After solo-killing Zed, Lin Fan chose not to recall this time.
His state was simply too good, and he could take turret plates.
He controlled Syndra and kept auto-attacking the turret. With the minion wave helping, he quickly chipped off two plates.
That was another chunk of gold—basically a kill's worth of income.
In just that short span, he was already sitting on over a thousand gold again. At this pace, before his next recall he would definitely have enough for Crown of the Shattered Queen.
After all, among mythic items, this one was relatively cheap—only 2800 gold.
With normal development, you could complete it at around ten minutes.
Not to mention that Lin Fan's Syndra already had two kills and two turret plates.
Once he had this item, Zed would never be able to turn the game around. Even if Diana came to help, it would make no difference.
TT understood this very clearly.
Zed had no future in mid lane anymore. Tactically, adjustments had to be made.
If bot lane swapped to mid, the opponent would just swap as well—nothing would change.
After thinking it through, the only viable option was sending Rumble to mid to hold the lane.
As long as mid turret could be delayed, the game was still playable.
But once mid turret fell, their space to farm would be squeezed, and the jungle would inevitably become the opponent's hunting ground.
This was the best solution available at the moment.
When Zed showed up top lane, Zoom wasn't surprised.
Usually, when mid lane collapses, the player swaps top to see if they can stabilize.
And this game, Zoom was on Ornn—he didn't really threaten Zed anyway.
But that was fine.
This game, he was a pure utility role. Farm up, get beaten, and occasionally help teammates upgrade items.
So Zoom didn't go all out to suppress Zed's development.
Ucal actually felt quite comfortable top lane.
Compared to mid, it felt like heaven.
But New's Rumble, who had been farming comfortably top, was now sent to mid to sit in prison.
Pinned under the turret, unable to move.
If Rumble had been laning against Syndra from the start, it wouldn't have been too bad.
Rumble cleared waves quickly and could push and roam.
But now, he couldn't withstand the damage.
The only good news was that crouching under the turret meant Lin Fan didn't have an immediate way to kill him.
But Lin Fan had teammates.
A ping appeared on the minimap.
"Tian, come help. Let's just dive Rumble together."
Tian had been farming for a while and was already thinking about making a play.
He'd hit level six and could act as a second damage source to secure kills.
So when the mid wave was pushed in, Tian slipped into mid lane through the fog of war.
New stared at the Syndra in front of his turret, tense and alert, completely missing the danger coming from the side.
Lin Fan had full trust in Tian's Viego.
He dumped his full combo, then immediately backed off to tank turret shots for Viego.
New got angry.
He was already playing this safely, and they still wanted to dive him?
He threw out his ultimate toward Syndra and flashed forward.
Even after that full burst, Rumble was left at only about one-third HP.
Seeing this, Tian didn't hesitate.
Flash.
W stun.
Ultimate slash.
A follow-up Q finished the job.
Kill secured.
"Nice."
"Does New always play this hot-headed?"
"The damage gap is still pretty big. That's just how he plays—very reckless." Lin Fan wasn't surprised at all.
Back when New was on RNG, he was the same.
The difference was that his teammates were strong enough back then, so his recklessness didn't cause big problems—and even made him look impressive.
After that, Lin Fan pinged toward bot lane.
"?" Tian didn't quite understand.
"Aren't we taking mid plates?"
"Plates will still be here. We have time. Now's the chance to hit another lane—they won't expect us to rotate bot right now."
Syndra had no ultimate.
Her HP was below half.
Viego had no ultimate and no Flash.
From any normal perspective, the correct choice would be to recall, not force a bot play.
Because it was extremely risky.
If Diana was there, the two of them would just be feeding.
This instantly drew the director's camera.
A lot of people felt their hearts jump.
Would something go wrong here?
With that little HP, trading deaths would be a huge loss.
At the same time, Lin Fan and Tian had already wrapped around behind the blue-side bot lane brush.
Seeing that the Krugs were still up, they confirmed Diana wasn't bot side.
That meant they could go in.
Mark instantly activated his ultimate.
A surging tidal wave rolled toward Jinx and Thresh.
JackeyLove activated The Culling, spraying bullets wildly.
For a First Strike Lucian, opening with his ultimate to farm extra gold was standard.
Especially with teammates arriving—there was a chance to get kills and bonus income.
When Viego and Syndra appeared from the flank, Southwind and Puff finally realized something was very wrong.
Top Esports' mid–jungle was far too sly.
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup