Chapter 712: What the hell is this?!

Sima Laozei is always confident, so there's no need to worry that benching him now would damage his confidence.

In the last match IG gave VG a tough fight, so Liang Yan plans to hit IG with something high-tech this time; whether it's worthwhile or whether it would reveal VG's trump cards, Liang Yan thinks it doesn't matter, because VG now has so many trump cards you can't hold them all in one hand.

The second game's ban/pick phase begins.

In this game VG is on the blue side and gets the first ban and first pick.

After the first round of bans ended, Wawa exclaimed on the commentator's desk: "Ah? Is VG really that stubborn? They're not even banning Kai'Sa?"

Today's commentator lineup is a bit odd: it's actually Wawa leading two newcomers—the newly promoted female commentator Rita from the Summer Split, and a pure newcomer commentator Wang Duo Duo who was hired in January this year mainly to cover the secondary league.

Wang Duo Duo has many classic quotes later on, but at this point he was just an unknown rookie commentator. Then viewers in the chat started asking, "Who is this?" Afterwards, some regular viewers of the secondary league answered, and unexpectedly the feedback was not bad, though many also complained that this guy seems overly fond of reciting poetry, suspecting him of showing off culture. Then someone looked up Wang Duo Duo's background and discovered that this rookie commentator is actually a top graduate from the Foreign Languages Department of Renmin University, which surprised many.

"The crowd praises the wide formation, iron horses calmly slay the foe and return!" Wang Duo Duo blurted out, then added: "VG truly deserves to be the LPL's overlord; it seems the loss in the previous small game didn't affect their confidence at all."

Rita took over the topic with her slightly magnetic, sexy voice: "Actually VG's play in the last game wasn't that problematic; the issue mainly lay in the laning phase, so I think VG indeed doesn't need to overly adjust their BP strategy, and since Jiao Shen is on top this game, I think we can just play as usual."

Rita is also somewhat famous as a "foot-washing girl," and whenever Liang Yan plays in a match, you can often hear her utter some fan remarks.

As a commentator, this stance is clearly problematic, and there are some murmurs in the chat, but who made VG fans so dominant? The little noise is quickly drowned out by the wave of VG fans' comments.

Both sides' first round of bans:

VG: Elise, Corki, Ahri.

IG: Galio, Zac, Caitlyn.

"Although LPL regular season has entered week eight and the patch is 7.14, Galio is no longer an auto-ban or auto-pick, because in this patch he was heavily nerfed: his Q base damage was reduced and his AP scaling slightly increased, encouraging AP builds while heavily weakening tank builds. Originally Galio relied on his Q to clear waves quickly and then roam, but now his Q base damage is cut, hurting his early wave clear, and his R cast time increased by 0.25 seconds, raising the chance of being interrupted when ulting, making crashes more likely and thus lowering his overall strength. However, IG may still be considering that VG's Galio composition is too hard to deal with, so they still chose to ban him; the other two bans went to the current patch's two strongest champions, and IG's BP is still quite solid." Wang Duo Duo did his pre-match homework well, his analysis of both sides' bans was logical and thorough.

"How should VG's bans be interpreted then?" Wawa, having learned through internal channels that the higher-ups intended to promote Wang Duo Duo, deliberately passed a message to him.

But Wang Duo Duo didn't give a long speech this time, just saying: "VG's bans are always unpredictable, so I won't embarrass myself, haha."

Rita burst out laughing.

Both sides began picking, VG first chose Varus.

"Huh? Varus?" Rita looked surprised, confirmed VG's mid-lane ID, "Indeed it's Shuijing Ge on Varus……Can Varus play lethality builds in this patch?"

"Indeed." Wang Duo Duo said firmly, "In patch 7.14 several lethality items received major buffs, and the redesign of Thornmail gave it an epic boost, causing the previously popular attack speed builds to decline somewhat, while some AD champions that can go lethality have risen; however, because tank champions have also become popular in this patch, lethality struggles against tanky frontlines, so attack speed AD carries remain the meta, after all the Red Buff is really strong right now."

"Wow, Duo Duo teacher really is knowledgeable."

"No no, I just spoke too much."

"No no, we two lack professional knowledge, we really need someone like you!"

"Then… I'll say a couple more sentences?"

"Definitely!"

"Haha~"

VG locked in Varus on the first pick.

Seeing VG not only not banning Kai'Sa but also stubbornly sticking with it, and seeing that IG had performed well with several other champions in the previous game which they also brought out, IG naturally wouldn't be polite and instantly double‑picked Zigg s and Jax.

VG's second double‑pick locked in Ahri and Alistar.

IG's second single‑pick locked in Kai'Sa.

The crowd erupted in an uproar.

"Exciting! Indeed IG pulled out exactly the same top‑mid‑jungle lineup as last game!"

"Again Kai'Sa, Ning……so confident, daring to pick that in front of Jiao Shen!"

"Yes, setting aside other things, just this courage alone makes me want to give a thumbs‑up to that jungler who switched from ADC to jungle only last year!"

"Big thumbs‑up~"

BP entered the second round.

IG banned two junglers, VG banned two supports.

Then IG first took a support Leona.

VG double‑picked locked in their composition.

The moment the two icons locked in VG's champion frame, the stadium burst into a tsunami‑like gasp!

The three commentators on stage all simultaneously inhaled a mouthful of hot, sweaty air.

"What... what is this?!"

"My goodness……"

"This lineup is so weird, how are we supposed to lane?"

"VG's lineup is ruthless!"

The blue side's fourth and fifth picks locked in a blond kid and a tree monster!

Having already locked in Varus, locking in Ezreal as well definitely means someone will have to go mid or top, and the big tree is a jungler——everyone guessed that, including the IG players sitting on the red side bench.

But even if they guessed VG's lane distribution correctly, IG's lineup lacks the flexibility to swap lanes, so they still went with the standard lane assignment.

However, once VG finished swapping champions and every position was locked down, everyone was shocked again!

Wawa stared wide‑eyed, astonished twice:

"What the hell is this?!"