League of Legends: League of Unknowns

It was one thing for you to surprise amateur players, but to surprise the professional players was not something you could easily do any day!

You could especially tell from the expression on Hades’ face, how dazzling Luocheng’s play with his Smite was…

Luocheng stroked his mouse and keyboard, the corner of his mouth quirking up unconsciously. He couldn’t help but think that the maneuver that he had just performed was unbelievably cool, it couldn’t compare to the previous ‘V’-shaped dance he had done.

When you played Lee Sin, if it wasn’t about showing off, what else were you playing him for?

If you couldn’t showcase the elegance and chic-ness of this champion, don’t even bother picking him!

Of course, playing elegantly and chic-ly was one thing, being able to safely come back was another thing.

As his mouth curved upward and he was patting himself on the back for landing a kill on Hades, he noted that the bottom lane duo had cut through the jungle area and was surrounding him. Looking at the middle lane, Belial’s Vi was also on the way and Luocheng didn’t have anywhere to run to.

***

Luocheng knew how to run in circles, and from the Wolves camp, he kept the chase with Belial up toward the sides, and after about ten minutes, Belial finally managed to kill Luocheng, this sloppy blind monk, but he had been played, hook, line and sinker!

“You shouldn’t have left the middle lane unguarded.” Hades said to Belial frowning, and the dissatisfaction was clear in his voice.

Belial had pushed a wave before giving chase to Luocheng’s Lee Sin, but who knew that Gragas and Elise would take this chance to push the minion wave into the turret, quickly pushing through and taking it down.

By doing so, Team Skycrown had successfully taken down the key objective which was the middle lane turret, and this fact made Belial’s face go red with anger…

Under normal circumstances, Belial wouldn’t have made such a simple mistake. You couldn’t compare the value of one kill against one turret after all.

However, upon seeing Fighting Hawk on the Lee Sin who kept showing off, he was inexplicably pissed and especially fueled to kill him.

Hard to blame him too, even Hades who knew that today was the day that he was going to play against the Fighting Hawk hadn’t slept very well the previous night, more so Belial who had already been played a few times by Luocheng.

In other words, all the e-sports players in the world held some form of dissatisfaction in their hearts when they heard about him holding the title of Champion of Gaming. All of them wanted to play against him at least once to settle their differences once and for all…

***

Once the turret was brought down, Team Skycrown picked up the pace and became more offensive.

They carried on themselves a few Vision Wards and Sweeping Lens, starting to invade the jungle area.

The reason for invading was not to take the camps of the monsters there, but rather to cut off the route for their enemies to give their own team assistance as well as to quickly bring down another enemy turret!

“Go around and turn back!”

Team Daemons clearly remembered when they were playing against Team Revelation, Team Skycrown had used an extremely difficult tactic. They had let Trundle stand guard at the narrow path that the opponent needed to cut through to the turret, and the rest of the team had pushed the minion wave in. It made the opponent afraid to defend the turret.

After demolishing the turret at the middle lane, Team Skycrown was prone to using this tactic as always.

Indeed, Dr. Mundo was standing on the path that Team Daemons needed to cross, endlessly throwing his knives like there was no tomorrow. Charon had already used his Ultimate and he became frustrated at the fact that he just needed a little bit more damage and he could have killed Mundo.

How annoying was Dr. Mundo?

As long as you didn’t kill him on time, with that little bit of health left, you didn’t need to wait long before you f*cking saw his health regenerating to almost a full bar!

This was why the current season’s Dr. Mundo was crazy, with a Sunfire Cape and Spirit Visage, Daddy Mundo will go where he pleases!

“They’re pushing the turrets again, can’t Team Skycrown just man up and have a good teamfight against Team Daemons?” The loyal fans of Team Daemons roared, extremely unsatisfied.

In the eyes of the countless audience, Team Skycrown’s tactics were particularly underhanded. They didn’t fight straight up with the enemies, making use of the limited vision control, ambushing, darting back in after disengaging, basically whenever Team Daemons was in a disadvantageous situation.

The moment Team Skycrown invaded the jungle area, they may not win even if the fight had the same amount of people in it. The moment they took over the major points of the territory, the turret would also come down in time!

“You’re crazy, this is a strategy game, not some charging-in-recklessly game. So what if Team Skycrown knows how to utilize the tactics they have? Do they have to meet head on!?” There were of course others who were not satisfied with those kinds of complaints.

The new season and changes to the game had actually paced the game slower with the fortification buff on the outer turret newly in place. Without true sight and vision control from it, adding on the fact that the gold for first blood had been lessened, there was an obvious drop in pacing in the game. Even teams with a big difference in strength would have to play against each other for at least thirty minutes now.

However, in the hands of Team Skycrown, you would find that their rhythm was now even faster and aggressive as compared to previously. A fortification buff on the outer turret was nothing in their eyes with their bulldozing lineups. As long as the structure was marked, it would definitely go down within five minutes.

Team Daemons and Team Skycrown were clashing with each other lightly whenever they met but a complete 5 vs 5 had yet to happen. Each player’s small actions and awareness were particularly eye-catching.

***

“Coach, they’re in a bit of a pickle. This is Team Skycrown’s drag-and-snowball tactic, once the gold difference picks up even more, the turret is basically just a decoration. Even the Dragon will be their ATM.” Anubis shuffled on his legs worriedly as he stated his opinion.

Anubis was naturally anxious because Team Daemons had to win two games against Team Skycrown and obtain the 3 points. That was the only way they could possibly win runner-up as they had lost to Team Sky previously. It was obvious that Team Sky would also keep up their momentum and not lose in the following matches.

If they came to a draw with Team Skycrown 1:1 and assuming Team Skycrown would later on lose to Team Sky 0:2, then they would have the same score as them!

Only the top two teams would be able to enter into the World Championship, and the highest chance to get in now was only the three teams here. They had waited for this competition every year, waiting to get into the Worlds every year. Every year they were ambitious, and every year they would lose, and so, they would try again the next year, persevering…

Putting aside the Worlds at the moment, more importantly, this was Asmodai’s last run in the professional scene.

If it ended in a loss, Asmodai would leave the scene of e-sports with so much regret and he would probably choose to not stay back.

Everyone knew that Asmodai’s abilities were regressing, and even if he spent more time than anyone else, he couldn’t enter his concentrated state any longer, unable to enter into a true professional mindset. The reason they had lost against Team Sky was also because of his bad positioning during a teamfight.

Every professional player had those kinds of days and no one had uttered a single blame against Asmodai. They kept their silence and understanding on his regression, but no one had expected that with their indifferent mindset and silent cheers for Asmodai to work hard, he had suddenly decided to retire.

The reason was not as simple as he was tired.

The guy who had used all of his free time to watch replays of the Worlds, to practise CS-ing and positioning whenever he was free. The person who, when drunk, would always talk about how he had to become a World-class qualified player, how could he feel tired toward e-sports!? He was so very ambitious and that passion had always been building indefinitely.

Yet, in the end, they were forced to accept this unacceptable fact.

Anubis hadn’t really paid much attention to Hades’ development in this game, and he wasn’t so concerned about Fighting Hawk’s Lee Sin. He placed the most concern on Asmodai’s ADC.

Asmodai’s Ezreal had the same CS as Draven, 220.

However, there was a clear gap in items because Draven’s team had the lead in gold by a huge margin.

If it was the old Asmodai, in a situation at the bottom lane where it was a 2 vs 1, he could have easily pressured the lane like a dog, but in this game, Asmodai was doing none of that, and even in terms of giving timely assistance during teamfights, he was always late by half a beat.

Hades and Fighting Hawk’s plays were extremely outstanding, including Belial and Gale Crane, they all incited the crowd into roars and cheers.

Then, what about Asmodai?

 Why was he always slower, not bringing out the full potential of his ADC? This was his last competition, was he intending to pass the farming phase and watch as the team fell behind even more in the gold difference, finally trying helplessly to launch an assault at the late-game?

It shouldn’t be this way!

The Fighting Hawk that you’ve always put on the pedestal is right in front of you, go and settle it once and for all with him!

Anubis was caught up in these thoughts, Asmodai was going too slow and too stable. What was he thinking!? He knew that this was his last competition and he knew that his opponents were tough, so why didn’t he have his resolution?

If it was Anubis in there, he would have already regrouped with the team, if he couldn’t take a triple kill, he would at least get a double kill!

“They need to always be one step ahead of Team Skycrown, otherwise, they’ll be in for a rough time after this.” Coach Huang Kang said, drumming his fingers on the table uneasily.

Team Skycrown was especially united when Luocheng was there, and this kind of unity was one that not even his Team Daemons could reach. Their execution was also practically flawless to the extent that it was just too strong…

At this point, it was up to Hades.

To see whether he could pull off what he had previously, when two people had rounded the middle lane turret to get the kill. He needed to predict what Team Skycrown would possibly do next and plan an ambush to counter them, pulling off a beautiful teamfight which could turn the entire game around for them!

***

As the team captain, Hades sometimes did feel the heavy pressure and burden on his shoulders.

What they wanted was not a draw. If it was a draw, their position to enter the Worlds would be shaky, one wrong move and the qualification would be lost.

Looking at the fast invasion and fast retreat of Team Skycrown, Hades’ heart became even heavier.

After that game with one hundred kills that had shocked the entire e-sports world, how had they trained for the entire year… How could they have brought up their abilities so d*mn fast!?