Chapter 300: A Multiple-Choice Question with Only One Answer!

"V5's lineup..." Sun Yalong squinted as if his eyes were failing him: "I feel like if this Kindred doesn't get fed, it's over! No one can move the frontline; how are they going to break TES's iron-clad, steel-door defense? TES is just too tanky here!"

However, as he spoke, he seemed to think of something and immediately contradicted himself.

"No, no... AP Varus, it could be AP Varus!"

"AP Varus can move the frontline, I get it now! It looks like Wei Yi has been watching our climbing strategies too! He's one of the 'color bros'!"

【Who are you?】

【Forgive the bald guy; in this life, other than loving that original meme about Pan Hui from Anhui, even the hair on his head was stolen. Kind-hearted folks, just let him satisfy his cravings.】

【Holy crap, what is Wei even trying to do?! Playing the Monkey King in the first game was one thing, but in the second game, he's actually playing Poppy the Skull-Cracker!】

【Run, Xiaotian!!! Quick~ put on~ your helmet~】

【Sigh, if you were going to play Poppy, why didn't you call my Brother Tian up? I ask you, is there anyone on this stage who understands Poppy better than him? Don't you know what it means to become a great doctor through long-term illness?】

【It's bad, V5 is so damn insidious, actually picking Samira, this big spinning top, to fight Top Esports' little spinning top. This bottom lane is about to become a 'Top Fighter' arena~】

But truth be told, Ye Bo was indeed prepared to play AP Varus this game.

AP Varus had appeared in solo queue before, but it was merely an "entertainment" build; it was basically extinct in high-ELO and professional play.

But in fact, Varus's W and R abilities both possess extremely high AP scaling.

The W, in particular, is the noble {maximum percentage health damage}, while the R is a skill with a 1. scaling, which is higher than many traditional mages' ultimate abilities.

The reason it isn't seen is simple.

The most core point is: "Can't clear the wave!"

Because Varus's Q and E abilities have zero AP scaling, going AP means you can only rely on basic attacks to shoot; this alone is fatal in a professional scene where "lane priority is everything."

On top of that, AP Varus has a singular output method and is extremely reliant on items.

Building AP items makes him very weak in the early game before his ability power spikes, which perfectly avoids Varus's greatest strength—his "strong laning"—making it a case of putting the cart before the horse.

Having explained it this way, it's actually quite obvious.

The reason AP Varus can suddenly be played is, naturally, because of the existence of Statikk Shiv—it single-handedly smoothed out those two major shortcomings!

Statikk Shiv not only provides near-brainless wave-clearing ability.

More importantly, it provides "AD stats" in the early game, allowing him to perfectly utilize Varus's "strong laning" trait to get through the early phase, and it doesn't drag down the transition to AP items in the mid-game at all!

Of course, this only applies to the AP Varus playstyle.

For the mainstream {Armor Penetration} or {Attack Speed On-Hit} Varus builds, these two capabilities of Statikk Shiv appear somewhat redundant.

This is also why, although people are currently developing various bottom-lane ADCs that can adapt to Statikk Shiv, Statikk Shiv Varus hasn't been developed.

"At the start, TES first has to face the pressure of V5's Kindred and Sion; this can be considered one of V5's most famous tactical systems from the first half of the year."

"But fortunately, V5 seems to just be coming in to gather some information and doesn't have any intention of forcing a fight!"

The Sion-Kindred strategy relies on Sion's shameless, hard-engaging ability in level-one team fights, combined with the risk of Kindred securing First Blood, to forcibly pressure the opponent into avoiding a fight.

Fortunately, there are already systematic countermeasures for this mature tactic; as long as you can detect the opponent's level-one intentions in advance, you can just execute a half-map evasion.

However, exposing jungle intentions is still unavoidable.

Because his red-side jungle was filled with the opponent's information, Wei was forced to be driven to the bottom-side blue jungle to start, and could only choose a path of clearing from bottom to top.

"Ji-ge, you absolutely must secure lane priority early this game," Wei, feeling the immense pressure, took a deep breath.

"I'm not afraid of him in a 1v1 in the jungle, but I feel like this Kindred is definitely going to come and invade me; you must have lane priority in mid."

Poppy was picked as a reactive counter to Kindred, so she isn't too weak in a 1v1 jungle scenario.

But Wei keenly sensed the nature of V5's lineup this game.

Although the top lane is just two big tanks bumping into each other, Sion's combat power, bolstered by his zombie passive, is undoubtedly stronger than Ornn's in small-scale skirmishes—it wouldn't even be an exaggeration to call him the strongest among all {tank heroes}!

As for the bottom lane, because the opponent's heroes are rare, Wei doesn't have much experience—but thinking about it, as a reactive pick by the opponent, it's unlikely to be weaker than his own side.

Clearly, the only point to break the game is in the mid lane!

"Mm, I'll try my best," Rookie didn't make any overconfident promises.

Because the previous game in the jungle was truly miserable, Rookie already had some ideas before entering the game.

Unlike the LeBlanc that Yagao used to fight Ye Bo's Tristana when playing against BLG last time, he had no intention of building Statikk Shiv this game; he was prepared to go for the traditional full-AP build.

This actually reflects the gap in the level of "understanding" of the heroes.

Yagao's build that game was purely because the laning pressure was too high, forcing him to pivot to AP first and then build Statikk Shiv.

But the result was that his LeBlanc that game was neither fish nor fowl!

It neither exerted the suppression LeBlanc should have in the early game, nor did it utilize the shameless split-pushing ability of Statikk Shiv LeBlanc.

From his choice of runes, one could see that Rookie had already thought through his strategy for this game before even entering; he brought {Electrocute}, intending to go all-in on laning.

The minion waves met, and the director's camera was also fixed on the mid lane.

"Theoretically, LeBlanc should be the best at fighting these squishy marksman mid-laners!" Doinb, who was also paying close attention to the mid-lane matchup, added fuel to the fire.

"If it could have been used against Kai'Sa in the last game, it surely would have been much better than Ahri... But then again, it also depends on how good Ye's proficiency with Varus is~"

"It's said that Varus is in a league of his own when it comes to laning in the bottom lane; they say their fun solo matches are basically all played with Varus. This hero is one of the few that best highlights a player's skill level!"

Doinb chuckled and pulled his old teammate's banner: "But this streamer is just hearing it from his good brother Light~~~ After all, playing Varus in the mid lane dates back to Season 6; we mid-lane players aren't familiar with it~"

LNG's Light just recently got a pentakill with Varus, so pulling out this banner was indeed slightly persuasive.

And the last time Varus was popular in the mid lane dates back to the pure Q-spam playstyle of the Season 6 era; after the major rework in Season 8, his laning logic actually changed completely.

Rookie was quite sensible.

Seeing the opponent start with a Long Sword, he didn't rush to make a move, knowing he couldn't gain any advantage at level one, and let the opponent push the wave.

However, the laning in the bottom lane was not so harmonious.

The perspective suddenly cut to the bottom lane.

Just as the first wave was cleared, Beryl, riding his golden iron horse, was already restless, and the TES bottom lane on the other side had no intention of backing down either.

JackeyLove knew that this bottom lane combination couldn't possibly farm peacefully, and seeing the opponent's forward pressure, he immediately got fired up.

"Come! Let's fight!"

Support Mark heard his leader's command and immediately learned Q to attempt a hook!

As a Thresh picked to replace Lulu, both his Q and E can interrupt Rell's W; it is a powerful defensive measure for both laning and team fights.

And JackeyLove's "recklessness" actually wasn't without reason.

Although he knew the opponent's combination was very strong at fighting, there was absolutely no reason for Tristana to be afraid of anyone at level one. If the support could land a crowd-control hit first to let Tristana fully stack her E 【Explosive Charge】, even if the opponent wanted to counter-engage, they definitely wouldn't have the upper hand!

But just as Thresh threw his hook, Beryl actually reflexively jumped "backwards" with his W!

"Oh my god! Brother Yuanshen made a mistake!" Doinb shouted immediately upon seeing this.

Even he knew that Thresh's Q {pull} effect can interrupt Rell's W at any time, whether used before or after!

At this moment, Rell using her W like this was simply handing the interruption to the opponent; she couldn't escape or counter-engage!

Sure enough, Rell's figure, just as she took flight, was instantly pulled back to her original spot, horse and all, by the hook!

Tristana immediately followed up, threw out her Explosive Charge, and started shooting.

Fortunately, ADC Tristana is different from mid-lane Tristana; she focuses on sustained output and carries the meta-strong {Lethal Tempo} rather than {Hail of Blades}, so it's hard to fully stack the charge at level one without her Q.

Thresh had no follow-up pursuit skills, so Tristana stopped after three stacks, happily profiting from the support's health before pulling back.

"It's a good thing Rell is a bit tanky; one health potion can recover most of it... But this bottom lane laning is already at a disadvantage from the start; Jackey's laning is too fierce!"

"I also have to say, although Brother Yuanshen has a good brain, his mechanics are truly trash~~"

"Sigh, in this regard, you really have to look at Master Ye; only he has both!"

Doinb didn't forget to comment on Beryl after finishing his analysis.

He also took the opportunity to praise Ye Bo and JackeyLove a bit, to boost the favorability of these two big stars' fans and scam some traffic.

【Stop licking, stop licking, still licking! No matter how much you lick, people will only remember that you were the first professional player to be solo-killed by Ye!】

【Brother Coin, don't! That's Niao Niao's spot!】

【Brother Yuanshen's greatest purpose was originally to liberate my Master Ye, to help remove Master Ye's human limiter. Does Poison Coin even understand that?!】

【Why is it the 'Yuanshen' player who is bad? Why can't it be that the brother is fierce? The eighteen-year-old Ah Shui has completely returned!】

【Water Ghost is invincible. If anyone was fierce this wave, it was Mark. Tristana just threw a bomb and walked up to auto-attack three times, what was fierce about that?】

Doinb happily finished reading the heated barrage and wanted to check the mid-jungle matchup he cared about most.

But he suddenly discovered that the movements of the junglers on both sides had undergone huge changes!

"The junglers on both sides... what are the junglers on both sides doing again!?"

"They both want to change the tempo!"

Doinb, in the god's-eye view, was stunned for a moment, and immediately realized something.

"Bad!!"

"V5 seems to be setting a trap for little Wei again!!!"

At the start, V5 used their lineup advantage to aggressively invade the top half, which clearly signaled that they knew Poppy must be starting in his own bottom-side blue jungle.

And in Wei's view, the opponent's goal was nothing more than three points.

First is the most impossible: Kindred wants his red buff—both sides' top laners are two big tanks, and the mid and bottom lanes are clearly the core battlegrounds; Kindred doing this would be equivalent to voluntarily giving up offensive rights!

Secondly, there is a not-insignificant possibility of a level-two jungle invade.

Wei saw the "Mark of the Kindred" hanging over his head; while hitting the Gromp, he deliberately kept kiting and held onto his Smite, using it to kill the Gromp as soon as it reached the threshold.

But after safely finishing the Gromp, this possibility was already ruled out.

Then, almost only the third possibility remains—Kindred is forcing Poppy to clear from bottom to top, while Kindred clears from his own blue jungle to bottom, forcibly swapping offensive halves.