At the loading screen, Li Yao checked the lineups out of habit. Since this was a ranked match, the team compositions weren't as refined as in professional play, and with an average rank around Diamond I, the game was far from perfect.
The blue team’s lineup featured Jayce in top lane, Rumble in the jungle, Twisted Fate in mid, and the bot lane duo of Kalista and Rell.
The red team fielded Viego in top, Lee Sin in the jungle, LeBlanc in mid, and Samira paired with Leona in the bot lane.
Mid lane was the fulcrum of the game. If you could distill the five positions of a team into a single entity, the mid laner would undoubtedly be its heart. And as the heart, the ability to read the lineup was essential. This aptitude and habit of Li Yao’s stemmed from the person he had been in his dreams.
In the mere ten-odd seconds between the loading screen and entering the game, Li Yao had already mapped out the game plan. From the perspective of the opposing Twisted Fate, their lineup was excellent. All Twisted Fate had to do was farm safely until level six and coordinate with Rumble to break open the side lanes. The combination of Kalista and Rell—a relatively new release—offered immense engagement and crowd control. While Samira and Leona were no slouches, the former duo was undeniably more aggressive.
In contrast, Li Yao had a much heavier workload.
"What a trash lineup," Xiangguo muttered in the room. He had noticed someone wanting to play Lee Sin in top lane during the pre-selection phase. Having been sabotaged by top-lane Lee Sins at least five times the previous night, Xiangguo had "picked to ban," choosing the champion himself. And yet, the idiot had gone and picked Viego.
Both Lee Sin and Viego were strong in the current meta and could hold their own in lane, but both required high mastery. Besides, even if Viego was a capable laner, you had to consider the matchup. Picking Viego as a counter to Jayce? Was he crazy?
As a jungler, there were two types of lineups he hated most: one where no lane could be ganked, and one where every lane required constant babysitting. For Xiangguo, this game was a classic scenario: the top lane would be crushed if ignored, and the bot lane would die the moment they were engaged if he wasn't there. As for mid... Xiangguo didn't hold much hope for his old teammate. Handling random players was one thing, but against Dopa? Could even Jiaoshen, in his prime as a pro, reliably suppress Dopa?
Starting in the top half of the jungle, Xiangguo cleared his camps and pressed the Tab key to assess the situation.
"Huh?"
As he walked, Xiangguo shifted his perspective to the mid lane. He was stunned to see Li Yao pushing forward, having already consumed one stack of his triple-charge Corrupting Potion. Electrocute with a secondary tree favoring Timewarp Tonic and Biscuits was the standard meta for LeBlanc, designed to maximize lane dominance.
By comparison, Twisted Fate—who had started with a Doran’s Ring and two health potions—was already on his second potion. Even so, his health was barely hovering below two-thirds. Li Yao, conversely, was in prime condition, nearly at full health, and held a slight lead in CS.
Xiangguo’s original plan had been to clear downward and try to find an opening in the pressured bot lane. Now, he changed his mind. As he entered the bottom jungle after finishing the Blue Buff, Xiangguo glanced at the mid lane again and immediately pinged that he was on his way.
Dopa had just taken a full Electrocute combo and was down to less than a third of his health, but the minion wave was pushing toward the blue tower. In a pure 1v1, this health difference and wave state would have already signaled the end. But League of Legends was not a 1v1 game.
At 3:12 into the game, Rumble appeared brazenly in the mid lane—not to gank, but to help Twisted Fate break the freeze. If LeBlanc pushed that wave into the tower, Twisted Fate was at risk of a solo kill. Xiangguo had correctly anticipated the blue jungler’s intent.
As Rumble, confident in his nearly full health, arrogantly stepped up to clear minions in front of LeBlanc, he had no idea that Lee Sin was lying in wait just behind a wall.
Li Yao was low on mana. After consuming the final charge of his potion, he had just enough mana for a three-ability combo. The moment his chain hit Rumble, Xiangguo’s Lee Sin appeared. Sensing danger, Rumble tried to retreat, but LeBlanc had already dashed onto his face. Even if Rumble burned his Flash, he couldn't break the chain. Once Lee Sin’s Sonic Wave landed, Rumble’s fate was sealed.
Li Yao didn't hold back, taking the First Blood. Meanwhile, a fight erupted in the bot lane. The blue team traded two for one, with Kalista picking up a double kill, while Samira managed to secure one for Li Yao’s team. The kill counts were even.
Though Li Yao had First Blood, he didn't have enough mana left to threaten Twisted Fate further. After Xiangguo helped shove the wave into the tower, he returned to the jungle, and Li Yao recalled.
A nine-CS lead plus First Blood—the advantage from the first back was already significant. To maintain this pressure, Li Yao bought Sorcerer’s Shoes with the gold he had. The Lost Chapter cost 1,300 gold, which he couldn't afford. Under normal circumstances, he would have bought smaller components, and when Xiangguo noticed his build, he muttered to himself that his old teammate was being a bit reckless.
Going barefoot with Sorcerer’s Shoes and no health items increased his kill pressure, but the room for error was drastically reduced. Yet, there was no denying that once mid lane established dominance, the jungler had a much easier time. Furthermore, the enemy jungler had died; in high-level play, an early death was enough to shatter a jungler’s rhythm.
"He's steady," Li Yao whispered to himself, watching the positioning of Twisted Fate.
The early advantage was inseparable from Twisted Fate’s cocky playstyle. Perhaps because he thought the rank was low and the players unimpressive, Dopa had played very casually at the start. Now, however, he clearly realized something was wrong. But the realization had come a second too late.
Li Yao used his level-six power spike to initiate. The moment he dashed in with W, his ultimate glowed; he instantly leveled his ultimate, using R to mimic W to close the distance. After landing on Twisted Fate’s face, he unleashed an auto-attack and E for Electrocute, followed by two more auto-attacks.
Dopa’s reaction was lightning fast. He tried to counter by cycling his cards, but his luck was poor. Twisted Fate’s W cycled through red, gold, and blue in a fixed order. If the first card had been yellow, he could have mitigated much of the damage. But it was blue; he would have to wait through two 0.5-second adjustments to hit the yellow card.
One second was all Li Yao needed to trade and retreat. As Li Yao landed the second auto-attack, he was hit by Twisted Fate’s yellow card, but he had already snapped back to his W’s original location, and the tether of his E popped, dealing damage and stunning him.
What made Dopa’s head ache was that Lee Sin had appeared from the side jungle. For a target already stunned, Lee Sin’s Sonic Wave was impossible to miss. The follow-up second Q brought Lee Sin right to his face.
Dopa chugged a health potion while silently calculating Lee Sin’s damage.
*Flash.*
Dopa flashed the moment the chain’s stun wore off. Xiangguo didn't pursue; to kill Twisted Fate, he would have needed to Flash himself, but he had no vision to jump to.
"He bought a Ruby Crystal on his first back. No wonder he's so tanky," Xiangguo frowned as he checked Twisted Fate’s items.
*Very steady.*
In the current meta, most Twisted Fates built Everfrost as their mythic item. It was understandable that Dopa, realizing the danger, had opted for health to alleviate the lane pressure. If it weren't for that Ruby Crystal, he would have been dead.
"Go bot. He can't roam from mid," Li Yao typed in pinyin.
Xiangguo didn't type; he just sent a "thumbs up" emote.
The pressure in the bot lane was indeed heavy. Fortunately, Xiangguo, who had gained an advantage in the jungle, had started actively hunting Rumble. In a 1v1 at this stage, unless Rumble managed his heat perfectly, he was no match for Lee Sin.
Meanwhile, in an OB streaming room on Douyu:
"Wow, this LeBlanc’s pressure is something else, isn't it?"
The viewers noticed Li Yao’s ability usage and his movement to dodge Twisted Fate’s Q, *Wild Cards*.
"Is this Jiaoshen? He was born in '94, right? Even with the champion advantage, to be able to suppress Twisted Fate like that is something special."
"6666, great camp by Coach Guo."
"Feels like these two are duo-queueing. Coach Guo has been losing all night..."
"Is the WE coach working this hard? But is he working on the right things?"
"Don't ask, just assume the head coach is warming up!"
The audience wasn't large, and since it was just a random OB channel, the popularity wasn't extreme. But those who stumbled in were quickly captivated. Even through the screen, mid-lane players could feel the crushing oppression radiating from LeBlanc.
When the game time hit 8:30, that oppression was magnified to the extreme.
At 8:30, under everyone’s gaze, LeBlanc first poked Twisted Fate with a Q. As he tried to create distance, LeBlanc suddenly dashed forward with W, clearing two minions in her path while simultaneously firing her chain and landing an auto-attack to proc Electrocute.
Because her main damage spell, W, hadn't landed on Twisted Fate, the trade wasn't massive—it only took off a little over a third of his health. But Li Yao glanced at his W cooldown and calculated.
*Twisted Fate has no Flash. The jungler just showed in bot lane. Then...*
On the other side of the computer screen, Dopa’s expression remained calm. He had seen it all. It was just a ranked game; even if the opposing LeBlanc put him under pressure, he wouldn't panic. As a standard "intelligence-based" mid laner, Dopa played with his brain. His exceptional game understanding was the reason he had stood tall at the top of the Korean server for so many years.
While he didn't know the exact cooldowns of every mid lane ability, he knew the W cooldown of a frequent matchup like LeBlanc by heart. The jungler couldn't help him clear the wave right now, so Dopa decided to push the minions out during LeBlanc’s cooldown window.
The three-colored cards began to flash over his head, and Dopa stepped forward.
At the same time, LeBlanc erupted.
E-Flash initiated, hitting Twisted Fate at maximum distance. Simultaneously, Li Yao fired his QR at him. When he initiated, his LeBlanc’s W cooldown still had four seconds left!
"Oh, no."
Dopa’s expression shifted slightly. But he still didn't panic. The light flashing over his head meant the next card would be yellow. If he could time it perfectly to stun LeBlanc, he would have a window to pull away and stay out of her W range.
But the next second, a tiny adjustment in Li Yao’s positioning sent Dopa’s heart to the bottom of a well.
LeBlanc’s chain was held at the extreme limit of its range—865 units. Far beyond Twisted Fate’s attack range. In other words, Li Yao could pin him down from a position where he couldn't touch her, then quietly wait for his W cooldown.
The composure in that back-and-forth movement made Dopa incredibly curious about the identity of this "random" player! Especially since LeBlanc kept jittering back and forth, right on the edge of Twisted Fate’s attack range!
*Snap!*
As the W cooldown finished, Li Yao stepped forward and claimed the kill. Twisted Fate managed to throw his yellow card, but it couldn't stop his fate.
The notification from the mid lane left Xiangguo stunned.
"Dan... Dasha?"
"You're not him. Who are you?!"