In esports, it all comes down to raw strength.
Yet strength takes many forms.
Li Yao's tactical advice had single-handedly pulled the morale of the entire WE roster back from the brink of collapse.
If that wasn't a display of strength, what was?
While the players still weren't entirely sure of Li Yao's personal skill level, they knew one thing for sure: he hadn't gotten his position through connections. His understanding of the game's current state and his tactical thinking were even sharper than those of their coach, sask.
One or two scrims couldn't prove everything, but for today at least, they were thrilled—so thrilled that even when they ordered late-night takeout, Li Yao got a share.
Li Yao accepted it graciously, but when everyone was ordering, he also ordered fruit tea and beverages for everyone in the training room, staying true to the principle of reciprocity.
While the teammates began their rank grind that evening, Li Yao and sask stood on the rooftop, letting the breeze cool them down.
Some things simply couldn't be said in front of the players.
It hurt their pride too easily.
"Isn't that a bit like worrying the sky is going to fall?"
Listening to Li Yao's perspective, sask furrowed his brow.
They were constantly improving.
Yet according to Li Yao, this progress was merely superficial.
And extremely unstable.
Naturally, sask's personality made it hard for him to accept such a view.
He firmly believed in the players' abilities.
Besides, although the WE roster was young, their individual mechanics were genuinely decent... well, except for the mid laner, whose consistency was a glaring issue.
"Haven't you noticed? WE is currently holding together by three separate ropes."
Leaning back in his lounge chair, Li Yao swayed slightly as he said, "The most stable rope is Breathe and Beishang; their top-jungle synergy is exceptionally high. The second rope is elk and missing, but their stylistic differences and communication issues still haven't been resolved."
"The biggest problem remains the mid lane. The laning phase is one thing, but don't you think the mid-jungle synergy rate is far too low?"
"You used to play mid yourself, so you should understand that once the game moves past the laning phase, every single death by the mid laner has a massive impact on the team. Mole was among the earliest mid laners in the LPL Summer Split to play Sett in the mid lane, but it's starting to feel like his Sett has been completely figured out."
"In the mid game, he's doing the job of a top laner—split-pushing in side lanes—without a jungler to protect him. He dies the moment anyone collapses on him, and he gets reckless in teamfights. That's the problem. Because of this, WE can no longer really rely on the Sett system."
Sask's brow furrowed even deeper.
A sudden, dull ache blossomed in his chest.
Because every single issue Li Yao pointed out was undeniably present in WE right now.
Breathe, their most reliable carry threat, rightfully deserved resource allocation, which paradoxically meant that in the mid game, Breathe ended up having to group with the team more often.
And Beishang would naturally follow Breathe.
When a problem like this arose, who was to blame?
Was it Breathe's fault for being in such good form? Or Beishang's fault for prioritizing the main carry to snowball their advantage instead of helping Mole?
According to Li Yao, if they faced an opponent who banned Rumble and first-picked Zoe, what were they supposed to do?
Without Rumble, the Twisted Fate system couldn't be run.
Without Zoe, Mole would be forced to play the deeply flawed Sett.
If they didn't pick Sett, could Mole play other champions in his pool with enough proficiency to make an impact?
A flurry of questions left sask struggling to breathe.
"Of course, maybe I'm just overthinking it."
Shifting gears abruptly, Li Yao stood up, dusted off his pants, and turned back toward the training room, leaving sask standing alone in the wind, utterly bewildered.
Three days later.
WE traveled to Shenzhen and crushed sask's former team, V5, with a score of 2-0.
Mole's 5/0 Zoe performance combined with a freshly deployed Twisted Fate left a deep impression on the spectators.
Three consecutive wins to start the Summer Split.
Moreover, WE's matches featured frequent bloodshed and extremely high entertainment value. The veteran "60E" fanbase was gradually reviving, new fans were pouring in continuously, and the topic's heat on social media began to skyrocket. Once overshadowed and dim, the WE team was steadily experiencing a renaissance fueled by a storm of youth.
Riding high on momentum, in top form.
These eight characters perfectly encapsulated WE's current state.
It was precisely on this day that WE's roster database quietly updated. A new ID joined the ranks, and the super account Li Yao had been playing on was exposed to the public eye beneath this very ID.
Although WE hadn't issued any official announcement, attentive WE fans still discovered the appearance of a player under the ID "killer".
"Huh? WE signed another mid laner?"
"This match history looks pretty average. He's not even Grandmaster yet."
"Seriously, I have no idea what WE is doing."
"Fun fact: aside from the mid lane, every other position on WE only has one player this year. But counting this 'killer', they have four mid laners."
"Shanks, Mole, teacherma, killer—good grief, you could practically deal a hand of mahjong."
While the discussion surrounding the new mid laner wasn't massive, it still generated a modest buzz within the tight-knit circle of the WE superfan community.
Mole's stellar performance in the recently concluded BO3 led most fans to completely overlook the rookie.
A small fraction of fans even instinctively brought Mole up, arguing that with such a great mid laner on the roster, WE really didn't need so many substitutes—quality over quantity.
While the fans were overwhelmingly optimistic about WE's prospects, the players knew that their next match against FPX would be a true battle.
Li Yao hadn't traveled with the team to Shenzhen; instead, he stayed behind to train alone in the base.
The players wouldn't be returning until tomorrow at the earliest, making the base exceptionally quiet tonight.
Li Yao didn't mind. Pouring himself a cup of hot water and taking a few slow sips, he gathered his focus and prepared for today's battles.
His super account was nearing the Grandmaster tier, but his personal account was still languishing in Diamond I.
Fortunately, an 87% win rate meant his account's hidden MMR was steadily climbing, and as a Diamond I player, he was already regularly matched against Grandmaster and Challenger players.
Today was the promotion series to Master.
...
On Douyu.
Inside a livestream with over three million viewers:
"Thanks to the boss for the one hundred planes!"
"Everyone can participate in the giveaway in the bottom right corner. You only need one fan badge, and since not many people have joined yet, your chances of winning are pretty high..."
"Oh mother, who is confident enough to lock in LeBlanc straight away?"
Doinb muttered incessantly to himself as he locked in Karma.
Glancing at the chat, his fingers moving at lightning speed to set up his runes and masteries, Doinb said, "Don't you dare say I'm getting carried, big bros! I'm trying to climb here, and I'm not ending the stream today until I hit seven hundred LP!"
Soon, both teams entered the loading screen. Doinb glanced at his opponent's ID. If it were in Korean, he'd be too lazy to type it out and search, but since it was in English...
*killer?*
Doinb quickly searched the ID on OP.GG.
Diamond I.
Doinb was surprised.
This was peak gaming hours, so theoretically, queue times shouldn't be long enough to force a mismatch.
Therefore, the person he queued into was definitely not a standard Diamond I player with normal MMR.
The sea of blue greeting his eyes explained everything.
On the OP.GG interface, light blue signified a victory.
Pink signified a defeat.
Doinb scrolled down, seeing an almost unbroken expanse of blue punctuated only by rare specks of red like unicorn horns.
The sight made Doinb's heart skip a beat, but a moment later, relief washed over him: "Good, good, thank God I picked Karma for this game."
Following that wave of relief, Doinb's voice spiked instantly in pitch: "Oh man, this guy's match history looks terrifying, and he only plays laning bullies and assassins! Where did this guy even come from?"
The sheer number of champions in that streak of consecutive wins hit all of Doinb's sensitive trigger words.
As an S9 World Champion, Doinb's playstyle was entirely his own, and his personal style was exceptionally distinct.
In the eyes of some viewers, he was a "chores-only" mid laner who consumed a massive amount of farm every game while his damage conversion wasn't particularly high. Statistically speaking, he looked like a textbook example of a player who leeched resources yet failed to yield sufficient returns.
Doinb deeply feared players with dominant laning phases, because against opponents like that, he would be pinned under his tower, severely restricting his roaming capabilities.
This was Doinb's weakness.
It was just that mid laners capable of reducing him to a state where he couldn't fight back were exceedingly rare.
On the other side, inside the WE base.
Seeing that his opposing mid laner's ID was *heart*, Li Yao felt his interest pique.
Many professional players used Korean IDs, which had limited reach.
Yet a player like Doinb, who streamed every single day, had an unmistakable presence in rank queues.
"Looks like he wants to coast."
Li Yao felt a flutter of excitement, like a hunter spotting fresh prey.