League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“Team Skycrown’s coach is finally taking the stage himself!” Zhang Aijing announced. “As I understand it, this guy played in the LOL University League as Support for Shanghai University. With his addition to their team, Shanghai University made an unprecedented breakthrough, going all the way to the semi-finals!

“Based on an ID check and analysis by our statistics team, the Skycrown coach is a long-time Bot-lane player, typically going Support or ADC. He’s got an exceptional winning rate in Ranked play—100% when playing as Ezreal!”

When she’d found out about F-Hawk’s re-appearance, Aijing had used her own methods to ferret out Yu Luocheng’s in-game ID, and had sifted through all his performance stats.

He was a Bot-laner, and nothing stood out more than that 100% winning rate on Ezreal. He’d risen from the bottom to the top in Ranked play, and he’d won every single game during his transition from 2,200 ELO to Diamond 1. It was a startling notion.

Now that Aijing had spilled the beans like this, the whole crowd was in an uproar!

Who had ever heard of a 100% winning rate? Whether in Normal and Ranked play, the system in ‘League of Legends’ always strove to bring your winning rate down to 50%, and it should be the same no matter how good you were.

It was a ladder system which reached a very long way up. If you were a skilled player, this ladder would quickly bring you up to a level where all the players were equal to you in ability. As a result, your winning rate would gradually tend towards 50%.

Outside of smurfing, the only way one could maintain a winning rate that high was if the system genuinely couldn’t find anyone who was your equal!

Luocheng’s 100% winning rate on Ezreal came as a shock to everyone. Perhaps luck played some part in it, or perhaps he hadn’t actually played that many games as Ezreal—but to hold a 100% winning rate at Diamond 1 tier… whatever else that might be said about it, it wasn’t an achievement to be taken lightly!

***

“Oh, hell… Luocheng is really going to duel Blood Eagle!” Yang Ying wasn’t quite coming to terms with the notion.

Not too long ago, Yu Luocheng was just another freshman, with perhaps a few things worth noticing about him.

His partnership with Asmodai had already been a huge shock. Now he was going into a solo duel against national LOL royalty. Exactly what was going on, here?

“Didn’t the two of them use to be teammates? Why does it feel like they’re fighting over something, right now?” Li Meiqi wondered.

“Didn’t Zhang Aijing mention that this involved the International E-Sports Federation?” Xiao Jia pointed out. “Maybe it has something to do with the title of ‘World Champion of Gaming’? Luocheng is the title-holder, and only world-class players have any right to challenge him.”

“Zhao Tinghua definitely counts as one, so he’s got the right to challenge,” Zhang Xia noted. “So it’s a brawl between ex-comrades. In the past, F-Hawk was the more well-known among the two—and probably the better player. Nowadays, hardly anyone knows either Luocheng or F-Hawk, and he’s not returning to the professional scene. He should no longer be any match for Blood Eagle’s reputation or abilities.”

“Damn it, dueling against Blood Eagle… once we start spreading word of this around the campus, it’s gonna whip up a storm!” Yang Ying exclaimed.

“Luocheng doesn’t like bringing up his past. You should ask him how he feels about that, beforehand.”

“Ugh! Something’s wrong with that guy! Keeping a nuclear bomb like that quietly tucked away; if it were me, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from letting the entire campus know. It would be raining panties all day long!” Xiao Jia moaned enviously.

***

As he put on the headphones, Luocheng could feel Tinghua’s eyes on him. He returned the gaze serenely, betraying no hint of passion.

As far as the world of professional gaming was concerned, he’d purposely forced himself to remain aloof and distant. He couldn’t decide whether it was because he couldn’t really let go of it after all, or if it was because everyone he ran into was some kind of hardcore gamer, but somehow he had found his way back in again.

He’d decided to remain an amateur player, playing casually with friends and classmates, a wolf among the sheep. It had been an enjoyable pretense… but without noticing it, he’d stumbled right back into pro gaming once more.

Truth be told, when Team Skycrown looked like they were about to get defeated by Team Fudan, he’d felt worse than any of the actual players—especially when they turned to look at him in despair. In that moment, he’d wanted nothing more than to just tear his way in there…

Tinghua had humiliated Lin Dong and Da Luo in their own lanes, growing ever more full of himself the whole time. Luocheng had been unable to intervene during the tournament earlier, because it would be against the rules for him to suddenly join in halfway through—but there was nothing stopping him now!

It wouldn’t be his first time kicking Blood Eagle’s butt. So what if he wasn’t a pro player anymore? He could still give out a bloody good trashing!

Luocheng had to admit that in a pro-level tournament, whatever contributions he could make would be nothing close to matching the Blood Eagle as he was now—but a solo duel was all about individual skill, and where that was concerned, he didn’t fear Zhao Tinghua in the slightest.

Was there a professional player who’d never, while playing in random games, been done in by some exceptionally skilled player in passing?

Yu Luocheng did that sort of thing to other people all the time!

***

They were in Champion Selection now. As usual, neither player could see what their opponent was going for.

Different champions flashed rapidly past Luocheng’s screen.

This being a Jungler duel, the choice of champion was of paramount importance. He had to pick someone with tremendous early-game power!

Truth be told, Luocheng already had a champion in mind. The reason he was cycling through other champions like this was because he was trying to figure out which one Tinghua would choose.

Riven? Would he go with Riven again?

Blood Eagle was undeniably skilled with Riven. Luocheng couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone who could string Riven’s combos together as deftly as Blood Eagle did. Since he often used Riven as a Jungler too, the odds of it being Riven again were quite high.

There was pretty much no champion who could stand against Riven at Level 1, but Luocheng himself was no good at Riven, so picking her was not an option for him.

Klung!

The portrait flashed with light. In the end, Luocheng would be going into this with an incomparably popular Jungling champion: Lee Sin!

In a duel between Junglers, Lee Sin was second to none. Luocheng felt fairly confident about locking him in.

“Team Skycrown’s coach has made his decision, but Blood Eagle is still trying to make up his mind. The last two rounds, he’d locked in his choice immediately; this time, he seems full of hesitation. It’s clear to see that this opponent is not someone he takes lightly.

“It’s time for another juicy tidbit: Both the Skycrown coach as well as Blood Eagle are former DOTA players. They faced off against each other often, and proved to be evenly matched. The question is whether the same will hold true in LOL!” Aijing unveiled another revelation.

Aijing was still skirting around the heart of the matter regarding the history—and ensuing bad blood—between Yu Luocheng and Zhao Tinghua, but she’d nevertheless implied that a lot of conflict had happened between them. This duel was not some spur-of-the-moment impulse, but something that had been a long time coming!

“Blood Eagle’s made his choice: Lee Sin! Who’d have thought that he’d choose the same champion!” For some reason, this was getting Aijing really excited.

There were clear separations of power between each champion in ‘League of Legends’. As was demonstrated earlier, at Level 6, Riven could kill off Orianna with a single combo chain, and there was no real way to prevent it from happening. Even if you hid under the tower, as long as Riven had Flash, Orianna would be completely at her mercy.

However, if both sides were using the same champion, these differences were completely moot. All that mattered then was individual skill, judgment, and reflexes!

This was exactly the sort of thing she’d been yearning to see!

This would be worth an entire page of info about F-Hawk, at the very least! Aijing was beside herself with anticipation.

The audience was oblivious to the fact that this was a face-off between two world-class players. None among them suspected that the title of ‘World Champion of Gaming’ was at stake!

Lee Sin vs. Lee Sin…

That was one of Aijing’s favorite champions. One could say that after you mastered how Lee Sin was played, basically all the other champions in LOL became trivial.

Lee Sin is an agile, deadly champion, at once spectacular yet terrifying to watch in action!

A beloved champion in the hands of two elite players, about to clash in a thrilling solo duel!

Just thinking about it was making her breath draw faster!

The loading screen appeared. When both players realized that they’d chosen the same champion, they simultaneously exchanged looks across the stage.

Excellent. A mirror match!

It was the best way to show off their worth as players!

“Before the game begins, let’s talk about the rules to this Jungler solo duel:

“As before, we’ll be using the 5v5 Summoner’s Rift map. During the first minute, both Junglers will come down the Middle lane. The duel will officially begin at exactly one minute into the game. The playing field will be restricted to the jungle areas between the Middle and Bottom lanes, and both Junglers are required to remain within these bounds, with no distinction between Blue and Red sides.

“The match point will be one champion kill, or forty jungle creeps!”

Solo duels typically only took place along a particular lane. Carrying out a duel within the jungle like this was an exceedingly rare sight.

However, once Aijing read out these rules, the audience had a pretty clear idea of what was going on: Both players could only operate within the same half of the jungle. As they cleared out the creep camps, it was inevitable that they’d run into each other.

“Come to think of it, these rules are kinda wonky. With such a large playing field, if one player decides to hide somewhere… that’s still a lot of jungle, and with all those bushes in there, they could just stay hidden forever and never get caught. It’s like playing hide-and-seek,” a student among the crowd commented.

“No way. If they just want to hide, then let them hide. The other player can keep farming creeps, building up levels and equipment… then you might as well stay hidden, because if you get caught, you’re dead. Keep on running from a fight, and your opponent will eventually pick up that 40 CS—then you’ll lose anyway!”

“So that’s how it is… Gotta be careful with the Recall, then.”

“That’s for sure. If you just Recall for nothing, your side of the jungle will get cleaned out. If your opponent is really cunning, they’ll leave one tiny creep alive in each camp for you, delaying the whole camp’s respawn time. You’ll be flat broke.”

It was probably the first time a jungle duel was being broadcast in public like this—and a Lee Sin mirror match, no less—between Blood Eagle and this mysterious expert player. It should be something worth watching!

Before anyone noticed it, the event was already spreading like wildfire across the internet. The match between Team Skycrown and Team Fudan had already been drawing a hundred thousand viewers to begin with, but suddenly the views had increased to a hundred and fifty thousand—an extra fifty thousand clicks, in hardly any time at all!

The fight hadn’t even started yet, and there were already a hundred and fifty thousand people watching. If there had been time to do a proper bit of advertising, the views would surely be in the millions!

The media team for this event was utterly astounded. No one had imagined that an impromptu duel could produce such results!