Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 277, Section 274: Pure Crusade Against Novices

The whole world is now studying WBG's world championship match against CFO.

I want to glean something from this match.

But no matter how you look at it, it all boils down to just two words: "abusing noobs".

After dominating with Fiora in the second game, CFO felt that playing tanks like Driver wasn't enough in the third game, so they brought Rest back in, wanting him to play a regular laning matchup against Shimamura Yuna.

Although they knew in their hearts that it would be mostly useless, and either of these two top laners would just get crushed.

Moreover, the fact that the CFO was crushed by WBG is not just a problem with the top lane.

But in such situations, survival is the only option.

But unexpectedly, Banjima Village Yuna simply stopped on the road.

They then had Xiaohu pick Gnar for the top lane, while Shimamura Yuna went to play Azir in the mid lane.

This is a bit beyond everyone's comprehension.

Everyone knows that Shimamura Yuna plays Alora, Vladimir, and Yone in the mid lane, playing heroes she is familiar with.

However, the fact that she can play Tsar is something that some people don't quite understand.

After all, many people believe that Azir is a fundamental mid-lane hero, a character that only those with a "mid-lane soul" can play well and that requires a lot of effort to practice before they can use him effectively.

But Shimamura Yuna took it out and played with it.

When this hero was picked, T1 and GENG, watching from the stands, immediately realized: "This team is definitely messing around."

They simply didn't believe that Shimamura Yuna would dare to run to the mid lane and play Azir when facing other Korean teams.

This is what it means to bully newbies; this is what it means to fry fish.

Moreover, it is extremely pure.

This made T1, who were watching the game from the stands, very anxious.

"Oh no, you play this? Is it useful?"

"Does this mean that after a best-of-five series, none of the drafting strategies were revealed?"

T1's biggest hope right now is that their CFO can step up and defeat the slacker WBG in this match, forcing them to take the next game seriously and show some real skill.

It's impossible for WBG to just casually and play around and win three games, right?

Is this reasonable?

Is this as it should be?

T1 has become Shimamura Yuna's designated captive this year.

From MSI to this year's World Championship Swiss round, T1 has lost to Yuna Shimamura many times.

GENG and WBG are arguably the two teams that T1 fears and cares about the most.

Moreover, since the battle between WBG and them is very likely to happen soon, the urgency of the situation is far greater than that of GENG.

However.
The problem now seems to be that CFO is getting completely crushed when he plays against WBG. WBG not only doesn't reveal their tactics, they're just playing around, picking increasingly bizarre heroes. It's like the top laner is just there to expand his hero pool for skin selection after the match.

On the other hand, T1's match against KT will most likely be a fierce battle in which they must go all out.

After the game, your own system and tactics will inevitably be exposed to a large extent.

The harder it is to win, the more exposed your weaknesses become.

Given their already poor head-to-head record against WBG, and the fact that they would expose more of their tactics than WBG, how could they possibly compete?

Therefore, we hope the CFO will step up his game and that WBG won't be able to hide its tactics so easily.

However, this is just a fantasy.

Shimamura Yuna's Tsar in the mid lane was indeed an oddity.

This Azir play is quite different from what most traditional mid-lane players do; the atmosphere is very strange.

However, if we had to say, it would be really hard to say whether she or Xiao Hu played the Tsar better.

Shimamura Yuna's Tsar, simply put, is a model that is played entirely as a marksman.

There are no major issues with skill proficiency; the basic release logic is clear, and there won't be any frantic situations due to low proficiency.

However, at the same time, her use of the Tsar's skills remained basically limited to the most basic parts on paper.

There won't be any advanced techniques used, and there won't be any drifting-initiated team fights.

In fact, she doesn't even consider starting a group purchase.

She basically just uses her Sand Soldiers whenever they're available to poke, and if she gets targeted, she uses her ultimate as a self-defense skill to push them away and create some space.

She wouldn't consider any other unnecessary frills.

It's hard to say that such a Tsar could be considered a very knowledgeable one.

However, for most professional teams, the greatest function of the hero Azir is simply to farm gold and deal damage, which is enough.

The role of this hero is to develop quickly enough to participate in team fights, avoid dying easily, and find a good position to deal damage.

Drifting to initiate team fights, flashing to ultimate, etc., are just advanced techniques that add the finishing touch.

Shimamura Yuna has perfected both farming and damage output, making her a perfectly capable Azir.

On the other hand, look at Xiaohu.

His Tsar skill level should theoretically be quite high, given his experience as a veteran mid-laner.

However, within the game, it just doesn't feel as compelling as Shimamura Yuna's Tsar.

Playing the Tsar requires a feeling of being an "absolute core" player.

Yuna Shimamura was able to do that.

Little Tiger can't do it.

So, the more T1 looked at it, the more something seemed off.

At first, I thought WBG was just messing around, letting Shimamura Yuna play a hero that was impossible to play against strong teams.

But as I looked at it, I felt...
"Wait a minute, they're not really going to let Shimamura play this role, are they?"

It wasn't just T1 that felt this problem; the chat also noticed it.

[No, I feel like Shimamura Yuna is actually quite suitable for this hero, doesn't she?]

[That's actually true. I feel like there aren't many mid-laners in the LPL who play Azir well. Little Cream practiced for three seasons, and I feel like he's barely passable. Shimamura Yuna's Azir is really something else.]

[It's just a simple game of "beating" a noob; don't complain about whether it tastes good or not.]

[I think there's a lot to say about this. Shimamura's Azir is the most Korean-style Azir I've seen in the entire LPL so far. Her fundamentals are amazing.]

Is the best Azir player in the LPL actually a top laner?

What the audience saw, and what teams like T1 and GENG perceived, were precisely the things WBG wanted to test in this match.

They certainly don't choose heroes with the intention of "simply wanting to humiliate the opponent."

The CFO is an old teammate of Shimamura Yuna, and there are no grudges or conflicts between them.

She certainly didn't need to do that.

Choosing the Tsar hero is based on my own tactical goals.

Previously, WBG had been pondering a question during scrims: So far, WBG's mid-top lane swap strategy has essentially been Xiaohu patching up Shimamura Yuna's weaknesses.

Shimamura Yuna didn't want to play with meat, so Koko went to play instead.

Shimamura Yuna didn't want to play the heavy armor warrior, so Xiaohu went to play it.

Shimamura Yuna was unwilling to play a functional character who couldn't carry in the late game, so Xiaohu played that role instead.

It was Xiaohu who helped Shimamura Yuna relieve the pressure of BP, allowing Shimamura Yuna to play more freely.

However, on the other hand, Shimamura Yuna did not help Xiaohu patch up the hole.

The heroes she plays in the mid lane are the ones she knows how to play, such as Alora, Yone, and Vladimir.

She can't help Xiaohu catch up on some heroes that Xiaohu is now less proficient with or that he's not comfortable playing.

So the coach started thinking.
If these two players can each play heroes that the other doesn't want to play, wouldn't that truly expand the hero pool of the mid and top laners to the maximum extent?

Could this truly give WBG maximum flexibility in the drafting process?

With this idea in mind, WBG started experimenting with having Yuna Shimamura play Azir in training matches.

The Tsar is a hero, let alone Little Tiger.

He's considered one of the most difficult heroes to play in the entire LPL.

Countless times in the World Championships, when facing LCK teams, LPL has suffered in the draft phase because they haven't been able to pick a useful Azir.

Even a veteran LPL mid-laner like Xiaohu can only say he "barely knows how to play" Azir; he can only pick him if absolutely necessary.

In terms of how much play it has and how explosive the effects are, frankly, it's still far from enough.

Especially now, with the entire WBG team structure revolving around Yuna Shimamura.
Xiao Hu's Tsar playstyle was already mediocre, and now he's not even getting enough resources.

So, how about we change our approach and let Yuna Shimamura play Tsar?
When Shimamura Yuna herself heard the suggestion, she simply said, "I'll play Tsar."

After that, WBG practiced this as a secret tactic.

then
It's today.

The first two matches went smoothly, so with two games to spare, WBG decided to let Shimamura Yuna try out this system that she had only practiced a little bit in scrims.

结果
The results were surprisingly outstanding.

Shimamura Yuna wasn't particularly skilled with the champion Azir.

It's just simple.
Her playstyle is a perfect match for the Azir.

As her opponent, HongQ also felt that pressure during the laning phase.

The pressure was very similar to that of the top Azir players in the LCK.

Even though I didn't do anything special, my damage output kept increasing with each last hit, my wave clearing efficiency and damage were getting higher and higher, and with the help of my equipment, I was farming faster and faster.

And just like that, they took over the game in an almost unsolvable way.

HongQ was a little dumbfounded.

As the most promising new generation mid-laner from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, HongQ has one thing he is very proud of: his champion pool is very old-fashioned.

He plays traditional mage characters like Tsar and Clockwerk very well.

He considers this one of his special skills and is very proud of it.

This was one of the few things he believed he could do, but Shimamura Yuna couldn't.

However.
'Shimamura-nee, you tsar, how do you know how to have fun!'

His proud domain was broken by Shimamura Yuna, a top laner.

This severely damaged HongQ's confidence.

Although I knew I would lose before the match, I also knew I would have to face off against Yuna Shimamura.

But he never expected that in the end, his opponent would use his best hero in his area of ​​expertise to defeat him.

When HongQ saw Shimamura Yuna finally destroy her base with the Tsar, he gave a bitter smile.

"In the end, I was no match for you in any way."
-
The match ended without any surprises or major incidents.

Before the match, Shimamura Yuna had planned to have a chat with the CFO after the match.

But when she actually saw the dejected look on the other person's face after losing the game, she found herself unable to say anything.

The process and result of this best-of-five series can be considered entirely predictable.

Before the match, most people expected it to be a one-sided beatdown, even the CFO himself thought so, but they certainly didn't want to admit it.

But even so.

The desire to prove "we can do without you" and "we'll be better off without you" inevitably arises in my mind.

They think, "What if? What if a miracle happens?"

They might have even fantasized that if that less than one in ten chance actually happened, they would definitely brag about it to Shimamura Yuna.

But reality is cruel.

They so directly felt that "we are no match for her" and "the CFO is really just a nobody after leaving Shimamura".

At times like these, it's inevitable to feel a little disappointed.

Resentment, self-blame, self-loathing, regret.

All the dissatisfaction with one's own incompetence, all of this, will be so blatantly displayed on one's face.

Over the past year, Shimamura Yuna has seen far too much.

She could see that expression on the face of almost every loser.

However, Shimamura Yuna probably never imagined that one day these expressions would appear on the faces of her former teammates, or that she would type them out herself.

She was a little unsure of what to say, feeling that saying too much would sound sarcastic, while saying too little would seem heartless.

At times like this, she can only instinctively run away and choose to say nothing.

It's as if the two sides are complete strangers, having never met before.
But, as usual, when she went to shake hands with the loser as the victor.
HongQ, who had been making harsh remarks to her since the start of the knockout stage, suddenly said something to her that was a bit unexpected.

"Shimamura-nee, actually, I've wanted to say this to you before. I wish you success in winning the S-series championship, and I wish you can continue on the golden road that we didn't finish this year."

"But at the time, I thought, 'What if? What if I win in the end?' I felt it was too early to say 'I wish you victory.' So, I still held onto a sliver of hope. And then...?"

At this point, HongQ chuckled self-deprecatingly.

"But it's all good. Since you've already lost, I can now openly wish you well."

"Shimamura-san, we all believe in you. Whether it's T1 or GENG, it shouldn't be a problem for you, right?"

Yuna Shimamura didn't know what to say.

After pausing for a moment, he quietly hummed in agreement.

HongQ then laughed and said, "There won't be any problem."

"Just to give you a little hint, we had a lot of scrimmages with T1 in the Swiss rounds. So, I would say they are completely inferior to you."

"You can win, believe in yourselves."

(End of this chapter)