Chapter 116: The Capture of the Wall! [Happy New Year!]

"EDG banned Zeri first, and TES banned Akali as usual."

Doinb, who had finished his playoffs early and was staying at home, was also watching and commentating.

"Who does the streamer favor? Gold-Gugu is a neutral streamer, you know."

Although Doinb said that, he was actually feeling quite restless inside today.

In today's final, he finally understood that old Chinese saying: "The palm and the back of the hand are both flesh!"

Doinb couldn't stand Ye Bo, who had stepped on his head to make a brilliant debut, and he could stand Gao Tianliang, who had soared after leaving him, even less.

At the beginning of the summer, when TES and Tian were performing poorly, he had even gloated in his stream for a while, but who would have thought they would launch a northern expedition and now charge all the way to the finals!

The mystery of the Iceland S11 remains a "Pangolin" cold case in Summoner's Rift to this day.

So no matter who wins today, he will be very unhappy!

Of course, by comparison, he certainly hopes Ye Bo can win.

After all, Ye Bo had beaten him up in a match before, so the fiercer the person who beats him is, the less embarrassing it is for him!

"Although I favor EDG more, if you ask me, TES playing EDG actually has some merit. The reason is that they have a much easier time in the draft compared to other teams. Hey, look, look!"

First round of bans for both sides:

EDG: Zeri, Taliyah, Galio

TES: Akali, Gragas, Kalista

Doinb began to show off his understanding: "Don't look at it as if both sides banned two mid-laners; the intent is actually completely different."

Ale, the top laner for LNG, joined the stream and asked in a strange tone: "Why? I remember Ye is also a Taliyah master, why ban Knight's Taliyah?"

"That's where you don't understand, Le." Doinb was very satisfied with the other's reaction and began to talk eloquently.

"EDG banning Taliyah and Galio clearly means they don't want to let Knight avoid the laning phase!"

"Strictly speaking, TES only banned one Akali; Gragas was likely a draft-specific ban. Now that LeBlanc and Sylas are left outside, they are just giving them to Ye."

"Don't forget, Knight is the strongest Vex in the LPL!"

Although Doinb has some traits of a clout-chaser, he does have some understanding of the draft; otherwise, he wouldn't be constantly asked, "Brother Coin, what should we pick this game?"...

Of course, the EDG members on stage could naturally see the opponent's intent as well.

Knight's champion pool is very deep, and it includes Vex, a rather unpopular hero.

Vex is actually not difficult to pick up; the reason for her unpopularity is that her strength is average and the "cost-effectiveness" of practicing her is too low. She is almost only useful when playing against a few specific heroes.

Clearly, heroes like LeBlanc and Sylas, who rely on mobility, are completely countered by her!

And although Yagao from the previous match didn't have any champion pool flaws, he couldn't play unpopular heroes like Vex, otherwise, Steak wouldn't have needed to keep those two heroes on the ban list.

"EDG still picks Sylas on the first floor without hesitation, and as expected, TES directly picks the double-engage mid-jungle combo of Vex and Lee Sin!" Guan Zeyuan also saw TES's obvious intent.

"Both sides are moving very fast; it feels like they already had a draft plan for the first game!"

Although they were on the red side, TES was not prepared to solve the problem peacefully in the first game.

Instead, they were prepared to put up a full-force fight in the very first game!

"EDG counters with the Draven and Renata combo. They also picked very comfortably; the first three picks are all strong meta combinations." Remember studied the lineup on the left.

"But JackeyLove might be very confident in this, after all, this is also his signature!"

"TES picks Braum on the third floor to guard against Draven."

TES picked Braum on the third floor, and both sides entered the second round of drafting.

EDG: Ashe, Renekton

TES: Gnar, Wukong

"EDG bans the Ashe-Braum system to cover Draven's push, so let's see what TES will pick to pop the bomb!"

【Brother's second pair of underwear is here!】

【Classic popping the bomb when encountering Draven, Brother is starting to avoid laning again.】

【Knight sacrificed Brother to pick a counter for him; if he doesn't carry this game, it's all his responsibility!】

【Sacrificing again? Brother Coin said Vex against Sylas is just so-so; the main thing is that the opponent can't kill him, but he can't kill Sylas either.】

【Who is Brother Coin? There's still this guy in the playoffs? He's the one who was eliminated in the first round!】

EDG picked the classic top-jungle combo of Sejuani and Viego, while TES picked the double-poke component Jayce they had planned for a long time. This is also why they had to ban the hard-engage option of Gragas in the first round.

The first game's EDG lineup was relatively standard, but they successfully obtained several of the most comfortable draft choices on the blue side.

Both lineups were confirmed.

《Blue Side: EDG || Red Side: TES》

【Top: Sejuani vs Jayce】

【Jungle: Viego vs Lee Sin】

【Mid: Sylas vs Vex】

【ADC: Draven vs Ziggs】

【Support: Renata Glasc vs Braum】

Doinb looked at the lineup and couldn't help but start a sharp critique: "EDG's draft is as good as ever; they almost picked their most comfortable system. But TES's draft also feels pretty good!"

"The mid lane is a counter-pick, and the bot lane's Ziggs-Braum against Draven is at least an even matchup. In this case, there's actually not a huge gap in the red side's matchups!"

"And this TES lineup has merit; double-poke plus three hard-engages. It seems they took the initiative to strike in the first game!"

Entering Summoner's Rift.

The ten people were ready to go as they stepped out of the fountain.

"Although TES has Braum here, they don't seem to have any intention of fighting at level one." The commentary desk examined the movements of both sides.

Although Braum is very strong in level-one team fights, because he is paired with Ziggs as a purely defensive combination, his offensive capability is clearly limited.

As the first game of the finals, TES also wanted to stabilize first; it wouldn't be fun if they were picked off by the opponent's Draven for two kills at level one.

And since the opponent had no intention of fighting, EDG naturally had no reason to initiate a battle.

The director's perspective focused on the mid lane, which was clearly the highlight of the day.

"Player Ye actually brought Ignite again!" Wang Duoduo's eyes lit up as he noticed the key point.

"The frequency with which he brings Ignite on Sylas is so high; this is very rare in all professional arenas!"

On the other side, Guan Zeyuan nodded in agreement: "There are many ways to play Sylas, but most are based on small-scale skirmishes and mid-game team fights. Only Player Ye's Sylas focuses on the laning phase!"

"This is also based on his operational ability, and the stats of the hero Sylas can indeed support it."

But Remember looked a bit worried: "But today he is facing Knight, who is also very skilled at Sylas, and Vex should also be considered a strong counter to Sylas..."

Knight couldn't help but feel a ripple in his heart when he saw this Ignite.

The last time they laning against each other, he had been stunned by Ye Bo's "desperate" Zoe laning style.

Fortunately, he had regained his confidence from Yagao yesterday.

The minions arrived in the lane.

Vex walked directly through the minion wave to the back of the ranged minions.

"It's coming, Knight is also going to freeze the lane at level one!"

"This move was also used by Player Ye to exert similar pressure when he played against Yagao's Sylas in the last match!"

"And this move is also Knight's signature!"

Knight would naturally not let go of the stage where it is easiest to suppress Sylas.

And the biggest difference in this game is that he is using Vex.

The most important draft move White Crescent made in the first game was to release LeBlanc and Sylas; they tried to use Knight's Vex to counter them in an attempt to crack the draft.

Knight was very confident anyway that his Vex could easily deal with these two heroes.

Although Sylas is not as much of a counter as LeBlanc, he is still a very easy existence to deal with.

This all relies on Vex's unique mechanism.

Vex's core skill is her passive 【Doom】, where every once in a while she is surrounded by Doom, causing her next basic skill to have a {displacement interrupt} + {fear} effect.

Sylas's strongest way to trade health at level one is to E in and dump a combo; as long as he can land the E, the trade is definitely not a loss.

But facing Vex, such a way of trading health almost doesn't exist.

Because as long as Vex uses Q face-to-face when Sylas uses E, she can definitely interrupt him while he is flying in the air.

Taking a step back, even if Sylas successfully lands the E, Vex can steadily use her W, which is almost guaranteed to hit at close range, to simultaneously fear him and counter-attack first.

No matter how he operates, it makes it impossible for Sylas to get close.

That's why Knight dared to press forward across the minion wave like this.

And Ye Bo could not walk into the minion wave to play the game like Yagao chose to do in the previous match.

However, Sylas kept lingering and pulling back in the rear.

It was as if he was gauging Vex's attack range.

Knight's attention was highly concentrated, his eyes jumping back and forth between the minions and Sylas, while grasping the timing of the minions' attacks and the range at which Sylas might walk into his attack range at any time.

But in fact, what Ye Bo was looking at was the same as what Knight was looking at.

The pulling Sylas suddenly stepped forward half a step!

But Vex did not raise her hand immediately—because the minions' attack interval had just passed; if he used a basic attack now, he would be shot by at least two waves of the back-row minions!

The next moment, Vex raised her limp hand to fire a basic attack while maintaining her position, her finger hovering over the Q key at all times.

But it was at this moment.

Sylas suddenly dashed forward with 【Abduct】!

The light basic attack was "caught" by the displacement in advance.

The changed attack interval also caused the minions to notice the enemy in the rear who was attacking their hero in advance, and the basic attacks that were originally prepared to attack immediately turned to start attacking Vex.

A volley of basic attacks from three ranged minions deals as much as 75 damage, while the base damage of Vex's Q ability is only 70.

This is actually why very few players practice the "extreme maneuver" of animation-canceling basic attacks.

Because the error rate is simply too high, and once a mistake is made, a trade can easily turn into a massive failure, or even worse, losing the battle and the resources!

But clearly, this was not a mistake by Left Hand.

Rather, both sides were calculating the wind-up speed of the minions simultaneously, and Ye Bo cleverly closed the distance instantly to receive the basic attack that was perfectly calculated.

However, Left Hand's handling was also very detailed; he didn't panic for a second, turning to land a basic attack to trigger the 【Gloom】 mark on Sylas before immediately retreating, while simultaneously firing his Q 【Mistral Bolt】 forward.

Although the initial speed of Mistral Bolt is incredibly slow, Sylas would have to move laterally to dodge it, which would give Vex enough space to pull away and prevent the opponent from using E.

Even though he had to tank the minions, Vex's passive-empowered basic attack allowed him to draw minion aggro and incidentally secure the minion wave, which could be considered a level-one suppression.

Left Hand's handling was nothing short of detailed.

Yet, Ye Bo was not prepared to dodge this Q.

Sylas was seen walking straight toward that Mistral Bolt, and just at the moment the mist wave suddenly accelerated and surged forward—he threw out his Abduct chain!

The Abduct chain brushed past the mist wave.

And Sylas was feared by the Doom effect, only then did his figure begin to rise and fly forward!

Although 【Doom】 can interrupt displacement.

But if the fear comes first, followed by the displacement, then naturally there is no such thing as an interruption.

Vex was knocked up for 0. seconds, the fear effect disappearing at the same time Sylas landed, but Sylas had already successfully closed the distance, violently spinning to unleash two hits of Kingslayer!

"A beautiful trade! It looks like Left Hand failed his animation cancel? He got caught red-handed by Sylas!"

"What you can do, I can do too!"

"Both sides must have engaged in a mind game; Sylas forcibly completed his displacement by using the reactive 'Control-Canceling E,' and Vex is still deep in the minion wave, so this trade is very costly for him!"

Both sides' ability cooldowns entered a vacuum period, and they peacefully ignored each other to focus on last-hitting.

Before hitting level two, Sylas charged forward again, actively triggering the mark from Vex's passive to bait the opponent into turning back to use the passive-empowered basic attack.

But Left Hand is very smart; he simply wouldn't engage in this mind game at this moment.

Because even if he landed the trade, the health exchanged would be limited, but once he got kited, he would be focused by the minion wave.

If another level-one trade like that happened, the laning phase would likely run into trouble.

He knew very well that the most important thing when playing against Sylas is maintaining health; he would rather trade less than risk a non-optimal exchange.

Ye Bo didn't expect the opponent to be so cautious in handling such matters!

However, his goal had already been achieved, effectively getting through the most dangerous stage of level one.

"I can come at level three." Xiaotian had been checking the mid lane on his screen.

"Mm, I can Flash-engage."

He chose the Lee Sin combination, which is extremely strong in the early game, clearly intending to target the mid-jungle; seeing that the opponent even brought Ignite, he naturally couldn't let them off easily.

A jungler's speed to reach level three in the jungle is a few seconds faster than the mid lane's level three.

Lee Sin, who started in the bottom jungle, had already circled around from the bottom river to flank.

"Xiaotian is preparing to make a move on the mid lane!"

"But Jiejie is already in position too!"

Seeing the opportunity was ripe, Left Hand began pacing in place.

The moment he saw Sylas step forward to last-hit, he flashed in to fear him, right at the edge of the maximum range of his W 【Personal Space】!

Since Vex's Q and E have incredibly obvious casting wind-ups and delays, the most stable way to control is to use the instant, close-range W as an opener!

Lee Sin instantly W-dashed out and kicked out Sonic Wave.

As long as they could focus fire and hit Sylas first, even if Viego was counter-ganking, the opponents couldn't possibly win this fight.

After taking a heavy hit, Sylas immediately used Abscond to retreat.

But Ye Bo's personality wouldn't let them hit him for free; he turned back and directly E2'd onto Lee Sin's face, following up with an A-Q-A-W-A combo to land the full set.

"The damage from Sylas's counter-attack is very high! Player Ye didn't use Flash and even turned back to counter-attack; he's truly fierce!" Jide couldn't help but exclaim.

"But this is actually very painful for him because Sylas doesn't have Teleport. Getting hit by two more basic attacks like this, Sylas might have to head home!" Guan Zeyuan said as such.

"In that case, although Vex didn't secure a kill after burning Flash, the effect is almost the same; the loss for Sylas is nearly no different from being killed once!"

Wang Duoduo presided over justice: "There's no helping it, Left Hand's Flash-W was too decisive. Actually, if Vex hadn't landed the first strike like that, the 2v2 mid-jungle fight would still be hard to call."

"Maybe that's why Jiejie didn't come out?"

Yes.

Viego did not come out this time, and the reason was exactly as the god's-eye view had guessed.

Because he was hit by Vex's incredibly decisive Flash-engage, Ye Bo knew very well that coming out for a 2v2 now would definitely result in a loss.

So, almost the instant he saw Lee Sin, he shouted loudly to Jiejie: "Don't come out!"

It was this very sentence that influenced the battle.

TES didn't have a god's-eye view, so in their eyes, the mid-laner almost died and the jungler didn't come out—clearly proving the jungler wasn't there!

Then, Viego's current position was basically self-evident.

"He must have gone to my red buff area! Dahuang, come, let's surround him!" Xiaotian excitedly issued commands to the top lane.

"K-Huang, you come with me."

The burst from a level-three Sylas triggering {Last Stand} was still frightening; Lee Sin had been knocked down to half health by the counter-attack, and with his health in a very unhealthy state, entering the jungle alone would likely lead to an ambush.

Because the defensive vision in the top jungle had just disappeared not long ago, they could be certain that Viego had at most just entered the jungle, and there was plenty of time.

Lee Sin first helped the mid lane push the minion wave quickly, and looking at Sylas, who was chugging potions under the tower with very low health, he abandoned the idea of a forced tower dive, considering the opponent still had Flash.

The two moved one after the other, circling in from the path outside the F6 pit.

"Xiaotian is so cautious; not only did he not choose to risk walking through the river, he even called Vex to go along with him!"

"In that case, it feels like the chance of Jiejie catching them is slim... Wait!?"

"Is Sylas still going to support? In this state?"

Viego was crouching below the river, and seeing the opponents circling from the side, he stood in the shadows at the corner of the river wall and began charging his W.

Jiejie heard Ye Bo say it was okay to fight, so even knowing the opponents were coming as a pair, he didn't retreat.

Calculating the time in his heart, he activated Hallowed Mist and walked into the corner.

He almost ran head-on into the two of them!

Heartbreaker slammed directly into Lee Sin's face!

"Ah?" Xiaotian let out a startled cry, but immediately noticed below: "Look at Sylas!"

"Sylas seems to have come!"

Left Hand certainly didn't need him to say it; he knew that Viego's damage alone wasn't enough to kill Lee Sin, so he held onto his abilities at the first moment.

On the contrary, down below, the vision under the opponent's tower was already empty.

They saw Sylas moving toward the top on the mini-map, but didn't know where he intended to come from, and while they were still thinking.

They had already seen a surprising scene.

Almost exactly when Viego began charging his W, the low-health Sylas ignored the minion wave from his own tower, took two steps to the wall—and then, with incredible decisiveness, burned Flash into the river brush above!

Landing and dashing forward with Abscond, he even seemed to perform a strange "wiggle" in the brush.

Immediately following was an 800-yard long chain whipped forward horizontally!

Aimed straight at Lee Sin!

Fortunately, Left Hand had instinctively placed a ward in the river brush the moment Viego appeared, and also saw Sylas flashing over the wall at the first moment.

Viego's 1. 5-second fully charged control hadn't ended yet, Lee Sin was still temporarily unable to move, and this time wasn't enough to give Vex a chance to body-block the ability.

But Left Hand was already prepared to respond.

Sylas had flashed over the wall, which meant that once he used E to displace over and finish the damage, he wouldn't be able to run away again; this would be a 1-for-1 at most.

And a 1-for-1 would inevitably be a disaster for Sylas!

Because he didn't have Teleport!

Xiaotian thought the same; he didn't feel nervous at all, at worst it would just be a successful gank traded with his life, which was definitely not a loss for the jungler role.

Sylas's second-stage Abduct was launched.

"???"

"Why is this!"

The two were stunned.

Because there was vision in the brush, they watched helplessly as Sylas's figure took flight—and then "bumped" into the wall.

The scene everyone expected to see, Sylas's E ability displacing over the wall as naturally as could be.

Was instead eerily "blocked" by the wall, defying common sense!

"Wall-Bump Abduct"!

Not only that, even Sylas's W ability under the wall also failed to cross it.

Sylas finished his E-W combo under the wall in an instant, then immediately took a step back and used his Q ability to finish off the remaining damage.

This resulted in Gragas not having enough distance to start his W, and thus he couldn't immediately control and interrupt the opponent's attack!

It clearly looked like it was within arm's reach.

But separated by a wall, it felt like a chasm at this moment!

"Viego lands one more basic attack to secure the kill! First Blood!"

"Vex has no Flash and cannot chase the Sylas who is 'far away' under the wall; facing Viego, who has possessed Lee Sin's body, he can only flee!"

"EDG pulled off a beautiful ambush counter-attack in the first mid-jungle confrontation... and why didn't Sylas cross the wall!?"

The commentary desk doesn't understand it.

Because that maneuver is indeed a very obscure, one might even say "heretical," mechanic for Sylas.

It's basically that Sylas can use a combination of a long-range E and a thin wall to achieve a sort of "wall-stuck" effect by colliding the chain's hitbox with the wall's detection mechanism.

It's just that this type of wall-stuck effect causes the Sylas E skill to fail to cross the wall, getting stuck on the outside instead.

Many times, dashing into a fight means putting oneself in danger.

Yet this mechanic that prevents the dash from completing becomes a unique life-saving charm!

【I get it, the chain must have hit the wall and been bounced back out, so this move should be called "The Bouncing Chain Grab"!】

【I heard that when Tian went on his Northern Expedition he was called Zhuge Tianliang? That makes no sense, watch me, Ye Mayi, teach you a lesson!】

【Did Xiaoyu have his brain stolen when Olaf split his skull with an axe? How dare he lean forward like that?】

【That's the "God's eye view" critique for you; there was no one in his vision, who knew the Viego would be camping there? Besides, this wave wasn't even killed by Viego!】

【Report! Big B next door has already started calling a thief his father~~~】

(End of chapter)