps can be bridged, but the difference in looks lasts a lifetime. Speaking of which, once you return, the three ugliest players in esports will be..."

"Isn't it said that cross-dressing will attract a lot of fans?" Xiao Dongbei silently added from the side.

"..."

Following Xiao Dongbei's words, everyone imagined what Wu Wu would look like in women's clothing, and instantly felt a little nauseous.

IG, choosing the red side, was determined to give the counter pick to TheShy. Therefore, RNG, on the blue side, banned Fiora, Gnar, and LeBlanc.

The red team, IG, banned Kai'Sa, Syndra, and Jarvan IV.

"The draft phase has already begun. IG is mainly targeting RNG's mid, bot, and jungle. As for Uzi's Kai'Sa, anyone who watched his performance at the Asian Games and MSI will definitely not let RNG have that champion again."

Wang Duoduo said.

"RNG, on the other hand, also took a very targeted approach, specifically targeting IG's top and mid lane champion pools by banning TheShy's strong champions in the current meta."

PDD added his analysis, "You can tell that RNG is very confident today! Hmm, RNG picked Pyke as their first pick?"

The hero appearing on the first floor of the blue team's team was none other than the newly released hero, Pyke, the Bloodharbor Ripper, who had not yet made an appearance in the game.

"Wow, anyone who's watched Xiaogou's streams these past few days knows that his Pyke is a force to be reckoned with in high-elo games, but..."

Shenchao was surprised: "But this Pyke is very deceptive in terms of where he goes. Now, Uzi has also started a Pyke craze in Ranked games."

"We all know that RNG doesn't blindly believe in the meta's strong heroes; they often use their understanding to defeat the meta's dominant heroes and bring victory to the team."

"That's right"

PDD nodded in agreement: "Besides, strictly speaking, Pyke isn't exactly a top-tier champion in this patch, is he? While he's fun to kill and has good effects, in terms of win rate, there's no need to pick him first."

No one, including the commentators and the IG players, thought that this Pyke pick was meant for the ADC position.

After all, being able to master Pyke in such a short time and create a trend doesn't mean that this hero is an all-rounder who can go anywhere.

"You picked Pyke, IG definitely won't let you get away with that, they picked Jayce and Alistar instead!"

Coach Kim had anticipated the possibility of RNG picking Pyke before the match, as both Pyke and the champion can be considered hard counters, whether Pyke goes mid or bot.

Jayce in the mid lane doesn't linger like other assassins; if Pyke gets hit by a combo, he's almost guaranteed to die.

Going to the bottom lane, Alistar's W can perfectly counter Pyke's E skill, knocking Pyke away.

However, when RNG's final roster was announced, everyone was stunned.

RNG (blue side) vs. IG (red side)

Top lane: Pyke vs. Gnar
Jungle: Karthus vs Graves
Mid Lane: Swain vs. Jayce
ADC: Sivir vs. Ezreal
Support: Galio vs. Alistar
"RNG, what's going on with this lineup? Are they playing some kind of slick game?"

There's not much to say about IG's lineup; it's their most familiar strategy of having a strong top and mid laner paired with a carry jungler for early-game invasions.

But RNG's lineup is different.

Mid lane Swain, top lane Pyke, jungle Karthus, support Galio.

Top lane Pyke, and support Galio.

These two completely different new things made everyone excited.

During Uzi's livestream a few days ago, he played Pyke in the mid lane the most. However, those who watched the stream know that he was forced to play Pyke because he didn't get the desired position and due to a fan vote.
Of course, this kind of thing is quite common, after all, there have been precedents of people rewarding themselves with Yasuo.

But to everyone's surprise, Pyke was given to Letme to play. RNG really dared to play Pyke recklessly on the field.

As for support Galio, the appearance of this hero is not accidental.

After the addition of the turret patch in the S9 preseason, Galio, under the guidance of the LCK, finally made his debut on the professional stage.

With Galio's control and protection, the bottom lane can easily secure tower plates, and with Sivir's speed boost, Galio's team fight initiation becomes even more ferocious.

In this version, the bot lane has been completely relegated to being a utility role for the team, but this was before Galio support became available.

In this match, RNG will use their true "secret weapon" to tell Riot that nerfing them is useless.

"How long has it been since Karthus appeared on the competitive stage?" Wang Duoduo asked himself and answered, "I remember that throughout the entire S7 season, Karthus didn't appear in any LPL-level or higher competitions, right? And although this champion has recently shown some impressive performance in the jungle role in the Korean server, today, Xiangguo's Karthus is the first person to try it out in a professional match."

Before Sima Laozei even had a chance to use Karthus, Xiangguo's first Karthus jungle pick has awakened many people's memories.

If we had to categorize Karthus, he would be an unpopular champion in competitive play, but a Tier 3 jungler in ranked games.

In casual games, its pick rate is only slightly better than that of bottom-tier champions like Ivern and Udyr.

As for the win rate, it's even more touching. Like Nidalee, Karthus is one of the worst players out of ten. Skilled players can make his Q skill sound like he's using a script, devastating the world.

For someone who doesn't know how to play, playing this hero is like missing a skill.

Unloved by his uncle and grandmother, even in later generations, when Karthus was at his peak, his win rate in professional matches remained neither high nor low.

"However, Ning picked Graves this game, and in terms of jungle clearing speed alone, he couldn't possibly limit Karthus's development. IG still seemed too inexperienced against RNG; they were outmaneuvered in the draft."

PDD smacked his lips, analyzed the situation, and concluded that IG had a disadvantage in the draft phase.

"Galio, Sivir, Swain..." These three heroes are very strong in the early and mid-game, but they become relatively weak in the late game. It seems that the damage dealer in this game will be Xiangguo's Karthus.

League of Legends has always focused on balance in hero design and does not allow the existence of perfect heroes.

Heroes that are weak in the early game are mostly strong in the late game. Similarly, heroes that are weak in the late game are generally very strong in the early game.

The game officially begins.

Actually, there was a reason why Li Luo dared to put on such a stunt show.

That is, starting from this version, since the designers are going to focus on the offense and defense of tower plates, whichever side abandons tower plates will be at a great disadvantage.

In other words, this is a warning to RNG from the sidelines: if they continue to play this kind of erratic support style, regardless of the top and mid lanes, the opponent will gain a huge advantage.

RNG is now using its silent resistance to tell Riot Games that it is a big mistake to try to control the outcome of a game by weakening the team's style.

This weakening will not only fail to bring new vitality to the professional arena, but will also cut off its source.

Instead of thinking about how to challenge the Demon King, all the teams are hoping that the Creator will weaken him. How can that be acceptable?

Countless fans who were looking forward to RNG's antics gave this satisfactory result a thumbs up.

As the team's teamfight engine and a model of a functional ADC, Li Luo chose the most suitable Swift Footwork.

The starting item is a Doran's Blade.

The Sivir and Galio combo is relatively easy to play against Ezreal and Alistar, but they are vulnerable to ganks from the jungler.

The minion wave must be pushed forward to suppress the enemy, which gives the enemy jungler a lot of opportunities on the red side. Sivir's E skill restores mana, and with Doran's Blade, she can gain some sustain.

At level 1, Li Luo did not use his Q skill to harass or push the lane. Instead, he used basic attacks to last-hit minions, steadily controlling the lane and farming.

This left Ah Shui, who was often suppressed by Li Luo to the point of being unable to take care of himself during training matches, feeling lost.

The jungler Graves, who started with red buff, headed straight for blue buff to gank bot lane. From all the perspectives, the bot lane seemed strange. Uzi, who is usually incredibly aggressive to gain an advantage, was playing very cautiously this game.

This meant that after he got both buffs, his usual ganking tactics were completely ineffective.

I don't understand it.
Ning shook his head and focused on farming in the jungle, controlling Graves.

If we could easily figure out RNG's habits and weaknesses, we could have defeated them back in the Spring Split, instead of waiting until the current version.

RNG's current weakness is simply due to the version's targeting, which has forcibly weakened its dominance.

As for Baolan's feelings, they were even stranger. He was both fierce and stable. This contradictory feeling was ridiculous when it came to Uzi. When he picked a utility hero, the feeling he gave people was completely different from that of a suppressive hero.

Of course, Uzi isn't a god; he gets caught and killed sometimes. But his minion wave management and some strange plays before he gets caught and killed mean that even if someone kills him, they don't gain much advantage. Usually, he can only get 300 gold, and for that, he has to give up a lot of summoner spells.

In the top lane, Pyke faces Gnar, melee versus ranged; before leveling up, he can only endure the pressure.

Letme's Pyke also played a steady, last-hitting style, trying to avoid being whittled down by Gnar, showing that he was going to treat Pyke like Ornn.

On the contrary, the mid laners played very aggressively this game.

Both Raven and Jayce started with Corrupting Potion, but before they even reached level 3, they had used up all their potions.

Swain, who was popular throughout the spring and the Mid-Season Invitational, was finally nerfed in the last patch due to increased mana costs for his abilities. However, this champion was already strong to begin with, and even after the nerf, he still has an advantage in lane trades.

Rookie's eagerness to make changes was simply to make Swain's lane life less comfortable, creating opportunities for Shoe King's ganks.

However, when the crow reached level three and traded another round of damage, it immediately chose to return to base and teleport back to lane, leaving Rookie in the mid lane bewildered.

"Huh, I just realized that Rookie's Jayce started with Cleanse," PDD exclaimed in surprise.

The mainstream summoner spell setup for mid-lane Jayce is primarily Teleport, with Ignite occasionally chosen for solo kills to exert pressure.

"It seems that picking Galio as support has indeed caused some trouble for Rookie in the mid lane. If he can't remove Galio's crowd control in the mid-to-late game, Jayce might not be able to withstand the subsequent damage."

Wang Duoduo suddenly realized: "After Galio reaches level six, he can use his R skill to support the mid lane and jungle at any time!"

Wang Duoduo thought Galio was a brilliant choice for support.

Galio's control abilities (E and W), protection (R), damage from his passive and Q abilities, and considerable health growth all make him a very reasonable choice for a support role.

With the Guardian talent, it has extremely strong protection capabilities in the early and mid-game, and in the mid and late game, it can initiate team fights and counterattack.

The only drawback is that it is relatively vulnerable to poke-type supports like Janna and Morgana.

With Uzi's dominance, Galio support is likely to become another major weapon for RNG.

Whirling Blade (Q)
A giant boomerang flew from Sivir's hand and smashed into the enemy ADC Ezreal.

Ezreal's Q skill was absorbed by Sivir's E skill shield, which also refunded the mana cost of the Q skill.

The most important criterion for judging how well a player plays Sivir is is to observe the accuracy of their Q skill usage.

Of course, this accuracy not only requires hitting the target, but also hitting it without any minions blocking the way.

Sivir's Q skill deals physical damage to the first enemy hit, and reduces damage to each subsequent target by 15%, up to a maximum of 40%.

This also means that if there are minions blocking the way, the damage of this Q skill will be less than half.

However, if it hits, the level 2 Q skill has a full 80% AD scaling coefficient, and considering the two hits, the damage is extremely considerable.

Even with armor reduction, it still dealt nearly 200 damage, suddenly reducing the squishy Ezreal's health from 70% to around 30%.

In the early game, the only thing that can compare to this damage is probably Jhin's Q skill's fourth bounce.

"hiss"

Ah Shui quickly swallowed the blood-replenishing medicine and gasped.

As an exception among ADCs, Ah Shui's reaction to dodging skills is relatively slow, which is why fans jokingly call him "the one who catches Q and does the hot dance".

Sivir's skill damage is so high because the conditions are very demanding.

Conversely, a dog who can seize this opportunity to unleash his Q skill truly deserves the title of the world's best ADC.

"Prince Ning, come and help us, or we'll be overwhelmed!"

Baolan didn't stand on ceremony and quickly called Graves over. This exchange of blows made him realize that without external intervention, the bot lane laning phase would be painful.

The Graves, who was still farming in the bottom half of the jungle, wasn't far away. After taking the Rift Scuttler in the bottom half, he picked up his shotgun and headed towards the bottom lane.

(End of this chapter)