Chapter 373 - The Battle Mistress, Sivir!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Quite unfortunately, the sharp-tongued Coconut Head and relentless flamer Da Luo were both solo Tops.

It has always been said that your role in League of Legends could tell you a lot about yourself, and I guess that really was the case.

As much as Da Luo enjoyed his verbal assaults on the enemy team, he didn’t choose his champion blindly.

Initially, he had wanted to choose Jax, intending to hard push their top lane in. Coconut Head’s skills wouldn’t even be able to begin to try and stop Da Luo’s advances.

However, Jax wasn’t invincible either. If he pushed the lane in and the enemy Top was of a tanky build, they could call their Jungler for a gank and easily take care of a decently equipped Jax. Not only that, during team fights, Jax wouldn’t be able to protect their back line. He would only be good for sudden engages, and if the enemy team played really defensively, Jax wouldn’t be contributing much during the grouping phase.

Taking into account the fact that he needed to contribute more to the team during their 4 vs 6, Da Luo saw the enemy team choose Nasus, and he in turn picked Malphite.

Nasus was your classic solo lane farmer with a Q-skill that could stack indefinitely, also, his tankiness and damage output could skyrocket during the mid to late game.

How should I describe this champion…

Recently, there has been an urban legend circulating the internet. They say that there was a high schooler who invited 4 of his friends to play through the night. The enemy team they were facing was probably a 4-man pre-made, seeing as all of them disconnected together. And so, the 5 of them had dragged the enemy team’s remaining Nasus to hell and back.

Not long after, though, the power at the cybercafe they were at had gone out, and so all they could do was go back to their dorms and call it a night. The following night, they had once again banded together to battle on the rift, but they realized the game client was prompting them to reconnect to an ongoing game. When they did, they saw the enemy Nasus howling in glee, “You’ve finally come! Oh, how my Q-skill has been thirsting for your blood!”

Coconut Head played aggressively, but compared to other champions who dominated the early game, he preferred champs like Nasus who could 1 vs 3 come late game.

Coconut Head had been worried that Team Skycrown would pick an early game champ to try and stop his Nasus from farming, but they had gone and picked Malphite!

Coconut Head was cracking up.

Malphite was your classic weak solo laner, thus, his Nasus would be able to stack up his Q-skill on minions in peace, and after he had gotten 200 minions with his Q, who in the world would be able to stop his rampage?

***

The game was loading and Luocheng chose Sivir, the Battle Maiden, who though previously unpopular, was now one of the most picked champions!

The Support was none other than Xiao Ya’s Sona.

Luocheng knew that the girl was terrified of champions with hooks, so he banned Blitzcrank and Thresh right off the bat. He really didn’t want her to lose her rhythm by randomly getting hooked.

The scrawny, monkey-looking guy on the enemy team took the role of Support, choosing Leona!

Leona was terrifying in games lower than Gold rank as she was able to all-in at level two with an ADC that had a high burst damage like Graves or Corki, you could win even with below-average skills.

Qinjin was still furious over the events that had transpired leading up to this point, and hence, he chose Graves, quite the aggressive combo!

Both sides quickly entered laning phase and Luocheng immediately upgraded his Q-skill, Boomerang Blade, to level 1, outranging the Graves slightly. Using his auto attacks to poke Graves, Luocheng managed to reduce the latter’s health slightly.

A level 1 Graves and Leona didn’t really have any kill potential, thus, Luocheng used Sivir’s passive to help keep his movement speed up, poking Graves a little whenever he went up to CS. Whenever Graves wanted to counter with a poke of his own, Luocheng would have already retreated, and when Graves turned to walk back, Luocheng would turn and auto attack again, using his Boomerang Blade and ensuring that Graves was hit by the blade both ways.

“D*mn it, this is infuriating!” Qinjin was getting seriously annoyed, looking at his already half-empty health bar.

“We’ll hit level 2 soon, get ready to go in,” Scrawny monkey said.

Qinjin nodded, taking a look at his experience bar. He already had his hand placed on the CTRL key, ready to upgrade his abilities as soon as he leveled up.

Xu Ben let out a small laugh from the sidelines, they wanted to use an early level 2 to engage?

Too naïve, my friend, my master knows better than anyone when you’ll level up!

Playing safe for a bit wasn’t a problem, when the minion wave pushed in, Luocheng and Xiao Ya both successfully reached level 2.

The minute he hit level 2, Luocheng started toying with the enemy even more, poking almost excessively. It didn’t matter if they traded back, he had Sona to help top up his health whenever he needed it, whereas the Graves didn’t have any healing at all.

Leona had tried to use her E-skill,Zenith Blade, to engage, but it was completely useless against Luocheng who had used his own E-skill,Spell Shield, in turn. This enabled him to block Leona’s CC with ease, regaining 60 mana points in the process!

“Luocheng’s so cool! The Leona is pretty smart too, faking an E several times to try to bait out Sivir’s Spell Shield, but he’s not giving her any attention at all! When Leona actually does go in, his shield is up in an instant,” Xu Ben noted.

Leona’s E-skill came out pretty quickly, and the Scrawny Monkey over there wasn’t a complete beginner either, knowing how to fake out his opponents before using his E-skill. It was just too bad that nobody was buying his act, and every E-skill he cast was basically gifting Sivir with a sixty-point mana refill.

“This is nothing, you haven’t seen our leader use Morgana yet. His reflexes on Morgana are almost instantaneous, his Black Shields have forced tears from the enemy Blitzcrank. He can even shield himself from a Jarvan’s EQ-combo without proper vision,” Jian Feng said with a tinge of excitement in his voice.

When they had gone against Team Fudan 2, Luocheng’s Morgana had shocked the socks off of everyone who were spectating!

“Zero vision and still blocking a Jarvan’s knock up? Really!?” Xu Ben and K were stunned. How freaking fast did your reaction time need to be to achieve that!?

Morgana’s shield wasn’t a simple E press to cast, you had to actually target a champion, which made it much more complicated than Sivir’s barrier.

Comparing it this way, Leona’s E-skill was just no match for Luocheng’s Sivir.

Luocheng didn’t want to kill them, he just wanted to keep Graves’s health low enough to discourage Leona from coming in past their minion line.

Xiao Ya’s Sona stayed behind Luocheng for the most part, healing him and occasionally walking up to poke with a Q-skill or auto attack. Even if she wasn’t causing any trouble for Luocheng to force it into a 1 vs 3, Luocheng still wouldn’t be able to 1 vs 2 at the bottom lane without any help.

100% CS. K had always thought that his CS-ing as an ADC was decent and steady, but after seeing Luocheng play ADC, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. After all, have you ever seen an ADC scoring a perfect farm while in a 1 vs 2 situation?

As for Lin Dong, he was getting pretty upset.

The previous times when Lin Dong had to face a 1 vs 3 situation at the bot lane, Luocheng would keep dissing him, so he had wanted to see just how well the latter could do in that sort of situation. But for whatever reason, Xiao Ya was actually doing well this game.

Sona was a really good champion for playing safe, all she had to do was heal a bit from the back or something, and Xiao Ya was even trading damage with a combo of her power chords when Leona used her E-skill to get closer. If Xiao Ya could have played like this during the previous games with him, setting aside winning the lane, Lin Dong could’ve at least been able to keep up in terms of levels and items!

This Luocheng and his d*mn luck!

***

The bottom lane was pretty peaceful and Luocheng and Xiao Ya focused on controlling the minion wave while playing defensively. Even though the enemy had better synergy between their champions, they didn’t have any chance of engaging in a fight.

The two tanks up in the top lane weren’t giving each other any edge either. Nasus wanted to kill Malphite very badly but he had no chances of doing so. If Nasus didn’t have any armor penetration on his Q-skill, it wouldn’t deal much damage since the skill required physical damage. Da Luo’s Malphite was even worse in the damage department, and so, all they could do was chill and farm up, getting so bored that they began continuing their arguments through the All Chat.

From the start of the game until they both hit level 6, they had already sent 3 blocks of text flaming each other in the text window. This was quite annoying for their Jungler, Zhou Yan, who didn’t talk much in game but used the chat to help time his jungle camps.

Wu Sen and his opposing laner fought the most fiercely while both Junglers were also constantly lurking around the mid lane, buffs exchanging hands every other minute.

“Zhou, are you ready yet? I’m almost at level 6.” Luocheng piped up.

“I’ll be right over as soon as I finish this camp,” Zhou Yan replied.

***

It was very quiet at the bottom lane with zero kills and zero deaths on both sides until level 6.

As they were almost reaching level 6, Luocheng had the minions controlled under their tower, all they needed was for Zhou Yan’s Jarvan to gank.

“The river and tribush are warded, just come over from the back of the lane,” Luocheng said.

Even though he was playing ADC, Luocheng couldn’t depend on Xiao Ya to remember the enemy ward placements, so he just naturally committed them to memory.

Zhou Yan nodded, as soon as he hit level 6, he would enter straight from the lane.

Sure enough, the minion wave was pushing toward them. Zhou Yan continued walking forward, and just as he was just about to enter the enemies’ vision, Sivir let out a battle cry!

A blue aura swirled around their team, surrounding Sivir, Sona, and Jarvan!

Zhou Yan was zooming across the map, even faster than if he were to use Ghost, rushing toward the enemy bottom laners from the fog of war!

Sivir’s ultimate skill gave a 60% movement speed boost to all allies nearby, and Qinjin stumbled back in shock upon seeing the sudden appearance of Jarvan.

Zhou Yan subsequently cast his skills with practiced precision, his EQ-combo looking to knock up Graves as he approached.

Qinjin’s reaction was fast too, Flashing away as soon as he was knocked up, but he wasn’t running away, instead, turning to fight the incoming Jarvan.

“Their Jungler is behind them!” Luocheng raised his voice slightly.

The only reason why Graves would turn on them was if someone else was camping in the bush, which explained why the enemy Jungler, Xin Zhao, had disappeared from the map for a considerable amount of time!

As soon as those words were out of his mouth, out burst a Xin Zhao from the second bush, and he blatantly ignored the Jarvan, making a beeline for Sivir.

Luocheng immediately realized what he was trying to do, and using his E-skill to block Leona’s ultimate skill, he used the buff from his own ultimate to side step away from the enemy, regrouping with the slightly mispositioned Zhou Yan.