League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“Oh, Yi Qin’s a fan of this guy?” Aijing pointed at Luocheng, slightly taken aback by Qi Qiao’s words.

Qi Qiao nodded excitedly in reply, “Yeah, yeah.”

Luocheng wasn’t following the conversation, he didn’t know who these two girls were talking about.

Luocheng cleared his throat and got straight to business, “Did you bring the map of the Summoner’s Rift?”

“I left it at Qi Qiao’s place. It’s not everyday a cryptid like you shows its face, so today’s lunch is on us. Qi Qiao’s really good at cooking, so let’s go over to her place, it’s not far, just across that street,” Aijing said.

The invitation came so suddenly, two girls inviting him into their home? Luocheng thought he was being pranked, but then again, if he didn’t go, who would? He would walk face-first into hell if they told him to, he was a man after all.

Qi Qiao really didn’t live that far away and they finally reached after walking for roughly half an hour. Luocheng wondered why they hadn’t just taken a 5 minute bus ride to get here, but instead, they just had to walk their way down that street, shopping and eating all the way there.

***

Qi Qiao lived in a single bedroom apartment, and when Luocheng saw that the elevator was going all the way to the 18th floor, he remembered stating that he would “walk face-first into hell” and started getting a little worried. Was this some sort of hint from the grim reaper? (T/N: The Chinese version of hell goes 18 levels deep, with the 18th level having the worst punishments.)

“You guys go on in, I’m going to go get some groceries downstairs.” Qi Qiao always had a personable smile on her face, giving people a real sense of innocence when they looked at her.

Just as Qi Qiao walked out of the door, she turned back to smirk at Aijing, “You two had better not do anything weird in my apartment, okay? I won’t be gone long, 15 minutes tops!”

“Anything…weird?” Luocheng couldn’t process what she had said immediately, and when he finally caught on, he saw Aijing’s face flushed to her ears, racing over to grab Qi Qiao as Qi Qiao ducked into the elevator.

Wow, that Qi Qiao sure was something. Was I, the pure, trustworthy Luocheng, really that sort of person?

And plus, 15 minutes wasn’t enough time to let my enemy surrender!

***

Stepping into the apartment, Luocheng put on one of Qi Qiao’s many guest slippers, belatedly realizing that they were a pair of fluffy bunnies. He was pretty sure they looked extremely out of place on a guy like him.

The living room wasn’t that big, it only had a sofa and a computer.

The bedroom door was wide open, and giving it a quick glance over, Luocheng saw some things on the pink rabbit bed sheets that probably weren’t meant for his eyes. Aijing quickly made her way over and tidied up Qi Qiao’s things, her face and movements stiff with awkwardness.

Luocheng wanted to make an announcement to all the Qi Qiao fans nation-wide, your doubts on whether or not she had double D’s have been officially dispelled.

“How could you simply look into a girl’s room, rude!” Aijing scolded.

Luocheng only gave a small laugh in response, promptly changing the topic, “Who was that Yi Qin you guys were talking about?”

Aijing was a bit shocked, “You don’t know her?”

“Nope.”

“She was the first female LoL video analyst. She was super famous about a year ago, she was basically the first goddess for you video game boys,” Aijing said.

From what she knew, boys like Luocheng should have known plenty about Yi Qin, there wasn’t a male LoL fan that didn’t know about her, it was like a teenage boy not knowing who Mia Khalifa was…

“Oh, I was still in highschool then, I didn’t have a lot of time to watch videos, plus I didn’t really watch many analysis videos,” Luocheng said.

Analysis videos were either for entertainment or to teach newbies the basics, Luocheng’s skills already far surpassed that of these analysts so there wasn’t much of a point to watching their videos. Of course, the main reason was because he didn’t have much time during his high school years, but if the video had pretty girls in them, well, Luocheng would still indulge himself from time to time!

“Fine. She was Qi Qiao’s mentor of sorts and was basically the face of LoL analysts and the top female analyst overall. Back when LoL wasn’t that popular, she even got to host and analyze official competitions. Besides that, she made her own videos in English and translated a lot of foreign videos. She really was capable of everything,” Aijing said.

“Is she pretty?” Luocheng asked.

Aijing rolled her eyes at Luocheng, her expression showed her distaste to the entire male population. “Her face is on camera, of course she’s pretty. She has a very queenly look, plus she has a strong aura of professionalism. Most importantly is her ability to express just the right combination of beautiful and cute, honestly, even I could easily fall in love with her if I’m not careful.”

This really got Luocheng thinking, from what Aijing was saying, this Yi Qin really was the goddess of guys like him, so why hadn’t he heard of her.

“Sadly, she left the country a while ago and never returned to the e-sports industry,” Aijing said.

“Another case of someone leaving but still living on forever in some people’s harddrives?” Luocheng muttered.

“She made a few videos while she was working in America too, her English is really good and she was pretty much on par with foreign radio hosts. I saw her a couple of times when we went to Los Angeles for the S League, she’s becoming more and more beautiful by the day, she really helped us out when we had problems with the language,” Aijing said.

Team 71 had represented China in the S International League last year, and as their analyst, Aijing had naturally gone with them. That was Aijing’s first time going abroad, and even though they had lost quite badly, it was still somewhat of a win for Team 71 since they had gotten to experience so much there, Aijing especially had benefited a lot from that trip.

Of course, after their crushing defeat, Aijing saw how foreign teams’ understanding of e-sports were far more superior when compared to theirs. Her admiration toward Team Wings grew even more for being able to perform so well under such strenuous conditions.

If they hadn’t made their way there, how would they know that they still had much to improve on? Team 71 ranked top 3 in China, but when put onto a global arena, they came in dead last.

“If you guys get the chance to enter the S International League this year, you should go meet up with her once you’re in LA. Qi Qiao did say that she’s a really big fan of yours, Fighting Hawk,” Aijing said.

“Yeah, of course we’ll meet up if we get the chance, but we’ll need to deal with your team first,” Luocheng said.

“Well, we’ll just have to see how much Team Skycrown has practiced this past year.”

***

“Top laners got a massive buff during this season. Mundo wasn’t played much last year but now, he’s suddenly one of the most popular champions in top, a lot of teams will probably use him as a split pusher while the rest of the team claims objectives like the Dragon or Baron, I don’t think there are many counters for a Mundo in top lane,” Aijing got back to their main topic, pointing out the problems with the recent patch.

According to the Korean and American game statistics, a Top Mundo had a ridiculously high win-rate.

With Teleport, Mundo had an amazing overall game presence. During the late game, Mundo could easily go to the bottom lane and have his team push in the top lane or even take the Baron, the enemy team would lose out either way.

Luocheng nodded, “No matter if his opposing laner brings Teleport or Ignite, Mundo is still going to be a massive headache.”

To lane with Dr. Mundo, should you bring an Ignite or Teleport?

First of all, most Top laners couldn’t do without Flash, and even if you didn’t take Flash, you would definitely take Ghost in its place.

As for your second Summoner Spell, if you didn’t bring an Ignite, Mundo’s Ultimate and a Spirit’s Visage could let him heal back his full health bar in seconds, wasting any effort put into chipping him down, and he would no doubt become an unkillable damage-sponge during team fights. Added on to the fact that Mundo’s Ultimate’s cooldown was far shorter than the Ultimate cooldown of other champions, he could ult whenever he wanted to!

The old saying was to not chase Singed, but chasing a Mundo in Season 8 seemed like a much worse idea!

Shyvanna was the queen of the top lane, dethroning the previous reign of Renekton, but now, it was the time of the likes of Dr. Mundo and Rengar. It didn’t matter whether the enemy had more physical damage or magic damage, as long as you got a Sunfire Cape and Spirit’s Visage, you would be healing for more health than the enemy ADC could dish out!

And then we came to the mid lane. Traditional Mid laners were a thing of the past, now, Supports like Lulu were making their claim up in the middle lane as their team’s AP carry. Lulu’s performance in the mid really made quite a few jaws drop.

Other new Mid laners included the Bestial Huntress, Nidalee. Once a Support and occasional Top, she now did her hunting in the mid lane, besting many old Mid laner champions and becoming one of the best AP carries in the game.

She could poke down squishy enemies from a mile away, exceeding even the previous king of pokes, Jayce. AP Mid laners who relied on burst damage couldn’t hold a candle to Nidalee either as she was able to one shot an ADC that still had two-thirds of health in a teamfight without getting in range for them to counter her.

But it wasn’t too surprising, Top laners in the new season were as tanky as the Baron, it didn’t matter if you were AP or AD, they could soak in all of your damage and not even break a sweat, while old AP carries would indeed have a hard time bursting down the enemy backline with a wall like that in their way.

Lulu could kite well, do continuous damage, buff movement speed and provide a shield, whereas Nidalee was slippery and hard to kill, but could easily kill a squishy target with a single well-aimed Q-skill. These were the types of Mid laners that could come out on top.

Of course, these two hadn’t gained much popularity within the country. For one, their country got updates slower than the rest of the world, and so, most local players simply didn’t know the strength of these champions. Secondly, these champions were incredibly difficult mechanically. For example, Nidalee was as good as useless if you couldn’t land your spears, basically wasting the spot of an AP carry on your team.

For Junglers, aggressive Junglers were the way to go during the last season, Lee Sin, Khazix, Jarvan, Elise etc…

But with the gold increase in the jungle this season, more passive, farm-heavy Junglers were starting to gain traction among the professional community. Champions like Amumu were making a comeback onto the rift, and even the Top laner Olaf had jumped ship to enter the jungle.

Top lane’s changing of eras, the mid lane’s shift in the meta, a complete revamp of the jungle, and Supports like Leona, Taric, Soraka, and Alistar making a huge resurgence…

Just like how the visual upgrade LoL had received in past seasons made it seem like a completely different game, changes this Season had caused a complete shift in what would be considered meta champions.

The reason why many past e-sports games saw their downfall was because they kept rehashing the same thing over and over again. League of Legends succeeded because it kept reinventing itself, creating new ways to play, and adding new champions. No other game would dare to put their servers down for maintenance every week in fear of backlash from the fans.

The maintenance was to ensure a better game, to increase the replayability of the game, for as long as there were always fresh new things for the players to experience, it didn’t matter if they had to shut down their servers for half a day, their fans would still be waiting right on the log-in screen as soon as they were back up!

As the makeshift pioneers and top players of the game, professional players were akin to the celebrity models in the fashion world, their each and every action would be able to redirect the flow of trends throughout the entire community.

At the same time, they were using their intelligence, diligence, and strength to prove to players that on this battlefield, their team and their strategies were the strongest, that they were the ones who would represent this era of video games!