Chapter 31: What Do You Mean, a Roaming Mid-Laner! [5K Two-in-One]

"Counter-kill!!!" Jiejie’s voice was filled with disbelief.

"Player YE has showcased a miraculous play once again! My goodness, how could you possibly pull off a counter-kill even in that situation!?"

"This is a massive blow to LNG. They lost the little dragon, and trading one for two under the tower is an absolute steal for Taliyah. You could even say this single play has completely wiped out her earlier individual deficit!"

"And after taking the dragon, Poppy can even use the fact that their mid and jungle are dead to invade the jungle again. Vi’s level gap is now completely blown out of the water!"

Compared to Jiejie’s exclamation, Miller, sitting beside him, looked somewhat puzzled.

"It’s so strange..."

"I’ve actually been practicing the new Taliyah recently, but I remember that the new Taliyah’s ultimate has a restriction: it cannot be used if you take damage!"

The new Taliyah’s ultimate, besides changes to values like {displacement distance} and {dash speed}, also added several new mechanics.

The most important of these is: [If Taliyah takes damage while riding the stone wall, she will no longer be forcibly "knocked off" her wall.]

This mechanic is actually much more powerful than the description suggests, and it has a "hidden" function.

That is: "As long as the ultimate is cast, you are guaranteed to 'board the vehicle' and ride the entire distance!"

Not being able to ride the wall when taking damage was a major pain point for many veteran Taliyah players.

However, obviously, if it were just that, the new Taliyah’s ultimate would be a bit too overpowered, almost equivalent to the old "Ryze’s invincible golden stasis."

If you aren't killed instantly, you can just run away through the crowd!

Therefore, the designers simultaneously added another restriction: [Taking damage from enemy champions or structures will prevent Taliyah from casting "R – Weaver’s Wall" for 3 seconds.]

This is why even Doinb, who knows Taliyah very well, was caught off guard.

So, how was Ye Bo able to cast it?

Some viewers had already discovered from the OB replay that in the status bar in the bottom left corner, the R skill icon suddenly changed from gray to bright.

"My god!!!" Jiejie’s mouth hung wide open.

"Taliyah didn't put a point in his ultimate! He held onto the skill point and didn't add it. So that’s how it is!?"

"There’s actually a detail like this!"

As long as you don't learn the ultimate first, the {damage taken} status check only begins calculating after the ultimate is leveled up, allowing it to be used forcibly in an instant.

In other words.

Through this little trick, Taliyah has one chance every game to use an "invincible golden stasis" escape move.

It’s just that in this match, Ye Bo used it for a counter-kill play.

The chat was flooded with: [Holy crap, learned something new!]

Doinb’s face was ashen on the camera below.

He didn't quite know what to say.

The audience could see it through the god’s-eye view replay, but he didn't know yet!

This mechanism is a hidden hero mechanic that only appeared after Taliyah’s rework; it didn't exist before, so Doinb naturally had no way of knowing.

And Doinb’s heart now only felt... this rookie on the other side seemed really a bit "frightening"!

When they first met in ranked, no matter how much the other player solo-killed or outplayed him, he didn't take it to heart—after all, it was just ranked.

Later, hearing that the other guy had actually turned pro and was "controlling the lightning" in the LDL secondary league, pulling off "one-versus-nine" highlight plays.

He still didn't think much of it; after all, he had done the same thing back in the 2015 LSPL league during his QG days.

But now.

In just over a month, he was truly facing the other player head-on in the LPL arena.

The first game, he was completely outclassed in the lane, his scalp tingling from all sorts of bizarre plays!

The second game, he thought he had finally regained his form and successfully utilized his most proficient system to gain an advantage and take the upper hand.

As a result, the other guy used one after another of his own never-before-seen understandings and operations, and he was beaten back again!

Isn't this guy a "hero spoon"?

How come now it feels... like he’s a master of every single one!

However, if Ye Bo could hear Doinb’s inner thoughts right now, he would probably say: "No way, these are really just basic moves. My Taliyah isn't even a signature hero."

And the truth was indeed so.

Ye Bo’s Taliyah clearly still had plenty of room for improvement.

After all, his number of games played was limited, and the system’s help only provided things that could be discovered by spending the corresponding time and energy; the final execution still had to rely on himself.

For example, his proficiency was slightly weak, and his raw W hit rate was relatively low, which is hard to change through mere understanding.

Fortunately, this wasn't that important for this particular match.

Although EDG lost 0-2 in the Spring Split, it was clear that there wasn't much difference in the strength of the two rosters.

And for this LNG team, the most important thing was relying on the mid and jungle to set the pace, especially the mid-laner, whose tactical status in this LNG team could be called the sole core.

Once the mid lane was at a disadvantage, the rhythm of the entire team would naturally plummet.

After this wave, Taliyah instantly reached 3-1, quickly passing through her transition period.

Poppy also possessed a huge level advantage and had already begun to force her way into Vi’s jungle. With Taliyah’s strong roaming attributes at this moment, there was absolutely no need to worry about support.

Now, the 2v2 in the mid and jungle was basically a guaranteed win.

Although Ye Bo hadn't had time to mesh with Jiejie to form a "mid-jungle synergy" system that best suited the two of them, Ye Bo had his own understanding of mid-jungle synergy.

"LNG is very anxious. Taliyah’s Flash is back up and she clears waves too fast. They find it hard to find Taliyah’s flaws anymore and can only look for other opportunities."

"But the aftereffects of targeting Taliyah earlier are starting to show. Vi is desperately lacking in levels, and the jungle is being invaded by Poppy... It’s already almost eight minutes in and she still hasn't reached level six!"

"The jungler’s level is almost the same as the support in the bottom lane! It might even be lower!"

"Without Vi’s level six, this lockdown combo simply can't exert its power!"

***

Miller was worried for LNG.

Jiejie’s attention was entirely on Taliyah.

"It’s happening! Taliyah is starting to take revenge. The two have started hunting Tarzan in the jungle. It seems it’s time for the 'Revenge Taliyah' to take the stage!"

"These two aren't even looking for a kill; they just want to hard-steal your jungle camps, not letting you farm at all!"

"Tarzan is having such a miserable time!"

Poppy, counting on Taliyah behind her, was exceptionally arrogant, walking into the entrance with vision in plain sight.

It was as if to say: "Granddaddy is here! Why aren't you running yet?"

Ahri wanted to help, but looking at Vi’s level, she retreated.

How could they play this 2v2?

Both Vi and Ahri needed to guard against these two who could counter dashes, and now both of them had huge individual advantages, while their own jungler still couldn't reach level six.

Fighting back was just asking for death!

Poor Vi wanted to take a roundabout way to save the country... hiding and farming, surely that would be fine?

Sorry, no!

Taliyah’s Q skill has bonus damage to jungle monsters, which is a compensation for Taliyah jungle after the Q skill rework.

So even as a mid Taliyah without a jungle item, she farmed the jungle incredibly fast.

And with Taliyah’s help, the two cleared the jungle camps at an extremely fast speed and immediately followed the opponent to the lower half of the map without stopping.

"Whatever you did to me earlier, I’m doing the same to you now!"

It was just brute force!

"What are you doing, ouch... I can’t play with this mid-laner!" Tarzan almost bit through his back teeth.

He even vaguely "regretted" targeting the mid lane early on...

Because the way this guy played was really just like he was "taking revenge"!

"...Why don't you come to the mid lane to leech some experience to get to six first? There should be an experience compensation now. Once we hit six, we’ll look for opportunities again."

Doinb also had his own unspoken grievances.

After Taliyah got her items, the speed at which she pushed a wave was just too fast.

Looking at Ahri, one Q couldn't clear the full-health backline minions, and each one required an auto-attack to finish off.

The three lanes of minions in League of Legends spawn at the same time, all refreshing every 30 seconds.

But only in the mid lane is "roaming" considered a "primary duty" of the position.

The reason is — "the arrival time of the minion waves!"

Simply put, the mid lane is the shortest terrain on the Rift, and the speed at which minion waves reach the lane to clash is naturally 5 seconds faster than the top and bottom lanes.

This is an advantage exclusive to the mid lane.

Assuming the normal push speed of a mid-lane hero, including the time required to roam and return to the mid lane, there would only be about 5-10 seconds left.

If you don't want to lose minions, this is all the roaming time a mid-lane hero has.

Therefore, the increase in wave-clearing speed actually means an expansion of the "roamable range"!

Taliyah was now able to push waves as soon as she arrived, and combined with the movement speed of her passive [Rock Surfing], she could further shorten the time to return to the mid lane.

This meant that for every wave, Taliyah had nearly 20 seconds of roaming time!

And because Taliyah and Poppy successfully occupied the enemy jungle, she could also easily traverse through it, which put immense pressure on LNG’s side lanes to defend against ganks.

Compared to the Doinb model.

Ye Bo’s strategy was simple and crude.

[Utilize the hero’s wave-pushing advantage to gain a roaming advantage] → [Use the roaming advantage to help the jungler occupy the jungle first] → [Break through the jungle to initiate harder-to-defend side-lane ganks].

And Ye Bo’s first choice for subsequent roaming was the top lane.

"Flandre, I’m coming. Look at my position! When I’m close enough, you can just throw the barrel!"

"...I get what you mean!"

Because it was his first time coordinating with Ye Bo’s Taliyah, Ye Bo specifically explained the synergy with his ultimate, and Flandre quickly envisioned the scene.

Gragas saw Taliyah approaching and immediately dashed with E to hold the target.

Gnar, seeing Taliyah appear at the tri-brush, decisively used Flash + E double jump, quickly pulling away a large distance to avoid being blown back by Gragas’s ultimate grenade.

At this distance, even if Gragas used Flash simultaneously, there was no way to find an angle to blow Gnar back.

However, actually, there was no need to blow him back.

Gragas’s R skill has a casting range of up to 1000 yards, and the extreme edge judgment range is another 400 yards, meaning even without considering the blow-back, he could hit someone from 1400 yards away at the furthest.

Of course, throwing an R like that, unless it’s to finish off low HP, would definitely be a "Hua Tuo barrel" (healing the enemy)!

So this is why the "Gragas-Yasuo" combo is an enduring one.

It’s because Yasuo can "fixed-point follow-up ultimate," allowing Gragas to not worry about the angle at all, and easily coordinate to complete a "long-range initiation"!

And clearly, the new Taliyah could too.

The alcohol-drenched Gnar was uncontrollably blown into the incoming Unraveled Earth!

Landing and taking the full 2-second stun from [Unraveled Earth], Taliyah easily dealt all her damage, then used Seismic Shove (W) to toss him back, cutting off any hope of survival!

"Well played, Ye Bo!" Flandre cheered.

"Well~ played~ Ye Bo!" Jiejie, who wasn't on the scene, also sent his congratulations.

Ye Bo didn't rush to respond, focusing on communicating his thoughts: "I feel like we can camp one more time. Jiejie, don't farm that, just come over. We can drop the Rift Herald and take the top tower. I feel like their top laner will give us another opening."

"Alright, listening to you."

At 11 minutes, the resurrected Ale’s Gnar teleported back out.

But Poppy had already detoured from the jungle. After the jungle was breached, the flaws in vision were still having an impact.

***

This time it was Taliyah leading the charge, walking out openly to adjust the angle and throwing the Unraveled Earth in front of Gnar.

Ale saw Poppy following behind and instinctively didn't want to stand near the wall, even wanting to outplay them.

But Poppy didn't need a "wall slam" either.

Coordinating with Taliyah, Poppy just needed to mindlessly push. By carrying the opponent with her dash, she forcibly triggered [Unraveled Earth], creating a stun and high burst damage out of thin air!

The reason they were cautious in the early game was because Taliyah was at a disadvantage and needed to keep her distance.

Otherwise, given the gank capability of this combo, it was simply simple and brainless!

And although Ye Bo’s W accuracy wasn't particularly high, he just needed to wait steadily for his teammates to help him trigger the Unraveled Earth, and then use the Seismic Shove.

Poppy knocks up.

Taliyah tosses back.

Gragas belly-slams.

Poor little Gnar, his body was repeatedly jumping on the Unraveled Earth, as if being "kicked around" by three people... three times.

[Are these three guys playing soccer?]

[The quality of this ball looks good, should be worth 50.]

[Holy crap, a new combo is born: Taliyah, Gragas, Poppy. It feels like there’s something to this!]

[Case solved, it must be EDG’s secret weapon again. I really feel like they prepared so much for this match...]

[Who said this rookie is a "hero spoon"? I think he’s actually a "hero sponge," if you squeeze him, there might be more!]

"Taliyah’s roaming is putting huge pressure on all three lanes of LNG. Although Ahri and Vi are trying their best to follow, it’s already hard to take back the initiative!"

"This is what you call a roaming mid-laner!"

"But honestly, it’s hard to imagine... EDG is actually playing the rhythm that their opponents are most proficient at?"

"But in fact, this roaming rhythm of EDG mainly relies on Taliyah’s personal advantage and the fact that LNG’s jungle was blown up early, which led to the difficulty in taking effective countermeasures."

"But then again, wasn't it because of that second-level jungle arrest that indirectly caused the LNG jungle to explode? And wasn't it because of that brilliant counter-kill operation during the tower dive that led to Taliyah’s personal advantage and LNG’s rhythm being completely cut off?"

The two casters analyzed it and finally reached a conclusion.

These things really were the changes brought about by this Taliyah!

Although the precision of Taliyah’s skills still seemed to need improvement.

However, everything else shown in this match, everything beyond the mechanics.

As a rookie, it was undoubtedly enough to earn everyone’s praise!

Of course, EDG’s two side lanes also gained significant advantages during the laning phase — although perhaps that was also thanks to the fact that the opponent’s mid-jungle focus was always restrained by the mid lane.

And because of the kills, Ye Bo already had a [Unsealed Spellbook Stopwatch] by the 8-minute mark, so he wasn't afraid of being locked down at all.

There was even one time when Vi anxiously made a long-range move to hold him.

As a result, Taliyah anticipated it half a step ahead, successfully cast the Weaver’s Wall before taking damage, and used that "hidden mechanism" to forcibly board...

Subsequently, he performed a "trapeze artist" show for the audience on the scene.

...

The economic gap between the two sides continued to expand, approaching a state of chronic death.

At 20 minutes, EDG’s Dragon Soul team fight was about to refresh.

"We have to take this dragon; it’s hard if we don't!" Doinb’s voice was still loud, but his eyes were already looking a bit wrong.

"Wait for me to find an opportunity to lock onto the opponent... ah, damn it!"

Before Tarzan could finish his sentence, he was suddenly knocked high into the air by a hammer swung from the shadows, along with the support Nautilus!

It was just like Poppy’s hammer in the previous game, circling around and flying back to hit himself.

At the same time, a loud boom was heard, and the desperate Weaver’s Wall sealed their retreat.

The opponent wanted to force a jump over the wall to retreat, but Gragas’s decisive Flash-Ultimate successfully blew all three back.

Seeing the opportunity, Taliyah — Flash forward!

Mid-air E-Flash, throwing out the Unraveled Earth, horizontally facing the three who were flying!

"Wow! What kind of god-tier coordination is this from EDG’s top-mid-jungle!"

"Is that a touch-and-go E from Taliyah!? That looks so cool!"

"LNG lost three players instantly. It feels like the big picture is settled now..."

Jiejie started a great team fight and shouted excitedly in the voice chat: "Brother, was I good in this wave?"

Flandre, who tended to be steady, also rarely joined in the strange howling: "Wasn't I cool in this wave?"

"Woo-hoo~~ cool cool cool!" Ye Bo let out a dragon roar.

"Ha, Ye Bo is still cooler. This Flash touch-and-go Unraveled Earth, neither you nor Flandre said it in advance, your reaction is really fast." Meiko from the bottom lane came out to say a fair word.

"Yes yes yes~"

The lineup for the second game was completely different.

If in the first game, LNG could rely on their late-game lineup to drag it out and still have a chance and hope.

In this lineup, EDG was not weaker than their opponent at any stage.

Just because the core team-fight members the opponent had that looked very powerful — were actually all countered by this Taliyah!

The selection of this Taliyah completely restricted the opponent’s power points during the draft; one could even say that this match was already turned around before they even stepped onto the Rift.

EDG pushed steadily.

Finally, in a high-ground team fight at 27 minutes, they completed a double-kill initiation, pushing up to the high ground in one go.

The blue side crystal exploded into a sky full of fragments!