Chapter 27: This game is impossible to play, coach

The vent on the ceiling hissed out cool air, but it could not dispel the agitation and frustration in AP's heart; he sat on the chair in the lounge, constantly drinking water.

The first game had ended.

Ka Lao Si stood before him with hands on hips, constantly nagging.

This made AP even more irritable.

But Ka Lao Si was his patron who discovered him; their relationship was practically that of a teacher and father, so even if AP was unhappy he had to endure it—with anyone else he would have already talked back.

Liang Yan sat by the water dispenser, occasionally refilling AP's water.

He did not interject, silently observing everything.

Ka Lao Si finally said in a low voice:

"I am disappointed, Lu Ka, this should not be your true level."

"I'm going to the washroom, calm down a bit."

Although he said he was going to the bathroom, Ka Lao Si waved at CyanideFI, presumably wanting to talk privately.

Liang Yan's heart remained calm.

Whatever they talked about had nothing to do with him; although Ka Lao Si thought highly of him, it was impossible to substitute him just because he didn't perform well in his first game—only a foolish coach would do that; although Ka Lao Si's professional ability was lacking, he was not stupid.

When the break was about to end, the two returned.

As expected, Ka Lao Si didn't mention substituting the jungler, waved his hand, and led everyone back onto the stage.

Lao Zhang hesitated before standing up.

Ka Lao Si actually didn't take him off, which surprised him greatly.

He felt he had played poorly in the previous game.

Liang Yan, however, smiled at him and said in Chinese:

Go on, play well.

Liang Yan was not at all surprised that Ka Lao Si let Lao Zhang play again in the second game.

Although Lao Zhang's record in the previous game was negative, there wasn't much to criticize in his laning and team fighting—mainly because compared to Perkz, who was not playing properly, his performance was actually much better.

The result of the previous game also had little to do with Lao Zhang; the reason they were pushed over by OG in just over twenty minutes was the chain reaction caused by the mid laner collapsing and dragging down the jungler early on.

They fell behind by almost three thousand gold in just ten minutes.

Heroes like Jax, who rely on late-game power, basically have no room to shine.

On the contrary, thanks to Lao Zhang single-handedly pushing down two of OG's towers, he slowed OG's offensive pace and also prevented G2's tower count from looking too bad.

Given Jax's performance, if Ka Lao Si were to take him off, Liang Yan would suspect there was some shady deal between Ka Lao Si and Dai E.

Dai E was the nickname Liang Yan and Lao Zhang privately gave to Expect.

This guy has been clueless since joining the team, mainly in daily life; Liang Yan often feels his reaction time is more than double others', sometimes after hearing a sentence he needs several seconds to respond; if it weren't for Liang Yan's life experience, one could see this guy is just dense, otherwise he'd truly seem arrogant.

Liang Yan rolled his chair over to the computer.

The second game's ban/pick phase began.

This game G2 was on the blue side.

But Ka Lao Si's chosen lineup was even more absurd: the jungle and top stayed the same, mid was switched from Xiao Yu Ren to Viktor, and bottom lane was changed to Ezreal and Tam.

It seemed they were afraid AP would get carried away, so they gave him an easy-to-play mid-lane champion.

But they let the enemy have Lucian.

At this time there was no talk of 'Lu Na', and few worldwide could play Nami support; the 'Lu Na' combo was only used in LCK, with no one else in other regions picking it.

But Lucian's strength in the current version is widely recognized.

Since LCK kicked off its summer split, Lucian's ban/pick rate on stage has stayed near 100% regardless of region, and even in LPL his BP rate remains 100%, meaning he is almost never banned and always picked.

Liang Yan indeed hoped G2 would lose this Bo2, but upon seeing Ka Lao Si's lineup he couldn't help but frown.

When Ka Lao Si left the stage and returned to the lounge, Liang Yan couldn't help but interject:

No lane control in any of the three lanes, this game is impossible to play, coach.

Ka Lao Si merely nodded, then sat down to chat with Biman about his reasoning behind the lineup and his expectations for how the players should perform.

Liang Yan's words never even entered his mind.

Liang Yan smiled and didn't pay much attention.

Given the regional environment, it's no wonder Ka Lao Si doesn't value lane control.

Of course, Ka Lao Si certainly has lane awareness, but due to the era and regional limitations he hasn't yet formed a systematic lane control concept.

Or rather, operations.

Before S5, no global region had a systematic operations awareness.

Based on Liang Yan's understanding of the development history of League of Legends' tactical system, if he hasn't remembered wrong, the concept of operations first emerged in LCK during S4, when only LCK's training staff had the idea to build a complete operations system, began to seriously study what operations meant; other regions might have heard of it, but only heard.

Until last year, which is S5, aside from LCK teams, the only team worldwide genuinely researching an operations system was EDG.

Therefore EDG won MSI last year.

In a certain interview after EDG's MSI victory, coach A Bu earnestly discussed the concept of 'operations'.

Unfortunately, his approach later also went wrong.

Furthermore, after MSI victory EDG was targeted by Riot designers, and A Bu failed to grasp the correct version direction, plus various internal problems, ultimately leading to EDG's classic 0:4 loss in the S5 quarterfinals.

The operations system appeared in S5, but truly developed in S6.

Because the bounty mechanism was changed in the 5.22 version.

5.22 is the preseason version of the S6 season, in which Riot overhauled the entire jungle system.

The most crucial change was removing individual kill bounties.

It was replaced with team bounties.

After the 5.22 version went live, the bounty reward for ending a 5‑kill streak is, compared to before, not just halved.

This change not only greatly reduced the enthusiasm for jungle ganks (catching people), but also lowered the intensity of confrontation on all lanes, while increasing the difficulty for the disadvantaged side to turn the game around, causing many matches to lose suspense as early as ten or so minutes.

From the 5.22 patch, where kill streak bounties were given to the killer and changed to be split evenly among the whole team, to the 6.9 patch when elemental drakes were introduced, a clear trend can be seen:

Riot's balance team is gradually emphasizing the importance of teamwork.

LCK's coaching staff was the first to realize that history had turned a corner at this point, and thus from the S6 season onward, a Shakespearean-style macro strategy became prevalent in LCK, making LCK matches increasingly unwatchable the higher the skill level, due to lack of confrontation.

As for the Europe Region, it remains stuck in an extremely backward tactical system, to the point of having virtually no tactical system at all; from the moment the draft ends, a match's trajectory completely escapes the coach's control.

This is related to the coach's personal ability, but mainly the region's level is too low; even if a coach tries to bring in a macro system, they will ultimately be dragged down into the mire.

Because the entire region is behind.

Unless players can truly realize the importance of macro play, but this is not something a coach can achieve alone; it requires someone to guide them hand‑in‑hand, honing them through match after match, so that the whole team can develop a systematic awareness.

This is the work Liang Yan has to do.

So Liang Yan actually doesn't care how skilled Ka Lao Si is; he didn't take Ka Lao Si's reminder to heart, and he wasn't particularly concerned about it.

As long as he can gain authority over the team in the future, everything can be discussed.

Looking at G2's current situation, Liang Yan feels that day is not far away.