Chapter 116

"EDG starts by banning Zeri, and TES also bans Akali as usual."

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

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

Although Doinb said that, he was actually feeling very conflicted today.

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

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

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

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

So no matter who wins today, he is 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; the fiercer the person who beats you is, the less embarrassing it is for you!

"Although I favor EDG more, if you ask me, TES playing EDG really has some merit. The reason is that they are much more relaxed in the pick-and-ban phase 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 completely different."

LNG top-laner Ale joined the stream, asking in a strange voice: "Why? I remember Ye is also a Taliyah master, why ban Knight's Taliyah?"

"You don't understand this, Le." Doinb was very satisfied with the reaction and began to talk eloquently.

"EDG banning Taliyah and Galio is clearly not wanting to let Knight avoid the lane phase!"

"Strictly speaking, TES only banned one Akali; Gragas was likely banned to target the composition. Now LeBlanc and Sylas are released outside, just for Ye to take."

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

Although Doinb has some attributes of a clout-chaser, he does have some understanding of pick-and-ban, otherwise he wouldn't be frequently asked, "Brother Coin, what should we pick this game?"...

Of course, the EDG members on stage naturally saw the opponent's intent.

Knight's champion pool is very deep, including Vex, a rather unpopular hero.

Vex's difficulty is actually not high; 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 a champion pool loophole, he couldn't play unpopular heroes like Vex, otherwise Red Rice wouldn't have needed to keep those two heroes on the ban list.

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

"Both sides are moving fast; it feels like they already had a pick-and-ban plan for the first game!"

Although they were on the red side, TES didn't prepare to solve the problem peacefully in the first game.

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

"EDG counters with the Draven and Renata combination; they also picked very comfortably. The first three picks are all meta-strong combinations." Remember examined the lineup on the left.

"However, Brother Shui might be very confident in this, after all, this is also his specialty!"

"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 pick-and-ban.

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 burst the bomb!"

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

【Classic, once he hits Draven, he bursts the bomb. Brother is starting to avoid the lane phase again.】

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

【Sacrificing again? Brother Coin said Vex against Sylas is just so-so; the main thing is 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 combination of Viego and Renekton, while TES picked the double-poke component Jayce they had planned for a long time. This is also why they had to ban Gragas, a strong engage option, in the first round.

EDG's lineup in the first game was relatively conventional, but they successfully obtained the most comfortable pick-and-ban options for 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 critiquing: "EDG's pick-and-ban is as good as ever; this is almost the most comfortable system they could pick... but TES's pick-and-ban also feels good!"

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

"And this TES lineup has merit; double poke + three strong engages. It seems they struck first in the first game!"

Entering Summoner's Rift.

The ten people were ready to step 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 ability is clearly limited.

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

And since the opponent had no intention of fighting, EDG naturally had no reason to seek a fight proactively.

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 matches!"

Guan Zeyuan on the other side nodded in agreement: "There are many ways to play Sylas, but most are based on small-scale fights and mid-game team fights. Only Player Ye's Sylas focuses on the lane 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 good at Sylas, and Vex should be quite a counter to Sylas..."

Knight couldn't help but have ripples in his heart when he saw this Ignite.

In the last lane phase, he had been stunned by Ye Bo's "desperate" Zoe lane phase.

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 suppress Yagao's Sylas in the previous match!"

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

Knight naturally wouldn't let go of the stage where it's easiest to suppress Sylas.

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

The most important pick-and-ban move White Crescent made in the first game was to release LeBlanc and Sylas; they tried to use Knight's Vex to counter them, attempting to break the pick-and-ban.

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

Although Sylas doesn't counter as hard as LeBlanc, he is still a very easy existence to play against.

This is all thanks to Vex's unique mechanism.

Vex's core skill is her passive, 【Doom】, where every once in a while she is surrounded by gloom, making the next basic skill used have 【Interrupt Mobility】 + 【Fear】 effects.

Sylas's strongest way to trade health at level one is to E in and hit a full combo; as long as he can E, he definitely won't lose the trade.

But against Vex, this way of trading health almost doesn't exist.

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

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

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 couldn't walk into the minion wave to play the game like Yagao chose to do in the previous match.

However, Sylas was pulling and hovering in the back at this time.

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

Knight's attention was highly focused, his eyes constantly jumping between the minions and Sylas, while also gauging the timing of the minions' attacks and whether 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 took half a step forward!

But Vex didn't raise her hand at the first moment—because the minions' attack interval had just passed; if she attacked now, she would be hit by at least two volleys from the back-row minions!

The next moment, Vex raised her limp hand to fire an auto-attack, while maintaining her position, her finger hovering over Q at all times.

But it was also at this moment.

Sylas suddenly dashed forward with 【Abscond】!

The light auto-attack was "caught" by the mobility in advance.

The altered attack interval also caused the minions to notice the enemy attacking their hero in the back earlier; the auto-attacks they were originally going to use suddenly turned to attack Vex.

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

This is actually why not many players practice "extreme operations" like carding auto-attacks.

Because the error rate is too high, and once an error occurs, the health trade can easily become a big failure, or even lose more than you gain!

But clearly, this wasn't Knight's mistake.

It was that both sides were calculating the minions' attack speed; Ye Bo cleverly used the method of instantly closing the distance to catch the auto-attack that should have been calculated just right.

However, Knight's handling was also very detailed; he didn't panic at the first moment, turned around to auto-attack the 【Gloom】 mark on Sylas, and immediately retreated, while firing Q 【Mistral Bolt】 forward.

Although the initial speed of Mistral Bolt is extremely slow, Sylas must move laterally to dodge, and Vex would have enough distance to not let the opponent use E.

Even though she had to tank the minions, Vex got a free passive auto-attack and could also take the minion wave by attracting minion aggro, which could be considered a level-one suppression.

Knight's handling was nothing if not detailed.

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

Sylas walked straight toward the Mistral Bolt, and just at the moment when he saw the mist wave suddenly accelerate and fly over—he threw the Abscond chain forward!

The Abscond chain and the mist wave passed each other.

And Sylas was plunged into fear by the Doom... only then did his figure begin to rise and fly forward!

Although 【Doom】 can interrupt mobility.

But if it's fear first, then mobility, naturally there is no such thing as an interruption.

Vex was knocked up for 0.5 seconds, and the fear synchronized with Sylas's landing disappeared, but Sylas had successfully stuck to her face, fiercely turning to throw two 【Kingslayer】 hits!

"Beautiful health trade! It looks like Knight failed the carding? He was caught right by Sylas!"

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

"Both sides should have had a game of wits; Sylas forcibly completed the mobility by using the 'control-canceling E' method, and Vex is still in the minion pile; the health trade is very bad!"

Both sides' skill cooldowns entered a vacuum period, and they peacefully ignored each other's farming.

Before level two, Sylas dashed forward again, actively triggering the mark of Vex's passive, baiting the opponent to turn back and auto-attack the passive.

But Knight was smart; he didn't play this game at all.

Because even if he hit the trade, the health gained would be limited, and once he was pulled, he would be focused by the minion wave.

If another level-one health trade came, the lane phase would likely have problems.

He knew very well that the most important thing when playing against Sylas is maintaining health; he would rather trade less than try to trade health without taking damage.

Ye Bo didn't expect the opponent to be so careful about safety in such matters!

However, his goal had been achieved; it could be considered that he had passed the most dangerous stage of level one.

"I can come at level three." Xiaotian had been switching screens to watch the mid lane.

"Hmm, I can flash and engage."

He picked the Lee Sin combination, which is extremely strong in the early game, clearly to mess with the mid-jungle. Seeing that the opponent even brought Ignite, he naturally couldn't let the opponent off easily.

The speed of a jungler reaching level three in the jungle will be a few seconds faster than the mid lane reaching level three.

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

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

"But Barrier is also in position!"

Seeing that the opportunity was ripe, Knight began to pace in place.

Seeing the moment Sylas walked up to farm, he flashed and feared him at the edge of the limit range of his W 【Personal Space】!

Because Vex's Q and E both have extremely obvious casting pre-swings and delays, the most stable control method is to use the close-range instant W as an opener!

Lee Sin instantly W-ed out and kicked out his Sonic Wave.

As long as they could focus fire on Sylas first, even if Viego was counter-ganking, the opponent couldn't win this wave.

After suffering a heavy blow, Sylas immediately retreated with a dash.

However, Ye Bo's personality wouldn't let him be hit for free; he turned around and E2-ed the Lee Sin on his face, following up with an AQ-AWA full combo.

"The damage of Sylas's counter-attack is very high! Player Ye didn't use Flash and turned back to counter-attack; he's really fierce!" Remember couldn't help but sigh.

"But he is actually very hurt because Sylas doesn't have TP. Being auto-attacked two more times like this, Sylas's health might need to go home!" Guan Zeyuan said as such.

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

Wang Duoduo presided over justice: "No way, Knight's Flash-W was too decisive. In fact, if Vex hadn't hit the first move like that, the 2v2 in the mid-jungle would still be hard to say."

"Maybe that's also why Barrier didn't come out?"

Yes.

Viego didn't come out this wave, and the reason was as guessed from the god's-eye view.

Because he was hit by Vex's extremely decisive forced Flash, Ye Bo knew very well that coming out for a 2v2 would definitely not win.

So almost the moment he saw Lee Sin, he shouted loudly at Barrier: "Don't come out!"

It was this sentence that affected the battle situation.

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 position at this moment was basically obvious.

"He must have gone to my red jungle! Dahuang, come, surround him!" Xiaotian excitedly sent instructions to the top lane.

"Knight, you follow me."

The burst of a level-three Sylas triggering 【Last Stand】 was still scary; Lee Sin was hit for half his health by a counter-attack, and his health was very unhealthy at this time; entering the jungle alone would likely lead to being ambushed.

Because the defensive vision in the top jungle had just disappeared not long ago, they could be sure 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, looking at Sylas, who was low on health and drinking a potion under the tower; considering the opponent still had Flash, he gave up the idea of forcibly diving the tower.

The two circled in from the small path outside the F6 pit, one after the other.

"Xiaotian is so cautious; not only did he not choose to take the risk of walking from the river, but he even called Vex to go together!"

"In this case, I feel Barrier doesn't have much of a chance... Hey!?"

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

Viego was crouching below the river; seeing the opponent circling from the side, he stood in the shadow of the river wall corner and began to charge his W.

Barrier heard Ye Bo say he could fight, so even though he knew the opponent was two people coming together, he still didn't flinch.

Calculating the time in his heart, he activated 【Harrowed Path】 and walked into the corner.

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

【Blade of the Ruined King】 directly hit Lee Sin in the face!

"Ah?" Xiaotian screamed in surprise, but immediately noticed below: "Look at Sylas!"

"Sylas seems to have come!"

Knight naturally didn't need him to say it; he also knew that Viego's damage alone wasn't enough to kill Lee Sin, so he held onto his skills at the first moment.

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

They saw Sylas moving upward on the mini-map, but didn't know where he wanted to come from; while they were still thinking.

They had already seen a surprising scene.

Almost at the moment Viego began to charge his W, the low-health Sylas ignored the minion wave from his own tower, took two steps to the wall—and then, with extreme decisiveness, flashed into the river bush above!

Landing and dashing forward, he even seemed to perform a strange "twist" in the bush.

Immediately following was an 800-yard long chain thrown forward!

Aimed straight at Lee Sin!

Fortunately, Knight had subconsciously placed a ward in the river bush the moment Viego appeared, and also saw Sylas flashing down the wall at the first moment.

Viego's 1.25-second full-charge 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 block the skill with her body.

But Knight was already prepared to respond.

Sylas flashed down the wall, which meant that once he used E to dash over to supplement damage, he couldn't run away again; this wave would at most be a 1-for-1.

And a 1-for-1 would definitely be a collapse for Sylas!

Because he didn't have TP!

Xiaotian thought the same; he didn't have any nervous thoughts at all. At worst, he would treat it as a successful gank using his life; this was definitely not a loss for the jungle position.

Sylas's second-stage Abscond was thrown.

"???"

"Why is this #￥!"

The two were stunned.

Because there was vision in the bush, they watched Sylas's figure take off—and then "bump" into the wall.

The scene everyone expected to happen, Sylas's E skill naturally dashing over the wall.

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

《Wall-Bump Abscond》!

Not only that, even Sylas's W skill under the wall failed to pass through the wall.

Sylas finished his EW under the wall in an instant, then immediately took a step back, and used his Q skill to supplement the final damage.

This caused the distance for the sleepy Poppy to not be enough to start W, and thus he couldn't immediately control and interrupt the opponent's attack!

Clearly looking close at hand.

But separated by a wall, it was now like a chasm!

"Viego supplements an auto-attack to complete the kill! Takes First Blood!"

"Vex doesn't have Flash and can't chase Sylas, who is 'far away' under the wall; facing Viego, who has possessed Lee Sin's body, he can only escape!"

"EDG fought a beautiful ambush counter-attack in the first mid-jungle confrontation... and why couldn't Sylas pass through the wall!?"

The commentary desk couldn't understand.

Because that operation was indeed a very unpopular, and one could even say "wicked," mechanism of Sylas.

It's roughly that Sylas can use the combination of long-range E + thin wall to complete a "wall-carding" in a sense through the collision volume of the chain and the judgment mechanism of the wall.

It's just that this wall-carding makes Sylas's E skill unable to pass through the wall, carding him outside.

Many times, dashing into the fray is entering a dangerous situation.

And this mechanism of being unable to complete the dash instead becomes a different kind of life-saving talisman!

【I get it, this should be the chain hitting the wall and being bounced back by the wall, so this move is called "Bump-Shock Abscond"!】

【I heard Tian was called Zhuge Tianliang during the northern expedition? No way, let my Ye Mayi give you a lesson!】

【Was Xiaoyu's brain stolen when the Ravager's axe split his skull? Daring to lean forward like this?】

【God's-eye view critique is like this; there was no one in their vision, who knew Viego would be crouching there? And this wave wasn't killed by Viego relying on it either!】

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

(End of chapter)