League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“Let’s go, let’s go! I can’t wait any longer!” Lin Xu of Class 3 groaned.

Lin Xu seemed to command some small bit of prestige within this cyber café, and had been able to reserve ten computers in two rows of five, facing each other. Each computer was already lit up with the opening screen for League of Legends, ancient motifs highlighted with azure and metallic hints.

After a week of dry, dusty textbooks, this sight kindled a light within each person’s eyes!

“Yu Luocheng, you’ll sit beside Zhong Xiaoyun.” Wang Qin indicated the vacant seat.

Wang Qin took his place in the middle, the position of a Mid-lane Mage.

To his right were Cao Sheng and Zhao Kesong, while Yu Luocheng and Zhong Xiaoyun were on his left, assigned to pair-up in the Bottom lane.

Behind them were no small number of other cyber café regulars from Class 8, here to lend their moral support. There were seven or eight of them, including a girl.

“Smash them!” Huang Yu, the assistant monitor of Class 8, demanded.

“That’s right.” The basketball captain for their class nodded in agreement. “We’ve already lost to them in basketball. We can’t lose to them in LoL too, or we’ll never live it down.”

“If you guys win, I’ll give every one of you a kiss!” Fang Xiaomei laughed.

“Oh? Move aside, Yu Luocheng. I’ll play.”

“Buzz off! You’re not even Level 10. Go play ball or something.”

Wang Qin lowered his headset, and turned to their supporters. “Don’t worry, we won’t lose.”

And then everyone logged onto their accounts, and joined the ‘Iron Solari’ server. Lin Xu created a Custom game.

Custom games differed from Normal matches in various ways. They were most often used to arrange practice matches between teammates, whereas Normal matches would select opponents randomly from online.

Sure enough, Wang Qin used the ID ‘Beast’. Zhong Xiaoyun was ‘Cloud’, Zhao Kesong was ‘Heedless’, Cao Sheng was ‘Godfather’.

Yu Luocheng was ‘Downfall’. Just some random name he’d come up with—he used it because it sounded profound.

His main account (the one with a Ranked score of 2,000), was in the Freljord region. The one he kept here in the Iron Solari was an alternate account, only used to play with an old friend. Its level wasn’t high.

“Oh no, you’re only Level 13?” Zhong Xiaoyun stole a peek at Yu Luocheng’s account, and started getting anxious. “Even Sun Yang is Level 24. Looks like our Bottom lane is doomed again.”

The last time they fought Class 3, the pairing of Zhong Xiaoyun and Sun Yang had been beaten into the ground. This time he’d be sharing Bottom with a Level 13. What hope was there to be had?

“Yu Luocheng’s only three levels above me. How about I go instead?” Wang Tao was eager to make a showing, bouncing excitedly and raring to go.

Wang Qin glanced over at Yu Luocheng. “Bro, you got this?”

“Relax.” Yu Luocheng’s lips curved into a self-assured smirk.

In today’s world, whenever there was any question of your ability, you had to know how to be convincing!

What good was skill if you were never given the chance to show it?

Very soon, the invitations arrived. Lin Xu of Class 3 added Yu Luocheng as a Friend, and then brought him into the Custom game’s lobby.

Upon entering the lobby, Yu Luocheng saw that everyone on the opposing team had a name starting with ‘Wild’.

Rather than any wild kind of sensation, Yu Luocheng felt this was somewhat tacky.

The enemy players were all Level 25 or above. The one named ‘Wild Life’ was Level 29, mere inches away from the maximum level of 30.

As for his own team: Wang Qin was Level 26, but everyone else was Level 21, 22… and then there was him, with a startling Level 13!

“Looks like they really didn’t have anyone else to call. Bringing over a Level-13 noob just to pad out their ranks. This is good news for our Bottom lane!” Sitting opposite, Feng Xiaoqing guffawed heartily.

“They’re about to get knocked about until they can’t tell up from down.”

This was when Lin Xu spoke up, chortling, “That’s cool, we’ll split the money based on kills. Kill them two dozen times or so, and that one grand will be all yours.”

“Then I’m not holding back. At first, seeing what noobs they are, I was planning to just pick some random champ; but if we’re competing for kills, then I’ll have to go with my best!” Feng Xiaoqing squawked excitedly.

Under this torrent of mockery, as well as the unsettling presence of a Level 13 among their ranks, there were uncertain looks all around, until Wang Qin raised his voice to holler, “Quit your yapping and let’s play. We’ll have you picking your teeth off the floor!”

Lin Xu clicked the button to begin, and everyone found themselves looking at the screen for Champion selection.

“Which are the opposing team’s signature characters?” Yu Luocheng murmured. “Ban them all. That will make things easier for us.”

“What do you mean, ‘ban’?” Zhong Xiaoyun asked in bewilderment.

Yu Luocheng thought he’d said it casually enough, yet suddenly all eyes were turned to him in confusion.

He looked at his screen, and felt a chill run through him.

The game had been set to Blind Pick. That meant choosing your own Champion, while not being able to see which Champions the enemy team would be fielding. The Ban Phase would be skipped entirely.

‘Right, I forgot we’re not playing a high-level game,’ Yu Luocheng consoled himself in the privacy of his own mind. ‘Sure, let’s do a Blind Pick, then.’

“Which Champion will you be playing?” Wang Qin turned to ask him.

“Perhaps Blitzcrank. I’ve got that champion on this account,” Yu Luocheng replied.

“Yup, Blitzcrank is great.” Wang Qin nodded in approval.

Zhong Xiaoyun was not as enthusiastic about this, moaning, “Sun Yang used Blitzcrank last time, too… and we lost Bot-lane.”

Yu Luocheng ignored his whining, and examined his own team’s line-up.

Wang Qin had selected ‘Annie, the Dark Child’.

Don’t be fooled by Annie’s appearance as a pastel-shaded sexy lolita, she was a nightmare to contend with. Often called the ‘Instant-Kill Queen’, she was a Mage champion who could deal extremely high burst damage . ¹

Goodness, he hadn’t figured the boisterous Wang Qin for a lolicon.

Zhong Xiaoyun meanwhile chose ‘Miss Fortune, the Bounty Hunter’, nicknamed ‘Lady Luck’ or ‘Gunslinger Girl’.

This was a mature beauty whose lines tended to leave one flustered. With teasing blown kisses, she asked in a sultry voice, “Are you sure you can handle me, Summoner?”

Miss Fortune was a Marksman, and one who boasted among the highest damage rates, especially with her Level-6 Ultimate skill ‘Bullet Time’. Whenever her raucous laughter rang out across the battlefield, it meant that someone was in the face of imminent doom—get out of the way!

Zhao Kesong brought out a champion everyone should be very familiar with: ‘Garen, the Might of Demacia’.

Garen was one of the most widely recognized champions in League of Legends. Despite almost never appearing in high-level tournaments, during low-level play, he was like unto a god.

He had little need for introduction—his fearsome strength was widely known.

Cao Sheng’s choice was ‘Master Yi, the Wuju Bladesman’, known as ‘Master Yi’ or the ‘Sword Saint’ . ² The Blademaster of the Wuju style was a cross between a Mage and a Fighter, and there were two main ways to play him.

Taking advantage of his Mage aspects required more skill, while focusing on his strengths as a Fighter could let you become a dominating force in a low-level game, which was how he’d earned the title ‘Noobchamp’. In games among players beneath the Level 10 threshold, you’d see Master Yi in pretty much every game.

That was their team composition. To Yu Luocheng’s expert eye, it looked like a pile of garbage, but odds were that his teammates weren’t yet familiar with a lot of other champions.

“You’re Jungling with Master Yi, right? Why aren’t you getting Smite?” Yu Luocheng tried to remind Cao Sheng.

“Jungling? What do you mean?” Cao Sheng was at a complete loss.

“You know… the Jungler farms on creeps,” Zhao Kesong interjected. “You know what, don’t Jungle. I’ll be alone up here, fighting against two guys. It’s too much.”

So it was to be a low-level 2-1-2 formation. Yu Luocheng was seized by the urge to roll his eyes.

Well, this was the noob tier. What Yu Luocheng didn’t understand was that, if they usually played 2-1-2, why had Wang Qin been talking about a Solo Top in class that day?

Wasn’t this the hallmark of low-level strategy, the Duo Top?