Chapter 308: Eternal Neeko Tarzan Meow! Formulaic Playstyle and Breaking Expectations?

"We said at the beginning of the season that the styles of these two teams are a bit like a spear and a shield," Jide said while still analyzing the team compositions at the commentary desk. "This can be seen from the lineups both sides have chosen for this match!"

"LNG is a team with a distinct mid-to-late game style. They excel at stabilizing lanes during the laning phase, leaving the professional map control and resource management to their jungler Tarzan, creating room for the absolute core of the team to farm. Once their items are complete, they rely on solid team-fighting fundamentals to win team fights and secure victory!"

"As for V5's style, it is relatively much simpler and more aggressive. They often find breakthroughs during the laning phase by relying on the laning strength of all three lanes and the mid-jungle duo's ability to seize opportunities. Afterward, they use the Rift Herald to quickly take towers and push, then leverage their powerful snowballing and operational capabilities to rapidly widen the gold gap and directly kill the game!"

Beside him, Wang Duo nodded in agreement: "That's right, so the focus of this semifinal is very clear: it depends on whether V5 can secure enough of an advantage in the early game!"

"If they cannot accumulate a sufficient lead during the laning phase, once LNG drags the game into their preferred slow-paced operational rhythm, they will definitely be able to win easily in head-on fights, thanks to the late-game hyper-carry attributes within their team!"

Clearly, everyone in the arena knew this was the case.

On the camera, one could see LNG's Tarzan constantly talking.

Neither team's level-one composition had a particularly strong point to rely on. If they really wanted to fight at level one, LNG, possessing Neeko, actually had better crowd control, so the V5 members were very careful with their positioning.

Fortunately, both sides seemed to be just taking up their standard positions.

Meanwhile, Qiyana, who was positioned in the upper river bush, suddenly saw the opposing jungler Sejuani walking toward the middle river bush near the one-minute mark, as if wanting to place a "river bush ward."

"The enemy jungler is top!"

Before Ye Bo could even speak, Xun, who had no suspicions at all, had already seen the champion icon on the mini-map: "Then I'll start on the other side of the jungle."

"Wait."

Ye Bo looked at the pitch-black lower half of the mini-map and suddenly pressed the Tab scoreboard.

Then he said with great certainty: "That is a Neeko disguise; the enemy jungler is likely still starting in the lower jungle."

"Oh! Right, the enemy has a Neeko!"

Having snapped out of it, Xun did not doubt him and immediately changed his position, though he was still a bit curious: "But how did you tell it was Neeko? I thought his movement looked quite normal."

Ye Bo briefly explained it to his teammates.

This was at the game level, a small mechanic for "deducing a Neeko disguise."

————By using the champion icons on the "scoreboard" to determine whether Neeko is currently "within vision"!

As everyone knows, when looking at the opposing heroes on the Tab scoreboard, if the opponent is not within vision, the icon will turn gray and have a 【?】 icon.

And although Neeko's transformation is flawless.

She herself is still Neeko!

So, as long as Neeko hasn't appeared on the map, but the icon on the scoreboard lights up.

Even if one still cannot determine the opponent's specific location or transformation target, one can perform deductive analysis by observing "anomalies" exposed within vision.

For example, a fruit suddenly appearing, a control ward on the map, or an enemy suddenly appearing in lane.

This was a tiny detail Ye Bo had accidentally discovered not long ago while researching another related champion mechanic.

And at this moment, the mastermind Tarzan, who was directing the play, did not know that his feint had been exposed.

His goal was actually very simple: to avoid being counter-jungled.

Come to think of it, Tarzan is actually quite an all-around jungler. He can play aggressive jungle carries, fall back on utility heroes to support the team, perform aggressive counter-jungling, or play a herbivore style focused on map and resource control.

But he has a very serious "problem" that even he himself hasn't realized.

That is, as someone who has been ranked first on the Korean server ladder for years, Tarzan's "ranked playstyle" is still deeply ingrained in his bones to this day.

Those who know, know.

To play jungle in ranked, you must be "selfish" to carry!

This selfishness doesn't refer to those Graves players who only play the game by eating their teammates' gold: that's just called being dirty.

Being selfish means he centers the game around his own perspective, must play according to his own plans, and ensures the tempo proceeds according to his expectations.

Once a deviation occurs, and his farming and jungle pathing fall behind, he immediately loses his head and can only try to get back on track by mindlessly power-farming!

And this behavior has a collective term: "Formulaic playstyle."

Tarzan didn't think there was anything wrong with himself at this moment; after all, when this formula is broken, it usually only happens when he has been successfully "counter-jungled" by the opponent.

If you've been successfully counter-jungled, isn't it normal to lose tempo!

So if you look closely at LNG's lineup, you will find ———— although they chose a late-game oriented composition, all three lanes are actually heroes who won't give up lane priority for free, fully capable of guaranteeing jungle invasions!

The minion waves met.

Just as LNG hoped, their basic laning in all three lanes was not a problem.

There was clearly no reason for Gwen to be at a disadvantage against Ornn in the top lane, nor for Azir to be at a disadvantage against Qiyana in the mid lane.

Although Kai'Sa in the bottom lane couldn't compare to Varus during the laning phase.

But they had Neeko!

In fact, for Neeko support to develop to where it is today, what truly allowed this playstyle to take root was definitely not small tricks like "disguising as a cannon minion to tank towers."

It was her superior laning ability!

As a pseudo-hard support capable of initiating team fights, Neeko support's laning ability is actually stronger than the vast majority of enchanter supports, and one could even say she completely crushes poke-style enchanters!

This sounds a bit counter-intuitive.

After all, in terms of skill range and poke efficiency, heroes like Lux, Sona, Seraphine, and Xerath are no weaker than her.

But Neeko is strong in her "survivability"!

Those poke enchanters all belong to the category of heroes whose survivability is infinitely close to zero, which means they must be extremely careful with their positioning when poking and trading, especially when facing hard supports capable of strong engages; they simply dare not stand forward.

But Neeko, relying on her W's invisibility and clone, can completely push her advantage against the vast majority of hard supports and poke recklessly!

Survivability -> directly affects output efficiency.

There is, however, one problem.

Neeko support: actually extremely dependent on the "player's individual" mechanics!

This is a rare support hero that "requires mechanics"!

To put it bluntly, the support player piloting her must have the ability to play carry roles; the more superior their poke, laning awareness, and positioning ability, the more powerful this hero becomes.

Otherwise, she is just a "tower-tanking tool" with no protection and an unstable engage.

After all, Neeko's skill set consists entirely of non-targeted abilities, and it is entirely possible to have the same "missing all four skills" problem as Xerath.

This is why V5 dared to let LNG have Neeko.

Everyone knows that LNG's support player, Hang, definitely doesn't have the best mechanics, yet he likes to play flashy things, which has led to quite a few disastrous moments.

It is foreseeable that, at least in the hands of this LNG team, it is unrealistic for the bottom lane to rely solely on a Neeko to grab lane priority.

The initiative will most likely remain in V5's hands.

If it were a team with a sharp support player, even V5 wouldn't easily let her through.

"It seems the move where Sejuani let Neeko reveal her intentions at the start has worked?"

"Xun originally had the intention to swap jungle starts, but after seeing Sejuani's movement, he still chose to start Blue. He probably wants to play a mirrored jungle start..."

A jungler showing themselves directly is actually a tactic to protect the jungle by playing with open cards.

The logic is simple.

If your own jungler doesn't show, the enemy jungler doesn't know where you are -> which means the enemy jungler's movements are also "unknown."

And "Sejuani" showing in the upper jungle and openly placing a ward directly eliminates the opponent's thought of invading the upper jungle at level two ———— there is a ward in the middle river bush, so if Jarvan IV wants to counter-jungle at level two, he would have to use EQ to come up from the dragon pit.

If he has no skills and gets caught, it's just suicide; the risk and reward are completely disproportionate, and no one would do that!

By eliminating the game of cat-and-mouse in one half of the jungle, Jarvan IV's actions actually become very easy to predict.

Either he doesn't counter-jungle and starts normally.

Or he starts Red and comes to the Blue jungle at level two to force a counter-jungle.

The former is naturally what Tarzan hopes to see.

He is equally prepared for the latter, specifically having the bottom lane duo help him clear the Blue buff more, and even helping to pull the Gromp over while leaving, sacrificing "extra health" in exchange for "clearing speed."

As a player who also understands Jarvan IV, Tarzan knows that this hero's level-two counter-jungling efficiency is not particularly high.

Especially when counter-jungling with a Red buff in the lower jungle.

Jarvan IV cannot frequently dash over walls; if he uses EQ to come down from the dragon pit, the 12-second cooldown on his E skill becomes a hard time limit for counter-jungling!

By the time the opponent walks around to get there, Sejuani will definitely have already finished the Gromp.

At that point, it will be Jarvan IV who is caught in a dilemma!

At the same time, Tarzan actually thought about the fact that his team "having a Neeko" might be noticed by the opponent.

But that is also part of the design ———— because even if the opponent guesses that the Sejuani might be a Neeko disguise, because they cannot confirm it, it will instead increase the huge "cost of the game," and if they guess wrong, it will hurt themselves!

In Tarzan's mind, if the enemy jungler really thinks from the angle of 【that Sejuani might be a Neeko disguise】.

Then the only answer left is to honestly mirror the jungle pathing!

For this game, Tarzan has already thought out his "jungle strategy."