novelODS 042 Research
042 Research
"Alright, the ban rounds went quickly, and the three bans are now finalized!"
"SKT on the blue side banned Zed, Elise, and Sejuani. These three bans were expected."
After LG-IM and Najin Sword cleared the way, these three ban slots should be the fixed ban slots for other teams when facing RISE.
These three heroes are powerful, that's one thing, but RISE also has other powerful heroes, such as Fizz and Lee Sin.
The main thing is that RISE will have a very comfortable time playing with any of these three heroes.
After all, RISE usually plays the bottom lane openly, while Li Zhixing practically lets the top and mid laners do their own thing and then just stays in the bottom lane to play the game.
These three heroes are the best choices for this system.
With Looper in Alchemy, even if the sky falls in the top lane, he can hold on; with Faker in Zed, he's guaranteed a solo kill and a backline assassination in team fights.
Needless to say, Neo, who got the Spider, treated the turrets like nothing and kept the enemy bot laner completely overwhelmed!
"RISE on the red side banned Jax, Orianna, and Ezreal. These are also meta champions that SKT players are good at."
Although this is the first time the two teams have faced each other on the field, they know each other very well after several practice matches. Today's draft picks are basically an open showdown.
Therefore, there were not many changes, and the lineup was quickly finalized.
Blue side SKT K: Top lane Renekton, Jungle Lee Sin, Mid lane Ahri, Bot lane Varus and Leona.
Red team RISE: Top lane Shen, Jungle Pantheon, Mid lane Syndra, Bot lane Caitlyn and Annie.
RISE is sticking to their old strategy: let the mid and top lanes run freely, with a focus on the bottom lane.
After all, Pantheon's jungle role is similar to Elise's, which is designed for tower diving. Annie, a support with reliable crowd control, is also very strong in synergy with the jungler.
In contrast, SKT's lineup in this game was quite flexible, without any obvious focus, allowing the jungler to go wherever he wanted.
But it is precisely because of this that Li Zhixing's abilities are put to the ultimate test.
Seeing this, Li Zhixing didn't think much of it and chose the conventional approach.
At the start of the game, group up and invade the enemy jungle to set up vision. Analyze the enemy jungler's movements to flexibly change your strategy.
In this era where the professional system is not yet perfected, this early game invasion and warding strategy has a very strong first-sight kill effect.
In the previous two BO3 matches, the opponents suffered heavy losses because they were unprepared for this move.
But it's not actually that difficult to guard against this move.
SKT has lost to Lee Ji-hye so many times and has secretly conducted so much targeted research. If they still had no precautions against this, it would be unreasonable.
The RISE team encountered unprecedented resistance as soon as they entered SKT's lower red zone.
SKT not only deployed heavy defenses in the bottom half of the map, but their support player Poormandu also bought a control ward, which was immediately destroyed as soon as RISE placed it.
Li Zhixing narrowed his eyes slightly.
He wasn't surprised by this; in fact, he had expected it.
Professional competitions are where progress is paramount; no single technique can guarantee success in every situation.
Li Zhixing remained calm, simply returning to the jungle and starting his jungle clear in the upper half of the map as usual, before speaking:
"We can't figure out the enemy jungler's movements this game; he could go anywhere. You guys be careful. I'll just keep farming as usual."
At 1 minute and 55 seconds, the red buff spawned in the camp.
This time, Li Zhixing didn't rush to capture anyone, but instead focused on clearing the map.
Prioritize your own development, and observe the situation while you're at it.
In the top lane, Looper's laning phase is as reassuring as ever.
Shen is a champion similar to Alchemist; he's the kind of champion that can withstand any challenge, even if the sky falls. Li Zhixing had complete faith in him and believed he could hold the top lane.
The situation in the middle lane is somewhat delicate.
My little brother Lee Sang-hyeok had laned against Easyhoon before, so he knew how good he was and played extremely aggressively, using Syndra to relentlessly Q Ahri from level one.
Easyhoon didn't back down and went head-to-head in a fight. Although he lost a lot of health due to his poor performance, he managed to keep up with the experience and lane control.
Having achieved a resounding victory in the personnel reshuffle, Lee Sang-hyeok's gaze was resolute, and he was about to take the opportunity to further escalate his arrogant attitude.
However, dominating your opponent is always a double-edged sword. While you are suppressing your opponent, you will inevitably be threatened by the enemy jungler.
This time, SKT's jungler arrived exceptionally quickly.
The Lee Sin had only leveled up to level two when he appeared in the mid lane!
Easyhoon seized the opportunity, his level two fox flashed forward, and delivered a powerful kiss with a "Charm" spell!
Lee Sang-hyeok's reaction was truly astonishing; he managed to use Flash at the last second, narrowly missing the Enchantress!
That flash really threw SKT's mid and jungle players off guard.
Holy crap, how did you even realize that?
This kind of face-to-face allure leaves almost no time to react!
Fortunately, it's not a big problem.
After all, Ahri's ultimate ability has three dashes, so she doesn't rely heavily on Flash.
Without Flash, Syndra no longer dares to recklessly suppress her opponent, which is also beneficial for the mid-lane matchup.
The two mid laners swapped Flash, which was clearly an advantage for them.
Lee Sang-hyeok could certainly understand what this exchange of flashes meant, and his expression turned somewhat grim.
He clearly hadn't expected the opposing team to play so abnormally.
Li Zhixing shook his head when he saw this.
Still young.
A seasoned veteran mid laner would be wary of such an unusual tactic as ganking mid at level two; this is experience gained through blood and tears.
It can only be said that he has learned his lesson. Lee Sang-hyeok's talent is obvious to the naked eye, and he will shine in the world sooner or later. His future opponents will only use more inhuman methods against him.
Fortunately, the enemy Lee Sin's gank in the mid lane also revealed his jungle route.
The fact that the opposing Lee Sin dared to play like that undoubtedly shows he had a strategy.
The opposing team farmed towards their disadvantageous bottom half of the map, not intending to make any moves, their only goal being to prevent the bottom lane from being tower-dived.
Therefore, he was certainly not afraid that capturing the enemy would expose his movements.
Having understood the enemy jungler's strategy, Li Zhixing quickly came up with an idea.
"I'm going up. Be careful in the bottom lane. Once I show up, retreat quickly and don't give me a chance."
Li Zhixing casually left a sentence, and Pantheon, who had already reached level three, immediately turned around and headed to the top lane.
The bot lane duo immediately retreated, and Looper, understanding the situation, quietly took two steps back and slowly let the minion wave pass.
Looper's acting was actually rather clumsy, since any unusual behavior would arouse suspicion from his opponents.
However, Impact was clearly unprepared for Li Zhixing's arrival and continued to push the minion wave forward.
The crocodile hadn't returned to base to resupply, so there was no vision in the river. Therefore, Li Zhixing patiently waited in the river bushes for a moment, until the crocodile pushed the minion wave across the river, before rushing out of the bushes!
Impact had just finished pushing the lane and was about to recall to base to replenish his health when he suddenly noticed Pantheon appearing behind him, and his expression changed drastically!
But it was too late.
Li Zhixing first used a basic attack to apply the red buff and slow down the enemy. After the crocodile used its two E attacks to create distance, he then sat on it and stunned it.
This was immediately followed by Shen's taunts.
Looper was quite meticulous, deliberately waiting until the last second before taunting, and then dragging the crocodile back two steps.
The two players' burst damage wasn't enough to instantly kill the nearly full-health crocodile, but the crocodile pushed too far into the lane, leaving the two players with a long chase distance.
Taking advantage of the red buff's burning effect, Li Zhixing chased the crocodile all the way, finishing it off with a critical hit Q skill and securing the kill.
"First blood!"