Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 283 is here? Why can't we win a 3v2?
"A bit clumsy, it seems the old thief's proficiency with Xia isn't quite there yet!" This was Li Luo's assessment of Sima Laozei's Xia.

Xayah is a champion that requires a high level of proficiency. Even some professional players can't grasp the essence of Xayah, and even when she's at her strongest in a particular patch, her performance is just so-so.

Unlike traditional auto-attack-based ADCs, Xayah can be considered a sign of the emergence of skill-based ADCs in League of Legends. This champion has many details in laning and even more details in team fights.

Skills like plucking hair at lightning speed are just basics; professional players can learn them after practicing a few games.

To become a top-tier Xayah player, one must have an extremely strong sensitivity to Xayah's "attack rhythm" and "distance".

It is common knowledge that Shana is weak while Xayah and Rakan are strong.

Why would Xayah need Rakan?

Because Xayah's attacks, including QER, are in a sense predictive skills, when someone gets close to Xayah, she will likely lose a significant amount of damage.

Therefore, Xayah must rely on Rakan's consistent crowd control to help her deal the first burst of damage, so that she can reliably gain an advantage.

In casual games, if Rakan's strength is low or his proficiency is low, or if he is paired with other supports, Xayah's win rate will be the lowest.

With each major version update, Xayah is basically an orphan who doesn't benefit at all.

Conversely, when playing against Xayah and Rakan, the key to victory is to learn how to force Rakan into a defensive posture, eliminating his offensive desire.

Compared to other players' Xayah, Li Luo might not have been able to perceive things as clearly. Unfortunately, Ma Ge's style was too obvious. It was so obvious that even if Ma Ge used a skill or attacked a minion, Li Luo knew what the opponent was going to do next.

His strength lies in his daring; he dares to do what others wouldn't, which has created many classic moments. In terms of the number of memorable moments, Sima Laozei is no less than other ADCs. At the same time, Sima Laozei can be said to have a unique way of thinking; his sudden turn around and spraying five enemies at once is his famous work.

The downside is that Sima Yi is very reliant on a protective team composition. He is the kind of AD carry who can be protected, but if he is not protected, he may become disastrous.

Every AD carry has a history of dying suddenly, but Sima Laozei's probability of dying suddenly without protection is indeed higher than that of the average AD carry, which stems from his aggressive positioning.

If it were any other ADC, they would probably play passively and farm at level one. Only Ma Ge would dare to recklessly use Xayah to come up and be aggressive.

MaGe really puts all his mind into offense, with no concept of "defense" in his mind at all. So when facing weak teams, he can often create 1v2 or 1v3 situations. But when facing top ADCs whose skills are no less than his, this overly obvious style becomes a fatal weakness.

Swish!
Ezreal and Bard pushed the minion wave slowly, reaching level two first, and immediately began to push the wave from beyond the minion wave.

Now, Xayah, who leveled up W at level 1, couldn't even get any minions, and she had to rely on Rakan's protection to get any experience she could.

Given the current minion wave situation, barring any other interference, with a slow-push strategy, the Xayah and Rakan duo will be pressured for at least two minutes, before reaching level four.

Sima Laozei was a little embarrassed to ask for help, but Doinb in the mid lane was keeping a close eye on the situation in other lanes and quickly said:
"Haro, bot lane, hurry up and go support them, help them push the minion wave!"

Taliyah was a meta champion throughout the Summer Split and World Championship. Although her Q skill was nerfed before World Championship, as long as the mechanics of QW and her ultimate remain unchanged, this champion will always be useful.

Furthermore, the Rw lineup needs to add a strong AP damage dealer to ensure that if their lineup fails to gain an advantage in the early game, they won't be in too awkward a situation in the mid-game.

Taliyah is undoubtedly the best choice.

In the current version, the jungler's status is not as high as in S10, but Taliyah's jungle clearing speed is not slow at all. When a solo laner is at level 3 or 4, Taliyah can clear her jungle from bottom to top.

Taliyah originally planned to reach level 4 and go to the jungle with Doinb to find an opportunity, but she didn't expect the enemy bot lane to suppress her bot lane so badly before they even reached level 3.

Upon closer inspection, Xayah had only managed six CS, while the enemy Ezreal had steadily controlled the wave, farming almost every wave and already reaching 26 CS.
"Liu Qingsong, what's going on? Can we arrest him?"

Haro was a bit confused. His bot lane had never been this badly matched against any other team, not even SKT or IG.
Not to mention that your bot lane duo picked Xayah and Rakan, who are strong in the early game!

no way.

Unable to continue pressuring the bottom lane, Taliyah had no choice but to abandon her jungle farming rhythm, surrender the Rift Scuttler in the top half of the map, recall directly, and use her passive to run down the wall to the bottom lane.

There's an advantage to ganking the bot lane at this time: it's highly unlikely that Xiangguo's Zac will appear.

Before Zac's W skill is leveled up, his jungle clearing speed is slower than Taliyah's, and the flight distance of his level 1 E skill is negligible, making his ganking ability very weak.

As expected, Zac should have just finished killing the frogs and was about to check if the river crab was there.

When Taliyah arrived in the bottom lane, Ezreal had just pushed the minion wave to the red team's tower.

"Is there no eye in this place?"

"No, they've been dominating online the whole time, I didn't see them placing any wards!"

Having received confirmation from Liu Qingsong, Haro silently changed direction and continued walking down the wall containing the red team's blue buff.

Haro's passive acceleration didn't drop at all throughout the entire game, and even the audience could tell that Haro was a master at playing Taliyah.

Standing in the bushes in the bottom lane, Taliyah waited until the Xayah and Rakan duo reached level three before emerging from the bushes.

Luo used a potion and leveled up, restoring his health to 70%, but Xia only had a little over 40% health left, and she had used up all her health potions.

Ez didn't use any potions; relying solely on the lifesteal from Doran's Blade and the supplies stolen by Kleptomancy, his health remained healthy at nearly full, around 90%.

Xiaoming's Bard also had full health except for having only half mana.

"This attack will at least take away half of your health, or force you to use both of your abilities!"

Taliyah's goal is clear: with Flash, E skill, Ezreal, and Bard opening the door, killing her is definitely difficult, but she must make the opponent pay the price.

Taliyah emerged, Xayah and Rakan leveled up to level 3, and the three of them surrounded her from the front and back, none of them in a hurry to use their control skills.

Logically, Ezreal and Bard should have retreated at this point, enduring Taliyah's damage to escape, using their E and Flash to dodge Rakan's crowd control, and then escaping back to their tower for safety.

However.
After glancing at the minion wave, his own experience bar, and the enemy's health, Li Luo made a bold decision.
-
Ignoring Taliyah, he continued to finish her off!

"Why aren't they leaving yet??? Is Uzi lagging? Or are they too drunk?"

"Could it be that the puppy's move..."

"Do you want 2v3?"

In the commentary booth, all three commentators exclaimed in surprise at the same time.

Just as Haro guessed, Xiangguo was farming the river crab in the top half of the map at that moment, and immediately alerted the two players in the bottom lane upon discovering the river crab.

In a situation where even Xiao Dai knew to retreat, without any support, the only reason RNG's bot lane wouldn't withdraw was -
To fight against overwhelming odds.

In the mid-to-late game, let alone 2v3, even 2v4 is not impossible with equipment advantages and skillful play. Even with Xiaogou's skill, viewers would have confidence that he could take on 3 opponents at once.

The problem is, there's only level three right now? What does level three even mean?
The equipment is basically the same, there are no ultimate skills, no cooldown reduction, and the output mainly relies on normal attacks. The number of people is basically the key to determining the outcome. It can be said that as long as you control the situation, there is no room for maneuver.

Has Uzi gone mad? Has he become arrogant?
This idea immediately came to everyone's mind.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Ezreal calmly continued to farm minions, and even secretly used his Q on the catching-up Rakan through the gaps in the minion wave.

A second later, Rakan and Taliyah approached in unison, their rock spikes striking the blue minions. Rakan also used his E skill to dash forward.

At the same time, Ezreal's basic attack landed on Taliyah, and Xiaoming's Bard's Celestial Spirit and Q skill also landed on Rakan and Taliyah simultaneously.

The key reason why Bard can counter Xayah and Rakan lies in:
Astral Binding (Q): If the energy blast hits another enemy or wall, the hit enemy will be stunned.

Just then, Rakan's Dance of the Two (E) perfectly created space for Bard to be stunned. Almost the instant his Q skill was released, Rakan flashed forward without hesitation and released his W skill to knock up Ezreal.

The seamless skill combos meant that viewers only saw Rakan fly onto Ezreal in the blink of an eye.

Unfortunately, while this kind of prediction might be considered fast in casual games, in a highly focused tournament, it can only be easily dodged by Ezreal's E skill.

Ezreal used his E skill to create distance, and the large number of blue minions turned around and began to focus fire on Taliyah.

Haro hesitated a bit; the enemy's minions seemed to number a lot.

However, Ma Ge's voice rang out from behind.

"By forcing him to use Flash, we've already made a profit!"

Xayah launched a sudden attack, throwing out two feathers from her Q skill, and then activated her W skill to try and trigger a third feather, using the backflip to deliver a second round of crowd control.

Left with no other choice, Taliyah had to use her WE combo in an attempt to force Ezreal to reposition.

"???"

Seeing that We, who was forcing Ezreal to move, had actually lifted Ezreal over, Haro instinctively sensed something was wrong. Although he used two skills to take down nearly half of Ezreal's health, he also caused Reverse Feather's feathers to miss.

Bard was still relentlessly auto-attacking Taliyah, whose health had already dropped below half. Seeing Ezreal approaching, Haro instinctively used Flash to escape towards Xayah.

At that moment, Arcane Shot (Q) was also released, aimed directly at the two of them.

Haro and Sima Laozei lived up to their reputation as top professional players who made it to the semifinals, skillfully dodging the Q skill with their positioning.

However, it was precisely because the two of them dodged the Q skill that the yellow-orange arcane attack hit a low-health backline minion.
-
brush!
The upgrade effect appeared on Ezreal, and his health increased to 60%. Li Luo instantly learned the Q skill and flashed forward.

AAAQ, the final Q skill is unleashed.

"Watch carefully and learn well"

EZ's voice, tinged with arrogance and flippancy, suddenly rang out.

Then, the Q skill hit the fleeing Taliyah precisely, taking away her last bit of health.

Rng.Uzi killed Rw.haro
First blood!

The red buff instantly transferred to Ezreal.

Thanks to the burning and slowing effect, Ezreal, whose health was already at 40%, did not retreat but continued to move forward to block Sima Laozei's retreat direction.

The red buff's slowing effect makes it easier for Ezreal to hit his Q skill.

With the two supports still fighting in the back, Liu Qingsong could only watch helplessly as Xayah was taken down by Ezreal, who secured a double kill.

Seeing that he couldn't escape, Luo could only stand still and fight back.

However, regardless of the effects of the red buff, the level advantage, or the accelerated health regeneration from Bard's W skill, it was difficult for Rakan to continue to touch Ezreal, who had less than 100 health points. With each biscuit hit, the amount of health that was raised was so visibly despairing that it was almost unbearable.

Even though Rakan still had nearly 220 health, with the attack speed bonus from Ezreal's five-stack passive and Bard's auto-attacks, he couldn't survive until his W skill's 18-second cooldown was over.

In just ten seconds of combat, a tiny Ezreal, relying on his passive attack speed bonus, unleashed explosive damage.

"Triple kill!"

The sound effects echoed throughout the entire canyon. Ezreal, who had been reduced to only 40 health by the minions, stood firm and fought to the very end.

After a calm retreat, and seeing RNG's bot lane duo push the minion wave and recall, the crowd erupted in cheers even more terrifying than during the battle.

"666666!!!"

"Besides awesome, I really can't think of any other word to describe it???"

"If there were a directional control, would it really be this bad? Haro fell for it!"

"Let's shut it down, it's really pointless!"

"I watched this on my knees!"

The ultimate operational details, damage calculation, and even positioning and skill combos are all based on prediction.

Not only were the audience at the scene stunned, but the live stream chat was also flooded with comments.

The best-of-five match had only been going on for a little over four minutes when the audience's enthusiasm reached its peak, like adding fuel to a fire.

"It's so frustrating! RW got completely outplayed by Ezreal this time. My god, RW really lost big this time. With those three kills, I wonder what items Ezreal will buy when he goes back. Xiangguo not only started with two river crabs, but also helped Xiaohu push the lane in the mid lane. That's such a good deal!"

"This Ezreal is acting strangely; the damage is too high, I don't understand it."

Although the three LPL commentators didn't understand all the details of Ezreal in a flash, the fact that the team had already pulled ahead by 1500 gold in 5 minutes was the best proof of the difference in strength between the two teams.

"This was outrageous! It was a top player who opened up the game with their own skill. RNG gained such a huge advantage in single-target situations right from the start. Although you can tell that Xiaoming's Bard proficiency isn't very high, with Uzi's Ezreal, even Xayah and Rakan would have a hard time against this Ezreal."

"That's right, RNG's momentum has picked up. Bard is now roaming with Xiangguo's Zac. Let's see how RW decides to act!"

As they were talking, Bard, who was level four, followed Zac, who was level five, toward the top lane, seemingly about to make a move in the top lane.

This kind of rogue playstyle was simply shameless before Xiaolong was reworked.

Rw clearly sensed Rng's intentions, but they were helpless. Would Rakan dare to leave Xayah alone in lane to continue laning against Ezreal?
(End of this chapter)