Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 327 Matchup Against KaGe, The Beauty of Jungling

Welcome to Summoner's Rift.

As the game's starting sound came from the second level, Li Luo immediately put aside his distractions and prepared to fully immerse himself in the game.

As expected, as soon as the opposing team saw Clearlove and Uzi on the same side, they immediately started wailing and interacting.

[This is outrageous. I thought Casarte was on our side, and we were the four lucky ones. I never imagined we'd become the four unlucky ones.]

【77777, yyds, I'm not saying anything more, I've already placed my order for 15】

[I initiated this]

【.】

Seeing the interaction between these people, Li Luo was stunned for a moment, then realized that Karsa was no longer with Edg as before; he was now with RNG.

Of course, he will transfer to Top Esports in S10, but it doesn't matter. In these Master and Diamond solo queue games, even if it's his first time jungling in over a year, he is fearless.

On December 3rd, the S10 preseason version was implemented in the Chinese server and will also be used as the version for the Demacia Cup.

The biggest change in Season 10 is the change to the elemental dragons. The first dragon will spawn at 5 minutes, and then one will spawn every 5 minutes. After two dragons are killed, the terrain of the Rift will change.

Once the map changes, all subsequent elemental dragons will spawn according to that terrain element. The first two dragons have reduced health (controlling the first two dragons gives you an early advantage), while subsequent dragons have increased health. The first three dragons will always have different elements.

In terms of individual dragon attributes, the fire dragon and earth dragon have been weakened, especially the earth dragon, which is definitely useless unless it is a tank lineup.

Although the Water Dragon's mana regeneration has been removed, it has been changed to trigger during combat, which is actually an enhancement. Combined with its Dragon Soul effect, it ranks among the strongest dragon species.

The Wind Dragon reduces the ultimate ability's cooldown, and the cooldown reduction multiplicatively benefits certain heroes (Karthus, Rengar, Evelynn) by enhancing their fighting ability.

These changes are precisely why Li Luo had to leave Uzi's timeline to seek a solution.

Modern designers are emphasizing the competitive aspect of the game, which does make the game more exciting.

However, traditional AD carries may become increasingly difficult to play, as those with longer growth curves and weaker laning phase capabilities, such as Sivir, Kog'Maw, Jinx, Varus, Ashe, and Xayah, who require levels and items to sustain their late-game potential, are likely to find it harder to be picked.

The changes to the jungle herald the start of the S10 jungle carry meta. Simply put, the overall experience and gold from jungle monsters have been reduced, the respawn rate of jungle monsters has increased, and the experience and gold gained from simply farming jungle monsters have increased. Heroes who can farm jungle monsters faster will have a greater advantage.

In this version, the total experience gained from clearing the jungle remains unchanged. Riot's goal is to "encourage junglers to farm more and gank less."

Because of the frequent ganks and even the starvation tactics of junglers in S8 and S9, which made laners complain, Riot Games hopes that junglers will focus their attention on farming in the jungle.

Therefore, with the arrival of this version, a large number of heroes with slow jungle clearing efficiency were eliminated. Heroes with slow jungle clearing speed, such as Camille, Rek'Sai, Elise, Sejuani, and Gragas, were all removed from the meta, while heroes such as Lee Sin, Nidalee, Graves, and Kindred emerged.

This was just the beginning. At this point, the jungler only reduced the frequency of ganks and did not receive any other benefits. The jungler was quite dissatisfied. "I'm busy farming all day, but in the end, my economy is not as high as that of the laners. What's the point of playing?"
Therefore, in the not-too-distant 10.3 patch, which is the Spring Split, Riot once again buffed jungle experience. This buff to Bloodstealer made junglers shout "Wuhu take off!"

That wasn't all. The designers still felt the buff was too bland and uninteresting. What kind of buff is it if it doesn't affect the game balance?! So, the designers gave the jungle another classic buff!
Not only did they increase the experience of all the jungle monsters, they also buffed all the jungle items.

To put it bluntly, due to the exaggerated experience bonus from jungle monsters and the jungler's exaggerated recovery ability, farming jungle monsters has become the most valuable way to play the game. In addition, the dragon's attributes are not strong, and apart from the dragon soul, the jungler does not need to pay special attention to obtaining the dragon, so they are more addicted to the jungle.

Meanwhile, jungle carry champions such as Graves, Nidalee, Kindred, and Lillia have become must-pick or must-ban champions in this patch due to their excellent jungle clearing ability and huge impact after completing their items.

The entire game ecosystem has also changed as a result: in order to make up for the lack of control by jungle carry heroes, top lane heroes with hard CC or team fight initiation have become the mainstream, such as Camille and Ornn.

In order to coordinate with the jungler's invasion, heroes with excellent wave clear have become the mainstream in the mid lane, such as Syndra and Orianna.

ADCs have degenerated into ADs. Since jungle carries have better output capabilities, utility ADs are more popular, such as Jhin and Ashe. Supports have given up on strong lane enchanter supports and opted for more effective team fight hard supports, such as Leona and Sett.

This is the worst version for junglers, because the skill level of junglers will be completely exposed under this buff, and strong players will even be able to deliver a crushing blow to weaker players.

But this is also the best version for jungling. As long as you are strong enough, you can carry the team to victory on your own.

Standing near the blue team's red buff jungle, information kept flowing through Li Luo's mind, and his originally slightly stiff fingers became more and more flexible with the feedback from holding the mouse.

"In this game, the mid lane matchup is Fizz against Irelia, so Fizz will definitely be pressured by Irelia in the early game. However, Irelia has a hard time dealing with Fizz once he reaches level three. So, in the first two levels, Irelia will definitely use her Q skill to stack her passive and come in to trade damage. At this time, after I finish the red buff and go over, Irelia can only wait to die."

"As for Karsa, he probably won't gank him at level two with his Nidalee, otherwise he'll mess up his own rhythm. On the contrary, as long as I seize this opportunity to get my Fizz going, I can lead Fizz to invade Karsa's jungle. Then in a 2v2, we'll have an advantage in levels and items. Once the opponent makes a mistake, they'll just be chased down and beaten."

"However, Uzi is playing Lucian in this game, and with Leona as support, we can actually go to the bottom lane to see if we can gank someone at level two. Let's start by clearing the jungle, and then gank wherever it's easy to gank. The enemy's control and burst damage aren't enough this game. As long as I get farmed up, the armor penetration items in this version are incredibly overpowered. I feel like I can dominate this game!"

After finishing speaking, Li Luo glanced at the live chat, and sure enough, it was filled with "77777" comments, with only one or two occasionally visible.

"It's a pity about the factory manager's skill level; his form has declined recently, otherwise his awareness would still be enough to play professionally."

"The betting has started! The betting has started! How many kills can the factory manager get this time?"

"I suggest the factory manager return to EDG, buy Uzi, and aim for S10."

"Promise me you won't be Zaozi's lapdog, okay?"

Besides that, seeing that he was blind, there were a few 4396s passing by, but most of them were just die-hard fans with the brand name on them making fun of him.

Now that Edggo has officially announced that Pepe 7 will be the coach next season, not to mention die-hard fans, even haters are moved to tears. How could they still be chasing after him?

At 1 minute and 28 seconds, the minions from both sides clashed in the mid lane. Before Irelia could stack her passive, Fizz wanted to push the lane quickly so that he wouldn't be overwhelmed by Irelia when the second wave of minions arrived.

As for the enemy Irelia, who wanted to stack her passive to suppress Fizz, she naturally positioned herself further forward, just as Li Luo had said.

The bottom lane was probably intimidated by Zaozi's reputation, and with Xayah and Rakan being the orphan duo of S10, they even went around the lane from behind the tower to go to lane at level one.

After a quick mental calculation, Li Luo immediately decided on a strategy of ganking mid at level two. Lee Sin's jungle clearing speed is not slow, and in order to gank at level two, he did not choose to clear the jungle without taking damage at level one with W, but instead learned the Q skill in order to clear the jungle faster.

In the mid lane, as the minions made contact and Irelia auto-attacked, seeing three melee minions with low health, Irelia swiftly used three Qs to finish off the low-health minions, while also stacking her passive to three layers. Her hand speed was incredibly fast, definitely the epitome of a Master in the Challenger tier.

When the online player saw the Irelia stack three passive stacks so aggressively, he was startled and instinctively wanted to retreat and safely gain experience until level 2. However, just as the player was about to retreat, Li Luo pulled over the camera and signaled that she was on her way.

The attack, which was already on its way, immediately stopped the retreating murlocs in their tracks, making them excited.

In games with Uzi, everyone's strategy is very clear. Even Yu Ren didn't think that Clearlove would allocate resources to him. But now Clearlove is going to gank mid at level two. For a random mid laner, this is undoubtedly a great opportunity to shine.

The fishman, having gained 7 Willpower, did not retreat. Seeing the Irelia with three stacks of her passive, he instead buried himself in farming minions, forcibly managing to get three minions.

Seeing how cheeky the Fizz was, Irelia glanced at the minion wave, then chose to auto-attack the backline minions twice to stack four passive stacks and engage the Fizz in a fierce battle.

With Irelia at level 1 and four stacks of her passive, Fizz could only fight and retreat. Helpless, he had to use his E skill to retreat. Irelia, unsuspecting, and with the desire to show off in this star game becoming increasingly strong, directly used her Q skill to chase after him.

However, the moment Irelia used her Q, Fizz immediately flashed to create distance for his auto-attacks, and a Lee Sin with a red buff appeared behind Irelia.

The Irelia regretted it as soon as the Fizz used Flash, because the bait was actually very clumsy and the Fizz's acting was not good either, but he was just trying to show off. Now there are only two options left: use Flash to try to trade with the Fizz, or try to use Flash to escape.

Before she could even hesitate, Li Luo had already moved in, applying a slow effect to Irelia with his basic attack while inflicting the red buff. At this point, Irelia lost the ability to trade blows with Fizz and could only helplessly let Lee Sin chase her down until he took away her last bit of health.

"Nice!"

First blood!

As soon as the second wave of minions arrived, the kill notification appeared in the Rift, and 400 gold coins were credited to her account. Although Irelia didn't use Flash, this wave was still a huge profit. With the current minion wave, Irelia should be at least half a level behind Fizz.

The fishman was very accommodating and gave a signal, indicating that Li Luo should help him push the lane. Under these circumstances, Li Luo naturally wouldn't hold back. After pushing the lane, the Blind Monk's level reached level three.

"6666666"

"??????"

"Is the factory manager's level two management so aggressive?"

"What a ruthless blind man!"

"Classic level two arrest, they've gone bad!"

When players reach the Diamond 1 or Master rank, they subconsciously check their teammates' match records during the ban/pick phase. This is partly to see which teammate has the ability to carry, and partly to avoid bad teammates causing trouble.

Before entering the game, Karsa checked the match history of the account "Pig Farmer's Counterattack" and didn't pay much attention to it, but he didn't expect the opposing Clearlove to be in such hot form and to launch a perfect gank.

After pushing the lane to level three, the Blind Monk didn't rush to take the blue buff. After clearing a set of wolves, Li Luo leisurely continued to farm the blue buff. And just as Li Luo expected, Karsa's Nidalee didn't dare to invade the jungle, allowing him to comfortably take the blue buff.

At this moment, Irelia and Fizz had just met in the mid lane. Although Irelia died once and Fizz did not get any kills or all the experience, he was not actually leading by much. Therefore, Li Luo planned to recreate the classic mid lane situation.

Because mid-lane Irelia is different from other mid-lane mage heroes. Except for top-tier Irelia players who can hold back from using Q on low-health minions, most Irelia players below 600 points in Challenger have a common problem: they are used to stacking their passive in order to kill.

This is especially evident in the mid-lane Irelia.

The previous push into the tower resulted in a push back, and with Irelia's recklessness, the minion wave quickly reached the vicinity of the blue side's tower. Karsa's Nidalee wanted to help Irelia get some revenge, but seeing the minion wave in the mid lane, she felt it was not a good opportunity to gank.

Fizz has an E skill for mobility, and with the added invulnerability effect, if he misses his Q, Fizz is basically unkillable. If he gets counter-ganked by Clearlove, it will be even more of a loss.

However, just as Karsa was hesitating about where to gank, more bad news came from the mid lane.

The blind man, who had never gone home, went straight to a 2-0 record, dominating the entire field.

"This is so awesome!" Li Luo thought to himself with delight after catching the person.

Compared to the dull early-game development and various laning details of the ADC position, the jungle position is obviously much more interesting, especially in this mediocre rank, where ganks are almost guaranteed to be successful, and killing is as easy as slaughtering chickens.

Irelia, relying on her Flash and with Nidalee in the top half of the map, dared to roam under the tower. However, Lee Sin simply used his W to circumvent the vision and easily got behind her.

The combination of Fizz's Ignite and WQ, and Lee Sin's EQ, deals terrifyingly high damage, leaving Irelia with absolutely no chance to fight back.

After this gank, the mid-lane advantage is completely secured. By the time Irelia reaches level 4, Fizz will be level 6, which basically renders Irelia useless in solo queue.

"Now that Irelia is useless, we can safely go back to base to buy items and then go gank."

Hearing Li Luo's confident speech, the live chat immediately became lively.

"777777"

"Wow, Mingkai is so handsome!"

"I think this Irelia is a complete idiot, managing to get caught in the same spot twice in a row!"

"Isn't this a good way for the factory to get around the perimeter?"

"Factory manager, go help out in the bottom lane? Brother Zaozi hasn't made a single sale yet!"

"That's right. Let the rich get rich first and help the poor get rich later. Even pigs are taking off, so how can dogs still lie on the ground?"

Seeing the lively chatter, Li Luo laughed too, but he forgot that he had already possessed the Factory Manager's body. His wicked smile on camera instantly turned the live stream from a noisy game into a meme contest.

Dear readers, if you have a moment, please go back to the homepage and give the character "Zaozi Ge" a heart! Thank you!
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(End of this chapter)