Chapter 843: Better to Go AFK

When Lu Xi An appeared, Westdoor pressed Tab to glance at his equipment.

Upon seeing the little curved blade in Lu Xi An's equipment slot, Westdoor's heart sank and his expression grew even uglier.

5 minutes little curved blade, 8 minutes broken?

Damn it, I don't want to play anymore!

Thinking that, he caught sight of Lu Xi An directly crossing the minion line and pressing forward in his peripheral vision; Westdoor's breath caught, he gritted his teeth, endured, and controlled Clockwork to retreat backward.

In the LMS livestream room, the commentators began to wail.

"He doesn't even let me get experience, Westdoor is too miserable."

"Laning is no longer playable..."

"What should we do, Mountain, can you help a bit? You definitely have to help."

"But Fire is also there, be careful."

"By the way, have you guys noticed that ever since Easyhoon came to our side to play in an Intercontinental Tournament and brought back a championship trophy, he's become quite different, very confident?"

"Really? I don't watch LPL much, so I'm not sure."

"That's right, I'm telling you guys, he used to blah blah..."

Zhong Lu didn't even let him get experience, Westdoor didn't summon the jungler, but Mountain still felt reluctant; after clearing a round of jungle monsters, he went home, headed out, and straight to mid lane.

He knew the enemy jungler might be nearby, so he didn't plan to do anything, carefully placing one real and one fake ward near mid lane, then clearing the ward Lu Xi An had placed after returning to lane, and then crouched in the grass.

Mountain carefully controlled his distance, deliberately avoiding stealing Westdoor's minion experience, so as not to worsen Westdoor's already difficult development.

He simply played it safe, guarding Westdoor and farming the lane, with no intention to engage.

As expected, Fire's Pig Girl soon appeared in vision.

"What annoyed Mountain was that the enemy began clearing the true ward he had just placed, and was doing so while standing and auto-attacking, as if saying, 'Come hit me~'"

Mountain certainly would not go over.

Pig Girl and Lu Xi An are both incredibly strong early-game champions; the former is tanky with heavy crowd control, the latter has extreme burst; compared to VG's mid-jungle duo, AHQ's Prince + Clockwork combo is far weaker.

"Before level six, Prince and Clockwork have essentially no synergy; although their burst seems decent, lacking reliable crowd control makes the actual damage they can deal questionable."

"If Galio were added, the strength would be decent, since Galio has a reliable crowd control—but the problem is how Galio could find an opportunity to link up with the mid-jungle."

Ziv's proficiency with Galio is not low, but AHQ's Galio system originally had no Prince, because they never imagined they could obtain such a perfect combo; thus the team previously practiced early-to-mid game operational defense tactics, while Ziv practiced how to hold the lane.

"The coach never told Ziv how to roam and support to find opportunities when playing top lane Galio; relying on Ziv's own on-the-spot performance, letting him catch a break on a team like VG would be less effective than having him try to solo kill VG's top laner, which might be an easier task."

Ziv still tried leaving the lane to roam twice, but found no opportunity, so he stopped wasting time on such futile efforts.

Thus AHQ's mid-jungle dilemma remained unsolved.

"Noticing Mountain had left, Easyhoon continued to apply heavy pressure."

Mountain saw Westdoor's miserable state but could only steel himself and pretend not to notice. He is AHQ's jungler, not Westdoor's bodyguard; even if he wanted to be Westdoor's bodyguard, the coach wouldn't agree; if he insisted, the only outcome would be being swapped out by the coach—AHQ does have a substitute jungler.

The second wave of jungle monsters spawned slowly, Mountain had nothing to do, yet couldn't truly do nothing, so he came to the bottom lane to lurk, trying to find a chance to engage.

Although he always paid close attention to concealing his movements, unbeknownst to him, Liang Yan could see everything he did.

"Xiao Duan, sell a bit."

A classic play unfolded in the bottom lane.

Xiao Duan made a slight positioning mistake, taking the full damage of Leona's EQ combo, losing about three hundred HP; adding the earlier hair-pulling that drained a bit of blood, his health bar shrank to roughly one third, looking like a good kill opportunity.

AN couldn't hold back.

"Take off~~~"

Little Cannon cheerfully shouted, performed a rocket jump, smoothly attached a bomb in midair, landed and unleashed rapid fire on Karma.

Xiao Duan had prepared beforehand, granting himself a shield and speed boost before Little Cannon landed; as soon as Little Cannon fired a projectile, he ran out of its attack range.

Relying on having someone behind him, AN still wanted to pursue further.

Pig Girl emerged from the nearby grass.

"Caught!!"

LMS commentators shouted in shock.

"Fortunately the youngster reacted quickly enough! Xiao An promptly used Flash!"

"Mountain poked up and knocked Sejuani airborne; although he didn't dare follow up, he successfully prevented the enemy's pursuit!"

"But it's also pretty unpleasant, making our AD carry's Flash get caught..."

"Mountain thought, 'I haven't done anything, I'm just sitting here—can Blue Path really blame this on me?' But this wave really is his fault."

"Indeed, if he weren't crouching here, Xiao An probably wouldn't have jumped up."

"So… maybe we should just go AFK?"

"But I think, Xiao An isn't immune to bait either; Caveman is obviously just acting, people casually lure him in and he bites—too easy to fall for."

(Note: Caveman is Xiao Duan's ID, not mentioned often for fear you wouldn't know)

Since Little Cannon's skills landed on Xiao Duan but failed to kill him, in the bottom lane 3v3 situation AHQ was clearly outmatched, so Mountain entered merely to help Xiao An escape, immediately disengaging after knocking Liang Yan's Pig Girl airborne.

Neither side continued fighting in the bottom lane.

VG earned a Flash, Liang Yan saw the situation was good and pulled back, helped the duo push a wave then returned to the jungle; after clearing two jungle camps, Xiao Duan, who had gone home to replenish his stats before heading out, straight to the enemy jungle, placing vision while also counter-jungling.

Upon entering, he happened to catch Prince taking on F6.

Upon seeing him, Liang Yan lunged forward, but his Northern Wind Chain slammed into the large and small birds.

The LCK commentators couldn't bear to watch, shouting from not far away from the LPL commentator desk:

"Oh my, this guy is really arrogant!"

"Quite dominant, a bit like our aggressive playstyle!"

"His mechanics are really good…"