Chapter 410: Even the turtle strategy doesn't work

On the third match day of the fourth week of the LPL spring regular season, VG welcomed their sixth match of the season, facing IM, currently ranked fourth in Group A.

When IM is mentioned, netizens' first impression is that it is EDG's crown prince team.

That's also correct; IM originally spun off from EDG's second team, and before Riot's ban came down, they were practically sharing the same pants. Even now, there remain tangled ties between IM and EDG—for example, Ai Luoli sometimes plays for IM, sometimes for EDG, and another example is that IM's management often runs over to EDG's base…

Oh right, the former top streamer of the LoL section on a certain fish platform, Lu Mou, announced in August last year that he would sell his luxury car to create an awesome team, which quickly became a hot topic; shortly thereafter, Lu Mou publicly released a statement about buying shares in the IM club.

However, during the winter transfer window, namely December last year, Lu Mou and IM's management diverged in their team-building philosophy.

Their disagreement centered on whether to form an all-Chinese lineup.

Lu Mou insisted that IM must be all-Chinese, with all Korean imports either refusing to renew their contracts or being sold, and the vacant spots filled by domestic players; however, IM's management simply would not give up the team's two existing Korean imports—mid laner Athena and support Road.

Their opinions never aligned, and in the end they went their separate ways, with Lu Mou withdrawing his investment.

Now it's unclear who is actually investing in this IM team.

Legally speaking, it definitely has nothing to do with EDG, given that Riot's ban is in place—an owner can only have one club.

But are there any shady dealings behind the scenes?

That's not something outsiders can know.

With Aidezhu's influence, if he doesn't want people to find out, then it's certainly undiscoverable.

Getting back to the team's performance.

Last year they made the playoffs but missed the World Championship ticket by a hair; although not spectacular, looking at the roster cost and comparing it to the management's original goals, the whole team was actually quite satisfied, so this year they basically kept the same lineup, except that the jungler Ai Luoli was taken back by EDG, with Ben4 taking her place, while the other positions remained unchanged.

IM's absolute core is Athena, namely the Korean import mid laner Athena; the secondary core is the bot lane's Jinjiao, so losing Ai Luoli actually doesn't affect IM's core strength much, and Ben4 is no slouch either.

Since the season opened, IM has continued the team's tradition, immediately crushing the heavily favored strongest team in Group A, RNG, with a 2‑0 sweep.

Well, in an instant the aura of a dark horse came rushing forth.

After that, they swept LGD and Snake as easily as cutting melons and vegetables, securing three straight wins, but in the following two matches they lost to OMG and IG…

All in all, IM's strength should not be underestimated, but it is a bit unstable.

In short, whether IM succeeds hinges on Athena's performance; if she can pick a comfortable champion and is in good form, IM becomes a top‑tier team; otherwise it's just average.

But today, unfortunately, faced with VG's formidable pre‑match preparation, Athena—almost stripped down to her underwear—obviously could not get a comfortable champion; VG, though blue side, banned the three currently hottest champions—Ahri, Syndra, and Zilean—whose popularity mainly stemmed from VG's prince‑based meta, and then VG first‑picked Cassiopeia.

By this point, every hot mid‑lane core champion in the current patch was either banned or snatched, leaving IM only Ryze, who is countered by Cassiopeia.

IM didn't want to blindly walk into VG's prepared BP trap, nor did they want to surrender; instead they took a different route and picked a mid‑lane male blade—the King of Assassins, Shadow of the Blade—Talon.

But this was another trap.

VG's second pick was straight out the 'Jiao Shen signature'—Mang Seng.

In this game, Liang Yan perfectly exemplified what a top‑tier invader‑style jungler is, spending the entire first ten minutes nowhere else but camping mid lane.

At eight minutes she was caught and killed twice, Athena dropped straight offline; aside from one escape‑move showcase of her proper skill, she contributed almost nothing.

In game one, IM lost in under thirty minutes.

For IM, a game that doesn't even last thirty minutes is extremely rare; in their past matches, even when the early game collapsed, they could often rely on their unique turtle playstyle and tenacity to drag it out to thirty or even forty minutes, sometimes turning the tide, sometimes not—but no matter how you look at it, this proves that IM is one of the teams hardest to finish quickly.

The record for the longest single game in the LPL summer split last year was set by IM.

However, today VG came out smashing and destroyed their proud defensive playstyle, sweeping the game away like a hot knife through butter.

IM's team morale suffered a heavy blow.

During the break, the IM players retreated backstage to ponder: in game two, blue side has a slight BP edge; if used well, giving Athena a comfortable champion shouldn't be hard. VG is now at its peak, so thinking of a one‑for‑two comeback is out of the question, but if they can unleash their full potential and Athena has a little burst of form, they might still have a chance to take a small game—anything is better than looking like a shaved head.

A few minutes of break passed quickly amid the IM players' muttering, they returned to the stage, and the crowd below was all VG fans cheering—there wasn't a single shout for IM; seeing this, the IM folks felt a bit dazed.

When did VG get so popular?

This must be the impact of the Worlds champion…… Indeed, having a super‑popular player boosts the team's popularity in an exaggerated way; VG at this time last year probably didn't even have one‑fifth of its current popularity.

Going into BP again, IM head coach Sun Dayong's core BP strategy was simply: give Athena a comfortable champion.

Sun Dayong got his wish.

However, unfortunately, the game did not unfold as he and the IM players had hoped; although Athena did indeed get her beloved Zilean, and IM managed to assemble the composition they wanted—actually this was VG intentionally throwing the BP to train their team's ability to close out games, and IM even managed to drag the game past thirty‑five minutes…

But…… in the face of an economic advantage of over eight thousand, IM's seemingly impregnable front line made no difference compared to a sheet of paper.