Lee Kyung-Jun’s development was simply too poor—at 11 minutes, he hadn’t even completed half a core item, far behind PNG’s two carries.
This inevitably made Shin Hao-Jin anxious. Sure, Tio could still trade top pressure for a Fire Dragon, but in reality, without top lane as a pillar, they were like a small boat in a storm—any wave could capsize them at any moment.
Shin Hao-Jin: “Take the dragon and get out. Farm for a bit, stall it out! Can bot fight next wave?”
Choi Seung-Hee shook his head. “Probably not. Their skills are all back up—it’ll be hard to kill White Bird.”
Shin Hao-Jin let out a soft hiss, feeling troubled.
Back in draft, when they saw PNG pick White Bird and Storm Goddess bot, they didn’t think much of it. But now, looking back, this trio—strong in lane, strong in survivability, strong in teamfights—fit perfectly into PNG’s system. Once they safely reached level 6, White Bird and Storm Goddess basically didn’t fear jungle ganks at all.
We should’ve banned White Bird… Shin Hao-Jin clenched his teeth, unconsciously echoing the same frustration countless HPL coaches had felt before.
The current situation was completely different from what Tio had expected out of their Soulreaper composition’s mid-game objective fights. Many of their prepared strategies and plans were now unusable.
That meant the longer the game went, the more Tio had to rely on on-the-fly decision-making instead of their coaching staff’s preparations. But exactly how to recover…
Shin Hao-Jin couldn’t come up with a good answer right away.
Steadying himself, he hesitated before asking, “Kyung-Jun hyung, should Chan-Woo and I come help you next wave?”
Lee Kyung-Jun, already mentally battered from the repeated ganks, sighed weakly. “Top is already unplayable. Even if you come now, it won’t help much. I’ll just give up the outer tower and farm at tier two. You guys keep playing toward bot side.”
After all, he was still a professional player. Even with his mental shaken, he retained some clarity.
There’s a saying: the more tense the situation, the more you should help the strong, not the weak. Tio’s top lane was already in a hopeless disadvantage. Even if mid and jungle came for a 3v3, their crippled Wildfang would barely count as half a player—they’d still lose head-on.
And if they misplayed and got caught, they might even lose their mid and jungle as well.
If that kept happening, Tio’s tempo would completely collapse.
“…So right now, Tio has two options.”
Tofu returned to the secondary livestream, tossing a sunflower seed into his mouth and speaking loudly while lounging back. “If they want to force a play top, 3v3 won’t work—they’d need to bring support, maybe even marksman, to make it a 4v3 or 5v3! But keep in mind, that’s assuming PNG doesn’t respond. If both sides fully commit, Tio’s comp isn’t at its power spike yet—they barely have any items!”
[??? 666, bring bot lane up too?? Are they playing mahjong top or what?]
[Isn’t that too ridiculous? Can’t Tio just counter-gank a couple times to hold the lane?]
[Yeah, dragging bot lane up sounds insane. PNG’s bot isn’t dead either]
“Sure, they could,” Tofu glanced at the chat and nodded, then shot back, “but what’s the point?”
“The purpose of a counter-gank is to save Yuim when PNG makes a move. But I already said they lose 3v3, maybe even get wiped. So what are you counter-ganking for? Wasting your mid-jungle’s time?”
Without waiting for a response, he shrugged. “So there’s the second option: give up top tower, let Yuim farm under tier two, and shift focus to the bottom side!”
[Makes sense!]
[Such a simple concept—Tio doesn’t get it? This is a Worlds team??]
[+1, feels kind of dumb…]
[So is Tio actually the worst Korean team? Maybe praising PNG as Korea slayers was too early (sweating emoji)]
The keyboard warriors started firing off hot takes.
Seeing some absurd comments, Tofu nearly dropped his sunflower seeds, laughing in disbelief.
“Yeah, yeah, sure—everyone in HPL figured this out the moment PNG started playing like this. And yet PNG still became champions. Why? I’d love to know too!”
“Ever thought that giving up top tower means Tio loses all lane control top, while Myerii gets completely unleashed? Your top laner is a 0/4 walking gold bag, while theirs is a mid-game teamfight disruptor—a 1/0/3 full-tank tree standing in front of you. Who on Tio can even deal with that?”
“Not to mention Yuim has already fed Wind and Cloud into two monsters—11 minutes, one-and-a-half items. If I were Tio’s teammates, I’d be swearing too!”
“Myerii also has Teleport. In other words, if Tio tries to play bot side, PNG can rotate as well—and might even have an extra top laner to make it a 5v4!”
Tofu spread his hands. “Right now, PNG holds all the initiative. Whether you play top or bot, it’s a dead end. Get it? The truth is, if you don’t respond to the first or second top gank, you lose the ability to respond entirely later!”
[6666]
[No wonder Tio isn’t making proactive plays even after taking Fire Dragon—they probably don’t know what to do]
[Where are the people calling Tio dumb now? Why so quiet~]
[Some people are clearly trying to downplay PNG while criticizing Tio. Is it that hard to admit someone’s just better? (sweating)]
[When PNG used to do this to my team, it hurt so bad! Now… please give me another pack of sunflower seeds!]
[Tofu’s munching seeds like crazy—he’s not nervous at all huh?]
“Of course not.” Tofu sprawled arrogantly in his gaming chair. “It’s not an HPL team getting beaten into a headless chicken—why would I be nervous?”
——
The ones truly feeling the pressure were the Korean broadcast commentators and their viewers.
At 12:38, Tio’s top outer turret fell. But this wasn’t a decision Lee Kyung-Jun made himself—Sui Ning and Ji Yunyu had come again, and he had no choice but to abandon the tower to save his life.
The heavier-set commentator clutched his head dramatically and wailed, “—Top tower!! It’s gone! We were just discussing how Tio should handle this impossible choice, but now it seems they don’t even get to choose—PNG has chosen for them!”
“Exactly, this is really bad. Tio has completely fallen into PNG’s tempo!”
The thinner commentator adjusted his glasses and sighed helplessly. “Trying to shift focus to bot side right now is actually very difficult! The dragon was just taken, which means there are no neutral objectives on the lower side. If Tio wants to gain anything, they can only chip at bot tower or look for kills—but that’s not easy! PNG still has both Teleports available!”
The heavier commentator continued complaining, “Seriously, I don’t understand why Tio didn’t help Yuim earlier. Now Yuim is completely useless! Our coaches really need to review this game—Tio’s entire approach is a mess. They haven’t shown the strength of the Soulreaper system at all…”
[No comeback potential—Tio is a disgrace to the region!]
[Getting beaten twice in a row by that country without fighting back… I don’t even want to watch anymore. Just swim home already!!]
[Swim? Haha, might as well get eaten by sharks. Completely useless players]
[Why were they even sent as the third seed? Can’t understand it—can’t even beat HPL]
[PNG is some unheard-of third-rate team, just lucky to win their region. And Tio can’t even handle that? Might as well just get eliminated early (lol)]
Seeing their team getting crushed, the Korean commentators and viewers were clearly unhappy.
A wave of emotionally unstable fans flooded various forums, unleashing sarcastic and biting comments nonstop, each harsher than the last.
The heavier commentator wasn’t much better. After ranting for a while, he caught his breath and continued, “PNG is playing alright, I guess. Too bad they’re the first seed—otherwise they could’ve been grouped with UG. UG would’ve knocked them out and saved us a lot of trouble! At this rate, can we still get four Korean teams into the semifinals this year?”
The thinner commentator shrugged. “Tio should still make it out of Group B. In the other groups, only Loud looks risky. In Groups A and D, UG and SST would completely crush the Chinese and Western teams. But after groups, it’ll depend on luck—we just hope to avoid early internal matchups in the knockout stage.”
He knew what the audience wanted to hear, so his tone was somewhat exaggerated.
After all, the Korean region had once sent three teams into the semifinals, and many believed that year they only “gave” HTG a spot due to bad luck. With favorable knockout draws, four teams wasn’t impossible.
Clearly, even though Tio was getting stomped this game, they never doubted their ability to make it out of groups.
…After all, this was the Korean region. If a representative team couldn’t even get out of groups, what was the point of being pro? Might as well hold a funeral.
——
Clips of the harsh overseas criticism made their way back home, stirring a tiny bit of sympathy among some fans—after all, some of the insults were genuinely nasty.
But the match was still ongoing. With regional rivalries at play, that sympathy only went so far—at most, it made fans laugh a little more quietly.
At 14:15, PNG made Tio’s second “decision” for them.
Cheng Su seized an opportunity and flashed-ulted onto Choi Seung-Hee, instantly locking him down. At the same time, two pale purple Teleport beams lit up in PNG’s bot lane!
Moon Chan-Woo’s face turned pale. Recognizing that Sui Ning and Wei Ye were about to arrive, he hurriedly used his own Teleport—
“But Tio’s top laner can’t come—there’s too big a wave top!”
Glancing at the top lane, Chao Mi immediately understood. “This lines up perfectly with what we predicted—Tio wanted to sneak some farm, but PNG won’t give them the chance. They’ve taken the initiative and forced a 5v4 fight bot!”
Lee Kyung-Jun looked anxious. He wanted to help too, but he had already used his Teleport earlier to catch a wave—he still had a full two and a half minutes left on cooldown!
“Don’t fight, don’t fight—I can’t get there!”
He shouted, venting his frustration on the minion wave.
“Aish, we don’t want to fight either—Seung-Hee got engaged on first!”
“They’re coming so fast… can we disengage? Back, back, back!”
“Can’t get out!”
“Watch it, watch it—protect the AD!”
“Cloud—does Cloud have ult?!”
The team comms descended into chaos. Amid the panic, Choi Seung-Hee only caught the word “Cloud” and shouted back, “He has ult—be caref—”
Before he could finish, the sky over the Rift suddenly went dark.
In an instant, all of Tio lost vision—their screens plunged into pitch black.
Choi Seung-Hee shouted nervously, “Shadow of Vengeance used ult—group up, group up!!”
The first effect of Shadow of Vengeance’s ultimate, [R – Nightmare Descends], is to reduce all enemy champions’ vision range and remove allied vision for 6 seconds.
“Allied vision” refers to the vision normally provided by teammates, minions, towers, and other friendly units. Even without placing wards, players usually don’t see a completely black map because of this.
But once that vision is removed, the screen becomes almost entirely dark—commonly known as “lights out.”
Under Shadow of Vengeance’s ultimate, Tio’s vision shrank to just 35 units—about the range of a melee auto attack. Everything beyond that was swallowed by thick darkness.
Tio’s voice comms instantly became even more chaotic. In the panic, all four players subconsciously moved toward the nearest teammate.
Moon Chan-Woo hurriedly reminded them, “Look at the minimap icons to find teammates! The minimap isn’t blacked out! Group up, don’t get picked off alone!”
“No!” Shin Hao-Jin quickly countered, “PNG has a lot of crowd control in teamfights! If we all stand together, aren’t we just giving them a perfect engage?”
And he was right. From the spectator view, the four Tio players were huddled together like frightened sheep, trembling as they clung to each other for safety.
Teammates naturally give a sense of security—but to Chao Mi in the LPL broadcast booth, he could barely contain his excitement anymore—
“Tio is panicking right now!! As soon as Cloud drops the ultimate and turns the lights off, they have no idea what to do!”
Chao Mi said excitedly, “PNG side—Erillit easily follows up with CC, W into ult hits four people instantly, no Flash needed at all!! And there’s still Myerii’s follow-up control! Tio is in trouble!!”
Qing Ci added, “Tio’s formation is way too stacked! But there’s nothing they can do—their vision range is only about one body length right now. If they can’t see PNG, they can’t coordinate any counterplay at all!”
“PNG just needs to dump damage onto whoever they find!”
[PNG_Wind (Phantom Trickster) has slain Tio_Ceucer (Explorer)!]
The kill notification appeared at the same time as the commentator’s words. Sui Ning used W-R to maximize AoE damage, then immediately burst down the marksman Park Min-Hyuk.
The Explorer didn’t even have time to Flash—he collapsed in under 1.5 seconds due to poor scaling!
Frustrated, he slammed his keyboard. “Aish—does Shadow of Vengeance’s darkness last this long?!”
Why wasn’t it over yet?!
At the same time, Lin Zhaoxu on the right side of the formation also used his ultimate—
White Bird’s ultimate served both defensive and AoE damage purposes. Since Tio had no one who could threaten him, there was no need to hold it.
[R – Celestial Garb] unfolded, and the scattering feather blades completely pierced through Tio’s formation!
[PNG_Mior (White Bird) has slain Tio_Onek (Dragon Monk)!]
[PNG_Mior (White Bird) has slain Tio_Bleo (Scythe of Calamity)!]
[Double Kill!]
Lin Zhaoxu grinned proudly. “So clean! I can’t stand it—how is there such a handsome marksman in this world? Full damage in one wave! Double kill!”
“666, without your dad’s CC up front, who are you even hitting?”
“Yeah, five training dummies on the enemy team and you still can’t fully output? Maybe change jobs.”
Lin Zhaoxu pretended to get angry. “?? Can you guys not talk? Why is everyone so toxic? I get a double kill and no one praises me??”
Sui Ning: “Nice.”
With the team’s “big carry” speaking, the gold-tier ADC marksman immediately brightened up. “Okay okay, I knew my Feng-bao still loves me—”
Ji Yunyu rolled his eyes. “He’s praising me. Don’t try to leech it.”
Sui Ning smiled slightly and nodded. “Mm, yeah. Yunyu did well with that engage.”
Lin Zhaoxu: ?? Nice.
What’s the fine for flaming teammates in voice chat mid-game? He’d pay it himself. Not for anything else—just to roast his own team for once!
——
With teammates falling one after another, only Moon Chan-woo remained, trembling in the corner—before Sui Ning quickly finished him off as well.
[PNG_Wind (Phantom Trickster) has slain Tio_Ygeny (Soulreaper King)!]
[Double Kill!]
“PNG!!”
“PNG!!”
“—0 for 4! Under 15 minutes, PNG has completely wiped Tio in a near-team wipe!!”
Chao Mi stood up excitedly. Through his headset, he could clearly hear the crowd in the arena chanting PNG’s name, wave after wave, deafening the stage!
Barely suppressing his urge to shout along, he said enthusiastically, “From this fight we can see that the Korean team has absolutely no experience dealing with Shadow of Vengeance! The moment Cloud uses his ultimate, Tio turns into headless chickens!! How could they possibly group up? PNG’s Verdant Treant and Shadow Hawk are both elite engage champions—grouping is basically suicide!”
“I think Tio underestimated them,” Qing Ci added. “In the second half of the HPL Summer Split, almost no team dared to leave Shadow of Vengeance open against PNG!”
“Not only is it one of Cloud’s signature picks, but PNG also has a very mature system built around it! One engage and Tio is completely stunned—they have no answer to this strategy at all!”
[So why didn’t they ban Shadow of Vengeance?]
[Why didn’t they ban Shadow of Vengeance?]
[This might go down in the Hall of Fame with ‘why didn’t you ban Stellar Sprite’ from the regular season lol]
[Add it to the scripture again today, I’m dying]
[Everyone bans it except Tio… thought they were so confident huh (nose picking)]
[These four running around like scared chickens… too satisfying!! PNG keep killing!!]
HPL viewers were thoroughly entertained, spamming jokes and memes across the chat. The production team didn’t miss the chance either, cutting straight to Tio’s POV replay from multiple feeds.
First, the replay showed the top laner Lee Kyung-Jun’s perspective.
Rolling back twenty seconds, in front of billions of viewers, Lee Kyung-Jun was calmly clearing the top lane wave.
As he farmed, the screen suddenly went completely dark. On camera, Lee Kyung-Jun immediately showed a panicked expression, his mouth opening and closing as he urgently said something. He tried switching to bot lane, but could see nothing.
Then he began frantically holding Ctrl and clicking his Teleport ability, repeatedly spamming notifications in the chat box.
[Tio_Yuim] indicates Teleport is not ready!
While spamming, Lee Kyung-Jun urgently communicated with his teammates, trying to tell them to retreat.
But under Shadow of Vengeance’s ultimate, he couldn’t even see where his teammates were. When he switched views, all he could catch were faint, blurred skill effects flashing intermittently—sometimes in the river, sometimes under tower, sometimes in the middle of the wave…
Then came the kill announcements—one after another.
Shadow of Vengeance wasn’t a meta-dominant jungler. Lee Kyung-Jun had never even considered the champion particularly strong before; a six-second ultimate often felt flashy but impractical.
But this time, he had to sincerely admit—six seconds was far, far too long in pro play. In those six seconds, Tio couldn’t organize any meaningful defense and simply became lambs waiting to be slaughtered by PNG. At this moment, what Soulreaper system, what late-game scaling—it all meant nothing.
—So this doesn’t get nerfed? Designer, are you trolling again??
……
The first replay ended. Before viewers even had time to pity the top laner who had just “lost a teamfight while dead,” the broadcast immediately cut to a second replay.
This time from mid laner Moon Chan-Woo’s perspective.
It was the same sudden darkness. The team’s core, Soulreaper King, hadn’t even had time to do anything. He hadn’t even reached his teammates when several skills flew out of the darkness and hit him—
100%, 28%, 0%.
The health bar of Soulreaper King flickered violently in a very short span of time before hitting zero. Moon Chan-Woo died instantly.
He seemed unable to understand what had just happened. In the player close-up, his expression was even more dazed than Lee Kyung-Jun’s, mouth slightly open, unable to process the situation.
[…Honestly, Yuim’s POV is kind of funny, but Ygeny’s feels like a horror movie.]
[Skills flying in from outside vision—how is anyone supposed to react? He died without even seeing them.]
[Seriously scary. I was staring at the minimap the whole time. Aside from the engage champs, PNG’s two carries never showed on map icons… how are you supposed to play like this??]
[Wind showed briefly—his icon flashed when he used WR to go in, then instantly W’d back out. Total duration maybe six frames? (lol)]
[…Six frames. 6666. Even cheats wouldn’t react in time. If it wasn’t Wind playing himself, I would’ve reported it already.]
——
PNG converted the fight into a 0-for-4 and secured the dragon, then took the mid outer turret.
At 18:30, after clearing side waves, PNG repeated the same play—this time forcing a 5v5 near Tio’s mid tier-two tower.
Ji Yunyu engaged first. Tio initially panicked, but quickly stabilized and grouped around their frontline Lee Kyung-Jun.
Moon Chan-Woo stared at the minimap, his heart racing, sweat forming at his nose.
He swallowed hard, index finger hovering tightly over R. When Ji Yunyu used his second ult dash toward him, he didn’t panic. Instead, he calmly pressed R—
[R – Wall of Bones] summoned orderly bone soldiers, pushing away Erillit’s crucial engage!
“Ygeny has adapted—this is very calm play! He held his ultimate perfectly and pushed Erillit away!”
Chao Mi looked surprised. “Erillit’s W knock-up missed—that buys Tio a few more seconds at least! They still want to look for a turnaround!”
“But Tio is down 9,000 gold. They are completely outscaled! In the few seconds Ygeny bought, Cloud already took two autos—his HP is in serious danger! And Cloud is so ahead this game, he’s almost finished his second item at just 18 minutes…”
Before Moon Chan-Woo could feel relief at interrupting the engage, Ji Yunyu’s follow-up damage hit him like a hammer.
In panic, he threw out WQ, trying to combo with E to reposition using bone soldiers—but he forgot about the lurking mid laner.
Sui Ning immediately followed up.
Phantom Trickster casually threw out a Q, hitting Moon Chan-Woo and triggering his three-item mage passive amplification.
-915!
[PNG_Wind (Phantom Trickster) has slain Tio_Ygeny (Soulreaper King)!]
“Whoa—what is that damage?! Wind’s Q didn’t even fully trigger its passive yet!”
Chao Mi widened his eyes in disbelief, checking the damage again and again. No mistake—900+ damage. But this was an 18-minute mage skill??
He immediately looked at the item panel and sucked in a breath. “Wait… hold on??”
[Echo Grimoire], [Deathcap of the World-Destroyer], [Everlasting Hourglass]— Three items?!
Chao Mi looked stunned. “Wait, wait—this is 18 and a half minutes, right?? How is Wind already full three items? What is going on? Did I skip episodes??”
[??????]
[…? Did Wind go dig for gold or something??]
[Damn it, I lose ranked games slightly ahead and still need 30 minutes to finish three items… and now you’re telling me someone has the same build at 18 minutes??]
“In a normally even game, three items around 25 minutes is standard. In a very snowballed game, you might see it at 20 minutes—but this…” Chao Mi was genuinely stunned. “Wind is just that far ahead this game!”
The director pulled up the economy tab, and the commentators finally realized Sui Ning was nearly 6,000 gold ahead in lane.
That meant he was almost two full items ahead of Moon Chan-Woo. While Moon Chan-Woo was still carefully scraping together gold for small components, Sui Ning’s damage had already skyrocketed like a rocket.
After a brief thought, Chao Mi understood: “Shadow of Vengeance isn’t a particularly gold-hungry jungler. Especially in PNG’s comp this game, most of his backline access responsibility can be handed over to Wind. He just needs to provide the teamfight ‘lights out’ ultimate. So Cloud started funneling jungle resources to his two carries early on, only taking kills and assist gold for himself—”
[Damn, my Cloud!! He’s actually so selfless, I’m crying!]
[What happened? My solo-carry jungler turned into a team player??]
[Probably after Wind joined? Ever since they started playing around each other, Cloud has become way more team-oriented. This is a good thing—no more orphan jungler!]
[This gold distribution is insane understanding. Shadow of Vengeance is a melee assassin who falls off late anyway, might as well become a midgame engage tool. Funnel resources so the carries can take over late game.]
[No solo queue jungler would ever do this. Only pro teams, where you trust your teammates enough to give up gold. T_T]
PNG fans who had been watching Ji Yunyu all this time couldn’t help feeling emotional—but that sentiment didn’t last long before excitement took over as Tio collapsed in the teamfight.
[ACE!]
A massive “ACE” banner appeared in the center of the screen.
Before dying, the Tio marksman Park Min-Hyuk managed to trade down a low-health Ji Yunyu, but it meant very little. Tio lost the fight 1-for-5 in a clean PNG execution.
The gold gap officially hit 10,000.
Chao Mi spoke calmly, almost cheerfully: “Under 20 minutes, a 10,000 gold lead. I don’t need to explain what that means, right?”
PNG!
PNG!
The crowd once again chanted PNG’s name in unison. This time, the roar was so loud that even through their headsets, the Tio players could faintly hear it.
They knew the audience was cheering for the opposing team—after all, “PNG” and “Tio” sounded completely different.
Already shaken by the ace, Tio’s five players grew even more heavy-hearted. Their comms became noticeably quieter, shotcalling less confident.
At 20 minutes, PNG secured Baron right on schedule.
With the Baron buff and overwhelming gold lead, Tio failed to form any meaningful defense, their formation collapsing into disarray. PNG marched down mid and reached the base at 21 minutes.
At 21:58, Tio’s base was destroyed.
----------
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