Chapter 276: Version Overhaul!

As the Summer Split approached, the discourse on major esports forums grew lively once again, with discussions covering gossip such as the Asian Games roster and transfer rumors.

That was until one week before the opening match.

League of Legends officially released the 13. 0 mid-season rework, which instantly hijacked the topic of conversation.

The comment count under the official release channel on {Zhangmeng} instantly surged past 999+.

【666, not even pretending to be subtle anymore, this is just blatant! Classic 1-on-1 nerf to the MSI champions, right!】

【Holy crap, Statikk Shiv is back, I'm clean!】

【Master Ye's intel was spot on, Prowler's Claw really lost its dash, designer, I'll f*** your...】

Aside from those venting their emotions, there were also some players seriously discussing the analysis.

Though it still carried a bit of that signature Zhangmeng flavor.

【To be fair, this is correct. It shows the designers finally realized how stupid and hard to balance it is to give dashless heroes a dash through items. You know how many heroes and players ended up in places they shouldn't be because of this thing? If you ask me, they should've deleted Galeforce too.】

【↑ What kind of understanding can a Platinum 2 player have? The designers can't balance the numbers themselves, don't blame the items for their incompetence!】

【↑ You Platinum 1, shut up too (Diamond 4)】

【↑ You, you...】

As everyone knows.

League of Legends has two major updates every year: one at the end of the season and one in the middle.

And every update brings a massive amount of subversive changes.

Like the "Durability" update, which lasted all the way to the S12 World Championship and could be called the most far-reaching change of the second half of the year, it was released on this very day last year.

This year's mid-season update, while not as intuitive as the Durability update at first glance, is buried with many fuses that may similarly continue to influence the entire S13 season.

"Since it's hard to schedule scrims right now, Beryl and I can only go over a few key points."

Ye Bo stood by the small blackboard in the preparation room, with a teaching assistant from the logistics department helping him operate it.

Beryl, having just returned from home, was sitting on a recliner nearby, vengefully devouring a basin of watermelon.

"First is the item changes. Over a dozen crit items have been overhauled; Kraken Slayer, Shieldbow, Prowler's Claw, and Imperial Mandate have all become Legendary items; while Infinity Edge, Navori Quickblades, and Guinsoo's Rageblade have become Mythic items. Plus, the return of Statikk Shiv."

"The strength of Statikk Shiv currently looks a bit overtuned. It should spawn quite a few playstyles that fit certain heroes, thereby changing the bot lane ecosystem."

Compared to the "downgrading" and "upgrading" of several Mythic and Legendary items.

Most veteran players had their attention drawn to the returning 【Statikk Shiv】!

This item, which had existed since the game's launch, was removed at the end of S10.

The reason for its removal was the word "Balance"!

It wasn't that it was truly that broken; it was just too hard to balance.

In its prime, it was no less impactful than Divine Sunderer was for certain fighter heroes; its crit-capable passive simultaneously provided wave clear, burst, and damage stats.

But later, after the passive was no longer allowed to crit, it became too weak, turning into a pure wave-clearing tool that required a full item completion to be useful, eventually being perfectly replaced by Tiamat.

With this return, the designers must be confident they can balance it.

And besides the crit items, which saw the biggest changes, support items and fighter items were also almost entirely overhauled—the changes to dozens of items will undoubtedly bring many unexpected shifts to the competitive scene in the second half of the year.

"We can only test these items slowly; I have some ideas too," Ye Bo flipped to the next page.

"But for this version, the most important thing isn't the items, but the changes to the game's own nodes."

Homeguard activates earlier, river Blast Cone generation is delayed, turret plating becomes tankier, and Teleport unlock time is accelerated.

Four changes, all aimed at "slowing down" the game.

And if these four changes only looked a bit like they were "targeting" V5, the best team at using fast-paced tactics at MSI, it couldn't quite be called a precision strike.

Then the real main event, the 【Mid Lane Minion Wave】, was truly quite pointed.

Why has the mid lane always been seen as the most critical core position that can influence the entire game?

There are many reasons, but one is absolutely unavoidable.

Minion wave speed!

As the shortest lane, the time it takes for mid lane minions to meet has been about 10 seconds faster than the side lanes for ten years.

This 10-second natural gap is the "underlying logic" of why the mid lane is the easiest to influence the situation!

This has nothing to do with a hero's wave-clear speed—even if there is a difference in mid-lane wave clear, because of the time difference in side-lane waves, one can still force a gank in another lane while lagging behind the opposing mid-laner.

This is why the "lane-bound spirit" mid-laner is so heavily criticized.

It's because in the past, even if you really couldn't push better than your opponent, as long as you wanted to, you could still have gank opportunities!

It was just that moving late meant taking more risks; the "lane-bound spirit" was just to avoid taking those risks.

But from now on.

This piece of underlying logic has been completely changed!

Version 13. 0 officially adjusted the minion logic that had been in use for 13 years, giving side-lane minions a {movement speed} bonus to ensure the meeting time of all three lanes is consistent!

In short:

From now on, the difficulty for mid-laners to roam and gank has greatly increased, and as long as they roam, they will inevitably have to bear the risk of falling behind.

Even if you have a huge advantage in lane, it's hard to avoid!

After hearing the analysis, Xun showed a look of sudden realization: "It really does seem to be that way. No wonder I saw online that people were saying this is targeting us..."

Flandre also nodded in agreement: "Hard to say if it's targeting, but it definitely feels like it has a significant impact."

Beryl was even more blunt: "Hey, it is targeting, nerfing the champions after MSI is a tradition~"

"And such a big change couldn't have been thought of recently. I seriously suspect it's been in the works since Master Ye debuted last year!"

Everyone knows V5's most proficient and powerful playstyle.

It is to stir up the tempo from the mid lane, use fast-paced resource fights and small-scale skirmishes to rapidly expand the gold lead, and finally supplement it with an extremely clean ability to close out games.

And this mid-season update is not only intentionally slowing down the tempo, but the intent to target the mid lane is also truly obvious.

"Actually, it might not necessarily be targeting~~" Ye Bo was still smiling and joking, looking completely unaffected.

"Just because what we use gets nerfed doesn't mean it's targeting us. It should actually prove that we found the version answer! It means the designers also think we're right!"

"No matter how it changes, there will always be new answers; we'll just find them again~"

"Besides, I actually feel like this version can still be played at a fast pace."

Deft, who had been silent on the side, looked at Ye Bo, feeling a bit moved.

Over the half-year they had spent together, he increasingly felt that mindset from the other person—as if he could never be struck down, always maintaining the most optimistic attitude.

Deft felt he was already someone with a good mindset, but seeing the other person, he still felt a bit inferior.

May 29th.

V5's newly expanded home stadium in Longgang, Shenzhen, the opening day of the LPL had officially arrived!

"Our new home stadium is pretty good, quite impressive!"

Ever since He Youjun invested heavily in building the V5 team this year, the original small home stadium for a bottom-tier team wasn't quite enough, so they simply expanded it.

And what was originally just a simple expansion was scheduled to finish after the Spring Split—but later, because V5's results were so good, they kept increasing the investment, and TJ Sports also gave policy support, promising to host the LPL playoffs here and share the ticket revenue to help recoup costs.