Chapter 324: Dip the Beans

"Is it this bloody!?"

Following the reminder from the commentary desk, everyone began searching for the Ignite icons on the scoreboard.

It turned out that all four players in the mid and top lanes for both sides were actually carrying Ignite!

You have to understand, in standard matches, aside from aggressive hard-engage supports who carry Ignite, it is rare to see even one Ignite in other positions—let alone this situation where both sides are carrying it!

"Taliyah taking Ignite is understandable; after all, Taliyah has her passive and ultimate, so she doesn't rely too much on Teleport for lane returns or roaming. Most importantly, having Ignite makes the laning phase against Sylas much more comfortable," Guan Zeyuan was still trying to interpret the situation.

"Sylas taking it can also be explained. Since taking Teleport makes it hard to keep up with the opponent's roaming efficiency, he might as well take Ignite to exert maximum pressure in the solo lane; it can be considered a way to break the deadlock."

"But what about these two in the top lane... Teacher Da'an, what do you think?"

Angel, an active pro player asked by Guan Zeyuan, then shared his own insights.

In fact, ever since the S12 season last year when Teleport was changed to "can only teleport to defensive towers before 14 minutes," solo laners carrying Ignite had already appeared occasionally.

After all, being able to teleport only to defensive towers effectively stifles Teleport's early-game roaming capability; before 14 minutes, it is basically just a laning skill.

A Teleport with a 6-8 minute cooldown, compared to an Ignite that comes up every 3 minutes, has a vastly different impact on laning.

Even though this version buffed it to be available earlier at 10 minutes, it did not change this reality.

But the reason Ignite still hasn't become the mainstream in professional play is mainly because Teleport has a huge advantage in "side lane pressure" during the mid-to-late game, which is something Ignite can never match.

After Angel finished explaining this, as everyone looked at the "meaning" behind these four Ignites, it seemed to become even more distinct.

Clearly, both teams seem to be betting on the "Laning Phase"!

TheShy's Rumble taking Ignite is because the "laning ability" of Rumble when wielded by him is extremely strong, completely different from the performance when others use it—it's a bit like when Ye Bo plays Sylas or Akali, he can always produce effects that others cannot.

Taking Ignite is actually similar to picking Vayne in the previous game; both stem from the idea of wanting to solo-kill and snowball the lane!

As for Saint-Gun-Ge's Mordekaiser taking Ignite...

In fact, the V5 members naturally knew that TheShy's Rumble was strong, so they had long prepared countermeasures.

It's just a pity.

The "secret weapon" V5 originally prepared to counter Rumble was accidentally burned in the first game, so they could only pick the "secondary option," Mordekaiser, and added an Ignite to play it safe.

Danny has studied V5, and V5 naturally has studied WBG as well.

But both sides truly did not expect that their respective plans would collide, and at this moment, both were very surprised.

And the most interesting part is this.

The laning phase changes that would inevitably occur from carrying Ignite—now, because everyone brought Ignite, the negatives canceled out, and after coming full circle, they returned to a state of "nuclear deterrence," back to the same starting line!

In a sense, four Ignites and four Teleports have roughly the same effect.

And when everyone's attention shifted away from the Ignites, the commentary desk finally noticed Jhin's summoner spell choice.

"Beryl's Jhin is actually carrying Teleport!?"

"I didn't expect the only Teleport in the entire game to be carried by a support, and a marksman support at that!"

Seeing the Teleport on Jhin, Danny immediately frowned.

After pondering for a moment, he suddenly felt his heart skip a beat.

Analyzing from a god's-eye view, Kai'Sa is definitely at a disadvantage in the early laning phase against Varus; it is only by pairing her with a lane-bully marksman support that she has a fighting chance.

And even if Jhin were carrying Heal or other combat skills, it wouldn't mean much if the opposing bot lane refused to fight them.

At the same time, with Jhin missing a Heal, given Varus's early laning ability, they wouldn't be at too much of a disadvantage even if a fight did break out.

On the contrary, this Teleport might have some miraculous effects.

Danny sighed inwardly, realizing once again that his beloved student had changed quite a bit; he was different from the one in his memory, and it seemed he hadn't fully figured the other out yet...

"This game is really getting exciting!"

"Both bot lanes have no mobility, and neither top nor mid has Teleport; you could say the success rate and rewards for every gank are quite significant!"

"So, at level one, both sides seem to want to compete for the Skarner 'Crystal Spires' first..."

The most unique feature of the old version of Skarner was his passive, 【Crystal Spires】.

As almost the only hero skill that "changes the terrain of the Rift" from the moment of birth, in matches with Skarner, a total of 6 neutral structures called "Crystal Spires" are generated in the jungle and the middle river.

Crystal Spires can be said to be the "soul" of Skarner!

When Skarner is within the range of a captured Crystal Spire, he gains super-high movement speed, super-high attack speed, and super-high regeneration.

Just speaking of "attack speed": it increases by 50% at level one, and at max level, it increases by an outrageous 160%—at level one, it's like giving Skarner a max-level 【Highlander】!

A Skarner with Crystal Spire bonuses and one without are completely two different heroes.

Therefore, capturing and holding Crystal Spires is the most important thing for Skarner in the early game.

Among them, the two Crystal Spires belonging to Skarner's own jungle are {automatically captured} at the start, the two belonging to the enemy jungle are defaulted to be captured by the opponent, and only the Crystal Spires in the river are in a "neutral" state at the start.

Both sides are clearly very aware of the importance of the Crystal Spires to Skarner.

"Both sides choose to capture one side each; V5 chooses to capture the lower river, while WBG chooses to capture the upper river!"

"Each person gets 15 gold for capturing, and both sides chose to have three people capture together!"

"Next, it depends on the setup of the junglers."

Just as the commentators said, both junglers have some gank capability in the early game, and all three lanes can indeed be said to have good opportunities.

Karsa also made a change to his opening; after openly capturing the upper-half Crystal Spire, he secretly turned to the lower-half to start his jungle path, looking for an opportunity to vary his opening.

1 minute and 30 seconds.

Jungle monsters respawn, minion waves clash.

As soon as he reached the lane, Sylas was incredibly proactive, E-ing forward to look for a trade. Taliyah's early-game Q cooldown and mana were insufficient; she had to use basic attacks to last-hit and couldn't avoid the trade.

The situation in the mid lane was intense, and the top lane was no less competitive.

TheShy learned Harpoon at level one, used the {CD shard temperature control technique} developed by V5 to maintain his heat, and at the same time, guessing that the steady Saint-Gun-Ge would take the path from the level-three bush back to the lane, he changed his positioning to hug the river wall and actively entered the tri-bush to look for him!

You have to know, Saint-Gun-Ge once relied on this exact move to nearly solo-kill Chen Zebin's aggressive level-one Jax!

But when Mordekaiser discovered him and fired a harpoon, he didn't retreat; instead, he instantly learned his E skill and countered with 【Death's Grasp】, pulling Rumble back and swinging his mace at him!

Rumble spat out a harpoon and took the opportunity to enter the red-heat mode, the mace in his hand burning intensely.

But Mordekaiser did not back down, chasing him down to land the third strike to trigger his passive 【Darkness Rise】. A metal storm aura instantly surrounded him, and he was ready to stand and fight Rumble!

"The damage of a red-heat Rumble is terrifying, but if it comes to a stand-and-fight, Mordekaiser's stats are also very high!"

The red-heat Rumble had the upper hand at first, but after four seconds, the temperature cooled down under the cooling effect of the metal storm.

Conversely, Mordekaiser seemed to get stronger the more he fought.

"... ut the two of them look like they want to fight to the end!?"

"Both of them have directly applied Ignite!!"

Saint-Gun-Ge wanted to retreat, but he "could not retreat."

Mordekaiser is often called a {stat monster}; although none of his skills are particularly clean—the biggest contributor is this passive skill.

Basic attacks deal bonus damage, and the metal storm aura deals high-value maximum percentage damage every second, making Mordekaiser's sustained combat ability surprisingly amazing!

The only weakness is that he must maintain the passive by hitting basic attacks or skills.

At this moment, if Mordekaiser chickened out, Rumble could pull away and consume him with harpoons without pressure, while Mordekaiser's E skill not only has a long cooldown but also cannot guarantee a hit next time, which could very likely lead to a total collapse of his laning phase.

As for TheShy, he could retreat, but he "did not want to retreat."

In fact, as long as Rumble just ran away, waiting for the next harpoon to refresh the slow or simply burning Flash to pull away, Mordekaiser would definitely have no follow-up crowd control.

But what TheShy thought was: if he did that, he would definitely be hit a few more times by Mordekaiser for free and fall into a health disadvantage; burning Flash for nothing was something he, who valued laning so much, could not accept. Both would affect his subsequent laning.

So, after a simple damage calculation, he was ready to fight to the end!

And even though it was a decision made after careful consideration by both.

In the eyes of outsiders, it was inexplicably full of humor and strangeness...

The burning sound of Ignite became increasingly intense.

Two kill notifications sounded one after another from the top lane.

"No way!?" Guan Zeyuan was stunned: "Is it... is it really that simple!"

"Not even 2 minutes in! They really just stood and fought to the end! Neither of them was a coward!"

Kid, listening to this, sounded a bit displeased as he explained: "Actually, TheShy had quite a lot of detail in this play, like controlling his heat at the start, like starting with {Doran's Ring} against {Doran's Shield}, having a stat advantage in a trade, and using the harpoon to kite slightly..."

Angel smiled and interrupted: "You're right, but it's a pity the First Blood still went to Mordekaiser. These stats are just too beautiful~~~ And I feel like TheShy was a bit arrogant this time, he seemed to look down on Mordekaiser a bit. How could he come looking for him like this?"

"First Blood doesn't matter! It's not much of a difference! Look, they both bought boots with their starting items, it makes no difference!"

【Dipping beans! Refreshing!】

【Damn, burning, it's on!】

【Waiting for someone to do a "Guess the Rank by Covering the ID" video; if you told me this was Silver, I'd believe it!】

【Question! What is the difference in mentality between Rumble and Sylas taking Ignite, and Mordekaiser and Taliyah taking Ignite? Please analyze and provide a conclusion of no less than 500 words!】

【Easy question? Rumble and Sylas are Ignites for wanting to slaughter pigs, Mordekaiser and Taliyah are Ignites for wanting to prevent being slaughtered!】

【Hehe, wait until my invincible Skarner kills you instantly with 33 Qs, then you'll be obedient.】

Compared to the intense battle in the top and mid lanes, the bot lane seemed calm and peaceful.

Perhaps because the four people in the bot lane were all quite afraid of ganks in the early game, both sides were deliberately maintaining the minion wave state, farming very honestly, and didn't even use their skills much.

And when both bot lanes reached level two.