League of Legends: League of Unknowns

They were in the Banning Phase. Seeing which champions the enemy team was getting rid of gave Yu Luocheng some idea of which champions they were planning to field.

In a professional-level match, the mind games began right from the Banning Phase. With all the players representing the highest level of gameplay ability, getting a good result out of the banning and selection of champions was of paramount importance.

The first Ban from Team Beijing was Trundle, a Top-lane champion.

Trundle was causing every team in the LPL some consternation, especially with the new tactics Team Skycrown had been demonstrating. If they managed to get ahead during the early game, the other teams had no idea how they’d stave off the unstoppable onslaught to follow.

“Clever of Team Beijing to ban Trundle,” Miracle remarked. “They realize that he’s a key component of Team Skycrown’s strategies. With him out of the picture, they won’t be able to pull out those tricky little plays that they used against Team Revelation.”

Miracle was fast becoming a specialist on the subject of Team Skycrown. He’d been at the scene for the vast majority of their games.

And who else should be sharing the commentary desk with him but Qi Qiao—a woman who had no secrets left to hide from Luocheng. Her sweet voice was a mesmerizing siren song to all LOL fans. The combination of her cute face and massive knockers made her an idol in this world. Luocheng could attest to the magnificence of her assets from firsthand experience.

“What’s so tricky about it, though?” Qi Qiao inquired. She’d seen that match too, and new tactics were cool and all, but she wasn’t sure she was fully appreciating all the intricacies of it.

“Tactics like these depend greatly upon teamwork. We’ve already seen some other teams attempt to duplicate those same techniques, but because it’s still new to them, the execution came off kinda sloppy, and it totally backfired, so that they ended up losing both lanes instead.

“There are a lot of little details to watch out for. Every player on the team has to have a clear idea of what to do—and what not to do—every step of the way. There also needs to be absolute faith in leadership, so that each command is carried out without hesitation. On top of that, everyone on the team has to be able to react to the moves the enemy is making.

“Without military-style training, it’s hard to become familiar with the use of strategies like those,” Miracle explained.

It was exactly as Miracle had said, and that was why Team Beijing had gotten the sensation that Team Skycrown had been playing very differently ever since the LPL began—because the tactics they were now using were so complicated, if the team wasn’t fully prepared to implement them in practice, using them could easily end up being more hindrance than help.

And yet, they were actually managing to pull it off.

Used when your team held the advantage in a game, it was an invincible strategy. Team Beijing would not allow themselves to suffer the same tragedy as Team Revelation had, and so they’d shut off Trundle straight away.

The rest of Team Beijing’s bans were more typical stuff.

For their ADC, they chose Sivir. Sivir and Lucian were the most popular ADC champions in this patch, to the point that if neither champion was banned, then both would be facing off in-lane.¹

To put it bluntly, people were getting sick of seeing those two all the time.

Team Skycrown was mixing things up by bringing out Draven in an earlier game. That had been a good bit of fun.

As limited as ADC champions were, Support champions meanwhile displayed much more variety.

“And now it’s F-Hawk’s turn to choose. Is he going to do something astonishing again?”

“I bet he’s going to pick some champion that’s never been used for Support in the LPL before—I’ll bet five bucks on it!” Miracle was certainly keen about this.

All the players of Team Beijing had their eyes affixed to their screens. Luocheng’s choice of champion was a big deal to them. Last time, when Team Skycrown had taken on Team Revelation, that fellow had used a Kennen Support!

With a speed-up from his ‘Talisman of Ascension’, followed by an aggressive charge with ‘Lightning Rush’ and ‘Slicing Maelstrom’, it was wholly unorthodox and appallingly savage.

Although it had been a Kennen in the Support role, his damage had been nothing to sneeze at—especially after he’d picked up that ‘Zhonya’s Hourglass’ towards the end… that had been a nightmare for everyone.

Team Beijing had elected not to ban Kennen, because they felt that if they banned everything they’d seen Team Skycrown using, that would be playing right into their enemy’s hands.

The truth was that they remained deeply worried that Luocheng would pick Kennen again. Who would’ve thought that Kennen could still be so effective, even in the Support role?

Thung! That was the sound of Luocheng making his choice.

“Sure enough, F-Hawk doesn’t disappoint us! It’s another unusual Support choice!” Miracle hollered. “Qi Qiao, you owe me five bucks, alright?”

“No one agreed to your bet!” Qi Qiao snapped in reply. “Anyway, some bet five bucks is… But really, that F-Hawk is such a card. I can’t believe he’s going with Shen this time. Is he really going to play that champion as Support?”

***

All five players on Team Beijing furrowed their brows at the sight of the champion Luocheng had selected.

The professional players in the crowd were also staring wide-eyed. Every kind of expression was in evidence.

What was this F-Hawk guy trying to prove? Three matches now, and every single time he’d picked a champion that had never been played as Support in the LPL before.

As ancient wisdom teaches us: Don’t go acting like a damned fool.

Playing in the LPL with sub-optimal champions, you could expect to either lose badly, or perhaps very badly. It wasn’t that no one had ever experimented with unusual Support choices, but the results had always been disastrous.

These champions Luocheng was playing as Support… he was basically flirting with catastrophe. Looking at it from the point of view of the pros, Shen was a poor fit for the Support role.

There were two types of Support champions: The first type included champions like Leona, Alistar, and Taric—bristling with HP, and boasting substantial crowd-control abilities.

The other type comprised champions such as Zyra, Sona, and so on… champions who could poke, heal, or deploy area-effect crowd-control abilities.

It was true that Shen had some CC, and his Taunting effect often proved instrumental when used well. The problem was that he was a melee combatant, and when ‘Shadow Dash’ was not available, he was next to useless in a fight. Compared to Leona, Alistar, Taric, and Thresh—all champions who brought much more CC to the table—he was vastly inferior.

And what about Shen’s ultimate skill? If there was a fight at Level 6 in the Bottom lane, the most Shen could do with it would be to shield the ADC for a bit. It would be nowhere near enough to stand against a determined assault from the enemy’s two Level-6 champions, and you might very well lose the whole lane as a result.

In short, playing Shen as Support was the path to defeat!

And yet, Luocheng had locked in his choice. The first thought had been that he was just hovering over that champion to be cheeky—but now he’d really chosen Shen, after all. What could you do about it?

***

The match began. To see someone fielding Shen as a Support champion during a professional tournament, it was like spotting a clump of grass sticking out from amongst a bed of flowers—one couldn’t help but linger on it.

It had to be said that Yu Luocheng had a talent for drawing attention. Who played Support like this?

Of course, from Team Skycrown’s perspective, it was all just business as usual.

Luocheng played every single champion as Support. If not for that, a rapscallion of his caliber would long ago have been recognized as one of the best LOL players in the nation. His Korean account was already within reach of the very top!

Once you started experimenting with alternative Support champions, you could never stop. Reputation had never been a concern. With all the time Luocheng had spent fooling around like this while playing Support in the Diamond tier of the Ionia server, if it ever got out that he was the owner of the ‘Trolling No. 1’ account, there might very well be quite a few professional players in the crowd who might break into a riot.

As he tried out countless play-styles and item builds, any combination that seemed viable to him would be introduced into their training games, and the team would work to develop it further.

In other words, whichever champion Luocheng selected during a serious competition, it was never on random impulse. The whole team had already become familiar with it through the experience of countless rounds.

Team Beijing wasn’t a bunch of fools. They assumed that this probably wasn’t some last-minute flight of fancy.

But the match had already started. How were they to analyze what their opponents planned to achieve by using Shen?

***

The game began. Everyone rushed to the typical starting positions.

Luocheng’s Shen hid in the clump of brush at the southern end of the river, and then moved to sneak a peek into the tri-bush.

He stuck a ward in there, and found the enemy’s Support Annie glaring at him with unblinking eyes. He withdrew hastily to the bush he’d been occupying before.

“Shen’s at Bot. This bush, here.” Pi Ka, Team Beijing’s Support player, made a quick report.

“Right. Prepare to ward,” commanded Xie Lianda, a.k.a. Number One.

At one minute and thirty seconds, everyone else planted their wards, and then went into their lanes.

Shortly after the second minute, Team Beijing’s Bottom-lane duo arrived on the scene, but the opposing Caitlyn and Shen were still nowhere in sight. As such, they got right to farming, hoping to reach Level 2 first and gain an early advantage.

Sivir and Annie could deal tremendous burst damage together. If this combination was allowed to reach Level 2 first in an ordinary game, it could be a fatal mistake.

“Something’s wrong. Why haven’t they showed up yet?” Pika wondered.

It had been awhile already, but the enemy’s Bottom-lane duo had yet to appear. A horrible thought struck them, and they inspected the Top lane.

That was when Caitlyn and Shen appeared there, forcing their Top-laner Shyvana completely out of XP range!

“Oh, Team Skycrown swapped lanes!” Miracle exclaimed. “F-Hawk played a cute little trick there, deliberately showing his face in the warded Bottom lane right at the beginning, in order to fool the enemy into thinking that they’d be seeing the usual laning match-up. Once the bait had been cast, he Recalled and then switched places with his Top-laner.”

“That’s right, Shen and Caitlyn would have an easy time against Shyvana. That mitigates the problem of their sub-optimal composition,” Qi Qiao observed.

It had certainly caught Team Beijing by surprise. Now their Top-laner wasn’t gaining any XP at all, while Team Skycrown’s Top-laner Rengar was most likely clearing out the Wolves camp at the moment. Once that was done, he’d have the gold to buy a few more potions. Recalling to the Fountain and then returning to his lane, he’d be just in time to join the duo in pushing the minion wave right up to the tower. That would allow him to farm safely beneath the tower.

Things were going badly for Team Beijing.

How could they not have foreseen this, damn it!