Chapter 566: Horse Smeb

Liang Yan felt that KT's playstyle in this game seemed familiar, because it indeed resembled several solo wild core playstyles from last year's G2.

Put bluntly, it's not letting the horse eat grass but making the horse drag the whole family to run.

Last year in G2, Liang Yan was often that horse.

And in this game, Smeb was also that horse.

Score never showed up near the top lane at all, all his focus was on protecting the mid lane Ryze's development.

It's obvious that KT wants to ensure Ryze's lane-clearing ability in the mid-to-late game, laying the groundwork for the later 4-1 split-push tactic to counter VG's late-game group strong push.

As for KT's bottom lane duo, they are responsible for their own safety; if the KT duo completely gives up offense (including lane trades), all wards would prioritize their own safety, relying on Deft and mata's individual ability (mata once called the support with the best vision in history) plus the E skill of the Ice Archer, achieving this is actually not that difficult—compared to the strength of VG's bottom lane duo in lane.

KT's study of VG's early-game offensive pattern was indeed thorough; when they decided to completely abandon offense in the early game and focus on defense, even someone as formidable as Liang Yan found it hard to get a chance to kill an opponent, and this had already shown some signs in the previous game; VG's early-game advantage was so great that they couldn't snowball for a long time, and later the issue was still resolved through team fights.

And in this game, KT's opening had no mistakes.

Furthermore, Smeb lives up to being the player ranked first globally among the top 20 by Riot last year; his personal ability is indeed outstanding. Even using the already nerfed-to-early-game-sewer Blue Steel Shadow, laning against the currently extremely strong early-game lane-dueling Shen, he not only didn't fall behind, but each time he could control the minion clash point to a position favorable to himself during the dangerous period when a mantis might appear in the upper half of the map.

This means that although it looks like Fu Lan Duo's Shen is always pushing, actually the lane control of the top lane is in Smeb's hands.

When Liang Yan realized this, the game had already progressed past six minutes, both sides' mid and top had already reached level six; Liang Yan decisively changed strategy, shifting focus to the bottom lane, letting Fu Lan Duo first build Tiamat to enhance lane-clearing ability, setting up in advance, and finally just after nine minutes, with Shen's ultimate coming down, he executed a 4-on-2 gank on KT's bottom lane, successfully killing KT's duo and simultaneously taking down KT's bottom turret.

But KT reacted just as quickly; after Pawn cleared the mid lane minion wave, he immediately teleported to the top lane, directly driving the minion wave to VG's top turret, and the two began to destroy VG's top turret.

At this point, Easyhoon actively requested to teleport to the top lane to defend the turret; Liang Yan thought it over, rejected Easyhoon's risky request, and only let Easyhoon stay in mid to destroy turrets.

Afterwards, VG took first blood turret and the small dragon.

But our top turret was also destroyed together by Blue Steel Shadow and Ryze; afterwards, Blue Steel Shadow returned to base and directly teleported to mid lane, preserving the mid turret that had been half-health knocked by the Snake Girl, and also cooperating with the revived Ice Archer who switched to mid to land Easyhoon's flash.

At this point, the game had already passed fifteen minutes.

In the following few minutes, Liang Yan made two more moves, both successful, each killing mata and Pawn once respectively.

But KT wasn't just taking hits; Score also targeted the flashless Easyhoon twice, once being counter-ambushed by Liang Yan, giving up a Pawn, and the other time he succeeded, successfully killing Easyhoon.

Then the game time entered twenty minutes; Liang Yan reduced the frequency of his moves, putting more effort into grasping the big picture and directing.

At this moment, the economic difference between both sides remained within two thousand; without team fights breaking out, VG's economic advantage was even gradually shrinking.

Because the top lane began to show a relatively clear creep score gap.

As Blue Steel Shadow's equipment level increased, when Smeb laned against Fu Lan Duo, even though Smeb deliberately chose a steady playstyle, his lane advantage was already somewhat hard to maintain; moreover, VG's top turret had been destroyed, so Fu Lan Duo actually had no defensive turret protection behind her; around twenty-two minutes, Fu Lan Duo even almost got solo killed, and finally she survived by using flash and the Marquis's teleport to save a person.

But the Marquis went to the top lane, leaving the bottom lane undefended.

Upon noticing Easyhoon teleporting away from the bottom lane, KT reacted extremely quickly; Score swiftly appeared in the bottom lane and, together with Pawn, pushed the lane forward to destroy VG's bottom turret.

Although Liang Yan was nearby, he was just a fragile melee assassin Mantis, lacking much lane-clearing ability, so he naturally couldn't hold it; furthermore, Liang Yan didn't have much equipment advantage in this game, making a forced 1v2 impossible, because the enemy had stable lockdown control; once Ryze's W skill locked him down, with Mantis's fragile body, Ryze could deal a little damage, and the Blind Monk could use a guaranteed combo E-A-Q-R-A-Q to take him away.

Fu Lan Duo although having an ultimate, was already low on health; at this moment, having just left combat and heading back to base, support couldn't arrive that quickly, while the enemy could kill a person in under three seconds.

Having determined the top lane couldn't be defended, Liang Yan came to mid lane, grouping with Gangzi and Xiao Duan, trying to drive away the enemy duo and take KT's mid turret.

However, VG's bottom jungle trio severely lacked engage tools; even when Shen's ultimate came down, there was a clear signal and a delay, the enemy didn't fear it at all; VG pushed with the minion wave, and KT's duo hid behind the turret to clear waves; seeing that the turret's health seemed low, Gangzi was eager to eat hot tofu, forcefully charging forward to try to touch the turret.

As a result, Mata's Janna directly threw out her ultimate, plus Deft's sudden arrow, actually forcing out Gangzi's flash.

"Withdraw, there's no chance."

On the bottom lane side, KT's mid jungle had already destroyed the turret and disappeared for a while; the top lane Blue Steel Shadow had also cleared the wave and vanished from VG's sight; Liang Yan worried that after the enemy went home they'd teleport around to block from behind, so he called everyone to prepare to retreat.

However, just as his words fell, a faint rotating red light lit up in the allied F6 bush behind him.

Blue Steel Shadow didn't wait to go home and teleport; instead, after destroying the turret, he directly teleported over!

But it must be said, KT indeed seized this timing well!

Firstly, VG's Snake Girl and Shen had both returned to base; although Shen could come down via his ultimate, the Snake Girl had no teleport, so it's certain she couldn't participate in battle for at least fifteen seconds.

Secondly, Shen and Varus had no flash, while every KT member had flash!

For VG, the only good news was that the enemy AD and support had no ultimates!

The battle was about to erupt, the outcome hard to predict.