Both coaches finished giving their instructions, then walked to center stage to shake hands.
"That substitution scared me. Do you have some kind of secret tactic?"
"You'll find out if you keep watching." Luo Sheng didn't back down at all, replying with a "just watch and see" attitude.
The TT coach clearly hadn't expected Luo Sheng to be so casual about it. It made him feel like there really was something hidden, and he was momentarily bluffed.
"Don't tell me Top Esports actually has some hidden card they haven't shown yet?"
If that were really the case, then this mid-lane Zed pick might end up backfiring.
After all, this champion's margin for error was extremely low. In professional play, Zed usually appeared in the jungle—very few players picked him mid.
And a year ago, there had been a game where mid-lane Zed was played, but against Irelia he never really gained the upper hand, putting on a mediocre performance.
Ucal was still a mid laner with a name to his credit. Even if his reputation wasn't great, his strength was real.
Facing a support who hadn't played mid on the pro stage for a long time shouldn't be much of a problem.
That old fox was probably just trying to scare him, making him anxious backstage while watching the match.
Even so, it was still hard to accept benching the starting mid laner directly in the second game.
Especially when Top Esports were already in such a difficult situation.
You had to admit—White Moonlight really had guts. Or rather, he should be called Crescent now.
Because of this mid-lane Zed pick, there was also a lot of discussion in the venue.
"I had many hypotheses about today's match, but I never expected Top Esports to lose the first game so cleanly.
"Then the direction of this game changed completely—mid lane Zed straight up! Ucal is really confident now."
"Yeah, with this Zed in the game, things instantly get exciting. I'm really looking forward to Ucal's Zed."
"Besides that, I also want to see how dine performs after switching to mid and locking in Syndra.
"Syndra doesn't have an easy time against Zed. Her skills aren't targeted, so they're easy for a mobile Zed to dodge. That makes it very hard for Syndra to lane mid."
"That's right—not just her basic abilities," Tongxi picked up Miller's words, "Zed can even use his ultimate to dodge Syndra's ultimate."
Even though they were talking up the high-level mid-lane duel, most people's attention wasn't actually on mid.
After all, dine had previously played support and hadn't shown anything impressive. Some even thought he was the reason the team lost.
In that situation, it was hard to have high expectations.
Top Esports fans were still more inclined to hope bot lane could carry the game. But TT's draft clearly aimed to target bot lane relentlessly, giving JackeyLove no room to operate in teamfights.
If mid lane could just die a little less and relieve some pressure on bot lane, that would already be a blessing.
As the big screen shifted, both teams entered Summoner's Rift.
The match officially began!
As for Syndra, if you wanted to play safely, you could take Corrupting Potion for lane.
But Lin Fan was extremely confident. He didn't take Teleport as his summoner spell, opting for Ignite instead—clearly signaling he wanted to fight the lane. Item-wise, he went straight for Doran's Ring.
Ucal had the same idea and also chose Ignite over Teleport. After all, he'd gained confidence from the first game.
As everyone expected, Zed was quite flexible and could easily dodge Syndra's skills. But early on, Zed's W had over a twenty-second cooldown.
Syndra's Q, on the other hand, was a four-second cooldown at all ranks. In terms of early-game lane pressure alone, Syndra was actually stronger.
Level six was the real breakpoint. Even then, it still wasn't easy for Zed to kill a Syndra who was holding onto her skills.
But in this game, the main task of mid-lane Zed was to target Lucian. In teamfights, he just needed to burst Lucian down.
With help from the bot lane duo, Beichuan started at red buff.
During that time, he thought things through. The Lucian–Nami duo wasn't that strong at level one; their real pressure came at level two.
But TT's bot lane duo was even weaker at level one.
Given Top Esports' bot lane playstyle, even if they knew a gank was coming, they'd still try to rush level two.
"At level one, you can try trading with them. No need to give up the wave immediately. Maybe bait them into fighting all the way—then I can come gank directly."
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup