Chapter 363: Blade in the arms, one wind-chasing!

"Why are they still playing this kind of top laner, it's a bit different from what we guessed"

Listening to the chattering discussion next to him, Oner also whispered to his teammates.

The nerf that K'Sante suffered in the World Championship version, a large pile of QWER full-mechanism level nerfs landed in advance, almost stripping away the attributes of "Combat K'Sante," completely becoming a tank-type hero.

There is actually a bit of "credit" for Ye Bo carrying it forward in the mid lane.

And this hero's win rate in rank matches is now as low as a pitiful 40%. It is already a purely mechanism-based tournament hero, and in solo queue, it belongs to the level that even dogs wouldn't play.

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

T1 members originally thought that coming to the World Championship version, V5 would either thoroughly implement the "Mid-Top Swap" strategy of the Asian Games, making it "normalized"—or it could only let the top lane chase the version.

No matter how you do it, it will make them appear new gaps that cannot be covered!

So in fact, T1 members are very confident in completing "revenge" in this World Championship.

Didn't expect.

V5 currently seems to choose to continue using the tactics of the summer split?

But the play-in stage has already proved that the ideas and systems of the summer split will naturally be limited in this version, which itself is also a flaw...

"It may be their smoke bomb, look first." Lee Sang-hyeok thought and hesitated, without making a conclusion.

Oner heard his big brother's words and immediately threw away his brain and stretched his arms back, turning his head to look at Zeus next to him: "Yoo-chi, is Yone good at playing Malzahar?"

"Why? Choi Yoo-chi?"

"Ah," Zeus, who was called twice, just recovered from his trance: "I don't know, I don't play mid lane Yone..."

Summoner's Rift has descended.

Seeing that both sides are normal openings, the commentary booth is also synchronizing the director's information.

"Malzahar was strengthened in the 12.22 version last year, adding the mechanism of 'executing residual health minions' to the E skill 【Malefic Visions】, and the pushing efficiency is actually not small."

Guan Zeyuan said and followed his own understanding: "However, this hero is still completely ignored, there must be a reason, mainly because the frontal combat power is relatively weak, it can be said that all abilities are for 'single-point restriction'..."

Speaking of which, this hero is indeed a tactic specially prepared by ShowMaker and DK.

It can even be said that it is a tactic specially prepared "for V5."

After all, the rules of the Swiss round were announced long ago, and DK knew that they had a 1/4 probability of drawing V5, and there was a little bond between the team members of the two teams, so there was such a tactic.

If you only talk about pushing lines, there are many functional mid laners with high pushing efficiency—the uniqueness of Malzahar lies in {safety}!

Especially after the level is increased, just one E skill can complete the pushing of the minion line from thousands of miles away through continuous "infection," and the enemy hero even has to worry about being "infected" and dare not get too close to the minion line!

Can achieve thorough "avoidance of battle"!

And the core of this tactic, and the underlying logic are very obvious: everyone knows to restrict V5's mid lane!

Malzahar's ultimate 【Nether Grasp】 as one of the hardest fixed-point controls in the League, it has noble and only three "suppression" controls, and it is "0-frame start instant" + "no pre-swing and omen" control!

Even heroes like Yone who can "control offset" can only be blind when they encounter Malzahar.

After all, Yone's control offset, no matter what skill, must be done before the other party makes a move to achieve it, and the 0-pre-swing instant suppression means Yone can only predict the other party's move in advance to have a chance to do it!

It is impossible to rely on reaction to operate at all!

Fast pushing, safe pushing, control effects cannot be countered by Mercury shoes or Cleanse, and even one hero is enough to make the other party very difficult to operate...

It looks perfect for dealing with V5!

It's just that what DK originally imagined was that V5 would choose the assassin-style heroes that Ye Bo used frequently at the end of the summer split, such as Talon, Qiyana, LeBlanc—that way Malzahar could directly abolish 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, there is no doubt that it is a big profit for DK!

Ye Bo is not very familiar with Malzahar's mechanism, after all, this hero is too unpopular, and he has no acquaintances in the "Void Family"...

Of course, it's not a skill problem.

This thing hasn't had a big change since the rework in S6 until today, everyone knows the skills, mainly some small tips on laning, or laning experience, etc.

But there are acquaintances in the team.

"Brother Flandre, did you play top lane Malzahar before? Is there anything you need to pay attention to in this hero's laning?"

Li Xuanjun, who was just about to start laning, began to search in his brain.

He had really played top lane Malzahar in the match before, and because of V5's special tactical arrangement, he had recently dug out a bunch of strange heroes from under the box.

Including Malzahar.

"This hero doesn't seem to have anything special to pay attention to, mainly just try to break his passive shield, that 30-second hero damage will reset the count..."

"No, it seems there really is!"

"I was disgusted by this"

Many seemingly simple heroes also have more unknown little tricks—and most of them must be played by yourself, and you must find them after you are uncomfortable yourself.

For example, playing against Malzahar, there is a very "anti-common sense" response method.

And this is definitely something that only those who play Malzahar know, and those who are opposite Malzahar can't detect at all.

Mid lane laning has begun

And ShowMaker was in a good mood when the laning just started, thinking that he finally caught the "information gap" of the other party.

Although he didn't practice much, after all, not many teams would rely on a point so extremely, and Malzahar's performance space is not universal

However, the opponent Ye clearly had no experience playing Malzahar at all!

He discovered that perhaps because Yone is a melee hero, he would always seem to misjudge the distance, standing next to a minion with Malefic Visions and "stupidly eating" the E-skill contagion.

The "contagion" characteristic of Malzahar's 【Malefic Visions】 kill is the essence of this skill:

If the Malefic Visions on a killed minion complete multiple contagions, it is equivalent to Malzahar doing "pushing the lane while consuming" with just one skill.

One skill achieves N effects!

But.

Until the third E was "picked up" by Yone, ShowMaker finally realized something was wrong.

"In this mid-lane laning phase, Brother Xu actually looks a bit proactive? His health is actually still an advantage!"

Guan Zeyuan was also somewhat surprised when he saw the health exchange in the mid lane.

But Barrier had already discovered the anomaly: "It doesn't seem right, Brother Guan. Haven't you noticed that Malzahar's mana bar is almost empty before he's even level four... Yone hasn't even drunk his potion yet!"

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

Under normal circumstances, when everyone sees a low-health minion with poison hanging on it standing next to them, their first reaction must be to pull away quickly 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," and one set of QWE consumes more than one-third of his mana bar.

The key to sustainability lies in the E-skill passive: {Each unit killed by Malefic Visions will restore mana to Malzahar} effect.

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

Being able to clear a lane with one skill is a hero's advantage.

But it can also be a gap to be exploited!

ShowMaker 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 counter-W shield can offset most of it—and Yone is also a no-cost hero!

Even if he keeps using his body to pick up the E, he can't consume much health at all!

And you have to know.