Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 32 Samsung White Mid Laner
There are many different opinions about Xiaohu by the time of S10.

In S8, Uzi was humiliatingly eliminated from the quarterfinals by G2, and he became known as "Jian Denglong," a villain in the eyes of the entire internet.

In S9, RNG was eliminated in a near-crushing manner by FNC, an opponent they had never lost to in the past three years, in a crucial group stage match.

They were eliminated in the round of 16.

In the final game of this crucial battle, Xiaohu picked Ryze and became one of the LPL's most shameful players with a stat total of 2200.

From the semifinals to the quarterfinals, and then to the round of 16, Xiaohu has gone from being the genius mid-laner who solo-killed Faker to being called "Tiger the Loser" by everyone.

He was once known as "General Tiger", "Emperor of Spring Tiger", and "Mid Tiger", and was also called "Tiger Master", "Tiger Scoundrel", and "Mid Hun".

But looking at S9 before Li Luo's arrival, Xiaohu's impression on everyone was limited to his dreamlike angel flashing into a wall, Akali's three consecutive bad plays, and Ryze's teleporting to his death.

Furthermore, their farming efficiency is low and their output capability is worrisome, forming a stark contrast to the "chicken god" who eats grass and produces milk.

What's most perplexing about Xiaohu is that it's difficult for any of the viewers to categorize him as either a "loser" or a "center."

You might say he's bad, but his supporters say he has 90,000 followers and solo-killed Faker.

But if you call him a C, he'll just throw a 2200 at your face.

Therefore, unlike other players whose performance fluctuations are seasonal—one might be a mediocre player this season and a poor performer next season—this player's performance is not dictated by the season.

Xiaohu's performance can be described as fluctuating within the same best-of-five series: one game he carries, one game he just coasts, and one game he barely scrapes by. He's like Schrödinger's Tiger.

However, according to the attributes given by the system, each mid-lane player's playstyle can be represented by five categories.

Since every professional player has limited talent and energy, it is impossible for a professional player to have every ability at its maximum level. Even if there were, it would be impossible to maintain maximum level every season.

As a mid laner, both laning and team fight skills are essential.

Xiaohu's consecutive reign as the number one player in both the Korean and Chinese servers proves that he has real skills in both laning and team fights. As for the deeper level, it evolved into five branches during the competition.

Laning dominance, teamfight damage output, roaming support, farming ability, and invention ability.

Therefore, players need to allocate their talent points in different directions and playstyles in different seasons to adapt to the version.

The more points a player has in a particular direction, the more distinctive their playstyle becomes.

For example, Chicken God, the S8 champion, is known for his lane dominance. Even when he starts roaming, his purpose is not the same as Donib's in S9, which is to help the side lanes establish an advantage.

His roaming was to get kills and continue snowballing his economy, to better suppress the person he was laning against, and this style even influenced the entire IG team.

Therefore, the same competitive behavior can represent different purposes for players with different game styles.

To develop these abilities, it's not enough for the player to just have talent; they also need to work hard.

For example, it's unrealistic to expect Donib to have the same skill tree as Rookie.

For example, it's unreliable to have someone on the left hand select Doinb's support abilities.

When the team composition doesn't match, blindly picking heroes that suppress the enemy and thinking you can carry the game on your own is unrealistic.

Unless someone has cheat codes or a cheat code, this is impossible.

Therefore, analyzing what abilities Xiaohu possesses, why he possesses them, and what habits he develops after acquiring them has become the first major task for all Xiaohu scholars after S9 Xiaohu's big loss.

The analysis by the well-known tiger expert and Bilibili UP master "Yuanmouren" makes a lot of sense.

What skill tree did Xiaohu choose? Why was he so strong in S7, but became incredibly weak in S8/9?

Many people equate "roaming to support" or simply taking a Teleport and teleporting to the bottom lane with a Teleport to support the enemy with support. That's clearly a misconception. The essence of roaming to support is the control of the overall balance of the game.

Chicken Master's LeBlanc is the best example. His LeBlanc does not play aggressively in lane, but instead uses the pressure to create opportunities to roam.

By utilizing LeBlanc's high mobility, you can help other lanes gain an advantage while also securing more gold.

This kind of roaming is the advanced version of roaming. If the mid laner has a TP, they can immediately teleport down to the bottom lane if a fight breaks out. This is called support, not roaming.

In the Summer Split of S5, Xiaohu and Xiangguo teamed up for the first time. During this period, Xiaohu gradually shifted from his high-elo solo queue playstyle on GT to a mid-jungle synergy with Xiangguo.

With Xiangguo's help, Xiaohu's teamfight participation rate and assists have begun to rank among the top mid laners in the LPL.

The two of them had a good time killing, but it was useless because the team's weaknesses were too obvious.

Although Xiaohu gradually developed his own system due to Xiangguo's presence, a wonderful chemical reaction occurred between them.

In 2016, RNG brought in former world champions Mata, Looper, and Uzi. The addition of these three transformed RNG into a super team ready to take off.

As the brains of Samsung White, Mata brought Samsung White's offensive strategies and game understanding to RNG, and Xiaohu quickly absorbed the understanding brought by Mata.

To advance into a mid-laner with "roaming and support capabilities" like the "SSW Samsung White" style.

To understand what Samsung White's mid-lane style is, you must first understand what Samsung White mode is.

In the era of the S4 World Championship, when everyone was practically an orphanage director, every team had its own core carry.

For example, SSB's top carry, Deft, had a damage output percentage as high as 36%, and there were as many as six ADCs at the time with a damage output percentage exceeding 30%.

Among these many teams, most rely on a 4-protect-1 strategy to protect their main carry and then engage in 5v5 team battles.

Only Samsung White stands out as an anomaly, emphasizing overall collaborative offense.

Many people have misconceptions about Samsung White, such as that Samsung White won the S4 championship through individual skill.

Before the World Championship, Samsung Blue easily won 3-1 against Samsung White, which means that the gap in strength between the two teams is definitely not as outrageous as it appears in the World Championship.

However, Samsung White still slaughtered Samsung Blue with an average of 26 kills and 27 minutes of base push.

This is Samsung White, a result of Mata's superior game understanding compared to teams worldwide.

Samsung White's core strategy is to be vision-oriented, constantly group up to create numerical advantages, achieve numerical superiority, and continuously suppress the jungle and tower dive for kills.

Trying every possible way to win team fights with a numerical advantage is what netizens call the classic Korean playstyle.

After the removal of the green ward jungle item, the vision control strategy of Korean teams gradually declined.

Even so, it took the Chinese team five years to learn this operational strategy before they finally mastered it and won the championship in S8.

By S9 and S10, this strategy had become the standard for all teams.

But it's not that easy to overpower someone by a numerical advantage.

However, during Season 6, this playstyle was incredibly suitable for players like Xiangguo and Xiaohu, because theoretically, it relied most heavily on the individual skills of the mid and jungle players.

S6 was also the golden age of damage-dealing junglers like Nidalee, Kindred, and Graves.

In this environment, Xiangguo unleashed terrifying fighting power. Just like the Vietnamese, Xiangguo in S6 was truly unstoppable.

As for Xiaohu, who had been working with Xiangguo for a long time, he also ushered in his peak season under this influence.

(End of this chapter)