Chapter 467: The advantage lies……

First game, crushed by Blue Steel Shadow; to be fair, Mystic is unwilling to accept it. Purely talking about laning, he himself believes he is stronger than Sima Laozei by a notch; even if he gets a countered combo, he wouldn't collapse like that. Moreover, the female cop he took actually has an early-game advantage.

This game, Homme again gave his duo a lane-advantage combo. Before level 6, Frost + Grasshopper are clearly stronger than Rat + Lulu on lane, because Rat's damage before his ultimate is too slow, needing to slowly stack poison to unleash his specialty, and in terms of sustained damage, Grasshopper's insect army is far stronger than Lulu's.

Mystic wants to prove himself in this game!

Even though the male gunner is clearing upwards, and the enemy Mang Seng could possibly be clearing from top to bottom, Mystic is confident he can push the minion wave into the tower before Mang Seng arrives and then retreat to a safe position.

Furthermore, Sima Laozei, in order to speed up his development, bought Chang Jian + three red potions as his starting items; compared to Frost Archer starting with Doran's Blade, his combat power is considerably weaker.

Mystic believes our side has a huge advantage!

So from the start of the top lane, Mystic played aggressively, even before the minion wave arrived, he together with Ben's Grasshopper took over the side brush that should have belonged to the red side's bottom lane, firmly holding the position, and even the wards that Lulu placed were knocked out by one basic attack from each of them.

Sima Laozei may be reckless, but after receiving Liang Yan's 're-education,' he already understands that in choices not involving principles, he can be flexible; he knows that his bottom lane duo had two wards before the three-minute mark, and absolutely cannot waste both wards in the same spot, otherwise other areas would suffer major vision blind spots, so Sima Laozei straightforwardly gave up the brush, humbly accepted Xiao Duan's advice, and directly retreated.

Mystic instantly felt at ease, the corner of his mouth curling in a male model's seductive arc, and he spoke to his support in a relaxed tone:

"We'll keep pressing, accumulate a bit of minion wave, then push forward quickly."

Ben actually doesn't fully agree with Mystic's approach, but the bottom lane duo centers around AD, and moreover, his partner Mystic is a relatively strong-willed person, whereas Ben is the opposite; despite having a better overall sense than Mystic, he is an obedient, honest person.

Thus Ben still held the brush position, wholeheartedly messing with Lulu's hair, strictly carrying out Mystic's 'will'.

Thus VG's duo inevitably missed two or three last hits on the first minion wave. Sima Laozei was still a bit unhappy, he tapped the enemy AD's head and said:

"This guy seems not to remember to gank."

Liang Yan switched over to look, and said, "Yeah, Ma Ge is right!"

But can we gank?

To be honest, it's not easy to gank.

The duo's time to reach level two is after eating the third minion of the second wave, roughly around two and a half minutes. Liang Yan is clearing from top to bottom; by now he has finished the red buff and is fighting F6; even if he finishes F6 and immediately heads down, he arrives at the bottom lane at about two and a half minutes. If Mystic's Frost activates her E skill at the moment of leveling up, she can still reveal him in time.

Unless our bottom lane duo puts on a full act, drawing Mystic's attention, causing him to forget to use his skill right away to locate the jungler.

Is there any point?

Liang Yan thought seriously and decided to give it a try.

After communicating with the duo in this way, Sima Laozei directly gave him a guarantee:

"You come, I'll create an opportunity."

"I'll go at level three, the success rate will be a bit higher."

"Okay, I'll do two waves."

"Sure!"

The duo began executing the baiting tactic.

First, Xiao Duan pretended to be unable to withstand Malzahar, took two extra auto attacks, then chose to retreat to preserve his health.

Sima Laozei, meanwhile, pretended to retreat too late, losing sync with his support, and Mystic seized the chance to rush forward and hit him twice.

Sima Laozei objected, retaliating while running and looking back.

Mystic stuck to him and kept fighting.

Sima Laozei's health dropped to about one-third; Xiao Duan rushed forward to apply weakness, while Sima Laozei activated healing speed, finally opening up the gap.

In this exchange, Sima Laozei lost about 150 health. In the early game, a Rat without Doran's Blade has only a little over 500 health, so a 150-point gap looks rather scary.

Of course, Frost also lost a fair amount of health; her health is now under 300.

When the second minion wave arrived at the tower, Sima Laozei pressed the '1' key twice, directly gulping two potions, using the minion wave's cover to return to the last-hit position.

Mystic knows he absolutely cannot let the Rat safely finish his potions; although the starting item of Chang Jian + three red potions has weaker combat power than Doran's Blade, its sustain is indeed stronger—if the Rat were to drink all three potions, even if Mystic still gains some health‑trade advantage, his total health would still end up lower than the Rat's, because three‑tier red potions restore 450 HP, whereas Doran's Blade plus one red potion only provides 230 HP, and the lifesteal from Doran's Blade is negligible in the early game.

Thus, the clever Mystic chose to continue aggressive pressure while the Rat's health remained low; in his view, the Rat wouldn't dare to trade blows again before recovering to healthy health, so landing a single basic attack would be a huge gain.

Mystic's prediction was correct.

But he underestimated the synergy of VG's duo!

Sima Laozei's health is too low and he has no healing, so he indeed dares not trade health with him; otherwise, once slowed by Frost and stuck, even if he uses Flash, there's a risk of being caught and killed by a Flash follow‑up.

But when Mystic rushed forward again, that Spirit Witch Lulu, who had seemed timid all along, instead put a shield on herself and charged forward!

Mystic thinks it's no big deal; although Lulu's sudden bravery surprised him, the Rat would never dare to counter‑attack anyway, and with our two‑on‑one we couldn't possibly lose!

Thus Mystic bore Lulu's output and kept fighting……

Until, a signal landed in front of him. At the same time, Condi's reminder sounded in his headset:

"Don't fight in Xia Lu anymore; Mang Seng is coming down soon."

Mystic froze, glanced at the time, then looked at the second minion wave that hadn't even cleared the frontline minions, feeling a bit dazed.

All he did was fight, and the minion wave still isn't cleared!

If we keep fighting like this, we might not even kill the person, but Mang Seng will definitely come!

By then, the Rat will have drunk his three potions and locked down the minion wave; Condi is far away on the top lane, unable to come in time to help clear the wave, and Mystic will surely suffer heavy losses!