Chapter 328

The good news is that the solo kill in the mid lane did not disrupt WBG's plan.

After all, getting one extra kill in the early game wouldn't change the situation much for Ryze; just past the 5-minute mark, WBG still relied on their bot lane advantage to take the dragon on time.

Immediately, both sides initiated a second round of tactical lane swaps.

The room for maneuvering in this lane swap had already narrowed—after all, the Rift Herald spawns at 8 minutes, and if V5 continued to swap their duo to the bot lane to force-gank Jayce, it would be more trouble than it was worth.

However, in truth, as the game progressed to this point, V5's tactics and plans had been executed almost perfectly.

Jayce had barely reached level 5 at the 6-minute mark; he was already as behind as one could possibly be!

Without a major variable, this Jayce would be completely invisible for a very long time, and he would even struggle to lane against Sion, who was farming significantly better than him!

The many foreshadowings V5 had laid during the draft phase were now all coming to light.

For instance, the consideration behind picking Ryze.

Ryze had long since ceased to be powerful after the nerf to his ultimate, and from a champion perspective alone, his priority was nowhere near Orianna's.

Its only advantage was that, with Galio and Taliyah both banned, and Twisted Fate—who had weaker early-game capabilities—also discarded, it became the only remaining "long-range support" type hero available!

Besides that, there was Sion!

Influenced by the lane swaps, both sides had effectively entered the rotation phase early, and the frequency of skirmishes increased significantly.

Relying on the support advantages of Sion and Ryze, Ryze successfully used his ultimate near the eight-minute mark to gank bot, force a kill on Jayce, and then teleport back to mid.

Coordinating with Sion's arrival via his ultimate, they leveraged their support advantage to forcibly take the first Rift Herald, which should not have belonged to this mid-to-late game composition!

Danny, backstage, gritted his teeth and nervously twisted his curly hair.

"Sibal, Zhao Qianxi, ah, ish-sibal!"

He subconsciously still believed that this match was just another one of those "tricky" strategies cooked up by his beloved protégé.

A strategy specifically targeting his WBG and TheShy!

After all, everyone knew that TheShy was of great significance to WBG; if he collapsed, the whole team would be like a broken leg, unable to exert force and forced to rely on Gala, who couldn't carry the burden alone.

However, in all fairness, Beryl was truly innocent in this instance.

Because this lane swap really wasn't something he had thought of—at least, not the core part of it.

Everything had to start from when WBG won that match back then.

Every player and every team certainly has unique traits, strengths, and weaknesses.

Just as players with strong laning phases are often more prone to revealing flaws, those with steady styles often inexplicably fall into invisibility; players keen on mechanics usually lack discipline, while those with strict discipline struggle to produce breakthrough tactical plays; those with outstanding farming ability might become overly obsessed with farming...

How to cleverly leverage everyone's strengths and avoid their weaknesses is precisely the key to widening the gap in strength between teams!

And V5's top and bot lanes, at least, were definitely not the strong-laning type.

So Ye Bo and Beryl were thinking at the time: if they encountered such strong-laning teams again, how should they better respond?

After all, they couldn't rely on "raw strength" to brute-force every game; eventually, they would encounter opponents stronger than WBG, or even opponents whose overall raw strength might suppress their own.

The two eventually finalized several tactical plans to verify one by one.

Several of these had already begun to show their edge in this best-of-five!

For example, "Game One": directly abandon the priority of the weaker lane compared to the opponent, shift the focus of the battlefield by strengthening the laning intensity of the other two lanes, and then use high-mobility roaming heroes to implement a single-point breakthrough on the advantageous side lane.

—This tactic's drawback is that it extremely tests the laning ability of the other two lanes.

After all, picking a high-mobility roaming hero is one thing, but whether one can truly control the laning initiative to initiate roams is another.

Last game, Xiaohu's Taliyah was the best example!

"Game Two": which is the simplest, using "ultimate counter" heroes to compensate for laning.

True champion counter-picking is like that ranked game Ye Bo and TheShy bumped into each other that night; Ye Bo could never use Mordekaiser to fight Vayne.

As for the Mordekaiser from the previous game, it was possible that it was only because its counter effect wasn't absolute.

As for this third game: it is the somewhat "retro" "lane swap"!

Lane swapping can instantly make the laning phase of both top and bot lanes lose its meaning—after all, in a 1v2, no matter how strong your laning ability is, it's all for nothing!

But the flaws are also obvious.

The first is that you will inevitably be countered by the opponent's resource exchange, and if the opponent's bot lane is a late-game hyper-carry, while the top lane is a pressure-resistant hero who doesn't need gold,

the lane swap could very likely become counterproductive!

This is also why Zeri was banned in this game's draft, why Xayah—who needs to fight to be effective—was released, and why high-forgiveness heroes like Ornn and Gnar were deliberately banned in the second round of the draft.

Even WBG picking Jayce was within V5's predictions!

The second is that it will place more emphasis on the mid lane laning phase.

The logic is that lane swapping will cause the focus of the battle to tilt toward tower-diving in the side lanes, leaving the jungler completely unable to attend to the mid lane!

The third is that it will greatly increase the "game theory" aspect; if the gamble fails, it is very likely to sabotage oneself, and the risk cannot be underestimated.

However, the first two flaws can also be transformed into exploitable advantages.

For example, if the opponent's top laner, who is strong at laning, has proactively chosen a "pressure-resistant" hero like Sion, and the bot laner, who is strong at laning, has proactively chosen a late-game hyper-carry—doesn't that actually fulfill the purpose of the lane swap?

As for the second point, it also simultaneously created great room for the mid lane to perform!

Of course.

As this match has developed to this point, there is one more most important point.

Until now, everyone, including the opposing WBG coach Danny, seems to think that this playstyle is a "tricky strategy" V5 "specifically designed to target TheShy," and the subsequent progress is just going with the flow.

Plus, Ye Bo had indeed used a "similar" level-one design to mess with TheShy before.

For the time being, no one has realized that this is actually a systematic tactic that V5 is testing.

Time reaches 16 minutes.

Both sides are still constantly exchanging resources.

Ryze and Fiddlesticks often appear out of nowhere, while Lissandra and Viego also find several opportunities to invade the jungle and catch Kindred; the scene seems to be back and forth.

The only thing that makes WBG uncomfortable is that at the 11-minute mark, Ryze pulled off a "dragon-stealing maneuver," timing it perfectly to steal the second dragon, greatly delaying the rhythm of the dragon-contesting team fights.

Don't forget.

WBG is a pure early-game fighting composition with no late-game heroes!

In contrast, V5 has Ryze + Kindred + Tristana, all of which are top-tier late-game powerhouses!

It looks like the gold difference between the two sides hasn't been significantly widened.

But in reality, for WBG, the rhythm is becoming more and more urgent every second, just like a sword hanging over their heads that could fall at any moment!

"They might fight this one, this Ryze is about to have two items, hey, Fiddlesticks seems to be here!"

"Careful, it's a trap."

"Forget it! Engage him, engage him!"

The WBG members were preparing to enter the bot lane river entrance from the tri-bush.

But Xayah used a {Farsight Alteration}, which happened to reveal Fiddlesticks, who had just hidden in the river bush with his back arched.

Beryl stood stiff as a post at the first moment, attempting to disguise himself as a "scarecrow."

Little did they know that the WBG members were already a bit impatient; Lissandra, ignoring everything else, decisively used her long-range E ability, Glacial Path, to dash in!

Beryl sensed something was wrong and ran for his life, but in doing so, he exposed that he was undoubtedly the real one—because when the enemy does not enter the close-range detection radius of the scarecrow, the real scarecrow will not be awakened.

"It's real!"

"We can kill him! Don't use too many abilities!"

Three V5 members were rushing to help from upstream in the river, but the five WBG members formed a encirclement instantly like hunters smelling blood!

Jayce transformed into a Piltover speed-booster, opening his acceleration gate to speed up his teammates!

Lissandra's E landed, and she decisively flashed to W to pin Fiddlesticks down, preventing him from flashing away, while Rakan used his mobility to follow up with a W, intending to knock him up!

Beryl could only hurriedly crush his Stopwatch to activate Zhonya's, delaying time in a stasis state.

"God-Beryl has been caught!!!"

Xiaohuyoushen, who had been lying flat for a long time, seemed to come back to life: "WBG is going to win this!"

Guan Zeyuan frowned: "To be honest, I actually feel like V5's positioning is very strange! How could Ryze be standing in the bot lane with Fiddlesticks? It's clearly disconnected from the main force above!"

"It's fine to sell him, Ryze's farming is great, it feels like he's about to come online; with this gear, he doesn't even need to wait for level 16."

In everyone's eyes, V5 selling Fiddlesticks would be the end of it—after all, this wasn't a soul-point dragon fight, and V5's composition hadn't reached its power spike yet.

But Ye Bo, looking at the positioning of the five opponents, keenly captured a glimmer of opportunity.

"God-Beryl, use that!"

Several pings flashed frequently on the map.

Ryze proactively approached from the rear, runes surging at his fingertips, and opened the 【Realm Warp】 not far behind Fiddlesticks through the wall—that was likely the position where the opponent could flash to after their Zhonya's ended.

But this move made everyone shout urgently.

"Master Ye is crazy! You can't turn back to save him, right!? Ryze can't die!"

"This is not the time for brotherly love!"

The exclamations from the commentary booth and the shouts from the audience drowned out the arena, but in the eyes of the WBG players, ecstasy erupted!

This scene was simply a god-given opportunity!

Although only crowd control interrupting Ryze's casting could stop the teleport, this action might really save Fiddlesticks.

But how would you, Ryze, escape?

"Ryze! Ryze! Ryze!!!"

What surprised them even more was that Ryze didn't run toward the direction of the defensive tower in the back, but instead pulled toward the direction of the bot lane minion wave.

It seemed that in order not to let the Realm Warp be interrupted, he was determined to save Fiddlesticks.