Chapter 363: Blade in the Bosom, A Promise to Chase the Wind!

"How are they still playing this kind of top laner? It’s a bit different from what we guessed."

Listening to the chattering discussion beside him, Oner also muttered quietly to his teammates.

The nerfs K'Sante received for the World Championship patch, with a whole host of QWER mechanic-level nerfs landing early, almost completely stripped away the "Combat K'Sante" attributes, turning him into a purely tank-type hero.

There is actually a bit of "credit" here to Ye Bo for popularizing him in the mid lane.

And this hero's win rate in ranked matches has now dropped to a pathetic 40%; he is already a purely mechanic-dependent tournament hero, and in solo queue, he’s at a level where even a dog wouldn't play him.

In the eyes of professional players, this hero's current image is about the same as Sion.

The T1 group originally thought that coming to the World Championship patch, V5 would either thoroughly implement the "Mid-Top Swap" strategy from the Asian Games, making it "normalized"—or they would have to let the top lane chase the meta as well.

No matter what they do, it will cause them to have unavoidable new gaps!

So in fact, the T1 group is very confident about completing their "revenge" at this World Championship.

As it turns out, they didn't expect it.

V5 currently seems to have chosen to continue using their Summer Split tactics?

But the Play-In stage has already proven that the Summer Split's thinking and system are naturally limited under this patch, which in itself is a flaw.

"It might be their smoke bomb, let's watch first." Li Xianghe pondered and hesitated, not jumping to conclusions.

Hearing his big brother's words, Oner immediately threw away his brain, stretched his arm back, and turned to look at Zeus beside him: "Youqi, is Yone good at fighting Malzahar?"

"Eh? Cui Youqi?"

"Ah," Zeus, having been called twice, finally came back to his senses from a daze: "I don't know, I don't play mid lane Yone."

Summoner's Rift has descended.

Seeing that both sides had a normal start, the commentary desk was also synchronizing information from the director.

"Malzahar was buffed in last year's 12.22 patch on his E ability [Malefic Visions], adding an 'execute low-health minions' mechanic, so his wave-clearing efficiency has actually improved quite a bit."

After Guan Zeyuan finished speaking, he followed up with his own understanding: "However, this hero is still completely ignored, there must be a reason; mainly his frontal combat power is relatively weak, you could say all his abilities are for 'single-target restriction'."

Come to think of it, this hero was indeed a tactic specifically prepared by Xu Xiu and DK.

It could even be said it was a tactic prepared specifically "for V5."

After all, the Swiss Stage rules were announced long ago; DK already knew they had a 1/4 chance of drawing V5, and coupled with the small bond between the two teams' players, that’s why they had this tactic.

If we are only talking about pushing waves, there are many functional mid laners with high wave-clearing efficiency—Malzahar's uniqueness lies in {safety}!

Especially after his level increases, he only needs one E ability to complete wave pushing from thousands of miles away through constant "contagion," and enemy heroes even have to worry about being "infected" and dare not get too close to the minion wave!

He can achieve a complete "avoidance of combat"!

And the core of this tactic, along with its underlying logic, is very obvious: the well-known restriction of the V5 mid lane!

Malzahar's ultimate [Nether Grasp], as one of the most oppressive point-and-click controls in the League, possesses a noble and one-of-three "Suppression" control, and it is also a "0-frame instant cast" + "no wind-up or warning" control!

Even a hero like Yone who can "cancel control" can only be blind when encountering Malzahar.

After all, no matter what kind of control cancellation Yone has, it must be executed before the opponent's move to be realized, and a 0-wind-up instant suppression means Yone only has a tiny possibility of doing it if he predicts the opponent's move in advance.

It is simply impossible to rely on reaction to perform the operation!

Fast wave clearing, safe wave clearing, control effects that cannot be countered by Mercury's Treads or Cleanse, and even a single hero is enough to make it very difficult for the opponent to operate.

It looks absolutely perfect for dealing with V5!

It’s just that what DK originally imagined was that V5 would choose assassins like Talon, Qiyana, or LeBlanc, which Ye Bo used frequently at the end of the Summer Split—in that case, Malzahar could directly waste the performance of the opponent's mid lane big brother in team fights!

Even if Malzahar's own role is actually just that—mid lane swap, it is undoubtedly a huge profit for DK!

Ye Bo is not very familiar with Malzahar's mechanics; after all, this hero is indeed too unpopular, and he doesn't have any acquaintances in the "Void Family."

Of course, it's not a problem with the skills.

This thing hasn't had a major rework since S6 until today; everyone knows the skills. It's mainly some small tips on laning, or laning experience and the like.

However, there are acquaintances on the team.

"Gun Ge, did you play Malzahar top before? Is there anything to watch out for when laning against this hero?"

Li Xuanjun, who had just prepared to start laning, began to search in his brain.

He had indeed played Malzahar top in a match before, and due to V5's special tactical arrangements, he had recently dug a bunch of strange heroes out from the bottom of the box.

This included Malzahar.

"This hero doesn't seem to have anything special to watch out for; it's mainly to break his passive shield as much as possible. That 30-second timer resets when taking damage from heroes..."

"No, wait, there actually is!"

"I've been disgusted by this."

Many seemingly simple heroes have more unknown little tricks—and most of them are things you can only discover after playing them yourself and suffering yourself.

For example, when playing against Malzahar, there is a very "counter-intuitive" way to deal with it.

And this is definitely something only those who play Malzahar themselves would know, something that people ranked against Malzahar would be completely unable to perceive.

The mid lane laning has begun.

And Xu Xiu, at the very beginning of laning, was clearly in a great mood, thinking that he had finally caught the opponent's "information gap."

Although he hasn't practiced it much, after all, not many teams rely so extremely on one position, and Malzahar's room for performance is not universal.

But the Ye on the opposite side clearly has no experience playing against Malzahar at all!

He discovered that perhaps because Yone is a melee hero, he always seems to misjudge the distance, standing next to minions with Malefic Visions and "stupidly eating" the E ability's contagion.

The "contagion" characteristic of Malzahar's [Malefic Visions] upon killing is the very essence of this ability:

If the Malefic Visions on a killed minion completes multiple contagions, it is equivalent to Malzahar using only one ability to achieve "wave clearing while poking."

One ability achieving N effects!

But.

Until the third E was "taken" by Yone, Xu Xiu finally realized something was wrong.

"This laning in the mid lane, Xu Ge actually looks a bit proactive? His health is actually still at an advantage!"

Seeing the health exchange in the mid lane, Guan Zeyuan was also a bit surprised at first.

But Jide had already discovered the anomaly: "It doesn't seem right, Guan Ge, haven't you noticed that Malzahar's mana bar is almost empty before even hitting level four... Yone hasn't even drunk a potion yet!"

"And why do I feel like Master Ye is deliberately going to take that E?"

Under normal circumstances, everyone’s first reaction upon seeing a poisoned low-health minion standing next to them is to pull away immediately to avoid secondary transmission.

But in reality.

Especially in the early game, Malzahar is actually very afraid of "breaking the E"!

This is because Malzahar is very "mana-starved"; a set of QWE directly consumes more than a third of his mana bar.

The key to sustainability lies in the E ability's passive: the effect of {each unit killed by Malefic Visions restores mana to Malzahar}.

And if Malzahar's E ability is "transmitted" to a hero in advance and fails to clear the wave... then Malzahar is equivalent to losing 90% of his wave-clearing ability!

Being able to clear a wave with one ability is a hero's advantage.

But it can also be a gap to be exploited!

Xu Xiu also discovered this problem, but found that he seemed to have no way to deal with it.

Because Malzahar's E only does a mere 80 damage in the early game, and Yone's backhand W shield can offset most of it—and Yone is also a no-cost hero!

Even if he keeps using his body to take the E, he won't lose much health at all!

And you have to know.