Chapter 368: Is this moment exactly like that moment in the past? Round 2 of the Swiss Stage

T1 Base.

The advantage of hosting locally is that the base is only a twenty-minute drive from the tournament venue, so they don't have to rush to the site early to wait like other teams.

And just before the first match was about to start, the T1 members, having just finished their scrims, were still gathered around the table discussing.

"I still feel that using it in the group stage is a bit..." Coach Bengi seemed hesitant.

"But what Brother Xianghe said isn't wrong either. We haven't used it in actual combat, and the experiments in the second team's scrims can only be used as a reference," Keria, who blindly supports the mid laner's ideas, chimed in, "After all, they aren't V5."

"Little K is right." Gumayusi supported his support.

Oner, on the other hand, shrugged with an indifferent expression; only Zeus in the corner remained silent.

And Lee Xianghe, sitting in the center of the group with his eyes closed to rest, was actually struggling internally.

Originally, they believed that after arriving at this patch, their top lane's advantage could be amplified, and facing V5 should already be their advantage.

However, DK's crushing defeat still sounded an alarm for T1.

Although the outside world somewhat "looked down" on DK—in T1's own eyes, they actually felt that DK was somewhat similar to them.

The top lanes are both offensive top laners, the junglers are both operators who blindly follow the mid lane's rhythm, the mid laners are both veterans whose mechanics have declined and have started playing with their brains, and the bot lanes are both duos with strong laning abilities.

Of course, every position on DK can at most be considered a "low-spec version," and some positions don't even count as low-spec versions.

But V5 won that match too easily!

Especially when everyone carefully observed the replay, they could discover many small operational details that weren't visible while watching the match live, all of which proved that V5 had indeed done a lot of research on the World Championship patch.

Although the T1 members still had confidence, it didn't prevent everyone from still feeling a bit of nervousness inside.

"I understand your concerns, Xingxiong," Lee Xianghe opened his eyes and looked at Bengi.

"But this tactic is something we extracted from them after all. If we really face them, it might not necessarily achieve the effect we imagine."

"If we save it for the quarterfinals or even later matches, once an unexpected result occurs, we won't be able to accept it."

After hearing this, Bengi's face immediately showed an expression of surprise.

Because just now, he had actually been thinking with the preconceived mindset that "our side has a huge advantage."

He thought that using their {secret weapon} in a BO1 schedule like the group stage where they "can't kill the opponent" was really a bit of a waste.

But Bengi didn't expect that his old brother's concern was actually about not being able to beat the opponent when they could directly kill them in the later stages!

As a comrade-in-arms from the very beginning of the ancient era, and even more so as the mid-jungle position which is naturally the closest in a team, Bengi can definitely be said to be the person who understands Lee Xianghe best among all his teammates throughout the years.

Yet for so many years, he had never felt this kind of... lack of confidence in the other person at any moment.

Could it be that that person...

really brought such pressure to Xianghe?

"Alright, then everyone rest a bit more. We are the last match today, so we can go over in the evening." Bengi stopped insisting and changed the subject.

"Who is playing in the first match again?"

As soon as the stream was opened, it happened to be the first game of WBG vs G2 entering the match.

But he didn't expect...

the actions of both sides at the very beginning surprised everyone!

"Holy turtle, what is G2 trying to do!?" Guan Zeyuan on the commentary desk exclaimed.

Wang Duoduo immediately followed up to add: "I've seen this move before; isn't this the move V5 used on the Summer Finals stage!"

"And this is almost a one-to-one copy," Rita widened her eyes and chimed in.

It could be seen that at the start, G2's top, bot, and support trio went directly to the top lane.

And all the viewers who watched the "LPL Summer Finals" would definitely find this scene extremely familiar—because it was almost exactly the same as the opening tactic V5 used back then!

Back in the third game of the Summer Finals, V5's Sion, Fiddlesticks, and Tristana trio ambushed people at the start.

It directly made TheShy's Jayce go through the legendary "Black Five Minutes"!

Clearly, G2 wanted to replicate this tactic.

And they even made a small optimization: they didn't stand in the first bush directly, but placed a ward in the second bush, and then waited in front of their own defensive tower to avoid being detected by the opponent's attempt to come up and help place a ward.

There was just one small problem.

G2 seemed to have forgotten that WBG is an LPL team.

This meant that during the World Championship preparation time in the past few days, WBG was often able to scrim against the developer of this tactic—V5's various ways of "targeting" the top lane also made them suffer a lot!

Although V5 used it as a practice target...

WBG also benefited greatly from it at the same time!

"Where is Liu Qingsong going to place a ward? Why did he run to the bush in front of the opponent's bot lane second tower to place a ward!?"

"Wait, if that's the case, WBG seems to know that the opponent's bot lane isn't actually in the bottom half of the jungle. Could they realize something!"

Clearly, WBG had already realized something.

If they hadn't gone through the hardships of scrims, perhaps WBG would have just followed normal logic to guess whether the opponent's bot lane was just hiding under the tower or hiding in the other side of the jungle.

But they had truly experienced this scene many times!

After confirming that there was no one in the bot jungle, WBG completely locked onto G2's idea, and then directly dispatched the mid, jungle, and support trio to detour to the rear bush to wait.

A very strange scene appeared in the top lane.

1 minute into the game: there were actually 7 people standing there!

Yet within each other's vision, there were only 2 top laners!

"WBG had no vision the whole time but directly guessed that the opponent was going to make a move on the top lane, but G2 definitely really didn't know that there were people behind them!"

"How do they look so 'skilled'!"

"G2 is in trouble!"

Just as G2's entire team thought their design was flawless, and Yone, Xayah, and Rakan had used all their skills for a forced pursuit, three people suddenly burst out from behind WBG!

The Old Black sold his rear successfully and revealed his fangs, cooperating with the three people in the bush to keep everyone from the opponent.

G2 gave away three kills at the start!

The most critical thing was that the bot lane exploded!

According to V5's offensive design, it should be to catch or cripple the opponent's top laner, then their own top laner would TP to the bot lane, and the bot duo would just take the farm in the top lane.

But at this moment, the bot duo died, and there was no TP to return to the lane.

No matter which lane they went to next, it would be a disastrous start!

This is actually why V5 hasn't used this "opening design" much since then.

Because this design is clearly not a formula that can be blindly applied in any match.

As long as the opponent is prepared—or rather, as long as the top laner refuses to eat minions when they don't see the bot lane appear in the first wave, it can be broken!

After all, if the opponent's top lane didn't die and couldn't defend the tower, due to the difference in the {defensive tower plating protection} mechanism between top and bot, their own top laner TPing to the bot lane is a pure loss.

Not to mention the anti-dive game in the jungle.

"G2 is really trying to pull some stunts." Ye Bo said with a smile.

"It seems WBG didn't take our beatings for nothing~" Xun teased across the screen: "This match should be easily taken, Xiaohu is going to take revenge!"

The usually steady Sheng Qiang Ge originally wanted to make a judgment too.

But seeing BDS Adam sitting next to him who came to "chase stars," considering the other party is a player from the same region, he held back his words with high emotional intelligence.

As the match progressed, everyone thought that LPL should be able to get off to a good start today.

And Ye Bo even saw G2 top laner BB "paying tribute" to him in the mid game.

"What is BB doing!!!"

G2 top laner BB also chose Yone in this match. Before a small dragon fight, he actively gave up his position, allowing the Vi chosen by the opponent Wei to complete a lock-on.

He was clearly inspired by yesterday's match and wanted to follow suit with an "Using oneself as bait" operation.

But the operation failed! ===== CHAPTER 369 =====