Chapter 745: Then I ask you

Recently, rumors within the circle said that Condi had an extremely high win rate with EZ jungle in practice matches.

With no other heroes requiring special attention, Zhu Xiaolong figured it was better to believe it, so he asked Liang Yan for his opinion.

Liang Yan had no objection, so Zhu Xiaolong banned EZ.

Speaking of which, Liang Yan vaguely recalled that in the original history, EZ jungle's debut on the stage was actually picked by Condi—it's only natural to respect that.

As the match entered the map loading phase, fans on both sides began cheering for their home teams; perhaps because WE lost terribly in the previous game, the few WE fans present at the start of this game exerted all their strength to cheer for WE.

Some of them were shouting hoarse, sounding somewhat shrill...

VG fans in the livestream felt uneasy and sent a barrage message advising:

【If we really can't, let's just stick with being VG fans; no need to make things so hard on ourselves】

Then countless people followed suit, spamming the first half of the sentence.

Instantly, many other teams' fans who were also watching the livestream fell silent——Your VG Weibo fans have already reached ten million; leave some room for others!

As for how VG got those ten million fans, don't ask.

——Liang Yan's Weibo followers are already approaching twenty million, nearly catching up with those few top‑tier official accounts, which is truly exaggerated. This is obviously the result of worldwide efforts, with Europe alone contributing at least two million.

This wave, Weibo is really making a killing.

If we calculate according to the industry average reward of ten yuan per new follower, Liang Yan could achieve financial freedom just by hanging his Weibo account here. Although he had already achieved financial freedom.

……

Summoner's Rift appeared on the big screen.

Rita said with a hint of surprise: "Speaking of which, as the current version's most popular jungle pick, the barrel, no one actually picked it this game?"

Wang Ji thought for a moment and said: "Mainly, both sides had already locked in their jungle picks in the first round, leaving no room for the barrel. WE wanted to secure the ancient tree, and given the tree's priority, the barrel naturally fell lower; VG, it seems, gave up the barrel to secure the Prince + Clockwork combo."

Rita nodded thoughtfully, then added: "But I think the barrel plus big worm combo is actually quite strong, and it has performed well in the LCK."

"Hmm, maybe VG isn't yet practiced enough with the barrel system, while the Prince + Clockwork system—I recall last year Prince was still a major dark horse, and Jiao Shen was already using it back when he was with G2."

"Yeah, back then almost only G2 was using it; after that, at the S6 World Championship, seeing G2's good results, some teams started to imitate..."

"Alright, less chatter, let's look at the openings: as you can see, the team spawning in the blue side's lower-left fountain is WE, while the team spawning in the upper-right is VG. Previously the score was 0-1, so after this game will WE pull one back, or will VG take another point to hold three match points and stand invincible? Let's witness it together."

"It seems the previous loss didn't greatly affect WE's bottom lane mentality; Mystic is still playing aggressively in this game's opening..."

"Ezreal+Lulu in the current patch can be considered the strongest bot lane combo, while VG's Varus+Luo is similar to their previous Varus+Luo combo, also a combo that only starts to shine at level two or higher, so VG's bot lane opening remains a lane‑pushing strategy."

But this time VG can't freeze the lane, because Ezreal's firepower is far greater than Jinx's; if VG dares to again forcefully freeze the minion wave at the turret like last game, the cost would be extremely high, possibly even taking damage.

So when it was clear the minion wave would push toward the red side, Gangzi and Xiao Duan simply fell back, opening a safe distance, denying WE's duo a chance to chip away at them.

Meanwhile, Condi has wised up this game, and before the match he also received Homme's earnest advice, so he stopped trying to guess VG's jungler's moves and focused solely on his own task, choosing to clear from top to bottom at the start, prioritizing safety.

After clearing the three monster camps in the upper half of the jungle, Condi headed straight for bottom lane, openly revealing his path as he cut across mid lane into the lower river, placing a ward in the brush at the end of the red side's mid‑lane river wall, then began killing the river crab.

When Condi cut across, mid laner Easyhoon stepped back slightly, and Xi Ye's Heimerdinger seized the chance to speed up wave clearing, firmly locking mid‑lane priority in his hands.

The bottom lane was originally WE's strong suit.

With both mid and bottom lane priority, Condi could safely take that river crab.

This is what Homme said—before, they were fighting the old man like this; now Condi is facing VG with the same idea: treat the enemy jungler as nonexistent and just steadily do his own job. So far the strategy seems to work; at least the opening stayed stable.

As long as WE doesn't collapse in the early‑mid game, thanks to Heimerdinger+Ezreal, this lineup's late‑game fighting power will be exaggerated. Meanwhile, VG, with a Renekton top laner and no traditional front line, obviously faces offensive pressure.

"Put simply, WE just needs to develop steadily and it's snowballing."

"Yes, VG must launch several strong offensives in the early‑mid game to gain a clear advantage, otherwise they'll sink deeper into the mire until they suffocate."

"But it looks like Jiao Shen doesn't intend to make a move either..."

Liang Yan's Prince started alone from the blue buff, cleared the lower half of the jungle then headed upward; on screen, Jarvan IV trudged slowly with his flag from behind Easyhoon's Clockwork, walking opposite to the treant that cut across mid lane, about 1,500 units away, then entered the upper river and began clearing river crabs.

Both junglers essentially mirrored each other's opening.

Liang Yan, however, wasn't rushed at all; after finishing the river crab he returned to his own upper jungle, starting from F6 and clearing toward the Stone Armor Beetles.

This left his teammates a bit puzzled.

Fu Lan Duo asked when Liang Yan started clearing his red buff: "Want to gank? I can set up a counter‑push."

Liang Yan simply said no.

When Liang Yan finished his red buff and used an EQ to hop over the wall into the Stone Armor Beetles' camp, Fu Lan Duo asked again: "Really not coming to gank? There's a chance."

Liang Yan glanced at the top lane:

"So I ask you, where is the enemy jungler right now?"

"No need to think—he's definitely down below."

"Then I ask you again—if you killed Kled, what if he goes berserk, revives, and teleports straight down for a 4‑2? If you can't answer, I'll only give you zero points."