Although Li Yao's performance put a certain amount of pressure on doinb, he was not panicked.
This came from the confidence Karma gave him.
For doinb, as long as he couldn't beat his opponent, he had countless ways to smooth out that gap.
For example, buying Mercury's Treads.
Or building some tank items and support items, which would still be useful when team fights rolled around.
Therefore, all he needed to do was withstand the pressure during the laning phase.
In doinb's view, this wasn't a difficult task; Karma's wave-clear and sustain were no joke, and she had a shield to absorb LeBlanc's poke. It was absolutely impossible for LeBlanc to solo kill him and snowball her advantage.
However, less than three minutes into the game, when LeBlanc side-stepped to dodge his RQ while simultaneously counter-attacking with W, chaining him, and executing a full combo to trigger Electrocute, doinb's Adam's apple bobbed as he began to realize things were not so simple.
Among all mid laners in the LPL, the one doinb feared most was Rookie.
Second was Knight.
Both of these players could exert immense pressure on him during the laning phase.
Yet the person in front of him... the pressure being put on him was no less than what those two could muster.
Her operational style was somewhat similar to Rookie's.
Only she played with more edge, pushed the limits further, and was greedier than Rookie.
That greed stemmed from absolute confidence.
As a cerebral player capable of building tactics for his team, doinb knew all the mid laners he valued quite well.
Including their personalities and their fluctuations in form.
If forced to make an analogy, the feeling this LeBlanc gave doinb was somewhat similar to Rookie in his youth.Rookie debuted as a lone-carry captain—the pillar holding up IG—and remained in that carrying role until Season 8.
Things only got slightly better after Season 8.
Yet ever since JackeyLove's departure and TheShy's eccentric champion picks began, Rookie once again faintly trended back toward being a lone-carry pillar.
What is a lone-carry pillar?
It's the kind of player where the moment they make a mistake, if the opponent catches the opportunity—catches two or three waves of it, or even just a single mistake—the game is over.
Even if they were bold in the past, carrying the team so often meant that every time they made a move, they would subconsciously worry whether excessive greed would give the opponent an opening.
Therefore, although Rookie still dared to fight, he wasn't as recklessly daring as his younger self. This was an inevitable change resulting from environmental and various other factors during a player's growth.
Even so, such a Rookie could still bring immense pressure to doinb in a match.
From this, one could imagine just how intense the oppressive feeling was that he was currently enduring against this razor-sharp LeBlanc.
Game time: four and a half minutes.
Low on health, doinb tried to clear this minion wave and then recall.
Yet Li Yao, having pushed the minion wave under the defense tower, chose to attempt a dive.
Looking at the approaching LeBlanc, doinb wasn't panicked; in fact, he even felt that the LeBlanc before him was somewhat green.
Even after being hit by LeBlanc's chains, doinb didn't panic.
RW.
This was doinb's reliance for survival.
With the shield plus the healing from RW, even with LeBlanc's Ignite ticking on him, he could heal back up. LeBlanc's damage was definitely not enough.
And if LeBlanc didn't retreat, stubbornly choosing to detonate the second part of her E's damage to trade kills with him, doinb would be even happier.
According to the mechanics of Karma's RW, there was a first instance of health restoration when the chains connected with the target, and when the chains detonated after two seconds to tether the opponent, there would be a second instance of health restoration.
By then, even if LeBlanc unleashed her full damage, he wouldn't die; instead, LeBlanc would be tethered under the defense tower and killed in return.
These were all the thoughts running through doinb's mind before LeBlanc applied her pressure.
"This LeBlanc is giving away a kill."
Watching LeBlanc step forward with QW, doinb grinned and immediately countered with a point-blank Q to supplement his damage right as she landed.
Karma's health plummeted under this burst of damage, but she held on.
And the chains—symbolizing the hope of life—were still tethered to LeBlanc!
Meanwhile, LeBlanc cast W to return to her original position, and the moment she took tower aggro, a flash of golden light flickered.
From doinb's perspective, LeBlanc seemed to have flashed in place.
Yet to doinb's astonishment, the chain tether between him and LeBlanc was reduced to just a single line.
Namely, LeBlanc's end of the chain.
Caught in this sudden situation, doinb reflexively flashed the moment he recovered his senses.
However, the damage from LeBlanc's second-stage chain had already detonated, and a Karma corpse appeared right at the landing spot of his flash. The binding animation of LeBlanc's chain only slowly dissipated after Karma's screen went black.
"Ah?"
Doinb's brain short-circuited: "Hey!! Wait, what is this? Is he just playing mind games?!"
He rapidly switched screens and hammered his keyboard, attempting to soothe his inner turmoil, then clicked open his death recap to examine LeBlanc's damage breakdown.
The live stream broadcast plunged into silence for a moment, save for the sky-full of barrage comments reading "Flashing to your own grave" and taunts.
Doinb was long accustomed to such ridicule.
Yet at this very moment, his mind was completely occupied by the sight of that LeBlanc flashing to snap and sever the chain.
It wasn't until he saw a barrage comment float past reading "This LeBlanc is also quite abstract" (mutual pecking between noobs) (flashing to celebrate) that he finally couldn't hold back anymore.
"Oh mother, this LeBlanc just got lucky, right? I don't believe he calculated the distance this precisely."
Doinb rubbed his face. By now he had already resurrected, and while buying items during his Teleport channel, he moved his mouse over to his Karma's W skill: "My chain range is 800 units, his chain range is 865 units. His flash looked like he flashed in place, but actually, it was to snap my chain, keeping the distance between him and me strictly within that 865-unit range."
"A coincidence? This has got to be a coincidence, right?!"
Though getting killed felt awful, doinb hated the audience mocking LeBlanc's play even more.
If LeBlanc was truly abstract, then wouldn't he, having been solo-killed by such a LeBlanc, be even more abstract?
Once doinb explained it clearly, the viewers who had been frantically spamming question marks and taunting earlier suddenly had an epiphany.
"Holy turtle, is this the level of a Grandmaster player?"
"This skill level doesn't look like a random pub player, brothers look him up, which team is he from?"
"To be fair, solo killing a monkey doesn't warrant making a big deal out of it, right? The monkey gets solo-killed a dozen times every day anyway."
"Bro in front, you're just hating for the sake of it. He clearly only gets solo-killed seven or eight times a day at most, a dozen times is rare."
Watching the sky-full of mockery, doinb was speechless.
Though humiliating, his skin was thick, so it was actually fine—a mere single solo kill...
Ten minutes later.
A fight broke out in the bottom lane. LeBlanc appeared, picking up a double kill.
Returning to base to purchase Luden's Tempest and Sorcerer's Shoes, the LeBlanc embarked on her rampage.
Even if doinb wanted to build tank items, it required a process.
Right now he only had Sorcerer's Shoes; Karma couldn't build tank items as her first item because she still needed minion-clearing power. If she couldn't deal with the minion waves, her growth speed would slow down, and running into a champion with such strong snowballing capabilities like LeBlanc meant he would definitely not survive until the point where he became tanky.
With no other choice, doinb had to settle for second best and build a support item first, completely treating himself like a support.
Yet doing so left him devoid of any bulk.
Just as he finally managed to scrape together enough gold for his mythic item and prepared to recall, the enemy jungler suddenly appeared.
Li Yao's jungler was Gragas. Noticing Li Yao's position, Gragas opened with an ultimate the moment he showed up.
While chipping away at Karma's health, he also knocked Karma right into LeBlanc's mouth. Li Yao's LeBlanc landed her chains with precision on the airborne Karma before she could touch the ground, then followed up with her full combo to instantly vaporize her.
Following this kill, the mid lane tier-one tower was knocked down by the Herald, and Li Yao returned to base to purchase Mejai's Soulstealer.
In less than twenty minutes, the bottom lane AD carry stepped out of the defense tower with their left foot first and was instantly vaporized and ambushed by LeBlanc from the shadows using WQRE, prompting an immediate surrender vote.
Doinb silently clicked no. Of course, this wasn't to torture his teammates, but rather because professional players needed to maintain a somewhat positive attitude while live streaming, especially players like doinb who placed a very large portion of their focus on streaming; they cared more about such things.
Even so, at the 22-minute mark, the vote passed four to one against, and the game surrendered directly.
Doinb's Karma finished the game at 0/5/1, an incomparably dismal stat line.
The live chat was mocking him, and he had practically driven himself to depression.
Yet doinb had no choice but to launch a lucky draw event to mask the awkwardness.
When he subsequently queued back into a game, doinb decisively banned LeBlanc and locked in Akali, intending to go on a killing spree.
Only, as they entered the loading screen, that familiar ID appeared on the opposing side once again.
The Mayan civilization experienced another resurrection.
Following a cry of "Oh mother," doinb began to complain: "How is it him again? Are there no other players left or what?"
In this match, the champion Li Yao picked was Zed.
Very assassin-like.
And very high-rank.
As a champion that was rarely seen in professional matches but boasted an extremely high win rate in high-Elo ranked games, if doinb said he wasn't intimidated at all, he would be lying.
Starting with Doran's Shield in this match, doinb's gameplay centered entirely around being solid and steady.
Doran's Shield paired with Fleet Footwork—he refused to believe he would get solo-killed.
And indeed, that proved to be the case. Although Zed kept applying pressure to him, doinb managed to turtle safely.
Unfortunately, by turtling safely, it was his teammates who suffered instead.
Li Yao's Zed frequently coordinated with his jungler to gank and kill the jungler on doinb's team, Lee Sin.
In less than seven minutes, Lee Sin was already 0/3.
The jungle was thoroughly blown wide open.
Li Yao's Zed directly took off, snowballing at an extremely fast pace in ranked play.
Yet another match ending just past the 20-minute mark. Of course, doinb's stats weren't as miserable this time; during team fights, he still relied on his exceptional mechanics to dive in and kill two people.
A stat line of 2/2/1 looked at least much better than the previous game.
However, the chat knew how to trigger the streamer's psychological defense.
"Your stats don't reflect the damage you did to the team."
"I suddenly remembered a game from Season 9, I suggest the streamer go review the VOD. It really looks just like that Akali from RNG who won the game going 5/1."
Pfft.
Doinb felt like an arrow had pierced his heart.
Still, there were barrage comments that brought him some comfort.
"Big Tiger teacher, please stop trying to hitch your name to the monkey's, okay? To be fair, the monkey's Akali this game played much better than that."
That was the first half.
The second half, however, made doinb stiffen up: "It's just that the opposing mid laner was the MVP, that's all."
"I'm going to pour a glass of water."
Doinb stood up and walked away.
He didn't want to queue into Li Yao again.
This person had already become his nightmare for tonight.
After waiting for about three or four minutes, doinb returned and calmly continued queueing up.
The moment he sat down, doinb saw someone spamming the chat, claiming that Killer was the new mid laner for the WE team.
"WE's new mid laner? Really or fake?"
Doinb froze, then directly opened his web browser to look up the ranked accounts of WE's players.
Shortly after, he spotted that familiar ID.
"Is this... the same person?"
Doinb frowned. He searched up Killer's Korean server account, clicked inside to take a look, and said: "Can you guys stop spreading random rumors? Isn't this guy an Azir player? All the other champions he plays are also the team-oriented kind, how could he possibly be this Killer?"
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"