Chapter 151: Ghost Sand Soldier

From the God's-eye view, the Blue side's opening positioning was clearly quite strange.

After leaving the base, Kayn headed straight for the top lane.

He didn't pass through the jungle or the river at all, but went directly into the brush of the top lane minion wave, and kept moving forward.

"What does this positioning from Canyon mean? Is he trying to camp Aatrox?"

"But Brother Shengqiang Ge's positioning is quite conservative and steady; he's just standing inside the tri-brush to defend the jungle. There's definitely no reason for him to go to the minion lane."

Even those with the God's-eye view were somewhat confused.

At the same time, the EDG members were also setting up defensive vision in the jungle.

Clearly, picking such an extremely niche hero meant that DK must have designed something around it, and Level 1 was a high-risk node.

"Place wards in these two spots, throw the sapling here."

"We must hold our positions at Level 1. If they try to force their way in, we'll swap jungles. Don't fight a Level 1 team fight and let him steal energy."

Ye Bo was directing the defensive setup, and the four others were performing their respective duties.

But with the Level 5 understanding he had just acquired, he only had enough time in such a short, impromptu window to think of choices that could provide some slight restriction.

Yet, he couldn't fully anticipate Canyon's meticulous preparation.

At this moment, Kayn, who hadn't revealed his figure yet, finally began to act.

"This position!? What is Canyon trying to do!"

"Ah???"

"What kind of play is this!!!"

The LPL commentary desk let out a sharp cry.

Kayn was seen walking out of the brush, heading straight toward the opponent's top lane Tier 1 tower—to an outsider, it looked like he was trying to feed the tower!

But the moment he stepped out of the brush, Kayn activated 【Shadow Step】, and his body turned ethereal.

He transformed into a shadow, merging into the wall at the "edge" of Summoner's Rift.

And the terrifying part was... until Kayn walked under the top lane tower, and was even parallel to EDG's top lane Tier 1 tower.

There was still no information alert on EDG's mini-map!

The 7-second Shadow Step, combined with the 464-yard movement speed after activation, helped Kayn "side-pass" all the way from the edge of the map through the Red side's top lane Tier 1 tower.

Not until he landed behind the Tier 1 tower did he silently walk into the Krug camp, placing a ward over the wall into the Red buff brush.

【Holy crap, this really is an ultimate move!?】

【Kayn, traversing the universe!】

【Canyon, this Red is also here?】

【The power of the Third Uncle has finally unleashed! The King of Counter-Jungling is here!】

【Jie Ge, don't! Run away!】

The LCK fans, who had been stifled for two games, punched the air and shouted.

The LPL audience was deeply worried.

Because Maokai was starting at the Red buff!

Why start at Red?

Because—the bot lane was a hard-engage support.

The so-called hard-engage and soft-engage supports aren't just about whether the hero is ranged or melee, whether they play poke or engage, or whether they fight or lane.

Simply put.

The main role of a soft-engage support is: applying buffs (or debuffs), or simply dealing damage themselves. Their task in team fights is to survive as long as possible and provide more team utility.

At the same time, since most soft-engage supports are ranged heroes, they possess strong "poke" capabilities, making it easier to exert laning pressure.

The main role of a hard-engage support is: landing decisive crowd control skills, restricting the opponent's key carry, and then soaking up damage.

Although most hard-engage supports don't have strong poke, they inevitably have stable crowd control, and many have skills like "hooks" that can seal the deal, making it easier to find kill opportunities.

Therefore, relatively speaking, hard-engage supports must "find fights" as much as possible to exert their most direct impact.

This is also the reason why soft-engage supports have become mainstream in the bot lane this patch.

Aside from the most critical contest for lane priority.

More importantly, in this patch, both the mid and jungle have a main carry, and unless the bot lane has the ability to crush the lane, the safest bet is to shift toward team utility to a certain extent.

For Canyon, it didn't make much difference whether he counter-jungled the Red or the Blue.

Anyway, as long as this infiltration was successfully implemented, he could at least steal one side of the jungle, and it was very likely to result in a three-jungle-camp start.

What's more, this wave clearly had an unexpected harvest.

"Stole it!!!" CT Ge, whose mentality had collapsed, sat up from his deathbed: "Maokai, who learned E at Level 1, doesn't clear the jungle fast! And he just happened to pull the Red buff into the brush, right into Kayn's face!"

"Kayn used Smite to reach Level 2! He still wants to chase Maokai, but Maokai used Flash directly!"

"With this, the top jungle is going to fall!"

Hearing Jie Jie's hoarse shout suddenly come through the voice chat.

Ye Bo, who switched his screen over, was also shocked to see this scene.

"Where did he come from!" Jie Jie's tone was full of confusion.

"Yeah, I was guarding the tri-brush the whole time, and Ye Master told us both to watch the brush at the Dragon Pit entrance, there was no way he could have come through..." Brother Shengqiang Ge was even more confused.

"No, I have to go to his Red side!"

Jie Jie, who was physically "red-hot" (angry), subconsciously wanted to swap jungles.

After all, he was only Level 1, and the top half of the jungle definitely couldn't be defended.

But at this moment, Ye Bo, having surveyed the battlefield, had his thoughts racing.

"Wait, Jie, don't go. Hurry up and clear our Blue side first."

Ye Bo put himself in the opponent's jungler's shoes, using his own logic to think about the opponent's potential follow-up chain of attacks.

He thought of a possibility.

If Maokai just went to swap jungles, what if Kayn didn't choose to finish clearing the top half, but instead chose to circle back and ambush Maokai?

Whether they could win a 2v2 was secondary.

The problem Ye Bo truly realized was—that way, Kayn could steal a huge amount of energy!

"Jie, listen to me. If Kayn comes to find you later, be decisive and just give him the jungle."

"Just go and hard-swap the jungle this game. Even if you fall behind in growth, it doesn't matter."

Jie Jie seemed to understand what Ye Bo meant.

"Understood!"

Under the pitch-black shadow of the God's-eye view.

After Kayn stole the Red buff with Smite, he didn't go to clear the closer Krugs, but turned toward the F6.

Kayn's jungle clearing mainly relies on his Q skill; two stages of AoE damage plus a short cooldown are enough for fast clearing.

And just after quickly finishing the F6, he immediately walked toward the river, hugged the wall to activate Shadow Step again, and quickly crossed from his own Tier 1 tower back to the bottom jungle.

But when Canyon entered his own Red jungle for a thorough search.

He was stunned to find that Maokai hadn't come over at all!

"He's not even coming?"

From the first game's Lee Sin, it was clear that Canyon was a jungler who valued jungle resources extremely highly; he couldn't accept the loss of his own resources, and could almost be described as someone who would haggle over every ounce.

And the situation this time was completely different from the first two games.

Maokai not coming meant he had defaulted to losing two jungle camps in the top half, which was even a bit hard to make up for.

But even so.

Canyon still wasn't prepared to put down his spear of attack.

"Everyone check your positions, I'm going to find Maokai."

Having finally successfully executed a counter-jungle this game, Canyon was ready to flex his muscles, and even the expression on his face seemed to reveal a long-lost ferocity.

Although because the opponent didn't come to the Red jungle, the "level gap" between the two sides was temporarily smoothed out by "travel time," and Maokai must have leveled up by the time he rushed over.

But Ye Bo's thinking was very correct.

Canyon's main goal wasn't to kill Maokai, nor was it even to counter-jungle.

He just wanted to find Maokai to fight—to accumulate energy!

Walking into the jungle and finding the Blue buff gone, but the Gromp still present.

He immediately activated Shadow Step again and rushed toward the Wolves to find Maokai's trail!

Seeing Kayn appear, Maokai immediately kited and retreated, using his last Q to kill the big wolf before turning around and leaving without looking back!

"This!?" The three people on the LPL commentary desk were all stunned.

"Jie Jie is losing a lot here. Actually, the state of both sides isn't that different, and this is still in his own jungle!"

"Kayn finished eating the two small wolves first, turned around to hit the Gromp, and then went straight back to base!"

"The Third Uncle still didn't go back to clear his own Red jungle. He left the base and went straight top, still wanting to hard-ambush Maokai who was trying to head to the opponent's Blue jungle!"

The commentary desk clearly hadn't grasped Maokai's idea.

But Canyon realized it.

Yet, just as he called Gragas and Sylas to surround and attempt to forcibly arrest Maokai in the top jungle, he found that Maokai had actually only hit a Blue buff and left the top half early!

"This person..."

Canyon's originally relaxed expression suddenly changed.

On the surface, Maokai was losing a lot.

Even if he turned around now to kill the only remaining Krugs in his top half, for the first wave of jungle camps, Maokai had barely managed to eat 4 groups.

Of course, because Kayn had been constantly looking for Maokai, he hadn't gone to clear his bottom Red jungle, so he had actually only eaten 5 groups.

But more importantly—with such a smooth counter-jungling start, he hadn't even been able to touch Maokai once!

Kayn's first wave of offensive ended, and he needed to clear the jungle temporarily.

The fighting in the jungle ceased temporarily.

The director switched back to the Erlang Shen view, presenting the laning phase of the three lanes.

Picking Gragas top this game was Danny's idea; since they couldn't break through, he simply let the two top laners farm against each other.

Let the top laner take on more team utility.

As for the bot lane, picking Lucian and Nami was for the sake of attacking, but EDG didn't pick a farming main carry, so the imagined war didn't break out too early.

The most frequent trading of health... was actually in the mid lane!

Provided that one-sided beating also counts as "trading health."

"ShowMaker chose the {Fleet Footwork} + {Doran's Shield} laning approach this game, probably wanting to forcibly compete for lane priority with health, ensuring that the jungle invasion wouldn't fall into a passive state."

"But why does it feel like he's under so much pressure!"

ShowMaker is a player with no hero pool weaknesses.

He naturally knows how to play Sylas, a version staple, and has practiced it.

But clearly, this hero isn't in his most proficient sequence, and his mastery can only be considered medium at best.

In fact.

Just during the break, ShowMaker had raised his hand to signal: "Coach, I want to play Syndra!"

Syndra is definitely ShowMaker's favorite, and also his "bottom-line" hero.

It's just that because her strength in the durability patch is indeed not high, almost no one plays her in professional matches.

But in such a desperate situation, he also wanted to choose his most confident signature hero like Canyon—to compete with Ye Bo!

But there was no way.

The foundation of Danny's BP this game was Sylas.

And ShowMaker knew his Sylas wasn't top-tier, especially after understanding this opponent's laning strength in the first two games, he knew it was difficult to use the most common Sylas laning method.

Not to mention anything else, just the accuracy of an E skill; missing one could potentially be fatal.

He absolutely didn't want to be solo-killed again.

But ShowMaker had his own understanding and ideas.

Aside from rune and equipment choices.

Sylas would also often deliberately give Azir the distance to Q, but not the distance for a point-blank Q, wanting to bait the opponent into attacking—and then rely on reaction to use E to dodge!

You have to know.

Q is not only the only way for Azir to command his sand soldiers, but also Azir's main skill to level up, and the one with the highest mana cost!

Not to mention that Azir using Q is equivalent to using W once in combination.

In comparison, Sylas's E1 is originally a non-damaging displacement, so it won't have any impact.

As long as Sylas can successfully dodge Azir's Q, not only can he prevent the opponent from controlling the sand soldiers to affect the minion wave, but he can also greatly drain the opponent's mana, and turn around to seize lane priority!

The first two times were successful.

But just after Ye Bo discovered the opponent's intention, everything started to change.

"I'm going... why does Ye's sand soldier Q seem 'invisible'!?"

"No wonder ShowMaker's fast-reacting E still hasn't dodged it much!"

"Because he can't see the sand soldier's path at all!"

When commanding the sand soldier to poke again with 【Conquering Sands】, Wang Duoduo finally discovered the clue.

The sand soldier that rushed out actually "disappeared" from its spot the moment the hand was raised... yet it still left a blood mark on Sylas!

The principle isn't complicated.

It's just because {the sand soldier disappears when it reaches its point, but it doesn't cancel the Q command}.

Therefore, as long as you use the Q skill the moment the sand soldier dissipates, it will cause the sand soldier to displace through "air" when poking—forming the effect of a "Ghost Sand Soldier"!

ShowMaker's reaction was already fast, always able to react when Azir had the Q motion.

But from the enemy's perspective, that sand soldier had no movement trajectory at all; even if he reacted, he wouldn't know where the opponent was poking!

So ShowMaker was effectively eating all of Azir's skills, which is why his health remained so unhealthy.

Laning against different heroes requires different solutions.

In the first game, Ye Bo chose to bring {Lethal Tempo}, wanting to use the attack speed effect to assist in pushing the lane.

And this game, facing Sylas, a hero who is clearly easy to lane against, he chose {Arcane Comet}, which has the highest poke damage.

Azir's early damage is indeed very limited.

So even if he achieved this level, it was still very difficult to pose a "fatal" threat to Sylas.

But it was enough to maintain health suppression at all times, and thus be able to grasp lane priority at all times.

That was enough.

Time reached five minutes.

Aside from occasionally wandering to the top lane to try something, Kayn almost never ganked, putting all his energy into the jungle—because in this EDG composition, only the top and jungle are melee, capable of providing "Red Energy."

But when the second wave of jungle camps refreshed, the same plot played out again.

If you want to counter-jungle, then the jungle is yours.

But if you want to fight me, no way!

However, Jie Jie would still occasionally deliberately give a position, letting the opponent "touch" him once, and then immediately Q to face-tap and "run away."

Because Ye Bo had reminded him before.

"You can occasionally give a position, let him touch you once..."

That is because of the "compensation mechanism" of Kayn's passive: {If too much time passes without touching any energy, the multiplier for the next energy gain will increase}.

But if he touches even one energy point in between.

No matter what type of energy it is, it will reset this timer!

Of course, avoiding battle like this isn't without a price.

"Canyon's jungle... his CS is already double! His counter-jungling rhythm is too good!" Guan Zeyuan seemed very worried.

"If it weren't for the fact that EDG's top and bot lanes have support capabilities, and the mid lane has lane priority, so Kayn couldn't go too deep, I really feel like Maokai wouldn't even have the right to breathe in the jungle!"

"The only good news is that Maokai's frantic avoidance of battle has resulted in Kayn's energy bar being almost empty even now..."

Time reached six minutes.

The CS difference at the peak moment for both junglers was 21 to 42, Level 6 vs Level 5.

However, despite having such a huge jungle advantage.

Canyon's Kayn had never, and couldn't, actively start the Dragon.

Because before Kayn transforms, he has absolutely no ability to fight for resources!

In the early game, Kayn can counter-jungle like this by relying on his two major mobility skills, QE, which allow him to repeatedly cross all the walls in the jungle, making him impossible to guard against, and bullying a herbivorous jungler like Maokai in a 1v1 is also no problem.

But, if it's a head-on team fight.

Even a Level 6 Kayn, it's really hard to say if he's more useful than a Level 5 Maokai in a team fight!

This is why Ye Bo needed to have the bot lane pick Kalista.

Even if they clearly weren't playing for the bot lane this game, and it was definitely a farming composition—but only Kalista could keep the combat power gap between the two bot lanes small.

In this way, unless DK could achieve a breakthrough in the side lanes, fighting for the Dragon head-on wasn't necessarily easy, and might even be giving the opponent an opportunity.

Seeing that there was really no hope of breaking the deadlock in the jungle, Canyon.

Although he was very reluctant to "pollute the energy pool," he knew the importance of rhythm even better.

So he decided to try a breakthrough.

And the gap for the breakthrough was still the bot lane!

The worry Ye Bo had during BP was inevitably appearing.

Kalista can be said to be the ADC hero that relies most on operation, far from the formulaic choice of Caitlyn from the previous game, and even every passive auto-attack jump needs to be considered, heavily influenced by the state of the moment.

Even though Viper was concentrating as much as possible.

The influence of his state still caused him to make quite a few small detail errors during laning—like eating a few more 【Piercing Light】 shots from the minion sniping.

Solo queue players generally like hard-engage supports because it's easy to find opportunities in solo queue; if a hook lands, you can get a kill, and it feels more powerful.

But in professional matches, the hit rate of hooks is infinitely reduced!

Lucian can constantly perform one-sided poke, and Nami can heal him and amplify his bubbles, as well as coordinate the poke with her W waves.

In comparison, Thresh's poke ability is only his auto-attack!

Hooks cannot be thrown easily, otherwise, what awaits is a direct face-ride output from Lucian and Nami, a situation similar to facing Keria of T1 in the group stage.

Ye Bo couldn't keep an eye on the specific details of the bot lane laning all the time.

Kayn feigned leaving, but actually touched the wall behind the bot lane again.

"Maokai should have gone to the top half, this wave can be tried for a dive."

"If Maokai hasn't left, baiting him over to fight is also fine."

Waiting for the minion wave to enter the tower.

Kayn activated Shadow Step to check for vision, and after confirming Maokai wasn't there, he suddenly killed out from behind the tower!

"Jungler!" Meiko shouted immediately after discovering him.

Ye Bo also quickly switched his screen to check the moment the hero icon appeared on the mini-map.

But the reason he didn't sense danger was because the health of their own bot lane was still quite healthy, and it didn't seem that easy to dive.

Although Kalista had been poked down a bit, she was still some distance away from the danger line.

The only threat this wave was that Kayn had reached Level 6.

"Remember what I just said, Meiko!" Ye Bo reminded him again.

"Mm!"

Entering the tower dive phase, the difference between hard-engage and soft-engage supports was revealed once again.

Because soft-engage supports are squishy and have unstable crowd control skills, their ability to cooperate with teammates during dives and ganks is significantly inferior to hard-engage supports.

"I'll tank first!"

Kayn has an ultimate that can dodge tower aggro, so he walked into the tower first to get close.

He didn't use W to start tanking the tower early, but started with AQ to deal full damage, and incidentally wanted to bait out skills.

But Thresh didn't use any skills.

Instead, the moment Kayn rushed out with Q 【Reaping Slash】, 【Flay】 was immediately countered!

As everyone knows.

Kayn's Q skill is divided into two stages: first a dash, then a rotation in place after a short delay.

Both stages deal equal AoE damage.

And this skill can only be "interrupted" by crowd control like {knockback/knockup}, and it's not easy to interrupt—at least Maokai wouldn't find it easy to interrupt.

Maokai's Q has a 0.5-second casting delay.

Coincidentally, the second-stage delay of Reaping Slash is also 0.5 seconds.

This means that unless Maokai predicts and uses Q early, even if he uses Q at the same time, Kayn can still stably deal both stages!

If it weren't for this, Canyon wouldn't use Kayn to fight Maokai.

But Flay—is a long-distance knockback that "takes effect immediately"!

The second-stage rotation damage of Reaping Slash was interrupted.

Not only that, the first-stage dash was also immediately pushed backward due to the instant knockback of E, only hitting Thresh who was standing in front!

At the same time, Thresh backhanded his Q hook, aiming at Kayn—he knew it would be dodged, but he just wanted to force Kayn to use his ultimate!

That way, the opponent wouldn't be able to pull out of the tower to reset cooldowns and would only be able to R Thresh!

The Q skill didn't graze Kalista just now, so he couldn't select a target!

"Kayn's ultimate is very timely to dodge the hook! But he can't fly out immediately, Thresh is pulling him deep into the tower at the first opportunity!"

"The DK bot lane duo can't sell their teammate, they can only bite the bullet and follow, trying to use damage to burst Kalista!"

"Nami follows up with a bubble, but because there's no follow-up crowd control, Kalista uses 'QA double jump' to dodge quickly!"

Three people, only Nami's one bubble crowd control.

If it were Red Kayn after transformation, he could have used W to knock up at close range, then let Nami stably follow up with a bubble, creating a crowd control chain.

But now, they could only try to stack damage.

But Reaping Slash is Kayn's most important output skill, accounting for almost half of his early damage.

Being interrupted, and the ultimate failing to focus fire on Kalista.

Resulted in very poor tower-diving efficiency.

"Nami is tanking the tower on the edge, Lucian and Kayn want to forcibly kill Kalista," the Roaring Emperor was very nervous: "But the damage is a bit low, they're killing very slowly!"

"Kalista flashes backward to pull away, Kayn and Lucian both flash to chase, but Thresh suddenly flashes to attack Nami who is tanking the tower, Flash + A + Ignite!"

"Fortunately, Kayn still got First Blood first! Support and AD swapped, but they also need to take down a plating, it's worth it!"

"DK's early jungle offensive this game has been unleashed! They already have a gold advantage!"

The LCK commentary desk was very excited.

But Canyon's face didn't show the slightest joy.

Although Kalista would lose some experience, Thresh could eat the minion wave under the tower without wasting it, and Maokai could take the opportunity to go to the opponent's top jungle to make up for some growth.

EDG could actually really accept this.

And Kayn and Lucian's health were both beaten to a pulp by the defensive tower, so they couldn't turn around to take the opportunity to hit the Dragon!

This tower dive didn't achieve the ideal effect.

Thresh was the hero Ye Bo found at the critical moment of BP who could best "restrict" Kayn.

Q can hook Kayn who is drilling into the wall, W can drag Kayn's R target into the crowd, E can interrupt Q, and the ultimate can make Kayn eat a 99% slow when he comes out of R, making it difficult to escape!

Even if DK definitely profited from this wave.

But it really didn't change anything essential.

For no other reason—because Thresh is considered a ranged hero, all the energy Kayn stole this wave was "Blue Energy"!

It was useless!

The energy bars of Kayn's two forms don't "share progress."

In other words, Kayn actually has two independent energy bars that are "hidden"!

Getting Blue Energy, for Canyon who wants to transform into Red Kayn, has no effect other than the compensation mechanism for polluting the energy pool!

There are quite a few things that can restrict him this game, and the extra crowd control of Red Kayn has strategic significance in the professional scene, so he can only transform into Red Kayn this game...

Time reached 8 minutes.

Looking at growth alone, Kayn was absolutely explosively superior.

1-0 record, carrying a shutdown bounty, leading Maokai by one and a half levels of growth... the only problem is that he still hasn't managed to steal any Red Energy!

He really couldn't steal any!

Top lane is an oil can that doesn't cross the river; hard-camping is just a waste of time.

Jungler, he's already given you the jungle without fighting back, what else do you want?

Mid lane Azir is very hard to gank, and the bot lane has also been trying to avoid trading health.

Canyon was clearly already a bit hurried.

Both ADs were farming in the bot lane, and the four others were gathering, wandering near the Rift Herald.

"EDG seems to want to take this Herald! They called the support over, and it's Thresh who just ate the bot lane tower minion wave alone and reached Level 6!"

"It's hard to say if DK can fight, because Kayn hasn't transformed, his combat power is really very poor..."

The four EDG members weren't in a hurry to move forward.

After all, for them, farming is a natural advantage, and not fighting is the best choice.

But if the opponent wants to force the Herald, with the restraint of the Rift Herald, EDG has a lot of room to maneuver in the Dragon Pit terrain, and definitely has the power to fight!

The first game had already demonstrated Azir's ability in the Dragon Pit.

But in the final analysis.

Kayn's jungle advantage is huge, but due to the special nature of this hero, he cannot exert the significance of his advantage before transformation, and needs to transform to exchange it for a doubled effect.

But DK acted as if they were forced into a corner.

The four of them suddenly drilled into the Dragon Pit and started hitting the Herald!

"Watch out for Gragas and Sylas, he's stealing my ultimate this wave." Ye Bo reminded.

"We don't fight if we don't have to, not fighting is profiting, they are more afraid of dragging than we are!"

"I feel like they might not fight to the end, they should still want to fight..."

Because watching the four opponents drill into the Dragon Pit, and the opponent also has a character like Gragas who can force an engage.

The four EDG members didn't rush to get close, but carefully stood in a position biased toward the lower river, unhurriedly waiting for the Rift Herald to consume some of the opponent's health and skills first.

But just at this moment.

Both commentary desks simultaneously realized the change.

"What does ShowMaker want to do!?"

"EDG needs to be careful!"

From the God's-eye view, one could see the four DK members who drilled into the Dragon Pit first place a Control Ward, confirming there was no vision inside the pit.

Then Sylas approached the wall... and actually pressed TP directly toward his own mid lane Tier 1 tower!

Both junglers were very busy in the early game, and tacitly didn't come to the mid lane.

Both mid laners also held onto their TPs.

For this reason, Sylas even fell behind by nearly twenty CS because he was suppressed by Azir's lane pushing.

But this reserved TP played a role!

The four DK members deliberately didn't pull the Herald into the pit, intentionally leaving it at the entrance to hit—ensuring the four EDG members could clearly see the Herald's health!

Their composition clearly didn't hit the Herald fast, at least it would take more than ten seconds, and EDG wasn't in a hurry.

However, Sylas had already landed in the back.

"He's here!!" The Roaring Emperor shouted with a long, hoarse voice.

"Show~~~maker~~~!"

Sylas suddenly flashed over the wall, starting with 【Flash + E + R】!

Flash over the wall + E1 displacement push instantly pushed out 【Emperor's Divide】, then followed up with the E2 chain, bringing himself forward as well.

Smooth and fluid, all in one go!

Although because Azir's Level 1 ultimate 【Soldier Count】 was only 5, the cross-section width wasn't enough to completely cover all four people, it still covered everyone except Thresh who was near the top!

ShowMaker's hand speed was already very fast.

However, it was still the mechanism of Azir's ultimate "from back to front," plus the operation of flashing over the wall.

Ye Bo reacted in the last half-second, barely managing to flash to the side and upward to dodge.

But the old man and the little sheep-man next to him weren't so lucky.

The position was too unexpected, and even if they reacted, they needed to decide whether to flash or not.

Maokai and Aatrox's bodies were instantly pushed toward the Herald!

At the same time, the tacitly cooperating Gragas threw 【Explosive Cask】 in a mid-air relay, directly blowing Maokai and Aatrox into the crowd and separating them from their teammates!

"It's over!!!" Guan Zeyuan let out a wail.

"This position is probably certain death, and that Herald is probably also..."

Wang Duoduo shook his head and sighed: "A perfect cooperation from DK's mid-top-jungle, using this Herald fight to execute a key design rhythm... eh?"

"Why haven't the remaining two EDG members left? Do they still want to save them!"

"It feels like they can't save them! If they get left behind together, this wave is going to explode!"

Gragas stunned them in mid-air with E, and Nami followed up with a bubble upon landing.

A perfect crowd control chain was unleashed.

Even if the two EDG members held Flash, being surrounded by four people like this, if they wanted to run, they would likely have to flash to their deaths.

"I can save one, you guys get ready to flash and click my lantern!" Meiko shouted loudly.

Thresh was the hard-engage support hero he played best, and his understanding and details were quite in place.

Meiko knew very well that if he threw the lantern at his teammates' feet at the first opportunity, what awaited him would be three or four vision wards being placed.

The two teammates would definitely not be able to pick up the lantern!

So he had to wait until the two teammates were free from crowd control, throw the lantern outside the opponent's range, and then let the teammates flash to pick it up, only then would there be a chance to save one.

But this still wasn't easy.

After all, four people had already surrounded the two, and if the opponent reacted fast enough, it was entirely possible for them to flash simultaneously!

But just at this moment... Azir suddenly rose into the air!

"Azir!!!"

"He doesn't have Flash! We can kill him, we can kill him!"

"Knock him down!"

Seeing Azir fly over, the DK crowd's excited noise rose and fell, as if they had seen prey walking right into a trap!

Kayn flashed outward directly, blocking the only path, wanting to use his physical body to "knock" Azir's E skill down!

Ye Bo didn't have time to explain.

Just as he acted, he gave a loud shout and pointed a mark on the map in advance.

"Throw the lantern here!"

Meiko didn't hesitate at all, throwing the lantern somewhat blindly.

But that position was clearly still a considerable distance from the two at the Dragon Pit entrance, and didn't seem like a position where they could flash and pick it up directly.

Of course—it also wasn't a position where the opponent could immediately place a ward.

When Azir passed through the lantern range, five imperial sand soldiers pushed out with shields, Emperor's Divide!

And just at the same time... Azir's figure separated from the soldiers.

He didn't reach the final landing, but instead rode the lantern car like a "mid-air turn," returning halfway, and timely collided with Kayn who came to block, hitting nothing!

It was as if a "yo-yo" had made a geometric turn!

"Lantern Geometric Emperor's Divide"!

The wall of imperial soldiers knocked the four people away, creating an escape route for the two teammates trapped in the encirclement!

"Run!"

Maokai flashed outward over the wall.

And because the enemies were all pushed far away, Aatrox didn't even need to use skills, just took a few steps and used E to flip over the wall.

"Ah?" Guan Zeyuan, who had just pronounced the death sentence, was stunned: "They can survive this too!?"

"Using the soul lantern as a guide, the imperial soldiers as a bridge, Azir forcibly saved his teammates who had already walked to the other shore!" Wang Duoduo shouted excitedly: "The mid laners of both sides are simply fighting head-on!"

"If that's the case, DK might not necessarily be able to take this Herald either!" Rita said, looking at the scene.

Although the two who were focused fire both dropped to half health.

But EDG, aside from Azir, all had their ultimates!

In contrast, the four DK members had almost used all their skills, and the Herald's health was still more than half, so it would take at least nearly ten seconds to hit.

But now, DK had no force-engage skills to interfere with Azir harassing them from outside the Dragon Pit.

Seeing EDG regroup and walk over again, Azir stood up his sand soldiers, full of deterrence.

In the end, DK still made the decision to retreat.

The three mid-top-jungle members absolutely didn't want to repeat the mistakes of the first game, and couldn't let the advantage they had worked so hard to build in the early game be reversed by the same plot again!

"DK very calmly chose not to continue hitting the Herald! If they don't give opportunities, they can continue to maintain the gold advantage. In this way, it's equivalent to... two Flashes for two Flashes and one TP?"

CT Ge just wanted to praise his team's decision, but suddenly discovered something: "Eh, wait, why does it seem like EDG actually profited!?"

"Of course they profited, we used two key ultimates, they only used one ultimate," the clear-headed Roaring Emperor said in a solemn tone: "Gragas's ultimate is two minutes, which means that within at least two minutes, we can't launch another attack on the Rift Herald..."

"Most importantly, Kayn didn't get much energy this wave either!"

"How could he be saved even like this, even like this!"

The gap between expectation and reality was too great.

Kayn receives an excessive amount of energy points for completing a "kill," much faster than the speed of slowly farming energy.

So this wave, if he could have killed Maokai and Aatrox together.

Even if he couldn't transform directly, it would be almost the same!

This is also the reason why DK made such a desperate attempt this wave, with a clear goal.

The Roaring Emperor realized his loss of composure and quickly made up for it: "But everyone don't worry, we DK still have nearly 1.5k gold advantage, the advantage is still in our hands!"

"Just wait steadily for the next wave of attacks!"

But unexpectedly.

The next wave of offensive didn't come until the 11th minute!

Because Kayn couldn't transform, his combat power in head-on resource team fights was too weak, and it was impossible to create the opportunities of the previous wave so easily again.

So Canyon made the most correct choice—using his gold advantage to farm his Mythic item ahead of time, playing for an equipment gap.

This decision was undoubtedly correct.

At 11 minutes, Kayn left the base carrying 【Goredrinker】 and immediately led the team to start the Dragon.

After finishing at 12 minutes, he turned to hit the Herald.

EDG chose to give it all up.

Because there was no need to compete.

The first Dragon at 11 minutes was destined not to be a Dragon Soul team fight resource that could accelerate the rhythm.

And the Rift Herald was finished at 12 and a half minutes, with only the last minute and a half of plating time left.

Although DK held a gold advantage, the only plating they actually took down was one in the bot lane, and the rest were basically advantages in the jungle.

Yet.

Holding nearly 1000 gold of positional advantage in the jungle, they just couldn't produce an effect outside the jungle!

Canyon's sense of urgency was very strong.

Seeing that there wasn't much plating time left, and with the passage of time, Sylas's laning in the mid lane was becoming increasingly difficult.

He simply went straight to the mid lane to drop the Herald, just to help the mid lane relieve pressure and exchange it for direct gold.

"Canyon... Kayn's Red energy bar is almost still empty, it's already 13 minutes!" The Roaring Emperor had changed from his previous ecstasy to being a bit nervous.

"A Kayn without transformation, whether it's ganking, team fighting, or damage, is really too far behind!"

"The previous Herald fight didn't yield much energy, it really hurts too much!"

The optimistic CT Ge also became worried: "EDG's members have also basically finished their Mythic items one after another, Kayn can't form a key equipment gap, if he doesn't transform again, his deterrence will drop in a straight line..."

"Maokai is farming the top half this wave, is there a chance to graze it!?"

The Herald was thrown mid, clearly posing no threat to Azir, so Maokai didn't come over, taking the opportunity to quickly clear his Red buff.

But Kayn, who had controlled the jungle for 13 minutes, could easily guess the opponent's position.

And this wave.

There was a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity.

Because of the dropping of the Herald, Sylas, who had been suppressed and unable to grasp lane priority to cooperate with the invasion, finally had the first opportunity to roam first.

Canyon looked at the mini-map with sharp eyes, his tone a bit urgent.

"His Flash isn't ready yet, he should be... farming the F6!"

Although there was no vision, Canyon had indeed guessed Maokai's position correctly.

ShowMaker trusted his partner's judgment extremely.

"Kill!"

Although Sylas had been suppressed quite miserably, he had successfully farmed his Mythic item.

Like Azir, both were building {Everfrost}.

It's just that one is the most common school for the hero, and the other is an "exclusive school" that almost only one person plays.

"Canyon and ShowMaker seem to want to move against the jungle again!"

"Jie Jie can't be greedy for the jungle this wave!"

EDG had protective vision at the entrance of the Red jungle.

It was precisely because of this that when Jie Jie saw the mid and jungle disappear, he didn't retreat directly as usual at the first opportunity.

Ye Bo was clearing the Herald under the tower, walked to the outer edge, and killed it with one A to break the Herald's eye.

But at this moment... he suddenly saw a Sylas lurking up the wall, rushing up from the F6 path next to him!

Following closely behind was Kayn, who had lurked into the wall.

"Careful!"

Because there was protection from the entrance vision, and it was right next to him.

Ye Bo didn't notice for a moment—these two opponents both had the ability to "cross mountains and ridges"!

Sylas rushed onto the wall and threw his E blindly, E2 strong chain, flying toward the F6 pit!

Binding a small chicken in blind vision, driving displacement!

Sylas, who had crossed two walls from the river to reach the F6 pit, instantly appeared in Maokai's face, threw out Everfrost to freeze him, and then backhanded to steal the ultimate and use it at close range!

"Caught him!!!" Two surprised shouts erupted from the LCK side: "DK mid-jungle unleashed power again!"

"This wave must kill Maokai! He has no Flash, let's see where he can run this wave!"

Everfrost can {root} for 1.5 seconds.

Combined with the 0.75 seconds of Maokai's close-range Nature's Grasp, it was enough to wait for Kayn's Shadow Step to reach the scene!

Maokai had no Flash, and because he had been avoiding battle by giving up the jungle, his equipment growth was very poor, and he was the only one among all EDG members who hadn't bought a Mythic item, clearly unable to withstand the focus fire of these two.

Yet, just in this scene.

Ye Bo's eyes also flashed with a different color.

"Jie Jie! Use that!"

"My direction here!"

Hearing this, Jie Jie understood, instantly recalling an operation cooperation Ye Bo had thought of on a whim a few days ago.

{Root effect, non-displacement skills can still be used}

Maokai, still being rooted, aimed at the two in his face, toward the direction of the mid lane, and knocked out his ultimate, Nature's Grasp!

The two DK members were rooted for an extremely short 0.75 seconds.

And just at this moment—a sand soldier was set up in the F6 pit.

ShowMaker suddenly realized something.

The next moment.

Azir was as light as a swallow, hands behind his back, flying straight back into the pit, but made a turn in mid-air—at the same time, five imperial soldiers pushed out with shields at a slightly strange angle in the mid-air turn!

The two were pushed and arched against the wall by the imperial soldiers, until they flipped over the diagonal wall and fell into the mid tower!

"Over the mountain, reversing into the garage"!?

ShowMaker had just realized this position and thought of this operation.

But fortunately, both of their health was very healthy, even if they were really pushed under the tower, it was absolutely impossible to die!

But.

That was clearly far from a simple "reversing into the garage."

Because ShowMaker and Canyon soon discovered in horror.

After landing, both of their names uniformly became 【Rooted】.

And for a full 4 seconds!!!

Terrifying double root!

"Nature's Grasp Emperor's Divide Martial Soul Fusion Technique"!

The control time of Maokai's R skill 【Nature's Grasp】 is 0.75 seconds to 2.25 seconds, which increases according to the distance the ultimate travels, reaching its full value at about 40% progress.

And in fact—【Nature's Grasp】 can actually "act multiple times" on the same person.

Not only can control be stacked multiple times, but damage can too!

As long as 1.5 seconds have passed after eating the first Nature's Grasp, and there is additional displacement to allow them to reach the next place where the vines spread, it can be done.

Of course, because the Nature's Grasp vines on a path disappear after being triggered, one must also change position.

This is also the reason why the angle of Azir's wall of imperial soldiers was slightly strange!

The "0.75 seconds" + "2.25 seconds" of the two-stage Nature's Grasp + the "1.5 seconds" of Everfrost finally formed this terrifying self-contained crowd control chain!

The defensive tower laser kept buzzing.

【Shifting Sands】 hitting the target refreshes W.

Azir summoned a third sand soldier, gained the W passive "Three Become an Army" buff, attack speed skyrocketed, and he poked fiercely at the two frozen under the tower!

One strike out, three guns, six holes.

The sand soldiers held sand guns, extremely fast, constantly penetrating and pulling out between the two shells, every strike seeming to bring out a spray of blood mist...

And the two bodies were just like punishment stakes, unable to move a single bit in place!

Watching all this with their own eyes!

【Shutdown!】

【Double Kill!】

A bizarre and transcendent scene was presented, and two announcements rang out.

DK's backstage fell into a dead silence.

The live broadcast room, however, seemed to be going crazy at this moment.

【Holy!!! Crap!!!】

【Eight hundred infantry! Breaking ten thousand thieves! This is the true hero's appearance!】

【The Heavenly King of Tower Pushing!】

【The yellow chicken's claws are restless, longing to fight!】

【What yellow chicken? This is—the Desert, Emperor!】

【Reversing the chrysanthemum!!!】

【Ye Master is still attacking! He's still saving this home!】

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 152 =====