Chapter 387: Show the Sword? Show the Sword!

"One to zero!" Wawa’s voice was loud and clear, "V5 strikes first, taking the victory in the opening game of this best-of-five quarterfinal!"

"In this game, V5 has once again shown us a brand-new way to respond to the lane-swap meta: it’s called meeting ten thousand changes with no change, using a no-lane-swap strategy to break the lane-swap!"

Miller nodded vigorously: "Speaking of which, Mr. Ye’s Emperor of the Sands really performed miraculous feats this game. He spent almost the entire time in the mid lane resisting harassment from multiple people without showing a single flaw, and even managed a solo kill in the matchup!"

"More importantly, the subsequent team fights also shattered our perceptions—this is the Emperor of the Sands that belongs to our domestic server region!"

The roar of the crowd in the stands soared into the sky, as if the air itself had been ignited by the meaningless cheers erupting from the spectators.

And the discussions breaking out all over the stands were quite interesting as well.

"Aish, look at those forums saying only our LCK region knows how to play the Emperor of the Sands—look at this one! This is what you call an Emperor of the Sands!"

"It’s my first time knowing the Emperor of the Sands could be played like this. By comparison, I feel like our Emperors of the Sands, who only know how to farm for 40 minutes before daring to come out and fight, are just trash! Why is his Emperor of the Sands so useful in the early game?"

"Aish! Why aren't you two supporting HLE? Are you even Korean?"

"It’s not that, brother, you’re supporting those guys? If any of them can win against V5 once, I’ll support them immediately! The problem is, no one can win against them~"

"True, I’m about to become a fan too."

On the stage, the members of V5 were walking off with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

On the other side, the HLE members all had dark faces; one can only say that the joys and sorrows of humans are not shared.

They had originally thought that by bringing out a lineup they had prepared for days, they could steal a big win from V5, and by taking the first game, they might even set the tone for the entire best-of-five.

But they never expected to be beaten until they were dizzy right from the start!

What happened to the "cold hands" they were promised?

Where was the cold!

And it was very clear that in the first game, V5 could be said to have brought out nothing "unexpected"; it was almost entirely their most commonly used lineup and system.

The only difference was that they hadn't expected that in a lane-swap meta where combat could erupt at any moment, growth-oriented heroes like the Emperor of the Sands or Orianna—which they thought had too weak early-game combat power—wouldn't lose their chance to appear.

As it turned out, not only did they not lose their chance, they actually looked quite strong!

The Emperor of the Sands’ naturally difficult-to-kill laning environment was well-suited for 1v2 pressure-soaking, and since it was already hard to get results during the laning phase, the growth gap between 1v1 and 1v2 wasn't as large as imagined.

Of course.

The HLE members couldn't tell if it was a problem with the heroes or a problem with the people.

The television screen backstage was playing the damage panel from the previous game.

The data for the two solo lanes, Gnar and Qiyana, were almost at the bottom of the entire team, enough to see who the culprits of the last two games were!

And when the live broadcast moved to the MVP selection segment.

Ye Bo appeared on the screen, once again dealing a heavy blow to the gloomy-faced Zeka!

In the photo, Ye was turned sideways to the camera, making a "gunshot" gesture. Every statistic listed below was quite astonishing; one couldn't tell at all that it was an Emperor of the Sands from a game that had barely lasted twenty minutes!

It was fortunate that there wasn't a rating called "Team Fight Performance" on the data panel—otherwise, that would have been an even more soul-crushing scene.

After all, if Ye Bo’s team fight performance in the last game was a 9, then Zeka was at most a 0.9!

Even a 1 was a stretch!

And Zeka and Canyon also learned from their team analyst about the "Sand Soldier Footstep Tracking" principle analyzed from the god's-eye view, finally understanding why they had been unable to get close to the Emperor of the Sands during the game.

"...There’s actually something like this?" Canyon looked incredulous, then turned to look at Zeka: "Don't you practice the Emperor of the Sands too? You didn't know this?"

"..." Zeka was left speechless by the questioning.

He really didn't know!

Not to mention that Zeka, as an assassin-origin player with a relatively fixed playstyle, really struggled to master and didn't like playing heroes like the Emperor of the Sands.

To truly master every single minute detail of a hero, how could it be such an easy thing?

One must know that in the entire career of many professional players, they might only be able to master a few of this caliber!

Fortunately, it wasn't all bad news.

Upon learning the truth, the two at least had some "psychological comfort"; it seemed to prove that it wasn't their ability that was the problem, but the mechanics' fault!

Coach Jin Jingzhu looked at everyone with a serious expression, interrupting their discussion.

"The point we need to discuss now is not this."

"You should have realized that the real reason for our disadvantage in the last game was because the Emperor of the Sands was 1v2 the whole time, which allowed the other side to operate so smoothly!"

"If they play like this today, then if we want to beat them, someone must also try to handle the 1v2 pressure... otherwise, no matter how we swap lanes, we lose!"

In the lane-swap meta, as long as you can withstand the pressure in a 1v2, it’s an advantage.

—This sounds like a platitude, but it is actually the "essential content" of the lane-swap meta!

Lane-swapping is essentially about both sides trying to dive the opponent's top laner; whoever can force out more skills, get an extra counter-kill, or even survive a tower dive, has the potential to change the course of the game.

And V5 had simply shifted this task to other lanes.

The conclusion was not hard to reach.

But the problem was that if they wanted to put it into practice, the difficulty was definitely not small.

"I'll do it."

"I'll do it!"

Two voices rang out simultaneously.

At this moment.

On the commentary desk at the venue, the highlight reel of the previous game was still playing.

"Ah, this play, I remember now, it seems to have appeared in this year's LPL Summer Split, the opponent at the time should have been Scout!"

The Roaring Emperor looked at the familiar solo kill in the mid lane and finally remembered where he had seen it.

"I remember at that time, the day after this match, our LCK matches immediately saw a phenomenon where if anyone wanted to pick the Emperor of the Sands, they would definitely ban or pick Qiyana first. Everyone must have been influenced by that match at the time..."

"But how did our region's several Emperor of the Sands masters not think of handling it this way back then?"

The Roaring Emperor, momentarily too surprised, didn't care about the impact on the audience's mood and blurted out the complaint in his heart.

Nuguri on the left, however, looked unfazed.

He even had an expression that said, "It should be this way."

He said in an incomparably serious and earnest tone: "Besides Akali, if there is one hero you can never doubt Ye on, it is the Emperor of the Sands."

"I can only say, no matter what kind of performance he puts on with this hero, I won't feel any surprise at all."

The two beside him were noncommittal about this comment.

After all, everyone knew that Nuguri had a "huge shadow" cast by Ye Bo’s Emperor of the Sands.

During the S-series quarterfinals last year, in those matches where EDG faced DK, Ye Bo used the Emperor of the Sands consecutively to defeat them despite a disastrous start where the whole team was positive for the virus.

It was practically enough to drive Nuguri into retirement!

Of course, Ye Bo’s performance on the Emperor of the Sands in this match could indeed only be described with the word "perfect."

His turning of the tide in the mid-game canyon team fight and his unimaginable solo entry to secure the victory during the stalemate in the bottom lane push all left too many memories for everyone.

And besides that, what was equally impressive.

Perhaps it was K'Sante’s "Thousand-Mile Rescue" where he "relayed off his teammate's double walls."