Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 249, Section 246: Shimamura-san is awesome!
From the moment he started picking his hero, Flandre felt uneasy.

Is it really reasonable to use Sion to hit her?

'Hasn't this already been a mistake? Hasn't she already proven that any attempt to play dirty tricks on her is unreasonable?'

In general, champions who push lanes very quickly and are difficult to damage, including Sion and Ornn, often have an advantage when facing Vladimir.

The core reason is that the vampire has poor wave clear ability and low damage.

Even if he has the strength to respond, even if he can't do anything to him.
But as long as you keep pushing the lane, the vampire will always be on the defensive.

It doesn't matter.

Many vampires become increasingly anxious when facing such a tanky champion pushing the lane, leading to more and more mistakes.

Provided that
Let's talk about it after we can get some magic resistance gear.

For a typical professional player, it's incredibly easy to farm magic resistance items from a vampire in a straightforward manner.

What can a vampire like you do to me?

What's the point of playing this hero?
But Shimamura Yuna is truly different from others.

Upon her release, from her item builds and rune choices to her gameplay, she gave off the impression of 'If you dare to pick a tanky champion, I'll take your life.'

Since the damage output is insufficient, we can compensate by using Conqueror and more basic attacks.

Since you like pushing lanes, then trade more health for it.

Even if, in theory, tank heroes can indeed outlast Vladimir by building tank items when their economy is roughly equal.

But the premise is that the economy is the same.

Yuna Shimamura's strategy is to push you out of the experience zone, preventing you from last-hitting minions and gaining experience, thus widening the laning gap.

Of course, everyone can think of this kind of thing.

Since everyone knows that you can't be damaged after building magic resistance items, isn't the point to prevent you from building magic resistance items as much as possible?

However, while many people can think of such things, few can actually put them into practice.

This is especially true when both sides are professional players.

Yuna Shimamura is one of them.

The same feeling as last time
There were an excessive number of offside maneuvers, so many that it was almost unbelievable.

It may seem aggressive to the point of being insane, but in reality, every move is so precise and perfectly timed that it makes it impossible for the opponent to organize an effective attack.

She maximized her advantage as a ranged hero by retreating when the enemy advanced and attacking when the enemy retreated.

In fact, a similar effect can be seen in every long-range hero.

However, there are inherent drawbacks to why long-range heroes cannot frequently appear in the top lane.

The main reason is that Riot Games wants to prevent long-range champions in the top lane from becoming too lazy, as these champions often lack the base stats to compete with other top lane fighters in the early game.

You might spend ages attacking, but you still won't recover much more health than a warrior or tank with Revitalize Wind and Doran's Shield.

The warrior can withstand your attacks, hold back a bit, suffer a small loss, last-hit all the minions he needs, and then wait for the jungler to gank.

Often, a warrior might survive many waves of attacks without dying. They have seemingly dangerous but invincible health, always having a Doran's Shield and Second Wind constantly regenerating their health.

However, you are too close to the lane, lack survival skills, are too fragile, and have low base stats.
If you get caught by the warrior and get a kill in the jungle, you'll never be able to turn the tide in the top lane, which is a very long lane that's perfect for solo kills and snowballing.

Sometimes, there's no need for the jungler to gank at all.

You might pretend to waste time and energy, but if the opponent is a warrior character with strong mobility, they can easily get close and unleash a combo on you, making all your previous losses disappear.

Long-term experience has shown that long-range heroes have a very low margin for error in the top lane, and the risk and reward are simply not proportional.

This is exactly what Riot Games wanted; it's a balance they intentionally created.

When you're on the road, it should be a real battle for men.

The top lane should be a place where heroes progress and interact with each other.

Only a small number of long-range heroes were intentionally designed by Riot to be placed in the top lane to fill out the ecosystem and enrich the game content.

They obtained the right to appear in the top lane through various means.

And vampires are one of them.

Riot gave him a good physique, excellent recovery ability, and very strong survivability.

But what will be the cost?

It deals relatively low damage, has a weak early-game dueling ability, and struggles a bit in clearing waves until it gets a certain level of equipment.

They used these things to secure the very foundation for his survival as a hero in the top lane.

In fact, even so, in the current version, it's a stretch to call this hero a top lane hero.

In casual games, the pick rate of top lane Vladimir is far lower than that of mid lane Vladimir.

There wasn't much difference in the matches, but that's because nobody played mid or top lane.

However, this situation does not seem to exist for Shimamura Yuna.

The vampire's problems of low damage, slow wave clear, and inability to damage tanks in the early laning phase were completely solved by her in her own way.

This solution is so simple and crude that it seems almost unbelievable.

It means having good mechanics, good positioning, good minion wave control, and good game understanding.

Her vampire is no longer a hero on the same level as other vampires.

Other people's vampires are indeed heroes with fatal flaws.

However, for Yuna Shimamura, it was different.

This point has become even more prominent after the vampires were strengthened this time.

"It seems like Sion really can't beat her."

Not long after the match started, Flandre couldn't help but complain to himself.

It's that familiar feeling again—no matter what I press, it's wrong.

Retreating without finishing off the enemy is a slow death.

Going forward to finish them off is like getting hit by a spinning top.

If you don't want to be picked off, you'll lose experience and last hits, and your economy will gradually fall behind.

However, if you get picked, the outcome might be even worse.

They wanted to fight back, but their E skill never hit, and they couldn't find a good time to use their Q skill.

I don't know what to do.
I don't know what the right thing to do is.

For Flandre, at this moment, his stress threshold has reached a point that cannot be relieved.

Most importantly, he knew.

If I lose this game, the public opinion will simply be sarcastic and cynical towards me.

'I got spun around in the top again'.

'And he didn't fight back.'

It's not that I don't want to fight back, it's that I can't fight back, it's that I'm unable to fight back.

It's because my own abilities aren't enough to support me in fighting back against Shimamura Yuna's vampires while using this kind of hero.

But the audience won't care about that.

While playing other champions might not guarantee a matchup against Shimamura Yuna, it's certainly better than playing a champion like Sion who's completely unplayable. He had previously mentioned this to the team's training staff, but they insisted that "it's okay if you give up some gold and resources to make her early game a little easier."

In that case
"Then let's do it your way."

Now, player flandre has chosen to do his best and leave the rest to fate.

As the first truly formidable opponent that Shimamura Yuna has faced since her return to the arena, expectations for this match were actually a little low.

It's not that WBG has to completely crush AL to be considered successful.

In any case, this can be considered a clash of titans, right?

As long as we can win, it doesn't matter whether the process is arduous or overwhelming.

Some viewers even started criticizing Shimamura Yuna when she chose Vampire in the first game.

【Seriously, what are you pretending for? Gwen and the others are still around, aren't they? Wouldn't picking Gwen against Sion be much better? Why insist on picking Vladimir? Do you really consider Alterac Valley a weak team?】

[Is Vladimir really that powerful? It's just a tiny buff. I feel like even Shimamura's signature Fiora would be better against this Sion than Vladimir. Vladimir seems unable to deal any damage to Sion.]

[Previously, I only picked Vladimir when I ran out of heroes, but now I'm picking him at the start of the game. Is that really the right thing to do?]

In short, there are still many dissenting voices.

However, after 15 minutes of the game, all these doubts seemed to disappear.

After all, with a 1000 gold difference in gold between the top lane and the bottom lane, who can say anything?

In a word.

Facts speak louder than words.

No one could have imagined that Shimamura would be so cruel to JDG and UP.

Torture this AL, and it's still torture just the same.

From beginning to end, the director almost always focused on the top lane, watching Shimamura Yuna with the yellow glow of Conqueror stacks emanating from her as she chased Sion with A, Q, A.

Then Sion will occasionally turn around and spit out his E, which will almost always be dodged.

The 'q' key is basically useless.

You can feel Sion's helplessness even through the screen.

This alignment effect has left everyone a bit confused, and it feels like it's challenging everyone's common sense.

In most people's general perception, the appearance of a vampire hero in the top lane shouldn't look like this.

If this hero is really that effective against tanks, why don't other players pick him?

This thing has even been buffed.

It's impossible that only Shimamura Yuna's work is useful, while everyone else's work is useless, right?
impossible?

However.
【Wait, are vampires really that powerful? ???】

[Holy crap, what's going on? How is Shimamura really crushing AL?]

Are vampires really right???

I don't know if vampires are right or wrong, but Shimamura-san's vampires definitely don't seem to be wrong.

The impression is that Vladimir is indeed such a violent and tough counter to Sion in the top lane.

The whole world's understanding is wrong.

Shimamura-san's understanding is correct.

Soon, the audience had a feeling very similar to that of MSI.

The overwhelming advantage and uncontrollable nature of the top lane led to a series of negative chain reactions.

The isopods can't compete, and they can't defend the upper half of the map at all.
AL is actually a team with relatively mature tactics and its own underlying logic.

This team has its own set of strategies for dealing with different situations.

But the premise is that it doesn't collapse too badly.

This premise has now clearly been broken.

Although tank heroes don't need to be too fed, they just need to have a basic damage-absorbing function.

Even so, being too thin is obviously not good either.

Saint Gun's Sion is basically useless in the later stages of the game.

He couldn't limit Shimamura Yuna's development; when he was alone, he couldn't even control her lancing.

It should be said that, in the entire AL, there is currently no one who can single-handedly limit Shimamura Yuna's ability to control the lane.

Even two might not be enough.

Three, or even more.

Shimamura Yuna wasn't afraid at all until a certain number of people disappeared from the map.

But AL can't really just ignore her.

Too many people need to be mobilized to target Shimamura Yuna's vampire.

This gives WBG's other lanes more room to develop and perform.

Bottom lane, middle lane.
From the initial laning phase to subsequent resource gatherings, AL was completely led by the nose by WBG.

When it came to the actual team battles, Shimamura Yuna's handling of the vampire was also impeccable.

You can get a general idea of ​​the situation just from the narrator's lines.

"AL seized the opportunity and tried to initiate! They don't want to give up this dragon fight! Okay, they initiated on Xiaohu, Xiaohu was killed, but Shimamura's Vampire has arrived!"

"It seems like no one can stop Shimamura's vampire from entering the fray this time. AL's side doesn't have enough damage to deal with Shimamura! They can't take her down!"

"Wow, Shimamura-nee's entry into the fray is absolutely unstoppable! She's like a war goddess! Is this the power of a vampire with legendary skills?!"

It's not just one wave that's like this; it's every single wave.

"This vampire seems completely unmanageable now. I can't even picture AL killing her. It seems like even if she gets hit, it won't do much. She can just use her ultimate, create a blood pool, take a sip, and be good as new."

"As expected, Shimamura took the initiative to enter the fray! No one on AL's side could stop Shimamura's entry. Shimamura's ultimate skill hit four people, and the Blood Plague hanging on her body seemed to be putting a countdown on the lives of the four people!"

"Wow, Shimamura-nee's QE, combined with Blood Plague, almost instantly killed Hope from full health! And the most incredible thing is that after the Blood Plague broke out, the vampire's health returned to full!"

Yuna Shimamura's performance in team battles is quite impressive.

But all of this didn't bring the usual "Wow, after all that development, it's finally useful" feeling that comes after a period of setbacks.

Instead, from beginning to end, things were driven in this direction by an almost completely irreversible force.

This is how it was from the moment Shimamura Yuna picked this champion and started laning.

She has a significant advantage in the laning phase, is even more useful in early team fights, and is difficult to gank, allowing her to naturally develop to a point where she becomes unmanageable.

My impression after watching it is...
It's not that there's a problem with AL's gameplay.

If Shimamura Yuna gets Vladimir while her team picks Sion, they're basically just asking to lose.

It was BP that got exposed.

However, if the conclusion is that the vampire hero is indeed abnormal, then that would be too shocking to everyone's worldview.

Therefore, we can only lean towards the other answer.
"Shimamura-san is awesome."

(End of this chapter)