Chapter 7: What Happened to the Promised New Heroic Invincibility?

“Risk it all!”
“Ah, better to play it safe. After all, there’s a ninety-eight percent chance of losing. If we can’t even make it into the LPL preseason, then all this effort would be for nothing.”

Seeing QX confidently lock in Zed on the first floor, Jiang Ming, wanting a steady start, decided to secure a mage for his own mid lane who could stand up to him.

“Take Gragas,” Jiang Ming tapped the mid lane chair’s back. “And remember to bring some fixed armor runes!”

Both sides picked their lineups swiftly.

Blue side NXG: Top lane Renekton, Jungle Lee Sin, Mid lane Gragas, Bot lane Caitlyn and Sona.
Purple side QX: Top lane Shyvana, Jungle Olaf, Mid lane Zed, Bot lane Graves and Taric!

With the compositions finalized, Jiang Ming’s lips twitched slightly. He had overlooked one thing: in the current stage of League of Legends, even professional teams, unless backed by a dedicated coaching staff, tend to pick champions based on meta strength or personal specialty rather than deep strategic consideration.

Meanwhile, in QX’s voice chat:

The mid lane Zed player who had snapped up the champion rallied the team: “Brothers, let’s crush these solo queue scrubs and show them what the War Academy is made of.”
“Heh, my blade is already thirsty for blood.”
“It’s their bad luck running into us. If it weren’t for the internet café blackout the day before yesterday, our War Academy team would’ve topped the ranked queue.”
“Everyone, bring your A-game. This is our first battle on the path to pro careers—our moment to make a name for ourselves starts now.”
“I, Olaf, will wreck Lee Sin!”
“Watch me tank up on Shyvana and chase down Renekton.”
“Down bot, pure men, solid as steel!”

The earphones were soon filled with boasts and stirring words. As captain, the mid laner raised his hand and mimicked the in-game system voice: “All units, move out!”

…

Ten minutes later, the laughter in the room had quieted, as if the air conditioning had been turned up too high, coloring the five players’ faces a deep red.

Jiang Ming and his NXG squad had thoroughly helped these five young men with their professional dreams to break free from their internet addiction.

At 1 minute 17 seconds into the match, the blue side trio slipped through the river’s shadows to invade the red jungle.

The bulky support planted a ward in the F4 bush, precisely tracking Olaf’s movements—this was Jiang Ming’s specially trained “90-degree vision block” technique, creating vision blind spots along the fog of war’s edge.

When Olaf desperately saw his Smite cooldown had only 3 seconds left, Stone’s Lee Sin had already stolen the jungle buff and made a clean escape.

“Brother Ming’s ward timing method is genius!” AD carry Sorry admired, eyes fixed on the mini-map. Each player carried a handwritten “Ward Timing Chart,” its edges stained with instant noodle broth, recording notes like: [Red Buff respawn: 1:55, gone by: 4:10].

With Olaf’s jungle silent, NXG began to press all three lanes.

Top lane Renekton displayed textbook wave management. Whenever Shyvana tried to last-hit with E [Flame Breath], Renekton would time his attack’s startup animation to use Q [Ruthless Predator] to clear minions and heal—Jiang Ming had learned this “health-for-economy trade” from watching top-tier pros and tournament footage.

After a few waves, Shyvana’s last-hit count stalled at 23, while Renekton had pushed the wave up to harass the turret.

With her momentum faltering, Shyvana naturally fell behind in farm, but NXG’s boys weren’t about to let her off easy.

After clearing the bottom side red buff, Lee Sin doubled back to top lane, coordinating with Renekton to kill the level three Shyvana beneath her turret.

The bot lane assault was even more brutal.

Level three burst?
Screw that, she was already out of form at level two. Level three burst my foot.

Caitlyn set up three traps ahead of the minion wave, forming a standard “triangle minefield.” When Graves was forced to use E [Quick Draw] to dodge the traps, Sona suddenly landed an Exhaust—

“Damn, what’s wrong with him?”
“I’m in full form and he’s putting Exhaust on me?!”

Graves stared at his inexplicably wasted Flash, replaced by Sona’s Exhaust, deep in thought.

QX’s captain watched his proud Zed struggle like a clumsy puppet on strings. Whenever he engaged with W [Living Shadow], Gragas gulped down a swig of liquor (W [Drunken Rage]), the damage reduction buff making Zed’s shurikens tickle him. And just as Zed’s energy neared depletion, that blasted fat guy would throw out Q [Barrel Roll] at the perfect moment.

“Weren’t the new heroes supposed to be overpowered?!” he slammed the keyboard in frustration.

Less than ten minutes in, purple side was at a comprehensive disadvantage.

“Is the air conditioning set too high?” QX’s mid laner wiped sweat and asked the support huddled in the corner.

“Huh?” The player controlling Taric glanced up. “Captain, 22 degrees in the middle of winter is high?”

“I actually feel a bit cold in my feet…”

“Then is your face hot?”

“Uh, yeah, kind of hot.”

…

“Hmph, S2 towers really don’t hold up.”
“Zed is strong on debut, but he can’t stand up to the more ruthless Gragas. That Q skill with 0.9 AP scaling—whoever faces it gets wrecked.”
“After Graves’ burst was nerfed, his range is just too short...”

Watching the match unfold behind the players, Jiang Ming felt like laughing. Partly because he had been too cautious during the banning and picking phase, and partly because he felt sorry for the five QX players.

They couldn’t win any lane and were forced to experience firsthand what it meant to be crushed not by mechanical skill, but by game sense.

They once dreamed of roaming the world with sword in hand, only to die twice just leaving their village!

For the QX veterans, their first professional match was a trial by fire. Whether it was luck or misfortune, they were unsure.

“Feels like the other team is so weak!”
Song Yuan scratched his head, looking at the Shyvana he had nearly out-farmed by thirty minions.

“It’s not that they’re weak; we’re just too strong. More precisely, Brother Ming taught us much deeper game understanding,” said support Pangran calmly. “They have no lane control sense, just mindless mechanical play.”

Little-short-armed Graves had his lane controlled by Caitlyn and Sona for almost three minutes straight, and Olaf never came to help. If roles were reversed, Shizhenyu would probably be scolded to death by Brother Ming.

“Then let’s take it slow and use this time to practice our teamwork. The stronger the opponents get later, the better we’ll be ready.”

“Fine. Buy more wards whenever you can afford them. Take some pressure off me. The Oracle Lens hasn’t been introduced yet, and I’m short on gold.”

Their discussion reminded Jiang Ming of a retired pro player’s lament from a past life: “In S3, the support’s job was either placing wards or buying wards.”

In the early days of the League, support’s status was miserable. With limited income, they had to constantly invest resources in vision control, so it was common to see supports reach the late game with only one or two items. Otherwise, the infamous saying in solo queue wouldn’t exist: “Five in the lobby but no support.”