Doinb certainly didn't believe it. Although the champion pool of the person in front of him was very much like that of a rank grinder, he had seen that this player could play champions like LeBlanc, Sylas, and Akali.
And these three champions happened to be the most prominent among LPL's aggressive mid laners.
Besides those, there was Zoe—a champion Doinb had never managed to master—which this "killer" was also practicing.
If this really was a WE player, then Doinb could only say that WE had a promising future.
The reason he said their future was promising was because Doinb knew that not just any professional player who excelled in rank games could make it onto the stage.
Doinb knew nothing about this new WE mid laner, but since the official data didn't have an account named "killer," it was obvious that this "killer" was not *that* "killer."
The viewers in the livestream were also just talking nonsense. For the viewers, their thinking wasn't nearly as complicated as Doinb's.
A significant portion of viewers, upon seeing a substitute player who couldn't get a starting spot or some random pub player thoroughly crush a professional player in rank, would intuitively and based solely on their own perception conclude that this substitute or pub player was superior to the team's starting player.
Whenever their team lost a match, these gamers would subconsciously feel that the coaches and management were idiots for benching a genius just to let some talentless hack lose the game.
Therefore, Doinb didn't even need to explain; the moment the viewers realized how formidable this "killer" was yet how completely obscure he remained in WE, they instantly understood that these two were not the same person.
However, the reality was that the crucial factor determining whether a player could secure a starting position was scrims.
Rank was similar to an academic degree—merely a stepping stone to finding a job.
Whether someone could be entrusted with heavy responsibilities involved far too many factors.
The rhythm in the livestream quickly faded away.
Perhaps because he had been beaten too miserably in his first two games, which affected his state and feel for the game, Doinb logged off in disgrace after suffering a streak of five losses.
After logging off, Doinb felt somewhat displeased. He flipped through the schedule on his work sheet and raised an eyebrow.
In three days, they were playing WE...
WE...
Doinb was deep in thought. He had already made up his mind to wander around WE's backstage area when the time came, just to see if he could run into this new mid laner named "killer" and exchange some intel.
If he actually managed to squeeze some useful information out of it, that would generate another wave of traffic.
The fact that his livestreaming career had reached its current level was proof enough of Doinb's talent and keen instincts.
...
When the WE players returned to the club, they once again plunged into intense training.
Although they had secured a flying start with three consecutive wins at the beginning of the season, they had yet to face any teams rated S or A prior to the summer split.
The strongest among them, Suning, had only ranked seventh in the spring split, and the fading glory of last year's World Championship runner-up was gradually evaporating under the weight of their less-than-ideal results.
If they wanted to take a step further, then FPX—hailed as one of this year's galaxy battleships—was definitely a formidable enemy.
Boasting last year's World Championship top laner Nuguri, Second Uncle Tian, a suspected Monkey King, the system-carrying hero-ocean flex mid laner Doinb, Lwx who finished the finals with zero deaths, and Crisp who was currently an absolute top-three support in the domestic league.
This paper strength completely blew WE out of the water by a street or several.
Yet... WE wanted to win.
So that same evening, sask sought out Li Yao with a folder of materials.
It sounded somewhat comical that a team's head coach would actively seek out a substitute player to discuss tactics.
Looking at sask's deadpan expression, Li Yao didn't feel very confident either.
The times Li Yao had previously offered crucial insights weren't because his understanding of the patch was exceptionally deep, but because he knew how to utilize existing champions to set up the board.
With the summer split just beginning, all the teams were actually still groping around to figure out the patch, and the champions they picked were largely similar—the exact same few cycled over and over again.
Li Yao understood the mid lane, which was why he was able to use the mid lane as an entry point to meddle in the overall strategy.
To accomplish this, there were two prerequisites. The first was that Li Yao had a thorough understanding of the champion pools of WE's players. Li Yao could manage this; he participated in the team's daily training and coaching sessions from start to finish, and his clarity regarding the strengths and weaknesses of every WE player grew day by day.
He knew what champions they could play and how they could unleash their full potential.
However, there was a second prerequisite: Li Yao needed to know seventy or eighty percent of the opponents' champion pools as well, or at least not deviate too far from them.
Only by predicting the general scope of the enemy's strategy could he inject some peculiar ideas and attempt to break the deadlock.
Especially when playing from a position of weakness against strength, this kind of information was even more critical.
Unfortunately, WE did not possess this condition.
The materials sask brought over had been compiled by WE's tactical analysts and staff, and they even included some of sask's own insights. Li Yao could tell that this document was meticulously prepared.
But it was useless.
"It's really hard to use the mid lane as an entry point."
Li Yao put down the documents and rubbed his temples.
"Yeah, this damn mid lane is just impossible to deal with."
sask forced a wry smile.
Yielding before the battle even began—this was a major taboo.
Given his personality, if he hadn't felt the difficulty had reached an extreme degree, he wouldn't have backed down first.
Li Yao reached out, pulled the pen out of the breast pocket of sask's shirt, and flipped the tactical notebook to a blank page. Drawing as he spoke, he said, "I don't know much about FPX, but I've been matched against Doinb in rank. Although Doinb's laning doesn't exert much pressure, he has a wealth of experience in weathering pressure, and his playstyle is quite slippery."
Sask had been nodding along while listening to Li Yao, but as he listened further, he felt something was slightly off.
Just what was wrong?
Before he had time to ponder, Li Yao's words drew his attention back: "To beat FPX, there's actually only one simplest way: blow up Doinb in the mid lane during the laning phase. But for us, this approach obviously won't work, so we can only settle for second best. We don't demand a blowout, but we must give Doinb enough laning pressure."
As a former professional mid laner, sask naturally knew the difference between blowing someone up and merely applying pressure.
"This sufficient pressure..."
Sask turned Mole's champion pool over in his mind.
"If he can play LeBlanc, that's best. Zoe won't really work; his Zoe doesn't exert enough pressure in the laning phase."
Li Yao glanced at the empty training room. It was already very late, and everyone had gone to bed, which was why he spoke so bluntly.
"LeBlanc... I'll ask him."
Sask frowned. Actually, Shanks's LeBlanc was quite good, but the problem was that Shanks hadn't participated in scrims for a while.
There were still two and a half days left until the match.
Temporarily arranging for Shanks—who hadn't played scrims in a while—to participate carried many concerns. WE was currently on a three-game winning streak, and Mole's impact was self-evident. If they let Shanks step in at this moment, it would be fine if they won against FPX, but once they lost, it was one thing for Mole's confidence to take a hit, and quite another for him as the coach to bear a considerable amount of public backlash.
Two and a half days—subtracting the morning of the match day, that left a solid total of only four BO5 scrims.
Could four BO5s allow Shanks, who had been detached from the team for some time, to build proper synergy with them?
Therefore, sask had no other options and could only pin his hopes on Mole.
In his impression, Mole's champion pool was still relatively deep.
Yet, Li Yao soon poured another basin of cold water on him.
"Even if he can pick LeBlanc, unless he has a very high level of mastery, it'll still be quite difficult. I can't guess what champion Doinb will pull out for the mid lane."
Li Yao tapped the notebook: "FPX has played three BO3s so far, two of which went the full distance. In these three BO3s, Doinb has used six different champions: Kled, Viego, Lee Sin, Akali, Sylas, and Sett."
"Four of these six champions aren't even traditional mid lane champions, yet he can play them all, and the results are different every time."
Li Yao put down his pen and spread his hands: "Regrettably, I haven't encountered this kind of weird mid laner very often myself, and I have very little understanding of these champions. I can't offer advice on the details of the laning phase."
"In addition, FPX's bot lane duo has a fixed combination that we don't play: Senna and Tahm Kench. You know better than I do what consequences will follow if we can't play the opponent's fixed combination ourselves."
Sask remained sullen and silent.
Of course he knew.
This meant either sending them to the ban phase or splitting them up.
But Tahm Kench... if they split him off, who would Elk pair with? It wasn't that Missing couldn't play this champion, but forcing a fit would result in a Frankenstein's monster of a team composition.
"I haven't even mentioned the jungler yet."
Li Yao closed the notebook: "The most crucial point is that I can't go on stage with you for the draft. Even if I have some flash of inspiration, I have no way of telling you in advance without knowing what the opponents are picking. I don't have precognitive abilities."
Although he had known all along that this match would be difficult, sask still couldn't help letting out a sigh.
That was true. Li Yao was just an ordinary player who hadn't played League for three years and had only been back in contact with it for half a month.
Being able to display such previous game understanding and performance already made him feel like a heavenly being.
Sask had wrung his brain dry for a long time without coming up with a way to crack it, which was why he had come to find Li Yao.
Now, looking at it from another angle, if Li Yao truly possessed the ability to turn decay into magic, wouldn't that just make him, the coach, look completely useless?
"I suggest you also try to change a bit, and give the players a bit more psychological encouragement before the match."
Just as sask was about to leave, Li Yao seemed to have thought of something and added another sentence: "Or... put me in? I can handle Doinb."
"Stop messing around."
Sask waved his hand, treating it merely as Li Yao making a joke to cheer him up while his mood was low.
Two days slipped away quietly.
Mole was very earnest.
Knowing the team needed LeBlanc, he practiced furiously.
In sask's eyes, the results seemed to be progressing by leaps and bounds.
Li Yao truly thought so as well.
Until he got matched with Mole while filling a role on his own team.
Although they won that match, Li Yao, having watched the whole thing, had his mind flooded exclusively with the meme of the subway grandpa frowning at his phone.
Amidst the arduous struggles of the team members, the showdown with FPX arrived right on schedule.
Yet, the moment he saw the draft in the backstage area, Li Yao knew that today things would most likely be tough for WE.
FPX, positioned on the red side, held five bans.
The first three bans: Udir, Gwen, Sett.
The last two bans: Ezreal and Xayah.
Just from these bans alone, without even looking at the picks, Li Yao understood that WE's proud three-game winning streak at the start of the summer split was completely transparent in the face of Team FPX.
Sask returned to the lounge with a dark expression after finishing the draft.
Clearly, he also knew that his draft had been completely outclassed.
FPX's top, jungle, and mid were strong.
WE relied on their top, jungle, and bot being strong, while missing a mid lane.
With the top lane as the core, the jungle tied to the top lane, and lacking Sett in the mid lane—while unable to play the supportive Twisted Fate and make a fool of themselves in front of Doinb—they were left with only Zoe and the newly practiced LeBlanc.
Therefore, WE's priority for their first three picks had to be at least two out of top, mid, and jungle.
So WE picked top and jungle, and paired it with Thresh, one of Missing's most proficient champions.
In return, FPX ruthlessly slammed the door on Ezreal and Xayah in the fourth and fifth picks.
Both of ELK's most proficient ADCs were gone.
After agonizing over which ADC could act as a hyper-carry, they finally picked Jinx.
The moment the draft ended, sask felt pitch black before his eyes.
He didn't even know how they were supposed to win this game.
And reality played out precisely like that. Under the linkage of Beishang and Breathe in the top and jungle, they fiercely suppressed Nuguri.
However, the bot lane exploded.
Tian picked Diana and, coordinating with Senna and Tahm Kench, dove the tower as early as level 3.
Doinb played a mid lane Lee Sin and wasn't suppressed by Mole's LeBlanc at all.
When Mole chose to build the Cosmic Drive as his second item, this LeBlanc was practically no different from being useless.
When diving in to hit people, the burst damage was severely lacking. Cooldowns were fast, but what use was that without damage?
Game one: GG.
In game two, FPX boldly changed their formation.
Irelia, Viego, and Akali formed a triple-dive, triple-assault, and triple-harvest composition.
In the bot lane, they picked Aphelios paired with Thresh. Thresh used his lantern to handle teammates' margin for error regarding dashes while offering follow-up crowd control, and Aphelios was even simpler: don't cede ground in the laning phase, and during team fights, unleash a Casque Inferno ultimate—either secure the kills for himself or watch his teammates harvest.
Two to zero, FPX easily swept WE.
It couldn't have been easier.
Sask was filled with utter grievance.
He couldn't even out-draft Steal.
How could this not make him aggrieved?
What sask didn't know, however, was that through this match, Li Yao had discovered an even deeper ticking time bomb buried within WE.
"I need to speed up my progress."
Sighing as he watched sask—who was reviewing the game and looking somewhat heated—Li Yao chose not to join in.
Although according to the club contract's planning and expectations, it would be quite good if Li Yao could complete a transfer in the winter window and secure a starting spot in the LPL next year.
Yet, after spending half a month at WE, Li Yao's hands were itching more and more.
This craving for the competitive stage stemmed partly from Li Yao himself.
And on the other hand, it was inextricably linked to the "himself" in his dreams.
He wanted to play matches.