READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 457
We lost the team fight and ended up losing both the first and second Void Larvae.
Things are gradually getting worse. I can’t even remember the last time we had such a bad start.
“Everyone, focus up! The game’s not over yet.”
Many gamers tend to give up when the situation goes south in solo rank.
It’s totally understandable. It might be better for mental health to just surrender quickly and move on to the next game instead of dragging out a painful match with little chance of recovery.
But a professional gamer can’t do that. They have to show their best till the end for the fans, which is why actual matches don’t have surrenders.
[“…Hey, can’t we just remake this? It’s such a mess, and I feel like we could just play properly next game…”]
Of course, that applies mainly to matches, but as Kim Jae-min said, it’s quite common to remake during scrims when the game gets out of hand.
Since the game is already a wreck, it’s determined that neither side is getting proper practice.
But I wouldn’t do that.
“No.”
[“Aww, why not?”]
“We’ve never been in a situation like this before. If we can’t overcome it now, we won’t be able to in the future.”
Practicing is ultimately about building necessary data.
If we just avoid uncomfortable and unpleasant situations, we won’t be able to gather any data.
In that sense, I felt that this scrim was quite meaningful.
Even though our team’s atmosphere had been fantastic lately, it needed a splash of cold water.
Yeah, it’s all just experience. Let’s think of it that way.
Of course, things don’t always go as planned, and the situation continued to deteriorate.
[“Ah… we’re losing the turret.”]
[“Just let it go. There’s nothing we can do.”]
It’s only natural that our morale began to waver as well.
Time was flying by.
All the disadvantaged team could do was look for gaps in the opponents’ defense, but until then, avoiding direct team fights was common sense.
So, we tried a traditional “give and take” strategy, giving the enemy an objective while we took a bit of advantage on the opposite side, doing our best to make up for losses.
But loss is loss.
Playing defensively while trying to avoid the opponent inevitably led to small but cumulative disadvantages, and eventually, the item gap began to widen.
The fateful moment was drawing near.
It was time for the 20-minute Baron spawn.
Once Baron spawns, we can’t just play defensively anymore.
The moment the jungle vision by Baron is taken, Baron can be melted in an instant.
The enemy pushed us back, seized our vision on the blue side, and darkness fell over us.
Now we had to answer the OX quiz coming from the SS Class.
Are we hitting Baron? O
Are we not hitting Baron? X
The problem was that even if we guessed the quiz correctly, there might not be a prize.
[“We need to light up Baron’s area… is Jaem-min there with a telescope?”]
[“Oh, I used it earlier.”]
[“…Save that for Baron checks in the future. It’s important.”]
[“Okay.”]
“So we need to light up some vision now… let’s have Sejuani venture to reveal blue side vision.”
“Got it.”
Carefully leading the tank to check blue side vision while grabbing vision around Baron.
Luckily, this time, the enemy wasn’t looking, but we lost ground in another lane while we grouped on blue.
This process repeated several times.
In the naturally accumulating losses, the moment finally arrived where we guessed the answer.
[“They’re doing Baron!”]
The enemy started hitting Baron.
If we had discovered them a little later, they would have already eaten Baron and run away, but thankfully we spotted them early.
“Me first.”
Since the enemy was hitting Baron first, the formation was hugely favorable for us.
The enemy also continued hitting Baron without giving it up.
“Don’t worry about Baron. Focus on the fight.”
[“Roger.”]
The chance for a comeback was here.
Even though the global gold difference was probably over 5,000, if we could just ace this Baron team fight, we could flip the game around.
If we could win the team fight and then take Baron as well?
Then our team, which was sinking into despair, would have some hope.
‘Baron’s health is at 3,000. The enemy will definitely try to take Baron first. We need to go now.’
The most ambiguous time for the team hitting Baron is when its health is around 3,000.
It’s neither easy to burst it nor to disengage to fight.
So this was the moment.
With Sejuani’s ultimate flying toward the enemy behind Baron, hitting Xin Zhao to start the initiation.
Knowing they had to stop Sejuani from stealing Baron, Rek’Sai redoubled her efforts to block me.
Given Sejuani’s nature, it was difficult for anyone marked by her to break through, so I was stuck.
But if Rek’Sai was marking the tank Sejuani, it meant our damage dealers were now given some space to unleash their damage.
In other words, Rek’Sai tied me down while I pulled Rek’Sai in.
[“Focus on Baron. Start with Senna!”]
Right now, Senna was trapped inside the Baron pit.
Of course, with Tahm Kench’s ultimate and Flash at her disposal, she wouldn’t go down easily, but the important part was that Senna couldn’t dish out damage.
Twisted Fate’s Gold Card flew toward Senna, and responding quickly, Tahm Kench swallowed Senna.
[“I’ve got Senna, focus on Taliyah!”]
While I was stuck by enemy Rek’Sai, the enemy finished off Baron.
– The Red Team has slain Baron Nashor!
Once the Baron was secured, SS Class’s counterattack began in earnest.
The fight that initially had seemed pretty good started revealing the stark difference in growth as the enemy’s counterattack really kicked in.
[“Oh no, I’m marked.”]
The relatively short-range ADC, Kalista, was marked by Xin Zhao and burst down in an instant.
As the enemy burst Baron while loading q for the second hit, they led it into Taliyah’s combo.
Losing our key damage dealer in an instant put our team in a terrible situation; however, fortunately, we still had two ADCs left on our side.
“Let’s get Zhao first!”
Right now, Rek’Sai was drawing aggro from our damage dealers, momentarily pulling back from an attack, leaving only Xin Zhao exposed.
But considering Xin Zhao’s ultimate, even if we threw damage, catching him would be tough.
As expected, Xin Zhao used his ultimate to ping-pong aggro once and then dove back in with Rek’Sai.
However, since our formation wasn’t too bad, we held off the enemy’s entry effectively.
Then, Orian’s ultimate landed perfectly on their damage dealers, seeming to bring glimmers of hope to the fight.
[“Ah, no way.”]
Twisted Fate, while continuing to kite, was caught by Xin Zhao and fell victim to Taliyah’s combo.
Even so, the remaining champions fought back with all they had against the enemy’s onslaught, but unfortunately, they couldn’t finish off the enemy by a hair’s difference.
One by one, our champions were swept away by the enemy’s offensive.
Team fight loss.
Eventually, only Orianna survived as we were forced to retreat.
If the global gold difference had been 4,000 instead of 5,000, we might have been able to take them all down, but the gap in gold was too vast.
[“…This is going to be tough.”]
Baek Seong-an said bitterly.
As he said, from then on, we had no choice but to follow the predetermined script.
Baron was taken, and unable to withstand the enemy’s powerful pressure, we took one more gamble with an initiation but again faced another team fight loss due to the widening gap.
And what followed was the enemy’s advance toward our Nexus.
[Defeat]
Watching the Nexus destroyed before my eyes, the letters suspended in the air were all too familiar yet felt oddly strange.
[“…Ah.”]
[“Excuse me, I need to use the restroom.”]
[“Hmm, focus up for the next game.”]
The team members each said a word.
I had momentarily forgotten.
That among all the leagues around the world, especially the LCKR teams, everyone was a monster among monsters.
In comparison, we were still just rookies.
*
Feedback wasn’t brief.
But the common theme in the feedback was the same.
“But what if the enemy does a lane swap again? Should we do it too?”
Kim Jae-min asked, and Baek Seong-an replied briefly.
“For now, yes.”
“But we’ve never done a lane swap, how do we do it?”
“We’ll learn from now on.”
“Oh, is that how it is?”
“Yep, that’s how it is.”
This lane swap meta that came to us was bound to be too unfamiliar for our team.
It’s not merely about swapping top and bot lanes, either.
The complex movements that follow are also part of the lane swap meta, making it not so easy for our team to adapt.
“Well, we have the second set, so let’s give it another shot. After all, you won’t know unless you try.”
Baek Seong-an said confidently.
And…
In the second scrim, our team crumbled even more helplessly than in the first scrim.