Starting with Zaozi Ge, a dream lineup

Chapter 342 The Battle for the Top Spot in the Korean Server
Besides the LCK, countless people in the North American region were also watching this live stream.

As the founders of the "grouping" strategy, G2 Esports team was amazed when they saw familiar faces appearing on camera one after another in the training room.

"Uzi teamed up with Clearlove and Xiye? That's outrageous, bro!" Perkz exclaimed in surprise. "It seems Uzi's only goal this year is the championship. Since he left RNG, he's made up his mind."

"This is frustrating. Uzi is already so strong, and now Clearlove has a 30-game winning streak and is about to reach the top of the Korean server. These people are teaming up together, and their team's configuration may have already exceeded the requirements for a championship." Caps, the team's top global star mid-laner, also shook his head, his face very grim.

It makes no sense that the league should only allow them to team up, but not others.

Last season, although G2 teamed up to defeat SKT, they were swept 3-0 by FPX in the finals.

Of course, no one understands better than them just how terrifying it is to fight as a team.

After Caps joined G2 and strengthened the roster, G2's strength has visibly improved by more than one level. Although they lost to FPX, they only felt that their tactics were countered, not that it was a matter of strength.

Therefore, when everyone sees that LPL has also seen team-ups, and even more terrifying team compositions, they are all very confused.

"No, we have to keep bringing in new players. They've teamed up; if we don't do something, we're going to get crushed!"

G2's owner felt a chill run down his spine, his mind racing with images of star players, and his thoughts even drifted to other regions.

European and American teams have never recruited LPL players, perhaps.
A bold idea has not only appeared in the mind of G2's owner, but also in the minds of many teams including FNC and C9.

indeed.

All the clubs and teams around the world, and all the top star professional players, felt a sense of crisis after seeing Edg band together like this.

If it were fair competition and youth training in the past, that would be fine, but now some veteran players are forming cliques, which leaves no room for newcomers!
Of course, this is a side effect of the idolization movement of the fist.

In reality, there isn't a significant difference in skill between the contestants, but under the influence of the idol-making movement, these idols appear to far surpass ordinary contestants.

Just like the famous top laner, TheShy, he never complains when he's being ganked, but if he manages to seize an opportunity or dominate a weaker team and deliver a standout performance, Riot Games and Tencent will arrange for him to shine everywhere, creating countless highlight reels.

This led to many uninformed casual players entering the live stream and exclaiming, "Wow, how come TheShy is 0-3 or 0-4? He's so bad, yet so many people are praising him?"
However, at this moment, the most lively place is still the factory manager's live broadcast room.

After briefly responding to some of the more meaningful questions in the live stream, Li Luo decided to continue his live stream for the evening.

Currently, champion7's account is only 48 points away from being ranked number one on the Korean server. If he can win two more games in a row, he will create an unprecedented record of 32 consecutive wins and skyrocket to the top of the Korean server.

A score of over 30 points, even for a super account, is quite impressive.

After waiting for more than ten minutes, and when my lips were tired from talking, it was finally my turn to get a turn.

Upon entering, everyone immediately erupted in excitement.

It's not for any other reason than that in this ranked match, Li Luo's team included the top-tier mid-laner Chaowei, and the remaining three were also well-known professional players.

Top laner Big Turtle's Bone Strength.

The bot lane consists of Drx's bot lane duo, Keria and Deft.

"Hello, factory manager, I'm watching your live stream. Get into a comfortable lying position."

As soon as Deft entered the game and saw Champion7, he immediately said playfully, "This time, the three of them from DRX are grouped together, and with Clearlove who's on a 30-game winning streak, we don't know how we can lose."

After seeing Deft's words, Li Luo checked his stats and rankings and couldn't help but laugh.

"Guys, this is a stomp game. We have five pro players on our side, what are they going to do with anything?"

"???"

Upon hearing Li Luo's words, the entire online audience, and even those in the industry watching the live stream, were instantly stunned.

Top-tier Korean server games?

Hmm~ Does the factory manager now consider this just a game of bullying noobs?
"I won this round! One more round and I'll be on top! Let me see who's in first place now."

"Yeah, it's Tarzan, Griffin's current jungler. He's only 48 points behind me. His jungling style is exactly what I counter. If I were on the opposing team this game, I could win and immediately climb to the top."

In the live broadcast room.

After seeing the current rankings, Li Luo immediately smiled and said, "This account is now third in the Korean server after a 30-game winning streak. Even if it can't reach the top, it's still a height that some professional players can't reach in their entire lives."

As soon as he said that, the viewers in the live stream couldn't help but laugh.

Countless fans immediately infiltrated the live streams of other Griffin members, using "closed and secretive" channels to see whether Taishan was actually queuing.

"Classic early research on MSI players... Oops, wrong scene... Classic early research on the Korean server's number one player."

"Upstairs, who are you implying to from across the hall?"

"I've already secured the top spot in the Korean server!"

"To be honest, this game is a sure win. Niu Guli and Chaowei are both incredibly skilled players in the Korean server. If Clearlove doesn't make any mistakes, this game is a guaranteed win."

Amidst the commotion, viewers in the live stream seemed to rediscover the feeling of watching Factory Manager's live stream back in the day.

That feeling of treating high-level games like pigs, completely stomping and slaughtering noobs throughout.

There are no coaches or strategies in ranked games. Basically, everyone just picks whatever they want to play, and at most they might switch if there are more AP or AD champions.

But after the ban/pick phase, the heroes banned by the red team, Li Luo's side, surprised everyone.

The red team banned five heroes: Niu Guli for Evelynn, Chaowei for Sejuani, Deft for Graves, and Keria for Nidalee.

In one game, all four members of our team banned the jungler.

But that wasn't the end of it. The opposing blue team also banned two junglers: Kha'Zix, who recently became popular due to the price reduction of armor penetration items, and Lee Sin, who wasn't considered particularly strong.

"Sorry!"

Deft offered a half-hearted apology, but a glint of wisdom flashed in his eyes that was hard for ordinary people to detect.

"You're the one who taught me this, Mingkai."

Stroking the mousepad, which already had rough edges, Deft was intently trying to see Clearlove's exasperated expression during the live stream, but alas...
He was disappointed.
The factory manager showed no sign of anxiety; instead, he laughed at the way the four of them behaved.

In this game, all three players on their side were from DRX. With the intention of testing Clearlove, Deft secretly coordinated and disabled all of Clearlove's recently outstanding champions.

Top laner Niu Guli was no exception. Seeing that all three of his teammates had banned junglers, he also harbored a desire to test the waters. He knew from Deft's time with Edg that Clearlove's favorite thing to do was to study his opponents.

Now, he has inherited Edg's fine tradition and turned the same trick on them.

"Deft is stirring things up, but with my champion pool, does anyone really think that the bans can target me?"

Li Luo chuckled inwardly with interest, having roughly guessed their thoughts based on the performance of his four teammates.

However, the viewers in the live chat didn't think so.

"Five bans in one game, four of them were for the jungler, awesome!"

"I can see it now, this pilot has been a factory traitor for a long time, I suggest he be shot."

"Most of the strong junglers in this version have been banned, how are we supposed to play?"

In Uzi's timeline, because of him, the Chinese server version has caught up with the Korean server version, but in this timeline, the Chinese server is still one version behind the Korean server.

Therefore, in the current version, apart from the popular junglers from last season like Qiyana, Taliyah, Skarner, and Zac who were nerfed to oblivion in the World Championship version, almost all other junglers who didn't appear in S9 have received some kind of buff.

This buff hasn't been implemented in the Chinese server yet, but some hints are already appearing in the Korean server.

Trying to probe the hero pool with such simple targeting is too difficult!
Factory Director isn't a professional player who only knows a few heroes. It's just that in matches, due to his tactical style, he often picks the same few heroes over and over again. This has led some viewers who don't watch Factory Director's matches often to think that he only plays tanky heroes and sneaky heroes.

In fact, when it comes to hero pool, Clearlove can be considered to have a vast array of jungle heroes. Apart from a few heroes that have been changed in the new version and he is not very proficient with them due to his declining performance, he is more or less a master of the other heroes in casual games.

He quickly arrived at Li Luo's fifth floor. After checking his teammates' heroes, he decisively locked in a hero that seemed out of place for the factory manager:
"Only the spider can remain unharmed within its web!"

Spider Queen, Elise.

The latter half of S10 was dominated by jungle carries, but in the first half, or rather, before the Spring Split was even halfway through, these junglers with extremely strong ganking abilities still reigned supreme.

spider?

Deft was slightly puzzled. Although the factory manager's Spider had appeared in the last thirty games, his record was not impressive, often ending in a 2-0 or 3-1 victory.

This also led him to believe that the factory manager could play this hero well.

But in reality, Deft overlooked one thing: the reason why Elise's performance was so dismal, far inferior to Graves and Nidalee's aggressive play, was because whenever Li Luo played Elise, the opposing team couldn't even last until the mid-game before fleeing in disarray and abandoning their armor.

As a jungler with an extremely low margin for error and extremely high risk, judging from Clearlove's past personality, he definitely wouldn't be able to play this hero well.

"It seems that if we want to target Mingkai, we need to find a way to block his hero pool."

Deft muttered to himself and exchanged a word with his support player Keria, and the two of them tacitly agreed with this view.

The game quickly entered the loading screen, and the lineups of both sides appeared on the screen.

Blue side (enemy) vs. Red side (own)

Top Lane: Gnar vs. Irelia

Jungle: Jarvan IV vs. Elise
Mid Lane: Sylas vs Orianna
Bottom Lane: Ezreal vs Miss Fortune
Support: Pyke vs. Yuumi
After the game entered the loading screen, Li Luo was stunned when he saw the IDs of the five people on the other side.

SKT T1 Faker?

The opposing mid laner is actually SKT T1's Faker?

And that's not all; just as Li Luo said, the opposing jungler was none other than Griffin's jungler, Tarzan.

The top laner is Doran from DRX, and the bot lane duo is Griffin's bot lane duo, namely Viper and support Irove.

The blue team is Griffin in a three-man squad, while the red team is DRX in a three-man squad.

But at this moment, all the viewers' attention was clearly not on these people; everyone was focused on one ID:

“SKT T1 Faker”

Barrage-
"Hey, Faker didn't play Hide on Bush today, but logged into the SKT account instead. Is this a big problem?"

"If you don't understand, just ask. Isn't Brother Li's account only Diamond 1? How come he's getting matched in such top-tier games?"

"Anyone who's watched Faker's streams should know how high his hidden MMR is, right? A single queue session always takes at least ten minutes."

"Didn't Faker himself say that he would only play on this account when he felt he was in good form?"

"The last time Faker logged into this account was after the Spring Split, damn, that makes sense..."

The chat was buzzing with discussion. Putting aside the match between ten top professional players, the fact that Faker logged into his main account was enough to give everyone pause for thought.

However, Li Luo had no time to think about these things. Ever since the game entered the loading screen, countless operational details and how to handle this round had flashed through his mind.

As a jungler, the first thing to do is to observe both teams' lineups, consider which lane is easier for you to gank, and also consider which lane the opponent will mainly gank.

In the past, junglers in League of Legends might not have needed to consider so many things, but as the game has become more standardized and more strategies have emerged, this process of strategic maneuvering has become particularly important.

"This game is going to be tough. Gnar has absolute dominance over our Irelia in the early game, but Irelia's crowd control and my own are unreliable. Gnar has mobility, so he's hard to catch, making this game very inefficient."

"The mid-lane Orianna lacks both damage and crowd control, while the enemy Sylas has crowd control, mobility, and damage in the early game. Therefore, for us, the mid-lane is only suitable for counter-ganking rather than proactively engaging. If we can catch Sylas to come up and fight, the success rate will be very high. However, this Sylas is Faker's Sylas, so we need to consider the margin for error when ganking him."

"On the contrary, for Prince, ganking mid lane is a relatively good skill. Whether it's tower diving or forceful ganks, Orianna is very easy to kill once she loses her summoner spells."

"On the bot lane, our Yuumi and Miss Fortune are very strong in the early game. With their wave clear speed advantage, Miss Fortune can definitely gain a health advantage. However, neither of them has reliable crowd control, so our best lane to engage is—"

"Get off the road!"

"As long as they can coordinate with the bot lane to tower dive or counter-gank, Miss Fortune's damage makes it very easy to kill the enemy's squishy targets. As for Jarvan IV, once Miss Fortune pushes the lane, he can also easily kill her with Pyke's crowd control. So whoever wins the bot lane this game will gain the initiative and influence all three lanes."

His reasoned and well-founded explanation made some viewers who had come in to finish their EDG saga and were about to leave involuntarily stay.

After Li Luo's analysis, these players were surprised to find that they had learned a lot through the analysis of team compositions and also saw many problems that they could not figure out in casual games.

Is arresting people a complex and demanding skill?

(End of this chapter)