Chapter 77: Predicting the Trap! Utilizing Mechanics to the Extreme!

Summoner's Rift descends amidst the roar of the crowd!

Both sides have early-game weak lineups and seem to have no intention of invading, maintaining standard positioning.

Taliyah and Lissandra face each other in the mid lane.

Xiaohu suddenly presses the gold-rimmed [RNG] team emote, the custom emote for the champion team from the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational held in the first half of the year.

Ye Bo pauses for a moment before pressing the 'T' key to select and display the custom gold-rimmed [EDG] team emote from the 2021 World Championship.

"These two in the mid lane seem to have a murderous aura today!" Letme seems to recall something.

"Didn't we say when we were streaming that match where Ye Wen played in the LDL, that Ye Wen was originally supposed to go to RNG?" Zzitai chats with him to pass the boring early-game period.

"Wait a second, how does Ye Wen justify this!? This is looking down on my General Hu!"

"Starting with a Control Ward is too much, right? Not buying potions—it feels like he's saying Xiaohu can't put any laning pressure on him at all!" Letme mimics Zzitai's tone, teasing with a mocking drawl.

Taliyah's items consist only of a Doran's Ring and a Control Ward.

No health potions purchased!

Although, because the secondary tree is Inspiration, there's a high probability of having Biscuit Delivery, but since Taliyah needs to take {Cleanse} against Lissandra, having no Teleport and no potions means the laning pressure will inevitably spike!

"This guy isn't buying potions?" Xiaohu also notices this anomaly: "And why is it still Phase Rush Taliyah?"

In this patch, the vast majority of Taliyah players take {Unsealed Spellbook} because Taliyah's early combat capability is weak, and combat runes don't provide much of a boost, making it better to take Unsealed Spellbook to swap for Teleport.

Xiaohu doesn't understand, but he has already begun directing the jungler.

"Fatty, I'll trade health with him in lane, you can look for opportunities to gank mid!"

"OK."

Wei, nicknamed Fatty and recently crowned with the title "Guardian of the Tiger" after the MSI, gives a swift, affirmative response.

As in the first game, Taliyah begins "Threaded Volley" in the mid lane near the river entrance, timing it perfectly.

Xiaohu is unimpressed by this sight.

Ever since the first game against LNG, where Ye Bo used this tactic of using double-layered Worked Ground to push the wave quickly and then eating one Raptor to level up and counter-jungle.

All teams immediately studied and researched it.

After a simple analysis, everyone discovered that while this strategy looked unbreakable.

It had quite a few inherent problems.

First, once this strategy is known, it inevitably exposes the jungler's pathing and direction—because the mid laner can only eat the Raptors.

This is already a significant problem for the jungle.

Other discovered counters are also quite direct: either one's own jungler symmetrically starts at Raptors and takes one, eliminating the issue of the opponent getting a level-two lead from the wave.

Or, invest more in river vision at level one to detect the intent in advance.

Or, as long as the jungler doesn't reveal their pathing, they can change their route the moment Taliyah goes missing to respond.

As long as the invasion fails, the level-two lead Taliyah gains is meaningless and only affects her laning state!

So, although many mid laners tried using this strategy during that period, once everyone was prepared, almost no one achieved significant results, and it was gradually abandoned.

1:30, the minion waves clash.

Taliyah pushes the wave as usual; Xiaohu is familiar with the routine, pushing back while dodging the splash damage from the rocks.

The first wave is successfully fast-pushed via the head start, and Taliyah repeats the rhythm, then heads toward the familiar Raptors camp in the back.

However, Xiaohu is not in a hurry.

Because his jungler is not starting Blue this game.

"Taliyah is missing," Xiaohu gives the alert immediately.

Then, a Control Ward lights up in the upper river bush, disabling the ward he placed at level one, but it has already served its purpose as a detector.

The brief vision reveals that Taliyah has already hit level two.

"She must have gone into the Blue quadrant with Xin Zhao. Our 2v2 is hard to play early, let's swap jungle quadrants."

"Yeah, it's hard to fight before level six. I'm going to swap, be careful top." Wei adds a reminder for the top lane.

Although Taliyah's early damage is low, Lissandra's isn't much higher; both serve the purpose of crowd control and lockdown.

But Xin Zhao is clearly much stronger than Viego in the early game.

Of course, once they hit level six, Lissandra's ultimate will qualitatively improve their fighting ability; their combined single-target burst will be extremely high, and the mid-jungle duo will have no disadvantage.

Viego finishes Red and heads straight for the opponent's bottom-side Blue quadrant.

Taliyah, meanwhile, has already returned to the mid lane from the river before the second wave arrives.

"Taliyah ate the chicken, she definitely went there." Because Taliyah still holds the level-two advantage, Lissandra has to retreat temporarily to avoid taking poke damage.

Viego has already activated his Sweeper and crossed the river.

After entering the jungle safely, he finds the Blue buff untouched.

Since Taliyah has shown herself and it's confirmed she ate the small Raptor to hit level two, it proves Xin Zhao must have started in the top quadrant; he should be in the Blue team's top quadrant right now, so Viego should be under no threat.

Wei doesn't hesitate and starts the Blue buff immediately.

But he doesn't know that the spectators watching outside are already wailing in despair.

"Hey! Wei! Danger!" Zzitai sings in a high-pitched trio.

"Damn, it's a trap! They actually have a variation on this move! Bad!" Letme gasps anxiously.

From the spectator's perspective, one can see Xin Zhao crouching right outside the Blue buff wall!

Viego is even standing on a ward!

Waiting for the Blue buff's health to drop to a sliver, Xin Zhao seizes the moment to pop the Blast Cone.

While in mid-air, he presses Smite!

{Smite can be cast during any 'crowd control process' except 'Suppression', including knock-ups.}

Calculated against the uncalculating, plus JieJie's Smite timing is always precise.

In Viego's vision, the Smite appears even before Xin Zhao's figure.

There is absolutely no time to react; the Blue buff, with a full 445 health, is snatched away by the red light of Smite in the gap of a single auto-attack!

"What the, Xin Zhao is here!?"

From Wei's perspective, everything feels incredibly inexplicable.

And at this moment, Taliyah, having already used her level-two lane priority to move early, and her bottom-lane teammates have already coordinated to surround him.

Xin Zhao lands an E-Q combo to slow him; Viego, having finished Red and Blue, is already low on health and is no match for them in a 1v1.

"Don't come! Don't come! I won't give them an assist!"

Wei makes the most correct response.

Viego doesn't use Flash, turning instead to stand and fight Xin Zhao to the end, dealing as much damage as possible—this way, a Xin Zhao with unhealthy health won't be able to continue invading his Red quadrant.

"JieJie gets the First Blood solo kill! Wow, this... Ye Wen, this guy is playing psychology!" Zzitai yells.

"These flashy tactics really need the inventor to pull them off; the inventor is hiding things!"

[Wei is in danger! Jie is fast!]

[I don't get it, why didn't other coaching staffs think of such a simple advanced design? Are the LPL coaching staffs just eating for free?]

[Looks simple? That's because you're in the spectator's view! Then again, what gave you the illusion that LPL coaching staffs aren't eating for free? How many meta heroes and strategic understandings are just stolen and resold!]

[It won't be like that from now on. It feels like EDG with Master Ye is a research team, they have new ideas every game! Everyone else, just learn!]

[Ye Wen's schemes are too deep! Compared to him, Xiaohu is as simple as Knight!]

Although it looks like a jungler's solo kill.

But from the spectator's view, it's not hard for those with a keen eye to see that this seemingly simple design is actually a classic case of "the bystander sees more than the player."

Xin Zhao did indeed start at Raptors.

But this time, he didn't follow Taliyah to the opponent's Blue quadrant; he only hit one low-health Raptor to give Taliyah the level-up.

After finishing the Raptors, Xin Zhao turned around and headed back to his own Blue quadrant!

Taliyah placed a Control Ward in the river bush to block vision, but in reality, she only did one simple thing—placed a ward over the wall for the Blue buff.

In fact, in Ye Bo's original conception.

This level-one tactic had two forms.

If you don't know it can be done, that's the first form: the counter-jungle.

If you know it can be done... that's the second form: the "bait"!

In truth, there was no need to force a counter-jungle; Taliyah eating one small Raptor doesn't hurt the jungle at all, and being able to use that to hit level two and place a ward in the enemy Blue quadrant is already a "fail-safe" guaranteed return.

If the opponent starts Red, knowing this tactic, the enemy mid laner wouldn't dare to follow for a defensive fight at level one, so they would naturally have to swap jungle quadrants.

There is almost no game theory involved, and almost no exceptions.

Because the enemy jungler would never accept having half their jungle eaten for free!

And if the enemy jungler starts Blue, then the moment they see Taliyah go missing, they would be forced to change their pathing to avoid being counter-jungled at level two.

This way, the opening rhythm is still damaged, and Xin Zhao can still get a level lead at level four to make plays early!

This is the "fail-safe."

So, why did other teams study this tactic but fail to reach this level of understanding?

Setting aside the factor of ability for a moment.

It is mainly because the "limitations" are too great, and no one is willing to spend a lot of time simulating it.

Because the core foundation of this tactic is—after Taliyah's rework, she can use the Threaded Volley to push the wave at level one faster than normal, perfectly utilizing the time difference between the two waves.

Simply put, only Taliyah can do this!

For any other hero, it would indeed be just a "laning trick" that exposes one's own jungler's pathing, just as everyone else understood it.

Not many people are like Ye Bo, spending a lot of time practicing one hero and then "incidentally" researching the various designs that can be derived from that hero.

"It has to be you, Master Ye. I knew it, the radar for Kasa must have been stolen by you!" Jiejie praised him with a refreshed mood.

Jiejie now immensely enjoys this kind of gaming experience where you just tell me what the jungler should do, and I just need to execute the operations well to complete it.

The mid-jungle duo already had a slight advantage in fighting, and this solo kill in the jungle can be said to have completely broken the balance; the Viego and Lissandra basically cannot engage in a 2v2 before level six.

Fortunately, Wei's decision-making before dying was very wise, preserving his own jungle, and Viego's own development was not significantly affected.

The RNG mid-jungle naturally also knew that the opponents would definitely play in the bottom half of the map this game.

But the disadvantage in the early jungle meant they could only look for opportunities elsewhere first, unable to engage in a head-on conflict.

The conventional situation is obviously to switch to attacking the top lane.

After all, Kayle and Gangplank both look like types that are very easy to gank.

But Wei did not choose that.

Don't look at how Gangplank and Kayle both seem easy to gank; these two heroes also have a common flaw, which is that they both have almost no ability to cooperate with a jungler's gank.

The success rate of Viego ganking top alone is very low, and once counter-ganked, it would be an absolute disaster!

"Kill the Taliyah, can't let him get liberated so quickly," Wei made his choice.

"You can come, force his summoner spells out, and he won't dare to pressure!" Xiaohu responded quickly.

Lissandra versus Taliyah is a toss-up, but Lissandra's strength lies in her ability to cooperate with the jungler.

A 1000-yard E skill Glacial Path can forcibly approach the opponent to lock them down; as long as the opponent is forced to use both summoner spells, Taliyah cannot get within 1000 yards of Lissandra, and his laning will need to be extremely cowardly.

The Viego, having respawned and left the base, did not head toward the jungle.

Instead, he continued to actively attack the mid lane!

It is hard for anyone to imagine that a level 2 Viego leaving the base wouldn't think about catching up on jungle farming progress, but would instead gank and ambush!

Because Ye Bo had no potions, even if he was very careful about trading health, it was impossible to maintain a full state, and he was already preparing to use the cannon minion wave to recall after pushing it.

But Wei's change of pace was truly beyond conventional scope.

Lissandra was very decisive; seeing Viego charge his W and walk out, he directly used his E claw to get into range and used Flash-W to lock him down.

Taliyah used Cleanse instantly, while simultaneously turning his head with precision to cast Unraveled Earth toward Viego's direction, preventing the opponent from using W, while also triggering {Phase Rush} to quickly create distance.

"He's here! It has to be Wei coming to protect the Tiger!" Zitai shouted excitedly: "Although Taliyah's operation to forcibly save his Flash was very detailed, don't look at it as Lissandra trading Flash for Cleanse, it's actually absolutely worth it!"

"Because without Cleanse, there's no pressure in the mid lane matchup; Taliyah won't dare to stay too close to Lissandra at all! Otherwise, with one E, you'd have to consider whether or not to use Flash!"

"As long as we wait for Xiaohu's Lissandra to reach level six, the mid-jungle will take over the tempo!"

Zitai's analysis of the mid lane situation was quite on point; after all, he started as a mid-laner, and he has a deep understanding of these old heroes.

Although Cleanse has a shorter cooldown than Flash by two minutes, in this mid-lane matchup, it is more fatal than Flash.

Lissandra's E 1050-yard + W 450-yard distance provides a very large threat range.

Taliyah can now only use his 1000-yard Q skill to clear waves as much as possible; although the speed won't be much slower, it will definitely be affected to some extent. At the very least, Lissandra will control the lane priority, smoothing out the difference in roaming ability between the two.

The wave-clearing speed of Taliyah and Lissandra is about the same; the difference between the two is mainly reflected in the "efficiency" and "speed" of roaming.

And because of this sacrifice by Viego, he successfully found the initiative for the mid lane.

"Master Ye, do you want to come and camp for a couple of waves?" Jiejie asked aloud.

"It's fine, Lissandra is hard to gank, I'll just be careful myself," Ye Bo declined the other's good intentions.

After all, he still held a Flash; although he had to play very carefully, he wouldn't die before level six as long as he was cowardly enough.

What's more... the opponent has no Flash, which perhaps can also be exploited.

EDG hadn't planned to invade this game anyway.

The 2v2 advantage in the jungle between Xin Zhao and Taliyah still remained, and the two of them invading together could still make the opposing mid-jungle wary, as they were constantly looking for opportunities to make a move on the bottom lane.

This put significant pressure on Gala, who already had a certain disadvantage in his combo, making his play even more restricted.

Zeri's strength lies in the 825-yard range advantage of her Q skill, but the price is that the Q skill, as the hero's "true auto-attack," can actually be blocked by minions and even miss!

With a long-range enchanter support that can kite, there is still an opportunity to kite against Lucian and Nami.

But when paired with a hard-engage support, Leona points at the minion pile, and they simply cannot handle the high burst counter-attack of Lucian and Nami.

Plus, the opponent is one of the best users of the Lucian-Nami combo, so they can basically only take a beating in lane!

Fortunately, Gala and Ming's laning level is also top-tier; despite maintaining a tense situation, the balance was not broken.

Time reached five and a half minutes.

Both mid-laners reached level six, clearing a wave of minions at almost the exact same time.

As the two crossed paths, they both disappeared toward the bottom side.

"Jiejie, look at my position!" Ye Bo was conveying his intent to Xin Zhao.

"Don't be afraid, we are all here for this wave!" Xiaohu was also giving his bottom lane teammates confidence: "You can bait a little, we have the advantage here!"

Both sides barely hid their intentions; after all, they had been playing in the bottom half of the map for these few minutes, and both knew clearly that the other wanted to make a breakthrough in the bottom lane.

Lissandra and Taliyah moved at almost the same time, and Viego was farming Krugs behind the bottom lane.

Even if Taliyah could arrive a few seconds earlier thanks to his passive, Lissandra could also use his E skill to cross terrain, not to mention Viego was camping nearby.

Being at the same level six, it was obvious that Lissandra's combat ability would be stronger.

However, just as Xiaohu finished speaking.

The Lissandra who had walked to the wall of the Dragon Pit suddenly saw a warning red frame light up on the ground beneath his feet for no reason!

Xiaohu's eyes froze, and then his feet stepped into thin air, and he was suddenly terrified!

"Blind vision!?"

Because there was a Control Ward in the bush outside the Blue side's Red buff wall, he wouldn't have walked this way if it weren't for that.

This was the closest route to support the bottom lane.

And what was important was... this blind-vision W Seismic Shove actually directly knocked Lissandra up and tumbled him into the Dragon Pit!

[Seismic Shove] reveals vision when cast; using this brief vision reveal, one can judge whether the W hit, and whether it is necessary to follow up with Unraveled Earth.

Lissandra tumbled into the wall and fell into a stun; Xin Zhao, who had already arrived following the command, brandished his long spear and frantically stabbed at the Tiger's rear!

Lissandra's crowd control ended, and he instantly used E toward the wall to try to escape.

But Xin Zhao had been carefully holding his E, and relying on the passive [Challenge] mark to double the distance of [Audacious Charge], he lunged with his spear and chased him onto the shore!

"Xiaohu!!!" Zitai was dumbfounded.

"He can cast that with blind vision? He's too confident!"

"Lissandra doesn't even have Flash!" Letme gritted his teeth and clapped his hands in anxiety.

"Hey, Lissandra shouldn't have used his ultimate! Viego is just a wall away and can't save him, and even if he really flashed to save him, Taliyah has his ultimate too!"

[The young man doesn't follow the rules of martial arts! An ambush!]

[The insidious tornado! The Tiger King has fallen (crying voice)]

[And you say my Ah Shui has no discipline? I think Pi Hu has no discipline either! It feels like he just walked up to eat the Seismic Shove himself; I even suspect that if there were landmines on this floor, he would step on them just like that!]

[Ah, can you blame his positioning for being knocked up without vision? This is clearly the shortest path from the auto-pathing on the minimap; maybe Xiaohu wasn't even looking at his own screen!]

[So isn't this a bit outrageous? How can he predict this with blind vision? He's hacking, right!]

[Jianghu rules: a little bit of map hack doesn't count as hacking.]

If viewed from a god's-eye perspective, this would seem even more outrageous.

Because it was indeed blind vision.

How did Ye Bo manage it?

Actually, just after both mid-laners disappeared from the mid lane together.

Ye Bo's perspective remained fixed on the shadows of the opponent's jungle.

His brain was simulating, assuming Lissandra's movement trajectory, calculating the position the opponent was traveling through.

A hero without extra movement speed bonuses, without extra interference factors.

And because Taliyah has an ultimate and a passive, Lissandra's support speed would naturally be slower; if he also chose to take a wide detour through his own jungle, it was very likely that by the time he arrived, Taliyah would have already flanked and blocked the path!

So being able to guess that Lissandra would walk this path was not a difficult task.

Blind in eyes, but not blind in heart.

Of course, even if he guessed wrong, it wouldn't matter; at most, he would just wait for the W skill cooldown, either to go to the bottom lane to fight or wait for the Dragon team fight.

It's just that the facts proved Ye Bo's guess was very accurate.

This actually utilized Taliyah's passive {Rock Surfing}, a pure speed-up skill; by hugging the wall at the limit, one can maintain full speed in the jungle river, coupled with the dual amplification characteristics of {Waterwalking}.

Only Taliyah can easily arrive early when both move at the same time, completing this unpredictable "Predictive Trap"!

This move, like the level-one design, is a technique derived from utilizing hero mechanics to the extreme.

Ye Bo's success rate against the AI version of Rookie in the trial grounds was quite high, let alone against Xiaohu, who has slower reactions.

And because of the death in the mid lane, the original 4v4 situation in the bottom half of the map was shattered, and RNG seemed to have no choice but to give up the Dragon.

"It's okay, Xiaohu's death is dry!" Zitai habitually used the word "dry": "Anyway, it's just the first Dragon, it doesn't matter~"

Letme, however, pointed to the change coming from behind the bottom lane: "That's not right, what does EDG want to do!"

After EDG's bottom lane pushed the wave, they turned and disappeared, as if to take the Dragon.

Seeing the opponent give up, Viego, who had been camping without result, also hurriedly pressed recall, giving up the contest for the Dragon.

And RNG's bottom lane was just honestly clearing the minion wave near the tower.

But, from the god's-eye perspective.

One could clearly see that EDG's tempo for this wave had not ended.

Just as RNG's bottom lane was preparing to recall under the tower, they suddenly saw the bottom duo walking out from the lane again.

"Why didn't they go to take the Dragon?" Ming had just finished speaking.

In his ears, a sound that shook the earth and mountains suddenly came!

Immediately, a wall of earth rose from the ground behind.

Appearing at the same time, Zhao Xin was also closing in from above!

"Can you hold on! I'll have Teleport in 3 seconds when I respawn!"

"Gangplank, use your ultimate!"

Seeing the sudden change, Gala did not listen to the urgent voices of his teammates in his ears, but calmly watched the position of the wall, rapidly calculating the distance to judge if he could pass through it.

From the moment the prompt appears to the moment the end is fully formed, Taliyah's level-one ultimate takes about 3 seconds.

If Taliyah landed first to lay down the Unraveled Earth, Zeri, who was surrounded, would have no chance to use her E to dash over the wall.

Trapped within the wall, with the burst damage from Lucian and Nami combined with Zhao Xin and Taliyah, Zeri would have no chance to outplay them at all!

And in Gala's precise prediction, he should be able to pass through that wall just before it fully formed!

Zeri slid backward with a short E, directing his support to head toward the wall.

The wall of earth protruded from the ground.

Taliyah was whipping the rocks, while Zeri was racing against the dust.

At the very last moment, Gala's calculation was correct; Zeri's figure just brushed past the end of the wall, causing Zeri's figure to be pushed forward by the wall.

However, this was also exactly what Taliyah had calculated.

Riding the wall, Taliyah "got off early" just before reaching the end, leaping into mid-air, and a large amount of flying stones crashed down!

In the first half of reaching the target point, by actively getting off, she gained a half-second head start to cast her ability, using the ultimate's frontal knockback effect to trigger the Unraveled Earth on her own.

"RE-Charge Taliyah"!

Zeri's figure, pushed by the wall, triggered the stun of the Unraveled Earth!

Along with Leona, who had been aiming her E ability at Taliyah, she was also stunned!

Taliyah landed and then used Seismic Shove to knock her back.

She knocked the stunned Zeri over the wall and back under the tower.

Nami flashed to follow up with a bubble, Zhao Xin thrust his spear, and Lucian dashed to fire.

With the burst damage from these four, it was more than enough to secure the kill!

Sorry t.t, 7k, that's all there is.

Sigh, I stayed up all night and only managed to write this much; I really can't hold on anymore, I'm dizzy and blurry-eyed, going to sleep for a bit first.

Really sorry, I will definitely finish this match tonight, it might be a little late.

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(End of chapter)