“Comparing the two team compositions, I still prefer Navic’s side. Their laning, teamfighting, and macro play are all quite strong.”
As the match began, the live support rate for the two teams kept fluctuating between 49.5% and 50.5%. In the end, the two curves almost tangled together, making it hard to tell them apart.
After glancing at both teams’ opening setups, Qing Ci frowned and analyzed: “In theory, PNG’s mid–jungle picks counter Navic’s macro playstyle, which is why they had to pick them in the first rotation—otherwise Navic could’ve banned Fan’en right away. But the price of doing that is sacrificing the support position in the first round, which leaves them a bit short on good support options.”
“Personally, I’m not very optimistic about Storm Goddess. This hero shifts too much of the teamfight pressure and control-chain responsibility onto her teammates.”
Hearing Qing Ci say this in the broadcast, some hardcore PNG fans in the stream chat couldn’t sit still.
[??? Seriously? Our Storm Girl can’t be that weak, right??]
[She’s top three in pick rate among soft supports in ranked, but on forums, she’s always called a ‘carry-me fairy princess hero.’ Her reputation is almost like Little Deer—you know why…]
[Where’s Tofu? Say something! Listening to this is making me nervous!!]
“To start with, Qing Ci is just a commentator—what the hell does he know about Glory?” Tofu fired back loudly without any courtesy.
Talking about marksmen and supports was finally his area of expertise. Tofu sat up straight and cleared his throat. “Some people run into Storm Goddess supports who just AFK behind their marksman and think the hero is a freelo parasite. Completely wrong! Her laning strength is actually very high, but that strength needs the marksman to bring it out!”
“She’s the softest of soft supports, not like those engage-heavy tank supports that actively look for fights. But when the duo works together, it’s absolutely 1 + 1 > 2! No matter how much you usually call Mior a useless son, remember he’s still a pro player. One of him can beat ten of you! A pro White Bird + Storm Goddess versus Caitlyn + Spirit of the Forest—the former wins the lane by a mile! If the marksman on the other side didn’t have the ID Nv_Lime, you wouldn’t even need to watch bot lane for the first 15 minutes of this game.”
“Talking about Spirit of the Forest engaging in a 2v2? Don’t make me laugh. With Storm Goddess’s peel ability, as long as Son Xu doesn’t do something stupid, if Spirit of the Forest gets within one meter of White Bird you should go spam Erllit’s Weibo immediately—he must’ve been paid off! And those saying her teamfighting is weak… I just want to ask: Navic’s top, mid, jungle, and support all dive straight into the backline. Other than Storm Goddess, who can protect White Bird? Shield plus three-stage knockback—you think that’s a joke?!”
Tofu passionately blasted the chat for a while before changing his tone. “Of course, Qing Ci isn’t entirely wrong about one thing. Storm Goddess has no engage ability, so the pressure shifts onto PNG’s mid, top, and jungle. But honestly… I don’t think that’s a huge issue. PNG picked Fan’en - Fanlei to disrupt Navic’s macro rhythm. And let me be clear—I’m not questioning Wind—but Fan’en’s late-game solo carry ability is still just a tiny bit weaker than the biggest mage hyper-carries…”
He pinched his fingers together to show a distance so small it would need a microscope to see. “—In teamfights you still need White Bird’s damage output, right? You can’t have your marksman just die instantly at the start.”
[It’s over. After Tofu’s rant, our son’s keyboard is starting to leak milk…]
[No no no, Tofu please say you’re just here sightseeing—no, doing stand-up comedy!!]
[We found the culprit @NationalServerADC_Tofu. If our son dies instantly this game, everyone go flame him!]
[Makes sense… but also kind of doesn’t.]
Chao Mi’s opinion was similar to Tofu’s, and he added: “PNG really gave their bot lane the green light in the draft just to reduce the marksman’s laning pressure.”
——
At the start of the game, both junglers began from the bottom side and pathed upward toward top lane. On the red side, Pei Xingyi started in the blue buff camp. Fighting with only one buff early is slightly weaker than starting red, but blue side camps are cleared faster. While clearing, Pei Xingyi kept glancing at the timer. He finished the buff at 1:44 and started clearing the small camp.
…About 4–5 seconds slower than usual. Pei Xingyi wasn’t satisfied. Lost Ninja wasn’t the kind of aggressive jungler he liked, and its clear speed was also worse than the top-tier picks. Under normal circumstances, he should have finished around 1:39.
“The first step of PNG’s plan to pressure Navic’s jungle is already working,” a sharp-eyed caster pointed out.
“Lost Ninja clears very slowly. Cloud started red side and after finishing the two super-tanky stone monsters, his timing is actually equal to Truik’s! If Navic had picked a fast-clearing jungler, they usually would have to skip a small camp to keep up with Truik’s pace when starting red—then they’d fall behind in experience.”
“But PNG doesn’t have that problem right now.”
Pei Xingyi couldn’t do much about it. After all, he’d been targeted in the draft. He simply informed his teammates over voice chat: “My clear is slow this game. When I go top side I might run into Cloud. I’ll sell a fake ward vision to bait him. I won’t fully clear the small camps in my red jungle—going straight for a top gank.”
[Nv_Truik] signaled On My Way!
The ping appeared on top lane.
“Okay,” Jiang Yin replied, though he sounded hesitant. “…The enemy old tree guy has ‘plays safe’ engraved in his DNA. He’s playing really cautiously. I’ll try…”
He wasn’t sure whether he could bait Wei Ye out with positioning. If he couldn’t, a level-2 Wildfang plus level-3 Lost Ninja trying to tower dive a tank would be extremely difficult. And Ji Yunyu might even counter-gank.
Pei Xingyi said, “Just push his HP down to 55% first. With red buff at level 3, my damage will be enough.”
The audience didn’t hear any of this conversation. On the surface, it just looked like an ordinary jungle start.
The broadcast and commentators instead focused their attention on bot lane. With help from Cheng Su’s shield, Lin Zhaoxu executed a beautiful trade, shaving about 10% HP off both the enemy marksman and support.
“Pushing forward right at level 1—Mir played that beautifully!”
Chao Mi sounded extremely pleased. “The level-1 shield makes early trades very strong. Lime and Nx have to back off! If Storm Goddess starts shield at level 1, she normally can’t contest lane priority and might even let the opponent hit level 2 first—but with White Bird, that weakness is compensated for! Mior is playing very aggressively. Nx doesn’t even dare walk up to clear the wave. It’s basically just the two marksmen pushing, so both sides will reach level 2 around the same time!”
“Shield in 7 seconds,” Cheng Su reminded with a frown. “The early cooldown is long. Don’t get carried away!”
Lin Zhaoxu sounded excited. “I know. I’m not getting carried away. Damn it, I’ll kill you…”
Cheng Su: …
On the other side, Zou Jiayou and Bian Cheng remained calm. Or rather, their laning experience was so extensive that nothing surprised them anymore.
“My stun is 5 seconds, his shield is 7 seconds. We’ll trade during the timing gap,” Bian Cheng said.
His timing reports were as precise as a machine’s. The earlier HP trade was meant to set up later waves of baiting the shield and dealing damage without losing HP. Bian Cheng trusted that his coordination with Zou Jiayou wouldn’t fail—even if the so-called “timing window” was only two seconds.
Zou Jiayou naturally had no doubts either. “Got it.”
Five seconds later, Bian Cheng seized his moment and used Q to stun Lin Zhaoxu from long range. The stun only lasted 1.5 seconds, but it was enough for Zou Jiayou to land an A-Q-A combo, cutting 17% of Lin Zhaoxu’s HP. Step forward to bait the shield. If the shield appears, back off. If there’s no shield, attack. Using Gunslinger Caitlyn’s long range to maintain spacing and harass White Bird, they repeated this pattern for the third wave, the fourth wave…
Every trade went the same way. Back and forth, until Lin Zhaoxu’s HP quickly dropped close to the 50% danger line, forcing him to drink the healing potion he had bought at the start.
The commentators didn’t fully understand what was happening. All they could do was shout things like: “Ah, Mior was a bit careless there!” “Lime is playing so aggressively!”
Tofu held his palms toward the screen as if presenting something, wearing an expression of “come look, everyone!”, and exclaimed: “Brothers, just from these few exchanges between Lime and Nx—how many of you actually understood the details? I just want to ask, who else can do that?! Anyone in the stream who plays marksman or support, hurry up and study this!”
“Especially that guy Nx. I’ll just say this—if he ever dares to duo queue with me once, I’ll write his ID straight into my family genealogy!”
[????]
[LMAO the streamer’s dreaming again—someone wake him up!]
[My pee’s yellow, let me do it!!]
[Here’s a joke: there’s a domestic poll called “The Dream Support of marksman Players.” It was supposed to be a vote for heroes, but Nx took first place… His ID photo stuck among all those cute pink anime-style support hero fanarts looked so out of place (lol)】
[ I saw that poll. I think the strongest support this patch, Wang Yingyao, was first originally. For Nx to beat him, the value speaks for itself]
[HTG_Breathe was like fifth. Lost badly to Little Deer Princess. Hilarious]
[No Erllit? No Erllit? Can we show some respect to the Winners’ Bracket first place??]
[Brother Su’s insane game sense and vision control—normal players can’t even understand that stuff, so…]
[ Kind of like “truly great doctors aren’t famous because they prevent the illness before it appears.”]
Compared to the laughing barrage of comments, Lin Zhaoxu—who was actually feeling the pressure firsthand—couldn’t laugh at all.
Lin Zhaoxu groaned, “Ugh, I’m seriously so annoyed by this guy…”
Cheng Su replied, “I told you not to get carried away.”
“If I don’t play like this, we won’t get an advantage,” Lin Zhaoxu muttered resentfully. He admitted he had been a bit impatient, but still said, “I just can’t accept losing lane even with a soft support.”
“Accept it or not, you still have to. What you’re playing is all about micro. Wait for my shield, got it?”
“Don’t rush. Wait till I come down,” Sui Ning reassured them. “Their mid lane matchup isn’t great—I might find a chance to roam.”
The moment he spoke, Lin Zhaoxu immediately behaved himself. But Sui Ning was being modest—Xiang Jin was practically getting destroyed in lane.
“Bro, even someone with Piercing Through the Intestines wouldn’t lane like this!” Xiang Jin cried after getting auto-attacked twice more, nearly in tears, reluctantly backing two more steps away from the minion wave.
For this match he had already gone full survival build—healing potions and magic resistance stacked—just hoping to stay in lane and soak experience. The Stonr Sentinel was naturally tanky, and when the match started he had been quite confident. But now—
The potions were gone, and so was his health. Designer, are you watching? Does this seem reasonable to you?
At level 2, he had already been beaten down to 65% HP. This was supposed to be a magic tank Stone Sentinel. Yet the one beating him up was Fan’en, a hero who wasn’t even strong early. Xiang Jin simply couldn’t understand it. In scrims against other teams, nothing like this had ever happened.
Then he pressed Tab and saw Sui Ning’s items.
Instant enlightenment. With faint tears of transcendence in his eyes, he said: “Brother Wind actually started with a physical-attack Longsword… damn it, he’s a real pervert. He must’ve guessed I’d buy early magic resist. Now his auto-attacks hit harder than his abilities. He doesn’t even need mana—he’s just humiliating me…”
Jiang Yin said helplessly, “Don’t make Wind sound like some kind of sadist…”
“But his item build is indeed interesting,” Zou Jiayou said calmly after glancing at it. “Be careful.”
Pei Xingyi said, “Just play safe for now. I’m busy—I'll help you later.”
Xiang Jin whimpered, “…okay.”
Pei Xingyi followed the original plan and moved toward top lane. As he passed the river, Ji Yunyu faintly caught sight of him.
He immediately said in voice chat: “I saw Truik’s position. I’ll come help you counter-gank.”
“No need, absolutely don’t come,” Wei Ye said excitedly. “Don’t worry about me—they can’t kill me!”
Ji Yunyu hesitated. “…You sure?”
“Of course! I picked Old Tree!”
Alright then. Ji Yunyu chose to trust his teammate and simply cleared his jungle before recalling to base to buy items.
“Truik signaled to his teammates—he’s wrapping through the red jungle to gank top! He’s level 3 with double buffs, very strong in combat right now! But on PNG’s side… Cloud just recalled! What’s going on?!”
The commentator widened his eyes. Seeing Ji Yunyu actually channeling Recall, he leaned closer to the broadcast screen in disbelief. “Did PNG not notice Navic was going to gank top?”
Chao Mi immediately denied the guess. “That gank path is extremely standard. There’s no way PNG doesn’t know!”
This wasn’t a team playing their first match, nor a rookie jungler new to the HPL. There was no way they couldn’t read Navic’s intention. After all, the two junglers had briefly seen each other in the river earlier.
Qing Ci questioned, “Then why didn’t Cloud counter-gank?”
“Maybe they think that duo composition doesn’t have a high chance of successfully killing Verdant Treant,” Chao Ni speculated. “As long as Myerii doesn’t die here, Cloud’s tempo will actually be faster than Truik’s!”
Wei Ye thought the same.
He couldn’t dominate a lane alone like Yu Cai—solo-killing endlessly for explosive highlight plays. But in top-tier matches, even just delaying the enemy jungler a bit was already contributing to the team.
Wei Ye glanced at the huge, clumsy treant in the center of his screen. Its massive branches swung as it attacked minions, while its tangled roots twisted as he performed careful micro-movements.
Maybe in my past life I was a tree… or maybe Lu Xun. Playing Treant always felt more natural than any other hero, even though the hero didn’t have many flashy mechanics.
While he was thinking, Pei Xingyi had already arrived. He watched Wei Ye’s movement and immediately frowned.
“Does he know I’m here? Can we dive?”
Hearing the question, Jiang Yin hesitated. He looked at Wei Ye’s HP: 87%. Quick mental calculation.
Even if they jumped out together, they definitely couldn’t kill him outright. To secure the kill they would have to dive the turret, which meant tanking tower shots. At levels 2–3, turret damage was lethal. And Wei Ye wasn’t exactly going to sit there and not fight back.
Jiang Yin wondered whether, with perfect tower-aggro swapping, they could kill an 87%-HP Treant. The answer was probably no.
“We probably can’t dive,” he said.
“Want to try anyway? Feels like we could at least burn his Flash.”
Jiang Yin hesitated. “That’s not good. Treant has a root on Q—if he roots us under tower, we’ll die or have to Flash anyway. Trading Flash doesn’t mean much. Cloud’s coming soon too.”
Pei Xingyi fell silent and had no choice but to give up.
“Myerii’s positioning is extremely cautious! He didn’t give Truik any chance at all!!”
Chao Mi slammed the table. “Navic was worried about PNG’s counter-gank and didn’t dare dive. In the end, they gave up the play! But they don’t know Cloud isn’t even there—Truik wasted quite a bit of time going back and forth!”
Qing Ci added, “Everyone says Verdant Treant is a hero anyone can play, but when Myerii uses it, it just feels different. His Treant is unlike anyone else’s—even more delicate than when he plays other top-lane heroes!”
[This is like the final battle in Naruto against the Divine Tree, except instead of Kaguya coming out of the tree, it’s you—my Myerii!]
[LOL what kind of Tree Jinchriki is this.]
[I acknowledge Mye-chan’s tree—it instantly becomes thinner.]
[So seriously, don’t force yourself to play that Soul-Sealing Blade Demon. It doesn’t suit you…]
Perhaps the old treant truly had some mystical power. PNG fans suddenly felt reassured about their top lane.
Navic fans, meanwhile, felt regret—what a great opportunity wasted. PNG had been too crafty!
Pei Xingyi returned empty-handed and prepared to enter PNG’s jungle to look for Ji Yunyu’s position. Then suddenly a terrified shout exploded through the microphone:
“Holy—!”
Xiang Jin yelled in panic: “It’s over, it’s over—damn it! No, don’t—!”
Pei Xingyi froze and quickly switched camera. “What happe—”
[PNG_Wind (Specter of Shadow) has slain Nv_Fiw (Stone Sentinel)!]
[First Blood!]
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