League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“We’ve lost this round,” Feilong said, his brows furrowed.

“Not yet, wait till I get my items, we’ll be stronger in team fights,” Shaoying said.

Feilong shook his head. “They won’t give us a chance to wait till late game, and Ryze, Jax, and Graves, are all late game champions. The longer we drag the game, the lower our chances of winning.”

If Summoner’s Rift was divided based on the river, and the mid lane into four sections, then the situation now was that their opponent was controlling the vision of the three sections completely.

This kind of vision suppression, jungle suppression, snowballing without killing and just aiming the tower—this was a tactic that would normally only appear in plays by professional top teams.

Although there were many gaps and loopholes in the tactics used by SHU, the fundamentals were still the same.

“Our blue buff area will also be taken over by them if nothing out of the ordinary happens, and it will force us to head toward the Baron Pit. They will ambush us there and start a teamfight. If we don’t go, they’ll take the Baron and take all our turret outside the base, forcing their way into our high ground. Once that goes down, we’ll lose.” Feilong explained.

“This tactic sounds simple, but difficult to apply. You need to properly calculate all three lane’s pros and cons, as well as a strong vision control by the Support. The Jungler would also need to control the jungle area correctly as well as match up with each lane…” Shaoying said, his face solemn.

“If I’m not mistaken, they have an analyst who is close to a top professional player level instructing them. Unless we can win a teamfight, this tactic will press us to the ground with no chance of a comeback. We’re too far behind in income compared to them, it’s impossible to win.” Feilong said. “We’ll surrender at twenty, there’s no use in continuing this match.”

“Surrender…but…”

“Isn’t it bad for morale if we surrender?”

“This tactic is putting more pressure on us mentally, and you will feel more and more frustrated as it goes on. Just surrender and prepare for the next match, as long as we win the next one, it will be enough!”

The rest of them didn’t dare to argue, Feilong was their leader after all. They needed to obey his words.

In the following minutes, as Feilong had said, the sections of the map was slowly taken over by SHU’s control, including the blue buff area. Once this was done, the Baron would go down any time.

Many times, even though you knew other people’s tactics, you would still fall into their traps.

Once SHU had managed to kill off two champions due to the lack of vision, they immediately took the Baron, taking down all the outside turrets and pushing their way into the highground.

***

At around twenty-five minutes, ZJU’s side had collapsed till they could no longer bear to look at it. Feilong didn’t waste any time in pressing the surrender button.

The others calmly pressed the same button, and the game screen froze suddenly, the big words of ‘Defeat’ appearing before their eyes…

To be honest, Zhejiang University had not expected to lose any of the matches against Shanghai University. The strength of their top teams were too different after all.

When the ‘Defeat’ floated up on the screen, the crowd burst into wails and chatters. Some didn’t understand why ZJU would surrender before the end of the match…

At the same time, the difference between the first and second match performed by SHU also surprised Zhejiang University.

***

Three minutes later, wild cheers exploded from the Shanghai University community!

It was a tie right now, and Shanghai University had managed to match Zhejiang University. You had to understand that Zhejiang University’s first team was the runner up for the last national competition!

This was definitely an achievement!

Unconsciously, the number of people gathered in the Shanghai University community area had increased.

The news of the match was still spreading like wildfire, and as the competition entered the last determining match, even lecturers were coming out from the office to watch this important match!

It wouldn’t be long before the number of people watching at Shanghai University would exceed the number of people watching at Zhejiang University!

***

“Captain, we’ll be in trouble in the next match as well if they play as coordinated as they did in this match,” Shaoying said, frowning.

“Idiot, it was just luck that they managed to get three kills in the beginning. Other than that, I didn’t see anything special about the way they played.” Qiming said, clearly unhappy.

“They most likely have someone who is good enough to be their pacemaker.” Feilong said, after some thought. “It should be their Support.”

“That Annie Support?” Qiming said, surprised.

The Support was Luocheng, and he was Qiming’s love rival. After beating him soundly in the first match, Qiming had dismissed Luocheng’s capabilities in LOL.

“That’s right. In the first early teamfight, it was Annie that opened the act. During the laning phase, it was also her that had pressured our Mid. Roaming to the bottom lane and controlling the vision, taking the Dragon… It would all seem as if Jax or Graves were the ones who put everything in place to take us down, but it was in fact Annie who controlled the bigger picture—our vision, jungle area, and income. I am definitely not wrong in this assumption.” Feilong explained, his eyes sharp.

The others were not convinced, how could a Support carry the game, by buying more Vision Wards?

“Captain, are you sure it’s the Support? I don’t think the Support was anything special, he just got lucky the few times he managed to catch us off guard and kill us.” Qiming retorted, his voice clearly disbelieving and unsatisfied.

“Qiming, if you can’t let go of your prejudice and take a good look at SHU, we’ll most probably lose the third match as well. Even though I wasn’t able to pay much attention to the mid lane, nor did I manage to properly look at how Annie was controlled, but from his vision control, you can already tell that this guy is not someone to be taken lightly. You just remember that the Support is not someone to be underestimated, he is the core of their team. If we lose the third match because of you, you know the consequences!” Feilong said, anger and impatience seeping into his voice as his patience grew thin due to Qiming’s nonchalant dismissal of his words.

A person who didn’t take their opponents seriously would easily make mistakes that the team could not make up for, especially in such an important position like the ADC!

“I understand, Captain,” Qiming said quietly, not daring to say much more.

Only, his heart had an inexplicably strong resentment at that! If the bot lane was to be as it was in the next match, he would definitely rip that Support to shreds!

***

“Break time is over, both teams, please prepare to enter into the third and final match.”

“It feels like both teams are on par, the first match victory was taken by a landslide by ZJU. In the second match, SHU managed to press ZJU into surrendering, you can see how strong both sides are. The third game, which is also the decisive game, will definitely be entertaining. I’m not sure if everyone is as excited as I am!” The host’s melodic voice announced, trying to ignite the excitement in the crowd before the start of the third match.

In e-sports, what you needed was enough support, if you watched the game in front of a computer or in a room, you wouldn’t know how many people were supporting you.

What you needed was what they had now, a hundred or thousand of people gathered together, using the performance of the players, the anticipation of the match, and the voice of the crowd to bring up the atmosphere!

Like today, the host was satisfied with the atmosphere, and she even heard the excitement coming from Shanghai University’s side!

What they wanted was this kind of effect, where everyone was excited and in anticipation. For the honor of your university and for the sake of the e-sports team that you support, and also, cheer for the sake of everyone who had the same passion for e-sports!

***

The third and final match, begin!

Entering into the banning phase.

In the previous two matches, ZJU hadn’t paid much attention to who to ban. This was because they hadn’t seen any particular champion that would serve as a threat to them.

This time, ZJU immediately banned Annie, and it was their first ban.

Luocheng had shown them the prowess which a Support could bring to the match, and it was even more terrifying than a Jungler, at how he could carry and pace the entire game. In this match, ZJU refused to allow Annie to be let loose, as they had yet to figure out a way to deal with Annie who could completely disrupt their rhythm.

“They’re targeting you already.” Xiao Jia said, looking at Luocheng.

“Yeah.” Luocheng nodded his head.

“They could probably tell that it was our Support that carried the game, as well as the fact that we’re following his pace. Their observation is good.” Yang Ying said.

“It’s fine, we’re on the blue side this round. Xiao Jia, try to stay more on the mid lane and red buff side. Wang Jun, play as if our Jungler is camping at your lane. As long as your lane doesn’t go down, we have a chance to win.” Luocheng said, informing them of the strategy this round.

Wang Jun was going to face off against Feilong, and he would be under tremendous pressure. He didn’t expect Wang Jun to have any outstanding plays, as long as he didn’t get snowballed, it would be fine.

Wang Jun nodded his head. “Don’t worry, we’ve been thoroughly trashed by your Team Skycrown, resisting pressure is something we’ve been trained in.”

“Alright, whether we win this round depends on how well the four of us can match our rhythm,” Luocheng said.

“Yeah, good luck!”

“Let’s go all out!”

***

Amidst the cheers, ZJU and SHU both exited the fountain, hurriedly running toward the river entrances.

There wasn’t any overwhelming advantage on either side for an early teamfight this round, so if they engaged, they needn’t be overly afraid of anyone in particular.

Sure enough, both sides had the same idea and initiated a fight at the river, raging against each other fiercely. The only thing that separated them was whether their skills could be controlled properly and released on time!

Both sides had no intentions of backing down, and the fight was intense!

Four for four, and both sides only leaving the Support after the fight. The kills were also taken by the more important roles.

From the first fight, you could already see the general situation of the entire game. If the first fight had already been so intense, there would most likely be a bloody storm that would rage and echo throughout the entire Summoner’s Rift!

The two Supports who had survived the fight started to plant their wards so that they could track their opponent’s Jungler movement.

At this level of strength, getting solo kills in lanes was almost impossible. The only role right now that could make heads roll would be the Jungler, which was why before they could get their buffs, they needed to have enough vision to know their opponent’s movement so that they could prevent ganks from happening.

The intentions of both Supports were now the same, using the time that their teammates hadn’t revived, they would walk to the opposing side’s jungle to plant deep wards!