Chapter 73

Liang Yan was not obsessed with controlling the mark.

Whether ganking or farming the jungle, his first consideration was secure kills and efficiency.

This is a playstyle adapted to the local conditions, because here it's EU; if it were LPL or LCK, he might not play this way, since those two regions have fewer gank opportunities.

Around 5:50, G2 took down another turret, and Liang Yan earned 100 gold global bounty without participating in the turret takedown.

On the top lane, H2K instead gave the turret bounty to Odoamne's Ekko.

It seems they realized that if they didn't give Odoamne some extra gold, going forward he would struggle to contribute much in team fights.

After each side had taken down two turrets, their strategies finally diverged.

G2's choice was to have the top, bottom, and jungle four players move up together, assigning the lane-pushing task to Zven's Ezreal, while the other three grouped up to invade H2K's upper jungle.

H2K's choice was to leave Lu Xi An alone in the bottom lane to farm, while the jungle and support three came to defend the second turret top.

In this attack-defense round, G2 still initiated the offense.

Consequently, H2K's upper jungle fell completely, with all three monster camps, including the second red buff, taken by Thresh.

Forcefully pushing the second turret would definitely fail; grouping up to pressure was just a feint. After shielding Ezreal and pushing the lane to under the turret, G2's four players regrouped and swarmed toward mid lane. Fortunately, H2K wasn't completely unprepared—Yue Lun finally learned, unleashed a flurry of skills to clear the wave, then retreated to the second turret to avoid being caught.

But Liang Yan never intended to catch him.

After the five regrouped in mid lane, with no pause, under Liang Yan's command, Zven's Ezreal was again left to farm mid, while the other four dove into H2K's lower jungle.

Jankos had been helping defend top lane all along, and the three monster camps that respawned in the lower half—including the second blue buff—hadn't been touched at all.

This totally benefited Liang Yan.

Still, Liang Yan was generous; he gave the blue buff to his strongest bodyguard, AP's "Fan Mom".

After clearing the jungle, Liang Yan conveniently ate the second mark on the river crab; as for the little cloud dragon curled up in the Dragon Pit, sorry—Liang Yan couldn't even be bothered to control his own mark, let alone have any appetite for a small dragon.

Moreover, to speak bluntly, the elemental dragon that Fist just came up with in this version is completely a blunder. In this fast-paced version, the tiny benefit the small dragon provides really makes it hard to have any opinion; early-game dragon control might even be a side effect, because it would disrupt one's rhythm. Therefore, even in the LCK region, universally recognized as having the slowest pace, the average time to kill the first small dragon exceeds eight minutes, let alone other regions.

What?

You ask about the vanguard?

What is that? Does such a thing even exist?

Fist: Yes! Yes! Such a huge monster has been camping in Da Long Keng since 6 minutes, you all blind and can't see it? Damn, take a look at it!

Alright, then we need to hash out whether the vanguard has any cost-effectiveness.

The current version's Xia Gu Xian Feng has initial stats: 8000 health, 105 attack damage, 60 armor, 50 magic resist, and its kill reward is:

1, participants share 200 experience;

2, each team member gets 50 gold;

3, Buff: Void Eye — if there are no allied heroes nearby, damage taken from enemy heroes is reduced by 5%, and you continually gain corruption charge; when charge reaches 100, the next attack consumes all charge, dealing extra magic damage 15~270 (increasing per level from 1 to 18, halved for ranged heroes), effective against towers, and the Buff lasts 20 minutes.

Please!

This isn't a solo lane version!

The Buff description is all flash and no substance!

Cost-effectiveness?

I'd rather spend that time camping a single enemy or clearing a few more jungle camps.

Therefore, even though Fist has adjusted the Xia Gu Xian Feng multiple times, even changing the Buff's name and reworking its underlying mechanics, at least for now, on the professional stage, no jungler would have any appetite for such a troublesome Xia Gu Xian Feng; normally, everyone tacitly treats it as nonexistent.

……

"Lao Zhang, go to Xia Lu to push the lane, others defend the top lane."

Unbeknownst to them, Liang Yan completely took over the team's shot-calling. After leaving base, he started clearing from his own lower half, moving upward. H2K's vision control was terrible; the true sight left in the red side's upper half jungle from G2's last attack on their second tower hasn't been cleared, allowing G2 to easily discern H2K's grouped advance toward their own upper half, so Liang Yan called his teammates to group and defend.

Thereafter, both sides engaged in a prolonged tug-of-war in the blue side's upper half jungle, with G2's four players and H2K's five players repeatedly probing around a blue buff.

Finally……

"Both sides have been tugging here for one and a half minutes; in the end, Firrrrrre snatched the blue buff with a smite, H2K wasted a lot of time for nothing, while G2's top laner has been farming the lane nonstop in Xia Lu, and now he's about to push the wave to H2K's second tower!"

"ThatsaDISASTER! I feel H2K's coach is about to faint backstage—what the hell are they playing?! Afterwards they really should spend a whole night reviewing this match; such a decision is too absurd!"

"But what can we do... their Ye Qu has been completely cleared by G2; if they don't make something happen, Jankos will have nothing to do."

"Oh, yes, so now the jungle monsters have finally respawned; they're finally returning to their own Ye Qu, right? Wow! That's practically five geniuses!"

"Look at the jungler's last hits; they're almost off by 20 hits!"

"No, Jankos has been eating a lot of minions while defending the top lane; if we want to scrape off that layer of profit, the lane-specific last hit difference probably already exceeds 20 hits."

"Ohmyword…… I'm about to cry, what a poor little sheep."

"Who says otherwise?"

"But getting back to the point, there's something I'm very curious about."

"Please go ahead."

"After Firrrrrre got Thresh, G2's early aggression in this game was much milder compared to the last match, but their suddenly displayed macro play really makes me feel incredulous. If we hid the team name, I might even think this is an LCK team; this game looks like a replay of the MSI match where Han Guo's team played against Europe's team."

"Ohyeah, you finally noticed; actually I had figured it out long ago."

"Then you're awesome."

"No, Sjokz, really, I noticed it three minutes ago, no joke—G2's performance in this match is an ability I've never seen in this venue before, so I can instantly tell how it differs from other matches."

"Wow! But I recall you praised G2 similarly in the spring split, though back then you said they were the team best at fighting in Europe, now you've switched to macro; I want to say, do we really have a team that knows how to macro?"

"Never mind, I won't argue with you; let's just keep watching."