Chapter 217: What Did RNG Hide?

Nineteen minutes in, Uzi finally completed the two-item set he had been dreaming of.

In this World Championship, the average time for Jhin to finish the Duskblade of Draktharr and Youmuu's Ghostblade two-item build is about twenty-one minutes, so Uzi, who completed it two minutes earlier, is already considered fast.

But it was useless.

Male Gun Black Cleaver came out.

Under twenty minutes, a Male Gun with three and a half items and armor boots—one sentence describes it: no one dares to enter his range.

The problem is that this Male Gun with that build runs extremely fast, and chasing people is very fierce.

In the following time, this Summoner's Rift almost became the Male Gun's hunting ground, and the five RNG members were his prey.

And whoever he targets dies.

After being killed twice in 1v2 by the Male Gun, Uzi exploded.

Of course, compared to last year, Uzi has still grown somewhat in mentality; although his face is still as red as blood, at least he won't be cried at by others.

And the only out-of-line behavior is simply not participating in team fights.

Actually, whether he participates in team fights or not makes no difference; it's just that the Male Gun gets a few more auto-attacks. Malaxiangguo saw Uzi start to withdraw and lane alone, knowing this game was completely over, and at around twenty-six minutes he said:

"No choice, brothers, let's go for the Big Dragon and trade one shot."

Everyone had no objection.

And Uzi also came over.

Then, as expected, one wave resulted in a team wipe.

Facing the G2 Zhong Ren charging up with the Big Dragon buff, the RNG Zhong Ren with no fighting spirit hardly resisted and gave up the high ground.

In the end, it was still Malaxiangguo who stepped forward and ended the match with a kick.

29:17, RNG Ji Di exploded.

Europe caster excitedly shouted:

"Congratulations G2!!!"

"One-zero, speedrun!"

As of now, the average game length of this year's World Championship has been pulled to a terrifying thirty-eight minutes. So, any game under thirty minutes can be considered a speedrun.

The European audience were all dazed.

【【Looks like they won very easily?】】

【【Fire is just god!】】

【【19-0-4, simply a monster——too bad no pentakill (getting greedy)】】

【【Bloodbath RNG!】】

【【EUISBACKBABY!】】

【【Shivering (excited)】】

【【Hold steady, don't reckless, pursue victory, strike while he's weak to kill him!】】

When the post-match statistics panel appeared on the big screen, the scene again burst into exclamations.

In the damage statistics column, the Male Gun's damage bar far ahead, standing alone.

"OhMyGod!"

Sjokz in the commentator's seat, shocked, covered her mouth,

"51% output share?!"

……

LPL commentator's seat.

PDD said: "Guigui, this is absolutely the most outrageous damage share I've ever seen; I've never seen something so OP. It seems the Black Cleaver Male Gun really lives up to its reputation."

Ji De said: "A regular MVP can't describe his performance; we should add 'Super' before it."

Chang Mao: "Indeed strong, but I think mainly his rhythm is strong, including G2's whole opening design; RNG should pay more attention to these aspects."

Su Xiao Yan: "If really unbearable, we could just ban it; it's really too exaggerated."

Chang Mao: "Ban which one?"

Su Xiao Yan: "Um... the Male Gun."

PDD shook his head: "It's useless; banning the Male Gun, he'll definitely have something else. I agree with Chang Mao's opinion; we need to work on disrupting his rhythm. Also, we can't keep giving Looper these jungle-oriented champions; RNG isn't suited for this composition, because Malaxiangguo alone can't keep up."

Ji De said: "I think, at this point we shouldn't overthink; the next match must be won, otherwise the opponent will have three match points, which is definitely not okay, so we really don't need to think too much; just reveal our trump card and steadily win a game first."

The three remained silent.

Well said, but the problem arises:

What exactly is RNG's trump card?

……

RNG locker room.

Everyone conducted a brief review, seeking the cause of the previous game's loss.

But after all said and done, it's just that the top lane wasn't held, Looper fed a bit too many early kills—but can we blame Looper? Objectively, no, because picking Jayce you can't play it the same way as Bo Bi.

Now the key is to first stabilize everyone's mentality and lift morale.

"My problem, the composition wasn't chosen well."

Fly took the blame onto himself.

"Use any tricks you have, coach."

Sanshao said with a face as still as water.

Losing one game already made him feel very embarrassed, and the hardest part is that the previous game was actually crushed by the enemy jungler alone.

That's the newcomer that Sanshao has repeatedly called 'Impact Wave' on Weibo.

If they lose another game, even if RNG manages to come back from 2-3 to win in the end, Sanshao would feel too ashamed to face people, and he wouldn't even dare imagine what public opinion would become.

Fly, however, said bewilderedly: "What trick?"

Sanshao was dumbfounded on the spot: "You're asking me?"

Fly looked utterly innocent: "I really don't know what trick we have..."

Sanshao's face turned deathly white in an instant, and he urged: "No, we've practiced with Snake for so long and still haven't learned a single secret move? Then all that money we spent..."

"Ahaha..."

Fly was both laughing and crying,

"Of course the money wasn't wasted, but Snake's stuff just doesn't suit us; we can't simply copy Snake's playstyle."

"Then after practicing with Snake for so long, you must have gotten some effect, right?"

"So we made it to the quarterfinals as the top seed..."

RNG certainly learned some concrete things from Snake, such as the priority order of each lane and several strong champions in the current patch during bans and picks—for example, completely abandoning hard support, and having the bottom lane support pick around more easily triggering the Thunder theme.

But some more detailed things, RNG couldn't learn.

Because Snake's playstyle is completely different from RNG's; Snake focuses on top-mid-jungle rhythm, whereas RNG takes the bottom lane as the absolute core.

Fly had also tried to reform this team before, only to encounter all-around opposition and lack of cooperation from management down to the players. In such a situation, nobody could do anything.

So when Sanshao said they should use whatever tricks they had, FLy was also dumbfounded.

Because RNG basically had nothing hidden.

The biggest benefit of playing practice matches against Snake was getting RNG's understanding of the version, which had deviated from the mainstream, back on track; but if you ask for specific tricks—like G2's peculiar combination of Pantheon and male gun, and all the groundwork G2 laid for it in the early game—tactics like that, RNG genuinely doesn't have.

This can't be blamed on Fly.

Still, the saying holds: only being able to take the bottom lane as the absolute core limited this team's ability to create novel tactics.