Chapter 174

When Summoner's Rift appeared on the big screen, the venue burst into cheers.

Although ROX wasn't a home team either, there were still only a few people cheering for G2.

In the on-site commentators' prediction segment, both commentators and both guests unanimously voted for ROX. In their view, this match was inherently a lopsided contest, and after the lineups were set, one commentator even directly said the outcome was ten-zero, leaving no suspense.

That commentator explained:

"It's not personal bias; even setting aside the skill gap between the two teams, G2's composition isn't suited to this patch. Today is the third day of the group stage, with seventeen matches already played, more than half of which lasted over forty minutes, and the average match length is above thirty-five minutes. Moreover, today FW and C9 even played a seventy-minute match. These over-ten games have confirmed a correct theory: the pacing of this patch is overall slow."

"This means that picking a late-game composition gives an advantage in this patch."

"However, G2 is incredibly stubborn, still picking a lineup that essentially has no late game, relying solely on Vladimir to sustain the late phase."

"Meanwhile, ROX's composition has strengths in early, mid, and late game."

"Once this match exceeds twenty-five minutes, every five minutes G2's lineup loses several thousand gold—don't ask for exact numbers, I'm just speaking offhand—but unless G2 chooses to end it quickly, they absolutely cannot finish the match before twenty-five minutes, leading to the conclusion: G2 is destined to lose this game."

"This analysis was sound and well-supported, earning approval from the vast majority of the live audience and the English-stream viewers; although the European fans supporting G2 didn't want to agree, reason told them G2's chances were slim, so most European viewers fell silent."

"Of course, they hadn't expected G2 to beat ROX anyway."

"Just being able to stomp on North America's head was enough; beating the championship favorite ROX was something European fans dared not even dream of."

"European viewers clearly understood that, whether Europe, North America, or wild card teams, on the path to winning the Worlds championship they were merely making up the numbers; the only teams with real strength to contend for the title were actually LCK and LPL, and currently LCK looks more likely to win."

"Yet they still enjoyed the process."

LPL livestream:

"Alright, let's cut the chatter—both sides have entered Summoner's Rift. This match is brought to you by the LCK's first seed, ROXTigers, and Europe's first seed, G2. It's also the final game of today's schedule, so let's look forward to it and see whether the European king G2 has any chance of beating ROX."

"Both sides started with warding totems, no one brought a sweep. G2's top laner Kennen with Doran's Blade is a fairly common starting item, aiming for early lane sustain. Also worth noting, the Island player controlling Kennen used to be a streamer on a certain platform here, and joined G2 together with Jiao Shen in this spring's season. Although he hadn't appeared on the LPL stage before, anyone who's watched his streams knows he once reached the top ten on the Korean server, and his lane strength is not weak."

"Wawa exclaimed, 'Top ten on the Korean server? That's impressive!'"

"Yeah, but Smeb is rank one on the Korean server."

"Miller paused, then continued:"

"Actually, all five on the left side have reached rank one on the Korean server, including the mid laner kuro, whom many consider a supporting player on ROX, and the support GorillA."

"But I recall there's also a Korean server rank one on the right side," said the long-haired guy, chiming in.

"Yes, Jiao Shen—he's actually been in the top three on the Korean server for a long time, and most of the time he's rank one. That's also one of the main reasons he's so popular in the Europe-America streaming scene, since he often streams high-ranked Korean server games."

"Exactly! But on the professional stage, hero picks aren't decided by ladder rank; let's bring our focus back to the match."

"Well, G2's pick this game is also a bit off‑meta; if they really want to win they need to bring some momentum, otherwise if they just slowly farm against ROX they'll have no chance at all, since their lineup basically lacks any late game."

"Honestly, I think G2 also feels their chances are slim, so they're going all‑in."

"Exactly, we could tell when they locked in Lu Xi An."

"On the big screen, the two sides chose different opening defensive strategies: red side G2 used a standard five‑man cluster, while blue side ROX took normal positions in top, mid, and jungle, but the duo grouped together and walked down, feeling along their own bottom‑lane brush, finally placing a ward at the front of the red side's bottom‑lane brush, revealing G2 support Mithy's Zyra hidden there."

"Mithy wasn't sure how many enemies were in the brush; upon seeing the ward, he instantly cast a Q and retreated, but missed, still unaware of how many opponents were there."

"Liang Yan saw this and instead pinged the blue side's red buff:"

""One person wouldn't dare come over to place that ward; there must be two of them there, with no one guarding it—Lu Ka, go place a ward.""

"Upon hearing that, AP responded, immediately pulling his vampire toward the enemy river; after going uphill, when he was near the grass behind the red buff camp, AP cautiously probed back and forth, only advancing once he confirmed the brush was empty, then placed a sightstone ward through the wall into the red buff camp, quickly retreated, and returned via the right path to beneath the middle turret."

""Wen Xi, place a ward here too.""

"Liang Yan then pinged the lower river entrance."

"Zven complied."

"1:40, the jungle monsters respawned."

"Xiao Huasheng's spider did not appear in the red buff camp."

"1:50, ROX's duo appeared in bottom lane, but at full health and mana."

"Liang Yan, with Lao Zhang's help, took the red buff."

"The enemy Nale had not yet shown up in top lane."

"Liang Yan then pinged the enemy's upper‑jungle Magic Swamp Frog camp, while reminding teammates over the mic that the spider starts from the upper half."

While farming jungle and switching the screen to observe the mid and bottom lane.

Xia Lu smoothly took lane control, while Zhong Lu was being pushed; AP's Vampire had slightly lower health, but Syndra's mana was being consumed a bit fast—if this trend continues, Syndra will be completely out of mana by level 3.

Liang Yan finished clearing F4 and rushed to the Three Wolves, thinking along the way.

At the same time, he kept an eye on the minimap with his peripheral vision.