Chapter 314: The Thief Saint's Strictest Father! From

"This lineup can definitely be said to have entered LNG's comfort zone. If the mid-laner switches to Emperor of the Sands, it's almost the exact lineup they used the most in the playoffs!"

"Of course, if we're just talking about the lineup, V5's side definitely can't be called bad either. It's also a common, popular meta lineup, it's just that Orianna is relatively rare."

The commentary desk analyzed the lineups on both sides, seemingly quite optimistic about the blue side.

Just looking at the lineups, one could tell that the early game for both sides shouldn't erupt into intense battles like the previous two games.

LNG's movements also clearly showed they didn't want to stir up trouble, terrified of another accident.

Although they had a Blitzcrank, the ADC was a ranged minion with no skills at level one, and Shen wasn't weak at a level-one skirmish; there wasn't a very significant advantage in a head-on fight.

Nothing happened at level one for either side, and the minion waves met as usual.

"Brother Xianghe, what's the matchup ratio for Orianna against Ahri?" Gumayusi asked, watching the livestream focus on the mid-lane matchup.

"Five-five, I suppose," Li Xianghe paused, then added: "Mainly, it depends on the person."

Gumayusi twitched the corner of his mouth.

He secretly grumbled in his heart, "That's no different from saying nothing," but he didn't express even a fraction of it on his face, still nodding along with a silly grin.

And Keria, standing up to pour water, casually chimed in with flattery: "Brother Xianghe means that, regardless, his Orianna can beat Ahri, and his Ahri can beat Orianna."

"Right, right, right! Minseok is right!" Oner immediately followed up.

Zeus also shyly added: "After all, for these two heroes, Brother Xianghe has won championships with them since Season 3; he's too familiar with them."

Ever since Li Xianghe returned, the atmosphere of the entire T1 team had undergone a subtle change.

Of course, the others had always respected Li Xianghe before.

But after all, the performance during that period when the other party was in poor form was plain for all to see; often, it looked like he alone had "thrown" the game.

To say that the others, who were also considered "genius players" by the outside world, had absolutely no thoughts about it in their hearts was clearly impossible.

But now, the cohesion of this team had clearly reached a new height.

And the mid-lane laning phase had just begun.

It seemed indeed like the five-five split Li Xianghe had mentioned.

Ye Bo took the initiative to use Q to harass, utilizing the Q skill's nearly 900-yard collision range to harass from a distance, triggering Aery first.

Scout wasn't about to be outdone; he knew that while Ahri's Q skill had a similar range to Orianna's Q, the difficulty of hitting it was significantly higher—at the same time, Orianna was being very meticulous about standing apart from the minions, making it easy to miss if he just threw out a Q directly.

He wittily tapped W instantly to cast it, using Fox-Fire's speed boost to quickly close the distance, then fired a basic attack to trigger the "Fox-Fire Targeting" mechanism, directing all three fox-fires to attack Orianna.

Even though Ahri carried Electrocute for higher damage.

But Orianna had hit first to trigger Aery, then used reverse pursuit to actively "catch" Aery back, successfully refreshing it to deal Aery's damage twice.

Of course, Ahri's passive had recovery capabilities; overall, the health trade was still five-five.

"The mid-laners on both sides are playing so aggressively... can two scaling heroes really play this aggressively!" The commentary desk noticed the situation in the mid-lane.

"However, neither jungler has very strong gank capabilities before level six, so relatively speaking, playing aggressively in lane shouldn't be much of a problem~"

As the commentary desk was speaking, the director suddenly cut the vision to the bottom lane.

"The bottom lane is actually this aggressive too!?"

It turned out that V5's bottom lane had just seized some lane priority by relying on Tristana's E skill explosive splash.

But Shen, who had been feigning last-hitting, suddenly dashed forward with E while in the minion wave!

Light, who was also competing for lane priority, was caught off guard and couldn't dodge in time—because the support Hang had just told him that Shen had learned Q, which was why he had positioned himself forward to compete for the lane and attack minions!

And Hang's judgment was based on seeing Shen's "Spirit Blade" by the wall behind the minion wave.

Although he didn't play much Shen, basically other teams would more or less research and experiment with things V5 had used.

Hang knew the support playstyle for this hero.

Especially when playing against melee at level one, the goal was to bury the "Spirit Blade" behind the opponent's minion wave, so that once the opponent came to lane, they would find it hard to avoid the percentage-based damage bonus from the first pull of Q, giving a huge advantage whether pushing the lane or fighting.

This was a very simple principle; after all, if Shen pulled Q from behind himself, the opponent could easily dodge it by running in the opposite direction.

And after the Spirit Blade reached the limit range of 2500 yards away from Shen, it would be immediately forcibly pulled back—but the point was that the position the "Spirit Blade" returned to was not at Shen's feet.

It was at the edge of the maximum range, 2000 yards away from Shen!

To put it bluntly, in Hang's view, if Shen didn't learn Q at level one, it was impossible to pull the blade to that position.

But clearly.

He didn't understand Shen well enough, and even less did he grasp the mechanics.

For Beryl, this was actually just a very simple "geometry problem."

As long as you first pull the blade to the mouth of the dragon pit, then walk toward the bottom brush along the "shortest straight line" path, maintaining the edge of the limit distance, and then immediately E into the bottom lane's alcove to exceed the maximum range—since the Spirit Blade couldn't exist inside a wall, you could make it "glitch through" the wall of the tri-brush.

Achieving the "Spirit Blade Through Wall" to cross over onto the minion wave!

The purpose of doing this was, of course, to confuse the opponent.

Obviously, Shen learning Q at level one versus learning E at level one would result in completely different responses from the opponent!

"Shen taunted Aphelios for a full 1. seconds, and there's {Glacial Augment} making Aphelios unable to move an inch!"

"Tristana walked up to attach the explosive charge and cooperated with Hail of Blades to stack it quickly. This matchup in the bottom lane definitely can't be played at level one. Blitzcrank barely managed to hook to stop Shen's pursuit, but Tristana is still chasing!"

"Light finally had no choice but to use Heal to save his life and pull back, but his health was still greatly affected. The bottom lane laning phase has a bit of a disadvantage at the start!"

"Oh, the top lane seems to be fighting too..."

Just after the bottom lane fight finished, the busy director immediately cut to the top lane.

Surprisingly, even K'Sante against Gragas, such a boring-looking matchup, was also passionately trading health.

And in fact.

This was also one of the "solutions" V5 had found during their previous two losses.

But before the health trade in the top lane could be finished, the perspective suddenly cut urgently back to the mid-lane!

"!?"

"What's the situation!"

"How is Scout about to die at level two!!!"

When the perspective cut back, they saw that Ahri had already run back under the tower with a sliver of health, while Orianna still had two-thirds of her health bar!

How could Orianna pressure someone like this!?

When the director cut to the replay, looking at the beginning of this health trade, everyone finally understood.

"What is Scout doing? Is this positioning at level two a bit too arrogant?"

"Although intuitively Ahri seems like an early-game hero and Orianna seems like a late-game hero, Orianna's 'stand-and-fight' ability crushes Ahri's!"

Actually, looking at the replay, it completely looked like Scout himself "made a stupid mistake."

Not only did he actively step up to trade basic attacks with Orianna, but more importantly, he didn't seem to think about leaving at first, still pulling his position in the opposite direction, away from the defensive tower.

But Orianna had the passive skill 【Clockwork Windup】 which allowed {basic attacks to gain extra damage, and attacking the same target consecutively would increase the damage twice}, making her stand-and-fight ability quite formidable!

Looking at Electrocute Ahri?

In terms of stand-and-fight ability, she wasn't even as good as Emperor of the Sands!

No one could understand what on earth gave the other party the confidence to stand and fight!

If it weren't seen with one's own eyes, this mind-boggling scene, even if written in an esports novel, would be questioned by a large number of netizens to the extent of "Is this author brain-dead and writing nonsense!"

【It's purely heaven-defying. How could this kind of scene appear in this matchup? I don't even see this kind of situation in Iron rank!】

【The Thief Saint's strictest father!】

【It really is. It feels like Scout is more filial to Master Ye than he is to his own biological Da Fei!】

【When Ximen Qing sees Wu Song, he knows to run or he'll get beaten; when an unformed Nascent Soul sees Left Hand, he knows to run or he'll get beaten; normal humans know to run after browsing Weibo or Xiaohongshu... but the Thief Saint, he doesn't even know to run when he's about to be beaten to death!】

【"Hmm? Is it sweat?" Scout reached out to touch his pants, and immediately breathed a sigh of relief: "So it's urine, I was wondering, how could a mere Ye on the other side make me sweat?"】

The layman watches the excitement, the expert watches the technique.

To the bystander, it seemed like Scout just made a stupid mistake.

But Li Xianghe, who understood this matchup extremely well, saw the truth.

"Li Chanye's game theory psychology seems to have been completely seen through."

He clearly saw the many details from both sides.

For example, the angle of Orianna's first Q, which seemed like just harassment, but in reality, combined with his own unconscious forward pressure, had already secretly blocked Ahri's retreat path.

Coupled with Orianna's "misleading health" move of Q-ing first and not rushing to cast E, making Ahri think she could fight at first, only thinking about kiting.

Yet she didn't notice the awkwardness of her position at all!

By the time Orianna closed the distance, he pulled back with E 【Command: Protect】 to deal damage, while adding a shield and applying dual resistances—Ahri realized the speed at which her health was dropping was wrong, and could only stop fighting back, hurriedly hugging her head and running for her life into the tower!

It was equivalent to Ahri being chased and hit for a long distance, and because she wanted to save her Flash, that was why such an outrageous health gap appeared!

Just that little deviation in positioning caused such a huge consequence.

It could be said that every step of the game was calculated to perfection!

Li Xianghe could see it so clearly because he felt that if he were in that position, if he were that Orianna, he would likely make the same move.

But then again.

The hero Orianna was his, Li Xianghe's, signature.

"Although Scout saved his Flash, he was forced to use TP at only level 2! This is so painful!"

"And Master Ye's health is still extremely healthy; he doesn't even need to recall, and because the output was mainly basic attacks just now, even his mana is very healthy!"