Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 280, Section 277: Crushing Dolan
On one side are the "challengers" who don't believe in fate.

On one side is the defending champion who believes he "controls his own destiny."

Meanwhile, on one side is the undisputed king of the old era.

On one side are the new generation, super rookies who are considered the 'successors to the throne'.

Right now, everyone has high hopes for Yuna Shimamura, and everyone believes that Yuna Shimamura will succeed Faker and become the next GOAT in League of Legends.

But Goat wasn't made by others' hype; he won through his own strength.

At this very moment, it is the battle for the GOATs to take turns, the battle for Shimamura Yuna to prove herself.

On the day of the match, the viewership of these two incredibly popular online teams broke Riot's record for the most-watched matches in all their years of organizing competitions.

Before the match even started, the number of concurrent viewers on Twitch had already exceeded 300 million.

Once the fighting really starts, it won't be a problem for the number of people to easily exceed 500 million.

This is only on the Twitch platform.

If we include other miscellaneous platforms, plus the number of people in China...
The level of attention this competition has garnered is truly unprecedented in the history of esports.

As for whether there will be others following suit.
That depends on whether Faker and Shimamura Yuna will face each other again in future matches.

Right now, this match is undoubtedly a celebration.

Although she was used to the lively atmosphere of the S-series venue, Shimamura Yuna was still startled by the huge cheers from the audience when she entered the venue today.

"Shimamura-san is awesome!!!! Shimamura-san is awesome!!!!"

"Go, Shimamura-san!!!"

"Shimamura-nee, I love you!!!!"

The sound was so loud it almost deafened her.

Not just here.

There's one on the other side too.

"Go T1!!!!"

"T1 Fighting!!!!"

"T1 will win!!!!"

The cheers from both sides mingled together, making the scene noisy and somewhat inaudible.

Expectation
This is a mixture of countless expectations.
An unpredictable stage of fate.

"This is exactly the stage I've been looking for."

Shimamura Yuna took a deep breath and, surrounded by cheers and under the spotlight, walked onto the stage.

Despite it being a very important match, once she arrived at the venue, Shimamura Yuna was surprisingly not nervous.

She began to calm down
It feels like everything is unfolding exactly as expected.

All the answers are predetermined.

Today is simply a process of executing and demonstrating all of that.

therefore
No need to care.

On the other hand, the T1 players were actually a little nervous.

In previous years, when the competition reached the knockout stage, especially the semifinals and quarterfinals, the T1 players always had a psychological advantage.

Others might think, "No matter what, T1 will always be very strong in crucial moments."

Others might think that "T1 seems to have some kind of destiny in this regard."

This kind of metaphysical claim is not true.

However, the psychological advantage objectively affected reality.

The side with a bad feeling will often feel nervous, worried, and mentally broken.

Those who believe that fate is on their side are often able to perform at their best.

As a result, those who felt it was an ominous sign actually encountered misfortune.

Those who claim to be blessed with destiny truly control their destiny.

Legends and metaphysics are realized in a real way.

But this year.
Even T1, who had the biggest psychological advantage, started to feel it.

An ominous atmosphere.

A strong feeling that fate is not on my side.

They could sense that Shimamura Yuna was not afraid of fate.

And so, it was their turn to be afraid.

After a few equipment adjustments, the match officially began in an atmosphere where both sides had their own ideas.

In the first match, WBG took the initiative to choose sides, and as always, they chose the red side.

In this game known as the Blue League, it's quite unusual that one of the world's top teams almost always chooses the red side first.

But judging from the results, their choice can be said to be beyond reproach.

The purpose of this tactic is very simple: to ensure that Shimamura Yuna can have a comfortable laning phase, even if it means sacrificing the priority of picking some of the meta's strongest characters.

As long as WBG can make the tenth move, they will have room to maneuver no matter what.

And
WBG's system of swinging between the top and bottom is simply too flexible.

Even if they choose the red side, it's hard to say that T1 can gain any advantage in the draft phase.

This is clearly the situation.

Despite being on the blue side, T1 had to take on two bans that weren't exactly standard bans.

One is Yuna Shimamura, a vampire.

The other one is Jayce.

One is an urban legend hero whose strength is unknown, so they dare not release him.

The other is also an urban legend hero.

A legendary Jess who can automatically destroy the opponent's lane with 100% certainty whenever facing the Wolf Mother.

Given their desire to pick the Wolf Mother for the top lane, T1 simply couldn't afford not to ban Jayce.

On the other hand, WBG's only mandatory ban slot is Azir.

Ultimately, the lineups for both sides were quickly finalized.

For T1, the top lane is Wolf Mother, the jungle is Qiyana, the mid lane is Taliyah, and the bottom lane is Yuna and Alistar.

WBG's lineup consists of Alora in the top lane, Jarvan IV in the jungle, Orianna in the mid lane, and Kai'Sa and Rakan in the bottom lane.

From a drafting perspective, as long as Shimamura Yuna gets Alola, then the draft is comfortable.

Since joining WBG, perhaps due to the version update or the team's positioning, I've been influenced by the game's version.

Alola has become one of Yuna Shimamura's most confident heroes.

He might even surpass Jayce and Gwen.

It's a confidence second only to that of a vampire.

This hero's long range, AP damage output, and ability to go top lane make him a perfect fit for Shimamura Yuna.

It's also worth mentioning that this is one of the very few characters in Shimamura Yuna's hero pool who have a relatively early power spike.

This makes this character a very high priority in WBG.

However, T1, due to the smokescreens of Jayce and Vladimir, did not have enough ban slots to deal with Alolan, and instead released the hero.

This is the purpose of WBG's previous efforts to create urban legends.

Urban legends are not true.

However, some people will always be influenced by urban legends in their reality because they believe them to be true.

While Shimamura Yuna got the heroes she was comfortable with, WBG's other lanes didn't suffer any unfairness in the draft phase.

They basically get the strongest heroes in the current version, and they are the ones they like to play and know how to play.

It's fair to say that WBG completely outclassed T1 in terms of draft picks.

It wasn't just the draft phase. Once the game started, T1 felt even more pressure than they did outside of it.

Especially Dolan.
After being nerfed in several versions, Wolf Mother is now actually a hero whose early-game stats aren't very impressive.

At her peak, Wolf Mother only needed to stack Undying, then use W to engage and deal damage with White Shield, making her a character with no real weaknesses except for her long cooldowns.

He's good at laning and good at team fights.

This hero's power spike comes later in the game.

The long cooldown during the laning phase remains a major weakness, but the stats are only half of what they were at their peak.

This makes this character relatively weak in the top lane.

then
Yuna Shimamura's Jayce could easily defeat the Wolf Mother.

But in fact, Shimamura Yuna's Alola is even more capable of easily defeating the wolf mother.

It can even be more purely and simply crushing the competition.

Dolan quickly realized this during the subsequent laning phase.

Actually, he is.
I already had a fear of Shimamura Yuna.

No matter how many harsh words he said before the game, or how much encouragement his teammates gave him, he couldn't shake off this fear.

Because this fear, this terror, is based not on anything else, but entirely on facts.

One sudden death after another.

Losing the game again and again.

Time and time again
They were completely outmatched in their matchup.

doran has faced off against many top players.

But no other player could give him such a clear feeling of "I absolutely cannot win" as Shimamura Yuna.

T1 felt powerless to do anything about it.

If something can't be done, it can't be done; if there's a gap, there's a gap.

This kind of gap in matchup cannot be changed by teammates' help or coaches' review.

To put it bluntly, right now, there isn't a single top laner in the world who can say they have an advantage when facing Yuna Shimamura.

This is a perfectly normal thing.

Therefore, they can only hope that Doran will suddenly awaken and regain his touch.

I'm not even talking about being able to beat Shimamura Yuna.
At least don't get exposed too badly, right?

However, even this most basic expectation cannot be met.

It should be said that when Shimamura Yuna chose Alola, the outcome of the game was already determined.

Unsurprisingly.

From the moment you enter the game, you're greeted with a familiar screen.

From the moment it was released, Shimamura Yuna's Alola team put immense pressure on the Doran.

She has always been someone who plays by a script and works very mechanically.

Online, her actions are always close to the "optimal solution".

For Doran, who already harbored negative feelings towards her, this scripted and mechanical operation felt like a tangible manifestation of fear at this moment.

Every forward movement of Shimamura Yuna put pressure on him.

At the same time, every step he took backward made him feel powerless.

He felt that no matter what he did, he was wrong.

He believed that he could not possibly win against Shimamura Yuna in the struggle of maintaining a sense of distance.

In fact, this idea is correct.

But there's the fear of being responsible for the game's failure, the pressure of facing off against Shimamura Yuna, and the guilt of repeating the same mistakes over the years.

A series of negative emotions left Dolan completely without the leverage to confront Shimamura Yuna.

The matchup was never fair to begin with, and it was amplified by his fear.

Ultimately, all these emotions were condensed into two words.

That is.
Hanging.

A decisive and utter defeat.

It could even be described as a brutal beating.

From minion wave control to health bar control, and then to a complete crushing victory in CS (creep score).

But when the broadcast switched to the top lane and saw Shimamura Yuna so thoroughly dominating Doran, Shimamura Yuna's fans didn't even seem to feel any excitement.

Because this is not unexpected.

It was only natural that Shimamura Yuna could easily defeat Dolan.

Given their head-to-head record and Shimamura Yuna's raw skill, isn't it reasonable for her to completely dominate him?

Is it abnormal to be completely crushed?

It would be surprising if Dolan could actually stay with Shimamura Yuna.

That's a good saying.
"If Shimamura is playing against Doran, then if she doesn't get a 30-CS lead, she's definitely being outmatched."

This was originally a joke, but when applied to these two people, it was no joke at all.

Based on the head-to-head record, this is almost an objective fact.

Even T1 fans weren't surprised.

They expected to be thoroughly defeated before the match.

At this moment, they only felt a sense of "expected" helplessness.

At this point, pessimistic sentiments began to spread uncontrollably among T1's supporters.

[No way, is Doran really Shimamura Kazuo? How come he always gets completely destroyed every time they meet?]

The hole in the top lane is just too big. We always lose like this. I don't even want to watch this game anymore.

Can we please let Dolan leave?

Sigh, the more I look back, the more I realize how regrettable it was that Shimamura-san didn't come to T1 back then.

[It's Shimamura herself who didn't want to come; what does that have to do with whether T1 wants her or not?]

[What do you mean she didn't want to come? It was clearly Shimamura who needed to rest for half a season to recover, and T1 wasn't willing to wait. What, WBG could wait for Shimamura for half a season, but T1 couldn't?]

[Let's not focus on the outcome. She was definitely too much of a star back then. T1 is a team with five championships, and she kept saying she needed to rest for a season before considering signing a contract. Who could stand that?]

[So here's the result. The top laner who could have joined their team didn't come; instead, he personally crushed Doran. If Shimamura had joined, T1 would have been aiming for a three-peat this year.]

That's right. Even though only one match has been played, T1's fan community is already disappointed with T1's decision not to recruit Yuna Shimamura this year and is dividing the blame.

Basically, everyone could see the outcome: T1, a team that was originally very strong, would lose because of the most obvious weakness in the top lane.

At this moment, the other T1 players were also under immense pressure due to the huge breach in the top lane.

After only a few minutes in the laning phase, Doran's Wolf Mother was already in a situation where she could hardly continue laning against Shimamura Yuna.

But that's not all.

The key point is that T1 is currently unable to gain any advantage against WBG in other lanes.

Xiaohu, who has always been considered "Faker's son," has truly shown an unprecedented level of performance in this World Championship.

Other routes have failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Then we can only watch as Shimamura Yuna utterly dominates Doran.

At this moment, Shimamura Yuna was very calm.

Although she was constantly operating her hands and communicating verbally, she felt that her emotions were not very agitated.

because
"This is just an expected development."

Even before the game officially started, she believed that the game should unfold in this way.

Now, it's simply a natural outcome.

(End of this chapter)