League of Legends: League of Unknowns

This was the first time Luocheng had faced off against Xiao Bei as well. He had heard from Lin Dong about how strong Xiao Bei was before, and Xiao Bei’s pub performances had attracted a great deal of interest from many professional teams to the point of offering him a position.

It seemed that the innocent errand boy had mastered the art of MOBA while Luocheng had been absent. Even a top player like Asmodai was unable to overthrow him easily.

Wu Sen’s vigilance also left Luocheng with less attacking options. More so, Luocheng felt that Xiao Bei and Wu Sen formed a slightly better tag-team than the two bottom lane players from Fudan University.

The skirmishes that broke out in the first 9 minutes were minor fights, resulting only in the equivalent exchange of champions. Both sides merely lost some minor experience from the lane. In the early phase, the mid-laner and Jungler from both teams acted as though they had made a pact to not meddle with the bottom lane. They had tacitly decided to let the players there sort things out by themselves.

Nonetheless, that changed when Zhou Yan, who was using Lee Sin, began to infiltrate the Dragon’s pit. Team fights erupted more frequently at the bottom lane after the fifteen-minute mark.

It was a 4v4 team fight excluding the top-lane players. Entangled by the Dragon, Luocheng’s Alistar and Wu Sen’s Leona were in a tug of war to obtain better vision.

Theoretically, Luocheng, with an extra Vision Ward, would have granted Team SHU more control over the imminent fight. However, Xiao Jia’s jungling champion, Xin Zhao, had made a deadly mistake and wasted the advantage. Wu Sen jumped forth without hesitation and initiated a control skill on him. Focused attacks from Team Skycrown soon landed on Xin Zhao mercilessly.

Judging by Ahri and Graves’s burst damage, Xin Zhao could very well be killed before he could muster any damage.

Hence, Luocheng charged in decisively, Flashing right in between Ahri and Xin Zhao.

He shielded Xin Zhao from Ahri’s Charm and instantly cast Alistar’s ulti. After the control effects were cleansed, Alistar released his infamous WQ combo—Headbutt followed by Pulverize.

Alistar’s WQ combo was like a smaller scale form of his ulti, Unstoppable Force. The Minotaur slammed the ground violently after he dashed into the enemy crowd.

Bam!!!

The ground shattered like an epicenter, the quaking energy knocked all enemies into the air and stunned them briefly.

The three backlines—Ahri, Graves, and Lee Sin were all controlled by Alistar’s skill, and they faced grave danger as high-damage skills might instantly wipe them out.

Unfortunately, Yang Ying responded a tad slower as he was surprised by Alistar’s sudden charge. He cast Protect and hastily activated Orianna’s Shockwave as soon as the Ball reached Alistar.

The Shockwave spun inward and tried to pull the three champions under control toward the Ball…

However, the three players reacted inhumanly fast. The players, as well as the audience, soon witnessed an unbelievable scene.

Xiao Bei’s Graves escaped just in time. He executed Flash before Orianna’s Shockwave touched him once he regained control of his champion. This was followed by Lee Sin, who fled alongside Graves using Safeguard.

Similarly, Ahri dashed sideways using Spirit Rush and continued to harass Xin Zhao after distancing herself from the pulling force.

Yang Ying’s ulti had failed to retain anyone in the end!

Earlier on, Luocheng’s WQ combo had perfectly intercepted the three champions, and this showed that the three of them were being caught out by Luocheng for being too focused on Xin Zhao.

Yang Ying’s reaction was adequately quick. Though slightly late, he did unleash Protect and had clicked on the R key afterward without much delay. It looked slick and the skill was perfectly placed as the Ball was on Alistar, the center point of the three champions. The ideal development was to trap the three enemy champions and a set of high damage combos would win them this fight.

Yet, the three targets had escaped at the final second with exceptional reflexes. It gave a false impression that the three of them had come together on purpose and dismissed instantly once Orianna’s ulti had reached them.

If they had planned to embarrass Orianna, then they had succeeded. Yang Ying could feel his face turn red for missing such a fabulous opportunity. Their hand speed and reaction time was truly terrific.

Luocheng was deep within the heart of the enemy siege, but who cared about a full HP Alistar that had used most of his skills? The Minotaur was no different than a melee minion in Team Skycrown’s eyes now. They ignored the Support and focused fire on Xin Zhao.

Luocheng cast Exhaust on Xiao Bei’s Graves trying to deter him, but Xiao Bei didn’t panic and continued to auto-attack while waiting patiently for the debuff to end.

‘Well played, kid!’

Luocheng held Xiao Bei in higher regard now. His calm response amidst the Exhaust showed that he totally deserved the Challenger title.

As for Xin Zhao, Luocheng had run out of options to help him. The Jungler’s positioning mistake was truly fatal in such a high paced game.

Xin Zhao tried to retaliate by attacking Ahri but to no avail. He was quickly put down by Graves’ ulti when trying to Flash away.

After they were done with the first target, Ahri and Lee Sin soon began to pursue Orianna and Twitch.

Yang Ying instantly sped up and retreated along with Twitch, who sneaked away in camouflage. Alistar was definitely not of the enemies’ interest. As a result, the pitiful Orianna that was within sight became the pursuers’ next prey.

***

Boom!

Suddenly, the gigantic “minion” was enraged.

After his skills cooldown was completed, Alistar instantly turned from a 1350 “minion” into a 6300 ferocious monster. His Pulverize once again knocked up the three main attackers from Team Skycrown.

Alistar’s Q was a rather demanding skill. He needed to be at the exact center point of all his targets to have the maximum impact.

Luocheng’s mastery of this skill was impeccable. How the hell had he managed to stun three champions simultaneously under the circumstances?

“F*ck it. I almost forgot this fellow was born to play Minotaurs. He was close to invincible using Minotaur back in the days when we played Warcraft 3C!” Lin Dong bellowed and watched helplessly as his Ahri was thrown up in midair while Orianna was getting further away.

Warcraft 3C was the pioneer map of DOTA. Other than dominating the DOTA world, Luocheng had equally excelled in 3C gameplay. He was especially good at using Minotaur from the dark side back then.

Both Minotaur in LOL and 3C shared a similar skillset, so to Luocheng, finding the precise circle center of Pulverize was a piece of cake.

He he he!

Suddenly, a sly laugh was heard coming from behind Alistar.

Twitch’s transparent figure emerged out of nowhere. He had been hiding in the brush and was already assaulting the enemy champions with his ulti, Spray and Pray!

Leona was the first to fall. The champion was pierced by Twitch’s venomous arrow and died before she could react in time.

Twitch did not use its camouflage to run away, instead, he lingered around the brush and rounded the enemies safely thanks to a nearby Vision Ward to reunite with Alistar.

By forecasting Alistar’s CC skill timing, Twitch had cast his ulti implicitly and had successfully ambushed their pursuers from the back.

When the enemies finally realized his presence, it was all too late. Alistar had successfully thrown them up and provided Twitch with enough time to land the final blow.

In fact, Leona did discover Twitch’s whereabouts, however, she was killed before Wu Sen could even hit the Flash key.

A great gamer should be able to predict not only the enemy’s skill, but also his teammate’s skill instance.

If Asmodai had launched his assault only after Luocheng had unleashed his CC skill, the available interval for the attack would then be cut short greatly. Asmodai had made the right call to attack a second earlier.

Attacking before Alistar’s stun was vital. Pulverise would stun the enemy for 1.5 seconds, meaning that Twitch would get 2.5 seconds to attack without disruption. If he had followed up only after the stun, then Twitch might only have gotten a single second to deal damage, which wouldn’t be enough to kill anyone. Worse, he might put his champion in a sticky situation for being too greedy.

The understanding between great players sometimes came naturally, and Asmodai had had unexplainable confidence that Luocheng could definitely provide him with the window he needed.

Nevertheless, Asmodai was still shocked to see Luocheng once again catch all three champions in a single swoop. It was normal to see a Malphite miss-time his ulti, yet, Luocheng had been able to CC all three players at once with an adept maneuver. He was truly a world-class player in the past.

The ample time allowed Twitch to keep up the pressure on Graves after killing Leona. Graves was forced to retreat while Lee Sin, who had more health, charged in courageously.

Asmodai backed off a little while maintaining his pokes. Alistar always guarded ahead of Twitch even when they were retreating. The Minotaur was like a moving fortress and forbade Lee Sin any opportunity to approach Twitch.

After being kited for a few seconds, Lee Sin was forced to give up and Safeguard to a nearby ward to retreat.

One kill for one kill. The 4v4 skirmish near the Dragon’s pit ended with Xin Zhao and Leona’s deaths. Since both sides were in bad shape, neither of them was interested in getting the Dragon now.

The only thing that annoyed the SHU students during the 4v4 fight was Kennen’s outrageous play at the top lane.

He blatantly crossed the inner tower and freely harvested the minions as soon as they exited the high ground.

Xiao Jia had tried to intercept him several times but after gifting a double kill to Da Luo, the Jungler had given up on attempting and ignored the top lane altogether.

***

While purchasing items at the fountain, Asmodai looked at the well-farmed Kennen and couldn’t help but rub his forehead.

The Top-solo Kennen had developed into a big headache, if he joined the fight, Team SHU basically had zero chances of winning.

“Can you counter this Kennen?” Asmodai asked Luocheng.

“It’s hard to say,” Luocheng replied a little helplessly.

Da Luo’s individual skill was definitely respectable, otherwise, he would not have reached the long win streak all by himself. Luocheng couldn’t be 100% sure that his Alistar was going to be able to stop Kennen judging by the current state.

“By the way, are you sure they have just come together recently?” Asmodai raised another question.

“Yeah…” Luocheng nodded.

From this match, Team Skycrown had played cohesively and didn’t appear to be an amateur team.

It seemed that they did not only watch porno during the day after all. The team must have trained hard during this period.

On the other hand, members from the University E-Sports club were left speechless after watching the display so far.

Team Skycrown was just a fresh team formed half-a-month ago, and Team SHU was even being aided by Asmodai and Luocheng—two renowned MOBA players. Without them, they might have already been killed twenty times over and surrendered by now!

Come on! Team SHU should be a team that could at least fight evenly against a third-tier professional team! In other words, Team Skycrown was indeed formidable, despite being a young LOL team!