Chapter 274: A Preview of the Asian Games with Friendly Fire? The Claw Arena

"Did the sun rise from inside Mondstadt? The Genshin brother is actually playing League of Legends on his day off!"

Ye Bo had just entered the game and wanted to interact, but the support Twitch in the all-chat box had already typed a {? with lightning-fast speed.

Twitch: {zhuaxiajuejiao!

Pyke: {wokanbudongpinyin}

Twitch: {Gank bot, then we're through!

Pyke: {bushibenren}

Aside from the two's passionate interaction, the random teammates in the chat box were also very excited, looking just like a cyber fan meet-and-greet.

Ye Bo was long used to this, waiting for the minion wave to arrive before entering serious mode.

This match, the Pyke was laning against the Azir he had faced on the professional stage before, though the last time Ye Bo faced Chovy, and there was naturally a significant difference compared to an Azir player in a solo queue match.

"Just like that match, a mid Pyke against Azir can use the hero's high base attack damage to E into his face at level one to proc Hail of Blades damage. But we can't make a move yet."

Ye Bo was half-talking to himself to interact with and teach the viewers in his stream, but his positioning was very far back, his eyes constantly glancing at the bottom of the mini-map.

He was waiting for Twitch to show his face.

In the bot lane, only the ADC had just appeared, and their own bot duo was already pushing the wave quickly; this was a common strategy for dealing with a level-one roaming Twitch.

Although both streams definitely had "moles" leaking information, the streams had a delay, so it was naturally impossible for the two of them to stream-snipe.

Ye Bo knew this Twitch support that Beryl loved to play very well, knowing the opponent couldn't possibly not mess with people at level one, and even specifically pinged a retreat signal to the top lane.

And just at this moment, Twitch finally walked out from behind the bot lane.

It looked as if he knew the opponent would definitely be on guard, so he simply gave up and walked back early.

Ye Bo caught a glimpse of Twitch appearing on the mini-map and immediately focused back on what was in front of him.

Spotting Azir's positioning error, he E-dashed forward!

However, Azir unexpectedly didn't retreat in the slightest, standing his ground to trade with his sand soldiers, which instantly made Ye Bo realize something.

At this moment, a Twitch suddenly popped out of the air behind him, shouting "Diu diu diu diu diu!"

"Damn it!"

Although Azir was only level one, the three stabs from Hail of Blades still dealt damage, not to mention the well-known combat power of a level-one Twitch with Ignite and full stacks of his passive.

Pyke had used his E to go in, so he simply didn't burn Flash to avoid a chain reaction, and in the end, the kill was taken by Azir, who flashed to chase and auto-attack.

By now, Ye Bo naturally knew why he had fallen for it.

The opponent's jungler, Neeko!

If Twitch was going to roam at level one, the jungler naturally had to lean toward the bot lane as much as possible to prevent the ADC from being tower-dived.

After Neeko's rework, the role first developed in solo queue was actually the jungle—after all, the "Disguise" ability was seen as completely useless during the laning phase before Ye Bo showed those magical strategies!

Moreover, once a laner goes missing, the side lanes immediately become alert, so at first glance, it really is more suitable for a jungler.

And since this was ranked, Ye Bo couldn't prioritize "stability" like in a tournament, so he didn't think too much when he saw "Twitch" appear on the mini-map.

"Haha, still took the bait, Master Ye~" Beryl, who had successfully orchestrated the play, was smug.

Beryl, who had arrived first, discovered Pyke wasn't taking the bait and looked at his own jungler, Neeko.

He immediately "directed" in the chat box.

Although there was no voice chat, the thinking of high-ELO solo queue players wasn't bad, and they knew exactly what it meant at a glance.

He directly used Smite to hit level two, turned into Twitch, and followed the ADC to lane—which was actually a disguised "gank" to lure him to the mid lane!

"Fine, fine, fine." Ye Bo waited for his respawn timer and sat up straight in his chair.

"So that's how the Genshin brother plays!"

Although he was caught once at the start, fortunately, there wasn't much pressure laning against Azir.

The biggest difference between ranked and professional matches is that teammate quality is extremely uncontrollable, and most have very poor discipline.

Just like how Azir took the kill with Flash; even though Beryl had pinged a caution signal to the mid lane, he was still interrupted by Ye Bo using the classic Phantom Undertow to cancel Shifting Sands, completing the arrest!

However, Beryl also followed up with a "fake roam," tricking the opponent's bot lane into tower-diving the AD, while actually camping in the back for a full half-minute without farming, completing a counter-kill.

At six and a half minutes, the bot lane recalled and went missing, creating a window to roam.

Ye Bo glanced at the minion waves on both sides.

Neither jungler had revealed their position, and both top laners were Ornn vs. Sion, so theoretically, neither should be at much risk of being ganked.

The pace of ranked isn't as tight and time-sensitive, and the dragon was still up; theoretically, this was the time when a 4v4 team fight was most likely to break out in the bot lane.

But Ye Bo chose to head to the top lane.

The reason was simple—because he felt the opponent would likely come to the top lane as well.

Giving up the first dragon was no big deal, but if he could take advantage of the time the opponent's four members were gathered bot to give the mid and top laners—the core combatants of the canyon team—an advantage, it would have a more significant impact on the fight for the canyon objectives.

Azir couldn't roam easily, so he stayed mid to push the wave and take plates, and as long as they could force the top laner's ultimate and create a cooldown difference, they could directly seize the advantage!

This was V5's classic playstyle, and also where the two's ideas overlapped.

Ye Bo guessed half of it right.

Beryl had indeed come to the top side... but his true goal wasn't the top lane.

It was the Pyke who "might" come to support the top lane!

Twitch was curled up in the corner inside the Dragon Pit, a position where he wouldn't be discovered by someone passing by the entrance, and the adjacent river had a fake ward placed—at the same time, near the wall below, there was a "Neeko" disguised as a {Honeyfruit} perfectly overlapping it!

The two of them, one high and one low, guarded the center line of the river.

If Pyke wanted to go top, there was no reason to risk walking through the opponent's jungle, which likely had vision wards, and no reason to take a long detour through his own jungle, where he might be engaged by the opponent's faster-arriving members.

The most likely path was the river.

After all, Pyke had the ability to {Stealth} and avoid vision; compared to his teammate Lillia, who would be easily exposed walking through the river, this was the fastest route!

And at this bottleneck, walking low would be discovered by the Honeyfruit Neeko, and walking high would be discovered by the vision Twitch had through the wall!

"Here he comes!"

A warning icon for Twitch's W 【Venom Cask】 appeared, and Neeko indeed saw Pyke approaching along the wall!

"Freeze him, freeze him!" Beryl frantically pinged signals, instructing Neeko to use E and R immediately.

However, Beryl had actually only guessed half of it right.

Because just as Neeko moved to cast her E ability and Twitch walked out from outside the Dragon Pit—a Lillia 【Swirlseed】 rolled out from the Blue Buff entrance not far to the left!

Lillia had indeed wanted to flank from behind the minion wave, which was the route where Lillia was most likely to complete an ambush.

It was just that because Ye Bo guessed the opponent's jungle-support duo had already taken their positions, if he wanted to intercept halfway, Lillia flanking from behind the minion wave would easily lead to the formation being split and disconnected.

Although Ye Bo didn't expect the opponent to be camping in this specific spot.

But this was the mandatory path out of the blue zone, and also the spot where he had pinged the signal to indicate the two should meet up!

His teammates didn't understand, they just blindly followed the commands of this ID.

Beryl watched the Swirlseed rolling toward him and decisively flashed forward to dodge, wanting to focus all his output on Pyke first!

Neeko had also used all her control with E and R, wanting to focus fire Pyke first.

Lillia's hooves stomped forward quickly to Q Twitch and cast her ultimate; Twitch auto-attacked one last time before popping his E to deal damage.

And the critically wounded Pyke, the moment he was freed from crowd control, immediately E-dashed over the thick wall behind him.

Neeko immediately followed with Flash to chase; she only needed two more auto-attacks to get the kill!

But just as Neeko crossed the wall, Pyke cast his R 【Death from Below】 from the bottom-left angle—he had actually used the wall's collision volume to "jump" back to the other side of the wall!

His E ability was still in the air as he turned back, and he followed up with a Flash forward to get into Twitch's face!

The ghost shadow flying back formed a large "V" shape in the middle of the river!

Neeko was a thousand miles away and couldn't provide follow-up damage, and Twitch, who had been woken up from the Lillia ultimate, had a chance to auto-attack to finish him off, but was instead stunned again by the ghost shadow that had returned at the limit!

"Holy cow!!"

Pyke stabbed out with a blade and followed with a double Hail of Blades auto-attack, coordinating with Lillia's Ionian Guillotine to directly execute Twitch first!

Neeko, who had crossed the wall behind, walked out belatedly.

Pyke had already walked toward the back, disappearing from vision to recover his passive's grey health.

Lillia went all out to snipe, and her sustained combat ability was significantly stronger than Neeko's; her Conqueror was already fully stacked!

Neeko was low health, and Lillia even stopped attacking and frantically pinged signals, letting Pyke E over again to steal the kill, ultimately securing a double kill!

【Turtle, what a cool V-shaped slash!】

【Is this the bond between V5's mid and support, the most familiar opponents!】

【Did the two of them secretly connect remotely under the table?】

【Interesting, an Asian Games preview, right? Looking forward to these two fighting it out at the Asian Games.】

【Ho ho, Pyke gnawed two more heads; I feel like I can already see smoke rising from Twitch's head~~~】

After Pyke got his first item, Prowler's Claw, Twitch no longer dared to show himself and get close.

After all, Prowler's Claw combined with Pyke's E ability, as long as he could press it to the limit, could almost achieve an unreactable forced crowd control!

Not to mention he was a squishy hero like Twitch with no mobility; without Flash, there was no way to counter it.

Yet, Ye Bo really did have a bit of a "vendetta" in mind; for several consecutive minutes, he spent the whole game hunting Twitch!

"Aish, hey, why are you doing this, we're all brothers, man!"

"Damn it."

Beryl's stats quickly began to look a bit ugly; he was clearly getting a bit desperate from being killed.

He started pondering some bad ideas.

Although he didn't play much Pyke, this thing was a support hero after all, so he had some understanding of it.

The reason Pyke's power spike comes with Prowler's Claw is very important: approaching a target no longer requires burning the key E ability for mobility; Prowler's Claw can be used instead.

Not only does it increase damage, but the margin for error is also greatly improved!

So, how can one force Pyke to use his E to close the distance instead of using Prowler's Claw?

Go over a wall.

Prowler's Claw requires a target to dash and has a significantly shorter cast range than his E; generally, as long as an enemy goes over a wall, they easily exit the target range, forcing him to use his E skill to cross the wall.

Twitch came to the mid lane again to provoke them, even flashing an emote.

Pyke, having killed to his heart's content, didn't put up with it either, immediately starting with his W to stealth and approach; regardless, he had Flash and his own jungler was nearby, so he almost completely ignored the Azir beside him.

Seeing this, Twitch hurriedly went into stealth and ran toward the wall behind him.

Just as Pyke was about to get within Prowler's Claw range, Twitch decisively flashed over the wall!

Ye Bo was stunned for a split second, but still steadily placed a ward over the wall to confirm no one was behind it, only then decisively using his E to dash over the wall.

But at the very moment he vaulted over the wall.

The "Blast Cone" in the distance suddenly transformed and flew out, tossing out E - Tangle-Barbs!

To ambush Pyke, Neeko had deliberately hidden far in the back disguised as a Blast Cone, not hesitating to use Flash to close the distance at this moment!

Ye Bo reacted extremely quickly, raising his dagger to simultaneously cast his R - Death From Below to trigger {Crowd Control Immunity}, tanking the root from the Tangle-Barbs to instantly slash behind Twitch—while simultaneously bringing the phantom from his E skill to strike!

Twitch fell rapidly, but the Azir nearby had already arrived with an EQ drift, coordinating with Neeko's ultimate to land and begin dealing damage.

Pyke flashed over the wall as soon as the crowd control ended, but Azir, who had been prepared and sticking close, also flashed over the wall at the same time.

From below the wall, he used his R in reverse to push Pyke back up against the wall!

"Nice!!!" Beryl exclaimed excitedly in front of his screen, acting as a fountain commander: "That's it!"

At this moment, Pyke had Neeko in his face and Azir dealing damage from across the wall below; he was blocked on both sides.

Even though his own jungler was on the way, it looked like there was no way to escape.

Pyke seemed to be making a final death struggle, beginning to charge his Q - Bone Skewer.

But when the Bone Skewer was released, it wasn't aimed at the Neeko in his face.

It was aimed at the Azir below the wall!

Azir, whose movement stuttered, failed to dodge, but he wasn't panicked—after all, Pyke was already at critical health; whether Pyke hooked Azir closer to the wall to Prowler's Claw over it, or hooked Azir up to make it a 2v1.

Pyke, with no Flash, no ultimate, and no E, had no reason to escape; he would live for at most another second!

However.

Seeing the Bone Skewer just as it grabbed Azir, with Azir's body just leaving the ground, a gray light instantly erupted around Pyke, and he pressed Prowler's Claw after a half-second delay.

The next moment.

Azir and Pyke "passed each other" face-to-face in mid-air.

Forming a "Position Swap"!

Pyke shuttled to below the wall, while Azir was pulled onto the wall!

"??" Beryl's eyes widened as he stretched his neck forward: "He can even survive this!?"