Chapter 118: Player Swap

Just over 9 minutes, Lao Zhang farmed another two waves and pushed them forward.

As expected, when the minion wave entered the tower, the spider appeared again from the river.

Having learned from this move, he hid early in the triangular grass and burst out the moment the two engaged.

But it was useless; Liang Yan flashed in and used 【Cocoon】 to snare Shen, then the crocodile unleashed its ultimate, and the two of them instantly killed Shen, who had just reached level six.

Then the crocodile used its E ability twice to escape the tower, still at half health.

It all took less than two seconds.

He didn't dare look again, turned and ran.

Lao Zhang and Liang Yan chased from behind; after Lao Zhang entered the triangular grass, he directly teleported to the chrysanthemum trap hidden in the blue side's grass corner where Jinx was lurking in the bottom lane.

"Flash-land E onto Veritas's big mouth, AWAQ! Instant kill!"

My goodness, it feels like G2 just randomly picked a rhythm point and had it right away!

Indeed, they had it as soon as they came; he just finished flashing and turning.

G2's rhythm is too good.

Their lane coordination also has a huge gap; their team communication is too on point, whereas UOL...

Yes, from this game you can actually see that between the two teams, every aspect from pick-ban to combat has an insurmountable gap.

If nothing unexpected happens, this Bo5 will likely end 3-0.

What about the mercy game?

The gap is too big… they don't even know how to lose on purpose, otherwise it'd be too obvious and they'd be investigated.

I have a good idea.

Huh?

Let's swap players.

In the G2 backstage lounge, Ka Lao Si heard this from the official broadcast, his heart stirred, and he turned to look at CyanideFI, who was curled up on the sofa watching the stream on his phone.

"Lao Li, want to go up and play a game?"

CyanideFI heard that, lifted his head, thought for a moment, then nodded and said with a smile:

"Sure, but if we lose I'm not taking the blame."

"Ah, what blame, just play for fun! Anna"

Seeing that three match points were about to be secured, and with Liang Yan holding things down here, Ka Lao Si wasn't the slightest bit nervous; after Lao Li agreed, he also asked Tang Anna a question.

Tang Anna said, "Whatever, we can't lose anyway."

Ka Lao Si jumped up and ran out to apply to the organizers for a player swap in the third match.

When he returned to the lounge, just as he walked in he happened to see UOL's crystal explode, so he turned back out and ran to the corridor to greet the players coming off stage.

Liang Yan noticed Ka Lao Si occasionally glancing at him, realizing he had something to say, so he deliberately slowed his pace to fall behind.

Sure enough, after the others had gone ahead, Ka Lao Si put his arm around Liang Yan's shoulder, grinning, and asked if he was tired and wanted to rest.

Liang Yan immediately understood what Ka Lao Si meant and said with a smile:

"Next game Lao Li goes up, right? No problem, just say it straight."

Ka Lao Si chuckled twice:

"We still need to get your opinion on this, don't we."

"You're the coach, why ask me for my opinion? Just swap, the opponents are pretty weak, and I'd guess their morale's already broken; in the third game they'll probably throw something weird, and if Lao Li goes up and plays steady we can win."

Ka Lao Si felt reassured, returned to the lounge, and announced the player swap decision.

So in the third game, Lao Li went up.

On the commentator desk, after UOL lost two games in a row, Quickshot, who had been like a sick chicken, suddenly perked up, and after the ad break ended he happily announced:

"Welcome back, I have an update to share: G2 has swapped players for the third game!"

The audience reaction was lukewarm.

European viewers are now used to it.

It's a one‑sided stomp, so if nothing unexpected happens G2 will put Lao Li in again.

Sure enough, following Quickshot's announcement that G2 would change its jungler, at the start of the ban‑pick phase G2's upstairs ID became CyanideFI.

Some viewers in the stream weren't too happy about it.

【What the hell, why swap players?】

【Can't you not swap? I want to see a stomp, not a macro game!】

【CyanideFI is actually playing decently now; sometimes he even looks a bit like Monster Brother—so why not just put Fire in?!】

【But if we really put CyanideFI in, UOL would have a slightly better chance.】

【Come on UOL, at least win one game!】

Too bad they can't win.

Although G2's early aggression dropped noticeably after the jungler swap, Lao Li has studied with Liang Yan for two months and his strength has clearly improved; he isn't as aggressive as Liang Yan, but his style is steady and solid—one word to describe it: "stable."

Liang Yan's playstyle emphasizes efficiency and cost‑effectiveness, while Lao Li's focuses on protection and counter‑ganking; his whole strategy revolves around protecting the lane—for example, to keep Rumble safe while pushing the first wave to the enemy tower, he can simply sit idle in the triangular grass for half a minute doing nothing.

This style definitely puts Lao Li at a disadvantage in personal development; even a successful counter‑gank doesn't actually gain the team much, but if combined with ban‑pick and concrete tactics—such as giving the jungler a utility champion like Prince that doesn't need heavy farming to be effective, picking a strong carry for the lane, and being more proactive about dragon control—this supporting playstyle becomes very effective.

Fundamentally, G2's lane strength already exceeds the opponents'; as long as Lao Li does his protective job, they can themselves gain an advantage in lane.

Then it's all about team fights.

In team fights, one side is about mechanics, the other about composition.

The composition G2 picked for the third game still looks off‑meta, yet its team‑fight performance is superb.

Top lane Rumble, jungle Prince, mid lane Jayce, bot lane Ashe plus Karma.

Lao Li's approach is to start with the Magic Swamp Frog, grab both buffs, then head straight to shield Rumble and push the lane; after that he returns to clear the two monster camps in the upper jungle, goes home to combine into a level‑2 jungler sword, heads out again, clears the three wolves to hit level 4, comes to bottom lane to help push the lane; after pushing, the trio takes the first dragon; they then do whatever, go home to buy items, return to the upper jungle to camp and protect Rumble; if they spot the enemy jungler causing trouble in bottom lane, they instantly call Jayce to dive top lane—although his execution falters and he gets swapped out, Rumble still lands first blood.

Next came the second small dragon at around 12 minutes.

The third small dragon appeared at 20 minutes.

Before 25 minutes, UOL had to face the pressure of the elder dragon forcing a team fight, and at that moment it happened to be the peak of G2's lineup.

Before a team fight, the three laners can simply poke a few times to gain a huge vision advantage; then Prince starts to control vision and look for an opportunity. When the enemy has used up their wards and has no choice but to walk in to check vision, Lao Li just finds someone without flash, hits them with EQ to shield himself, then flashes out to wait for his second skill cooldown, while Lanbo only needs to cast his ultimate on the people Prince has surrounded to instantly kill one.

The team fight started 5v4, and G2 already had an unbeatable position.

After twenty minutes, G2 basically just followed this routine, simple and brutal to the extreme.

Finally, the economic advantage expanded to over ten thousand; G2 took the ancient dragon buff, and only then launched the final all-out assault on UOL's base.

In short, the earlier fighting seemed evenly matched, but after twenty minutes, once a team fight broke out, UOL would fall apart at the slightest touch.

This is the power of operations + system.

……

Thanks to the gift king from "Gu Jiang Guo Jiang Shi Jiang Yun Qing" for the reward, the boss splurged again!