League of Legends: League of Unknowns

Qi Qiao spoke up, “Blood Eagle, you’ve been quiet for a while, now. I remember you saying at the beginning that Team Fudan had an interesting champion line-up. Could you say some more about that?”

“Well, you’ll find out at around twenty minutes into the game,” Zhao Tinghua replied.

The battles raged fiercely. Both sides had racked up a similar amount of Champion Kills, and each Dragon was bitterly contested.

The gold difference between both teams remained negligible. The main advantage so far lay with Lin Dong’s Anivia having amassed forty more CS than Orianna.

210 CS at twenty minutes… fearsome farming indeed.

Now that a tower had fallen in the Bottom lane, the action was moving towards the Middle lane.

It was obvious that Team Fudan’s Jayce had been making a lot of appearances here. Using his E-skill ‘Acceleration Gate’ to speed up his whole team, they knocked down a tower before Team Skycrown could respond in time, and now they were pushing towards the second-tier tower!

Kapow! Another Acceleration Gate flared to life, and a ‘Shock Blast’ hurtled through it, slamming into Team Skycrown’s champions with devastating effect!

Lin Dong’s Anivia and Da Luo’s Kennen had each suddenly lost a third of their total health!

Mystic Shot!

Ezreal fired off his Q-skill relentlessly. With the Iceborn Gauntlet in hand, any Mystic Shot that hit an enemy would be followed by another one just one second later, and Lin Siyong was a crack shot with it, so that everyone on Team Skycrown was soon staggering from their wounds.

“Oh no, we’re—”

“Don’t let the minions get close,” Da Luo snapped.

If the enemy’s minion wave reached their tower, Jayce could throw down another Acceleration Gate for his team, and another one of their towers would be reduced to rubble in moments.

However, even though Team Skycrown had Anivia’s potent wave-clearing capability on their side, they were helpless against this onslaught. Anivia was taking so much damage that Lin Dong didn’t dare to bring her to the front. If she lost her passive skill this early, they’d be that much weaker during a team fight.

Lin Dong frowned. “We can’t go on like this. Everyone’s lost too much health.”

The team fight hadn’t even started in earnest yet, but the non-stop barrage of Shock Blasts and Mystic Shots from Jayce and Ezreal, not to mention Orianna’s Ball and Lee Sin’s Sonic Waves…

They were being bombarded by a veritable hail of long-ranged attacks.

Because they had to hold their tower, there was a limit to how much they could dodge around, so somebody was always bound to get hit every so often. Although they’d started out at full health, beneath this withering harassment, hardly anyone was still fit for combat.

Under these circumstances, they couldn’t take the initiative at all… but if they didn’t do something, they’d just keep getting poked down like this until there was no choice but to return to the Fountain—and the moment even a single one of them withdrew from this engagement, the enemy would tear their towers apart in a blink!

Although Team Skycrown had managed to secure an advantage early on, if they lost two towers in the Middle lane like this, the tides of war would turn against them.

Before long, they’d lost a tower in the Top lane as well.

Team Fudan immediately advanced upon the second-tier tower there, poking hard as before. They wouldn’t commit to a team fight until the Team Skycrown champions were badly wounded enough to be easy pickings.

“Da Luo, force a fight! We can’t let them poke us down again!” Surveying everyone’s health, Lin Dong gave the command.

Nodding, Da Luo moved to flank!

Flashing through the wall, he opened right up with his ultimate skill, ‘Slicing Maelstrom’. The area was suddenly filled with crackling lightning, a fearsome ring of death surrounding Kennen!

Kennen’s ulti transformed him into a living bomb, a terrifying vortex of ravenous electricity!

“Kennen uses Flash to start a team fight! Indeed, Team Skycrown can’t allow themselves to keep getting harassed like this!” Qi Qiao cried out.

Snap-crackle! Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, as Kennen dove into the enemy’s ranks.

“Ah-tah!” Clad in the Dragon Fist skin, Lee Sin belted out that signature yelp. Right before Kennen reached the enemy team, Lee Sin vehemently slammed a foot into his face!

Trailing fresh blood, Kennen’s little body was sent sprawling away. This meant his Slicing Maelstrom had been kept at bay, allowing Team Fudan’s champions to avoid getting locked down by it!

It had been a perfect response from Lee Sin. The crowd went wild!

Kennen, the Heart of the Tempest, was most feared for his ultimate skill. Not only did it do tremendous damage across a vast area, it could also Stun everyone caught within its effect, often leading to a whole-team Ace.

That one kick from Lee Sin had utterly neutralized the threat from Kennen.

Deprived of Kennen’s area-effect crowd control, Team Skycrown had no tanks which could withstand through the horrifying damage from Team Fudan’s champions.

Already behind in gold, now that Team Skycrown had fumbled this crucial opening maneuver, the team fight became a disaster for them, and their champions dropped like flies.

Double Kill! Triple Kill!

“Jayce claims a Triple Kill with a beautiful Shock Blast. Elise was trying her best to juke it, but the shot found her anyway!”

The noise from the audience was deafening. Team Fudan’s diehard fans were screaming hysterically after that victorious team fight!

Two deaths for four kills! The team from Fudan University had only lost their Support and Mid; Team Skycrown had lost everyone save for Xiao Bei’s Tristana.

Tristana couldn’t hold the Top lane’s second-tier tower all by herself. All she could do was return to the Fountain.

Team Fudan now held a commanding advantage in the aftermath of this decisive team fight. They were currently more than seven thousand gold ahead, and they’d claimed all the Buffs too. Any further team fights against them would be even more of an uphill battle!

As a result of such a drastic financial disadvantage, even if Kennen managed to start off a team fight in an ideal situation, they could still end up losing due to the sheer difference in their equipment.

Furthermore, Team Skycrown’s choice to prioritize defense would only mean a slow, inevitable tumble towards defeat.

Jayce had assembled Last Whisper, Black Cleaver, and Muramana. Augmented with such sumptuous gear, one Shock Blast from him could shear off fully one-third of anyone’s health bar!

Team Skycrown had no true front-liners in their composition. Elise could take a moderate bit of punishment, but the others would have to back out of a fight after taking just a couple of hits—and then they would lose another tower, and the gold difference between them would widen further.

“This team composition… Team Fudan’s line-up is essentially unbeatable. So this is what Fudan University is capable of… Blood Eagle, you saw it right from the start, didn’t you? Is this the scenario you anticipated at twenty minutes—is this what you meant?” Qi Qiao’s voice quavered with awe.

Now that Team Fudan had demonstrated the strategy made possible by their champion line-up, everyone was startled beyond words. Before this point, Team Skycrown had been winning all three of the lanes.

However, once the team fights began, Team Skycrown appeared completely helpless. They were being trampled underfoot by Team Fudan, slaughtered almost to the last man, badly battered even while on the defensive.

“Classic poke strategy,” Blood Eagle commented.

“Could you explain to everyone the essential concept behind a poke strategy?” Qi Qiao asked.

“A poke composition comprises multiple champions with long-ranged attack skills. More typical examples include Lux, Jayce, Ezreal, Ziggs, Kha’Zix, Orianna, and so on. Three or more of these champions in the same team is an obvious indicator of a strategy based on poking.

“It’s clear to see that this is what Team Fudan was going for. They picked up Jayce, Ezreal, and Orianna—three excellent poke champions. Another crucial component to a poke composition is a champion who can force a team fight, or foil the enemy’s attempt to do so. Such a champion is key—in this case, Lee Sin!

“The greatest weakness of a poke composition is having a team fight forced onto them. Specialty in poking means inferior performance in an all-out team fight, so they can’t stand up to a sudden ambush or an aggressive charge. In this sense, Team Skycrown’s Kennen poses the greatest threat to them—but Lee Sin’s presence greatly mitigates this problem: Any time Kennen comes charging in with his ulti, Lee Sin will promptly eject him from the premises… as we saw earlier, up in the Top lane.

“Add in a Support with a large-area CC, and once the game progresses to this stage, things will really get out of hand. It’s like a moving castle of Towers.

“The teams are over seven thousand gold apart, now. Once the gold difference crosses ten thousand, no amount of strategy or teamwork will make any difference. The difference in equipment will be insurmountable, and the outcome of this game will already be decided.

“This kind of strategy first appeared in Korea. Team Fudan’s proficiency with it still appears rather primitive. If this play-style was being employed by one of Korea’s top teams, you’d understand the feeling of waiting helplessly for your own defeat.”

Blood Eagle delivered an impeccable run-down of the strategy. Qi Qiao was enraptured by his explanation. She hadn’t realized there were such powerful patterns in League of Legends. If you encountered an enemy team using such tactics in everyday Ranked play, there’d be no hope of overcoming them!

It was clear that Team Skycrown had been caught by surprise, and they’d lost a bunch of towers as a result. Now they were stuck on the back foot.

“Does this mean Team Skycrown is already done for? I can’t find any flaws in this strategy. It seems like there’s no way to defeat it.”

“Picking Kennen was actually a mistake—Malphite would have been better,” Tinghua declared. “He’s got the best team-fight opener in all of League of Legends, and better yet, a Malphite built for armor can stand in front of his team and block Jayce’s Shock Blasts with the help of his passive skill, greatly blunting the efficacy of their poke comp.

“Sadly, Team Skycrown is still kinda raw. They lost half the game during Champion Selection.”

“Very well, Team Skycrown appears to still lack experience. Given these circumstances, their odds of winning this game are scant to nil, what with the composition they’re up against,” Qi Qiao lamented.

***

Backstage, Yu Luocheng was similarly morose.

Team Fudan had surprised them with this strategy. Luocheng had seen it before in foreign competitions, but never as well as Team Fudan was performing it now, with lots of poke as well as the ability to force a team fight, or deflect enemy team fight openers… and then a deadly finishing flourish.

To make matters worse, Team Skycrown’s own champion line-up made the situation particularly untenable. There was no doubt that Lee Sin was keeping a close eye on Da Luo’s Kennen.

It looked like an 80% chance of them losing this game.

Luocheng didn’t feel that he was exaggerating the situation. He honestly didn’t reckon that there was anyone on Team Skycrown who could find a breakthrough now!