“Did you say the opponent’s top laner is a helper?”
“Yes?”
“Looks like if they catch a pro or streamer in the upper ranks, they nuke them.”
Only then did I realize what had been causing that sense of déjà vu.
‘This player’s style is similar to mine.’
My playing style is characterized by boldness, built on confidence in my physical abilities. Non-targeted skills? No big deal if they miss. Targeted skills? Just calculate the cooldowns—that’s all it takes.
It was strange that a Grand Master, let alone someone who’s played hundreds of games, would mimic this style. If someone stuck to this kind of play consistently, they’d have at least reached Challenger by now, possibly even earned a spot as a recruited pro.
[For some reason, I felt they dodged my Q.]
[For real, when I saw them dodge my W fired from the bush, I got the vibe.]
[Helper? But we did manage to kill them.]
[How did you manage to kill the helper?]
“Should we just surrender quickly?”
As Hanbyeori figured out the opponent was a nuke user, she asked me with a gloomy voice. Checking with Tab, our mid laner had already exploded after getting triple-solo-killed, and our bottom lane was also being pushed. Surrendering was starting to feel inevitable.
“Let’s be patient. Yasuo matchups are tough against Jinx anyway.”
Even so, the build I chose for this game is Observer Aatrox. Our opposing team has a squishy AD, so this game could be one where I attempt to carry.
“Is that so? I’ll try to keep my mindset steady and keep playing.”
“I’ll follow behind Yasuo.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“K’Sante, just let me farm from afar and take kills at the tower.”
Though I thought no one could kill someone who only farms under the tower, even as a helper, it seems I underestimated my opponent. Thanks to K’Sante’s unique skill of delivering kills outside the tower’s range, Hanbyeori fell victim twice more, accumulating five deaths.
Given this situation, to turn things around:
‘With the enemy jungler and support taking Baron now…’
That left just me and Yasuo in the bottom lane. Whether Yasuo was pressured into advancing the waves or had become overconfident because our team was winning, he kept aggressively pushing the line, including the wave that just arrived.
I seized the opportunity to land my ultimate to go for the kill.
My current item is the Unholy Hydra, a new item introduced this season. Think of it as the Ravenous Hydra, but with added physical penetration instead of life steal.
The advantage here is this:
“It seems like we’ve got the bottom lane.”
The active effect delivers increased damage against enemies with less than 50% health. While cooldown reduction and attack power coefficients, along with the physical penetration, are all excellent, the active effect received a significant buff in this patch.
As soon as I started my ultimate, Yasuo sensed something was off and tried to flee, but it was too late. With all the minions cleared, blocking the chains of my W skill with his spell shield was futile—all it did was leave him wide open for a head-splitting Q.
Following up on the Q combo is the Cleave from the Unholy Hydra. A blue effect appeared, and Yasuo disappeared just like that.
“Wow… Aatrox’s damage is insane!”
“Observer build hits hard.”
Starting with this patch, the Observer Aatrox build is trending for a reason: pure, raw damage. With the Observer build, you don’t even need to hit the full three combo of Q; regular ADCs can be wiped out with just one Q hit and a passive auto-attack for some freakish damage.
“Going to try for this Dragon fight?”
A bit later, at the timing of the Dragon’s spawn, I started spamming ping support.
The peak of Aatrox comes in the mid-game objective fights, especially when we are way more developed than the enemy. There was no reason to turn it down.
‘At bottom lane, farming is balanced.’
Even the passive teammates started to gather at the Dragon nest under my aggressive pings. The enemy team, thinking they had the advantage, also decided not to give up the Dragon easily, and a staring match began in front of the nest.
“I’ll go around.”
After confirming that there were no Vision Wards in the bottom three-way bush, I began to circle around to the enemy’s back.
And so the team fight started. Since our team started the 4v5 without me, we were predictably being pushed back.
‘Now!’
However, the teammates fought to the death, dealing as much damage as possible and taking out the opponents’ key skills.
Once the setup was in place, I entered from the flank—Observer Aatrox’s true peak.
[Blood Rite commences.]
As I activated my ultimate, an ominous BGM played, and the in-game screen turned red. The first enemy I took down was the low-health Karma support, who was wiped out instantly by just one passive auto-attack.
Next, I used a long-range Q strike complemented by W to eliminate their ADC Varus.
K’Sante tried to counter me late game, but without an ultimate, he was nothing but a punching bag.
[Finishing blow!]
The only survivor, Lisim, was able to finish off the enemy Yasuo to secure an ace.
[Grand Victory]
[The way to beat the helper: Avoid everything and land everything.]
[Huh, makes sense.]
After the Dragon fight, the enemy team seemed to experience some internal conflict. Their mid laner and jungler disappeared from sight. And then came the surrender.
After some curiosity about the matter, I checked the post-game stats.
[1414141 del(Varus): Phew, impossible against hackers and Chinese players ㅈCalibri]
[JuYeon’s Karma: If you’re trying to rank up with a helper, just quit the game ㅋㅋ Stop trolling]
As expected, even the post-game analysis brought heartwarming drama. That’s what makes League of Legends special.
“Shall we start the next game quickly?”
“Immediately?”
“After winning a game like this, we have to go for the win streak.”
.
.
.
“Shall we end it here…?”
“It’s not our day.”
After our initial victory, we proceeded to lose three consecutive games.
The reason? Snipers and afk players, of course.
‘Maybe we got lucky with a solid team in the first game.’
It felt like I was underestimating myself.
Looking down at the monitor, a notification popped up stating that 9,000 people were watching my stream.
And Hanbyeori’s stream was almost at 8,000 viewers.
With a total of 17,000 people, the sniper attacks and afk-ing was unbearable.
‘If they were just sniping, it would be understandable.’
Most were just kids who want to grab attention or simply throw the game.
The one I remember most was the kid who leeched off me for experience because I didn’t greet him in the champ select.
[Stop sniping, please.]
[For real.]
[They think they’re funny ㅋㅋ]
[Pathetic]
“Let’s call it a day.”
“Good job, all.”
“Let’s go for next round’s fighting.”
With Hanbyeori’s final words, our joint stream ended.
Since it ended earlier than I expected, I felt reluctant to shut it down entirely, so I decided to engage in some chat.
Since I’ve been busy, I haven’t really interacted much with my audience. Curious questions had been building up, so I took some time to answer them.
In the middle of this, one donation came in with a slightly unusual question.
{User 00 donated 10,000 KRW}
Who do you think will win between AX and DH in the first round of Playoffs?
Most of the questions up until now were about me, so the mention of the LCK league was new. On my part, it was also an important question since these two teams were likely to challenge us.
‘Even though they rank fourth and fifth respectively…’
The first and second-place teams in the regular season advance to the second round, and third-place teams normally select the weakest team, which is typically the sixth-place team.
This means the fourth- and fifth-place teams usually face off in the first round. If there’s no upsets from the third vs sixth-place match, one of these two teams will most likely be our opponent.
“AX will probably win.”
AX ranks higher and has beaten DH twice during the regular season, showing a solid counter.
If everything goes normally, AX is the safe bet. Our team also planned to prepare our tactics based on AX advancing.
‘Also, AX is easier to deal with.’
AX is a team with strong synergy between their mid and jungler. In these cases, if I can dominate my lane as the mid laner, it’ll be easy to win with Dojin’s contribution.
However, DH has a powerhouse top laner who’s carried his team into the playoffs, known by some as the “master.”
Even though Jinhwan’s form has improved recently,
‘He still can’t beat BON.’
BON, a prime example of a top laner suffering due to his team. Regardless of whether he plays carries or tanks, he exhibits devastating carry potential and is practically a symbol of top laners in the LCK.
He would later move to the LPL in the future.
‘If I remember correctly, AX probably won at this point.’
“That said, DH’s top laner is their ace, but being a top laner, no matter how well you perform, it’s still a lonely position.”
[True enough.]
[Seems like BON is about to suffer again…]
[Well, if 5-man play leads to a loss, why not 10?]
[Shut up.]
[Honestly, AX is the clear favorite.]
[My brother bet it all on DH. Going for that comeback!]
[LOL]
And a few days later,
“Our Playoffs opponent is set.”
Upon checking the brackets based on the coach’s words:
R2 Match 1
ARK (1st place) vs DH (5th place)
Completely contrary to my predictions, DH secured a 3-0 victory over AX and made their appearance before us.
