LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 430
The opponent’s gaze is entirely focused on the mid jungle.
As if to prove this fact, the ward timing from the opposing top lane also seems to be guarding against any thoughts of a gank right now.
From MAX’s perspective, the top priority is clearly to protect Aurelion Sol and grow him as much as possible, so in a way, it’s understandable.
However, MAX doesn’t realize.
To be precise, even though he already knows, he has forgotten this for the sake of this game.
What had been OLZ’s most powerful winning pattern until now.
“Can you push the lane since it’s a bit awkward right now?”
[“Yes. I’ll give it a try.”]
“Not ‘I’ll give it a try.'”
[“I’ll do it.”]
“That’s right.”
No matter how not-bad the matchup between Aatrox and K’Sante is, there’s still a significant difference in champion tiers between the two.
It has been due to K’Sante continuously getting nerfed since his release.
Of course, despite these nerfs, he still ranked at a dreadful 4th tier in solo queue while being present in tournaments, so there’s no need to mention the potential K’Sante has.
On top of that, Aatrox is a meta champion that has recently surged again.
Even if the matchup between the two champions is just a fistfight, in this meta, Aatrox will have a slight advantage in the laning phase.
“And besides, Aatrox’s arms are longer than K’Sante’s.”
K’Sante, despite his rugged, masculine appearance, has a rather sneaky way of trading damage in lane.
The key to K’Sante’s laning is using his relatively long-range Q to kite opponents and appropriately utilizing his damage-reduction and CC-immune W skill and mobility E.
However, that close-range kiting becomes extremely difficult against Aatrox.
First off, Aatrox is a champion with longer arms than K’Sante. If K’Sante awkwardly trades damage, just one hit from Aatrox’s passive will inflict a significant loss in that exchange.
“That being said… it’s still tough. A dive doesn’t seem feasible this way.”
Even in this low-level situation without items, K’Sante remains a tank.
Especially since he’s a tank who’s managing his HP well, it’s indeed hard to take him down with just Aatrox and Lee Sin.
Even though MAX isn’t currently keeping an eye on the top lane, he must have felt something odd by now.
WooChan’s K’Sante wasn’t oblivious to this either, as he shifted his focus more onto managing his health rather than CS and trading damage when Aatrox went aggressive.
It was a stark contrast to the reckless WooChan I used to know.
It seemed WooChan also had no intentions of being careless when facing Honor.
[“I’m going into the wave.”]
The wave enters.
However, the number of minions isn’t that great, and K’Sante’s health management is quite solid.
With K’Sante persistently keeping his damage-reduction skill W, it was practically the right move to give up on this dive.
Well, that was as long as there were only the top and jungle here.
[⨷]
[OLZ Getback (LeBlanc) spots MAX WooChan (K’Sante)]
As soon as the ping was placed, a familiar voice echoed in my ears.
[“I’ve arrived. Let’s go.”]
Thanks to Aurelion Sol playing it safe early on and soaking the lane, LeBlanc, the opponent’s laner, had a bit more leeway.
Now, LeBlanc was using that lane advantage to roam to the top at this timing.
[“After me.”]
LeBlanc’s chain hits K’Sante.
K’Sante turned on his W to respond to the chain, but after it was gone, he couldn’t withstand Aatrox and Lee Sin rushing in.
At this moment, Aatrox and Lee Sin were literally ferocious beasts.
“I’ll tank the turret aggro.”
The opposite turret wasn’t idle either; it reduced LeBlanc to a critical state before targeting me next.
However, both LeBlanc and Lee Sin were champions well-versed in this aggro ping pong, so the turret’s retaliation posed no problem.
-First Blood!
-Enemy slain!
[“Nice!”]
[“Good good.”]
“Well done, everyone. That was really clean.”
[“Wow, nice job, guys.”]
Even though it was a three-man dive, since the opponent was a tank, our team’s health management wasn’t too good.
As a result, LeBlanc immediately recalled, and I also pushed the top lane and quickly went back to base.
However, in situations like this, the opponent wouldn’t just sit there.
While we turned on the top lane, the lack of significant variables meant a diagonal law was in play.
[“Watch out for the bot! Sol’s coming down!”]
The timing of LeBlanc using her turn on top coincided with the opposing Aurelion Sol taking advantage of this moment and looking for a bot dive with Rek’Sai.
Depending on whether our side could hold up or not here, the future of the game truly rested on a knife’s edge.
[“Stay calm.”]
In a low voice, Kim Ji-hoon’s order reached Kim Jae-min as he focused silently on countering the enemy dive.
Just as Nautilus tried to pull aggro and escape, Kim Ji-hoon’s Rakan snagged Nautilus by the back of the head.
[“Nautilus first. Forward.”]
Even when commanded to push forward for a four-man dive, Kim Jae-min didn’t voice any doubts.
Absolute trust.
Even if a player is seemingly emotionless, showing that level of trust in situations like this isn’t easy, but Kim Jae-min moved like Kim Ji-hoon’s right hand.
Zeri and Rakan became one, drawing turret aggro while gnawing at the retreating Nautilus.
Nautilus, too, tried hastily to flee, but he couldn’t withstand turret damage and the pressure from Zeri and Rakan.
But that was just for a moment.
[“Oh no.”]
Zeri was focused down by Rek’Sai and Aurelion Sol, who had used their Flash, and Zeri literally exploded.
-Our team has been slain!
At least it was fortunate that Nautilus got popped by Rakan as he ultimately took an extra turret shot.
-Enemy slain!
That was a bit of a recovery.
Now, only Rakan was left in the turret, but the opponent seemed to be ready to withdraw here.
They likely thought that if they dragged this out any longer, Lee Sin and LeBlanc would join the fight, creating variables.
In reality, both LeBlanc and I dove home immediately after returning.
Thanks to Kim Ji-hoon’s superplay, our ADC and the enemy support ended up trading, and the dive was momentarily concluded.
On the surface, it seemed like a 1:1 exchange, but considering our ADC died and all the CS and experience burned up by the turret, it was a loss.
However, summing it up with the fact that the enemy mid jungle turned to bot while we gained an advantage on top… it would be fair to say either it was even or we had a slight edge.
‘I’ll talk about finishing it later.’
Reading the opponent’s psychology.
Interpreting their thoughts.
‘Right now, MAX is likely feeling a bit unwilling to end it this way.’
Soon, they would turn to bot and, if possible, try to make some moves.
Since they’d taken down the opposing ADC, and LeBlanc also had to secure the mid lane, that seemed like the natural choice.
People have a natural instinct to compensate for losses, after all.
But you know…
[“Support, don’t go back.”]
[“Yes.”]
Rakan has yet to return home.
Our turn isn’t over yet.
*
SY Player Waiting Room.
Before the showdown with GTD, the second match of the opening ceremony, the SY players gathered on a sofa in one corner of the waiting room.
It was to watch the opening game, OLZ vs. MAX.
“Wow, Lee Sin is playing LeBlanc.”
“That must mean he’s confident. It’s Outlaw, after all.”
“But OLZ’s mid seems a bit… They don’t usually do well with picks like that, do they?”
Normally, they would have expressed it differently, but given that they were in a player waiting room where eyes and ears could be everywhere, the SY players were careful even in their expressions.
“……”
Ryu Jin-hyuk also closely watched the OLZ vs. MAX game with sharp eyes.
The overall ban/pick structure was a typical combination of a timed attack setup against something else.
As time goes on, MAX is guaranteed to win.
I know how hard it is to use the word ‘guaranteed’ in the unpredictable Legends of League, but that goes to show how significant the gap in combination value was between the two teams.
Hence, for OLZ, it was a game where they absolutely needed to pull ahead early, and considering that strong teams usually prefer that kind of composition, it was unbelievable that a team just promoted to LCKR would pick like this.
‘Is it arrogance or confidence? That will soon be determined.’
SY had also scrimmed against OLZ quite a bit, but each time they felt that OLZ was entirely different from the countless teams they had risen through the 2nd division.
And at the center of that was undoubtedly the jungler, Outlaw.
‘Outlaw.’
Could that jungler, who appeared like a storm, be the real deal or not?
Soon, all will be revealed.