As their teammates dropped one after another, Choi Hyun-woo had no choice but to organize an emergency retreat for the remaining players.
“Back off, back off! Move, now—don’t look back!”
Ahn Seung-soo escaped with a sliver of HP remaining and pinged several times in the lower half of the map. “Give up the Herald. We can take the next dragon!”
“The enemy mid-jungle duo is way too strong in jungle fights.” Kim Seok-chan pressed his lips together and suggested, “Let’s pressure the lanes more. Push the waves and avoid fighting in the jungle whenever possible!”
Even as he said it, Kim Seok-chan knew full well that direct clashes around dragon objectives were unavoidable.
PNG’s top, mid, jungle, and support had all picked champions that were monsters in jungle skirmishes and tight terrain. They would definitely find ways to drag every fight into the jungle.
The maze-like jungle terrain and walls that hindered everyone else were a natural stage for Fan'en and Fanlei.
Even Blade Demon could pull off godlike plays in narrow choke points.
Kim Seok-chan couldn’t help grumbling inwardly. Terrain was supposed to be a major strategic element in competitive play—what kind of nonsense was it for champions to walk in with built-in abilities that basically ignored terrain? Wasn’t that ridiculously overpowered?!
...Of course, this wasn’t the first day he’d seen what the brothers could do. They had played countless similar scrims before. But he had never faced a team that made UG’s scalp tingle quite this badly.
At 8:54, PNG successfully secured the first Rift Herald.
“Nice!” one of the commentators exclaimed, instantly energized. “That gives PNG complete control of the early game! This Herald can be dropped either mid or top lane depending on the situation—both are excellent options!”
“I’d put it top lane and get Myerii freed up as soon as possible!”
“UG must be completely dizzy right now. What on earth was that Herald fight? How did an enemy mid-jungle duo whose items weren’t even completed yet just run them over like that?!”
Chao Mi chuckled and began offering hindsight analysis while pretending to stay neutral. “I think UG’s draft was a little too arrogant this game. First, they clearly didn’t account for Astromancer Prophet. Second, leaving Fan'en and Fanlei open was definitely questionable!”
Da Ju spoke casually, trying to imagine the state of mind of the UG players. “Coach Yoonsoo must have trained them on how to deal with the brothers.”
“The problem is that PNG is the only team capable of playing the combo at this level. Practicing against other teams just doesn’t produce the same effect!”
[UG: Woke up suddenly and dreamed they were getting slaughtered by Wind-Cloud’s mid-jungle duo—wait, this isn’t a dream?!]
[LMAO! Do you people even understand the value of a beachfront-property champion? HPL spent an entire Summer Split telling the world not to leave Fan'en open, but UG just refused to believe it!]
[ Same goes for a certain mage with the surname Ai whose name shall remain undisclosed...]
[Feng-bao earned that first-round global three-ban mage status through pure skill. Did the foreigners think everyone was acting?]
[At this rate, after the brothers keep killing people like this in the World Finals, they’re going to get nerfed again. (laughing)]
[??? Leave them alone! Their ranked win rates have already reached the astonishing heights of 41%, putting them in the bottom five champions in the entire game!]
Seeing that comment, the commentators couldn’t help but laugh as they brought up old stories. “You know, ever since Wind-Cloud popularized this combo, a lot more people have started picking Fan'en and Fanlei in ranked. Their pick rates have skyrocketed across all skill brackets, but the overall results haven’t exactly been inspiring!”
Holding back a laugh, Chao Mi pulled up a statistic. “Fan'en is doing slightly better—he’s currently the sixth-worst mid laner by win rate. Fanlei’s situation is even more tragic. His solo jungle clear is too slow. Across all ranks, his win rate against the current jungle king, Dragon Monk, has fallen to a ridiculous 24.2%!”
“And against Void Devourer, a staple of professional play, his matchup win rate above Master rank is an astounding 17.9%!”
“Even against other early-game junglers with weaker tempo, Fanlei’s win rate remains below 46%. Looking at the numbers alone, these two champions absolutely deserve a major buff!”
“Now it’s the designers who are in trouble!” Qing Ci joked. “Buff them, and they’ll become nearly unbeatable on stage. Nerf them, and they’re unplayable in ranked. If their win rates drop any further, they’ll become troll-pick champions!”
The production crew clearly understood the joke. As soon as he finished speaking, a bar chart displaying the ranked win rates of both teams’ mid and jungle champions across all skill brackets appeared on the side screen.
The audience instinctively looked over. Naturally, Phantom Trickster stood out immediately—a dominant meta mid laner across every rank. Both his win-rate and pick-rate bars towered over everything else.
Blade of Dawn wasn’t bad either. Though somewhat niche, plenty of specialists were keeping its win rate respectable.
Then there was PNG’s side.
...As expected. Two giant craters.
……
Have you two no shame?
The audience completely lost it. Wave after wave of laughter erupted through the venue. The contrast between the brothers’ terrifying in-game performance and their abysmal ranked win-rate graphs was simply too funny.
[I’m dying. That bar chart is absolute perfection.]
[UG: What kind of trash-tier champions dare compare themselves to us? — Oh, it’s the brothers. My apologies.]
[In a way, having win rates this low is a miracle in itself. It’s as absurd as a Diamond-Master team somehow reaching the World Championship Finals.]
[How many times do people need to hear this? Stop blindly copying PNG’s champions! Are you Wind or Cloud? No? Then why are you picking the same champions?!]
[Before locking in a champion, look carefully at your own ID first. Do you even understand your role in life?! (laughing)]
[The balance team isn’t sleeping tonight. LMAO.]
[I’ve got a suggestion for UG: either put Fan'en and Fanlei on the ban list, or carry PNG’s mid and jungle players out of the arena chair and all. Pick one. Hehehe.]
Coach Yoonsoo was feeling incredibly wronged backstage as well. The Korean league had countless elite teams at the very top of the pyramid, packed with top-tier players. Every one of them had scrimmed against UG using the designated mid-jungle duo. Without exception, UG had won—and they had been using the exact same composition as in this game.
A 100% win rate in domestic scrims. What did that even mean?
Under normal circumstances, the moment UG locked in this composition, the game should have been considered won.
Yet somehow, when it came to the actual match, the “impossible” happened.
PNG’s mid-jungle duo turned out to be that one-in-a-million outlier, smashing the defending champions in the face through sheer mastery of their champions.
Now the entire foreign internet was flaming the coaching staff for their drafting. Open any forum, and the first thing you saw was a blood-red headline: [Why Didn't They Ban Fan'en?] Below it was an ocean of angry replies.
Some threads didn't even bother with words. Their titles consisted of nothing but a giant question mark. Clicking inside revealed Fan'en's champion portrait with an enormous question mark photoshopped onto it, silently expressing Korean fans' utter confusion.
Even Weibo users had pushed #WhyDidn'tTheyBanFan'en?# onto the trending list. The difference was that the topic page was filled from top to bottom with grinning meme emojis, ensuring every UG fan who clicked in would immediately suffer a cardiac episode.
Yoonsoo knew perfectly well how massive the backlash would be. He genuinely wanted to cough up a mouthful of blood, splatter it on the ground in the shape of the Chinese character for injustice, then pull out the scrim records from his pocket and throw them directly into the faces of all the keyboard warriors.
Was there really something wrong with drafting a composition that had never lost a scrim?
If there was a problem, then it could only be the game designers' fault!
But the designers felt wronged too. Who exactly had we been nerfing before? Champions with 55% win rates often didn't even qualify for nerfs. And now people wanted them to nerf a champion with a 24% win rate? Did reason no longer exist?
Da Ju laughed for a long while before finally calming down enough to offer a prediction. “I think Fan'en and Fanlei are going to become pro-play-exclusive champions in the future! The gap between their skill floor and skill ceiling is just too huge. Balancing them is going to be a nightmare!”
[Just turn them into a couple-themed champion pair. Make them inseparable. (laughing)]
[As a solo Fanlei player, ever since they became popular I've finally found my Fan'en. Thank you, Wind-Cloud Matchmaking Services.]
[ ??? We're all single here. How did you actually find a partner, bro? QAQ]
[Damn. A path nobody had ever considered has appeared...]
——
With PNG establishing an early lead, the audience's mood relaxed considerably.
Under Kim Seok-chan's macro shot-calling, UG managed to secure a dragon through a timing advantage, but early dragons were nowhere near as valuable as Rift Heralds.
Soon after, at 10:37, Ji Yunyu summoned the Herald in the top lane to help Wei Ye pressure the tower.
“Oof, Leave is having a rough time now. Two Herald charges and the outer tower is already nearly dead!” Chao Mi clicked his tongue while glancing at the top lane. “PNG are completely focused on the upper half of the map. Myerii gets a huge wave plus tower plates and instantly opens up a five- to six-hundred gold lead! Blade Demon is going to be terrifying in mid-game teamfights.”
The outer tower had less than a quarter of its health remaining. Park Se-woo didn't want to hand it over for free. Once the tower fell, UG's defensive setup in the top half of the map would immediately collapse into a disadvantage.
The Korean commentators looked worried. “But PNG's Teleports are almost available. Should UG pay more attention to top lane? There are no objectives on the bottom side anymore. Or maybe they let Leave stall a little longer and look for opportunities on the bot side?”
“Mior is playing extremely cautiously in lane, and Prophet's ultimate is almost up. A forced tower dive would be very dangerous!”
“They might dive me,” Park Se-woo said, already sensing trouble. “Can anyone come?”
[UG_False] is on the way!
Choi Hyun-woo pinged as well. “I have TP. Can someone give me a ward to teleport to?”
“OK, OK. I'll place one in the tri-brush after we give up the tower. Check it when the time comes.”
Meanwhile, support Kim Seok-chan had conveniently been poked down to an unhealthy amount of HP. As he recalled, he reminded his teammates: “I'm recalling and heading top immediately. They won't expect it! Wait for me, wait for me!”
Park Se-woo sighed. “I'll do my best...”
At the same time, Cheng Su frowned and rapidly spammed four or five missing pings. “The enemy support is missing.”
“Are we still fighting top?”
“We fight.” Sui Ning pressed his lips together before adding, “Their support is probably coming top. Fight anyway. End it quickly.”
Wei Ye grinned. “That's exactly what I was waiting to hear!”
At 12:07, during what looked like an uneventful laning phase in top lane, Soul-Sealing Blade Demon casually clipped Park Se-woo with an utterly unremarkable Q, shaving off a sliver of health.
Without changing expression, Park Se-woo swung an AoE attack through the minion wave and instantly healed back half of it. It wasn't because Park Se-woo's sustain was particularly strong. Wei Ye's damage was simply too low.
The camera happened to switch over right then, and Chao Mi immediately started laughing again. “Myerii's first item is another half-tank build... All I can say is that he's way too team-oriented. The spirit of the Treant lives on! Most Blade Demon players would be rushing damage items at this point to maximize their teamfight damage and crowd control.”
Qing Ci chuckled. “He's prioritizing durability first. Honestly, it's not a bad choice. PNG's composition doesn't lack damage. Cloud is taking the river crab right now. Is he looking for an opportunity top? Though I don't think there'll be much of one—both sides are playing pretty steadily.”
The commentators treated it as a routine lane skirmish and continued chatting casually.
What they didn't expect was that, the very next second, after finishing the river crab, Ji Yunyu headed straight toward top lane. A defensive ward Park Se-woo had placed earlier spotted him immediately. At the exact same moment, the top laners on both teams erupted through their voice comms with deafening shouts.
Park Se-woo yelled: “He's diving me! He's diving me! Can you get here?!”
Wei Ye shouted even louder: “TP! TP! TP! I've ulted! I caught him—!!”
Two Teleport beams instantly lit up the Rift.
“Double Teleports! Cloud has arrived!”
Despite having seen countless side-lane mahjong matches before, Chao Mi still felt his heart tighten as he raised his voice. “Both mid laners have committed TP! Wind teleports directly onto the minion wave to fight head-on! False is teleporting to a ward behind the tower—it's a little far away, but Key is on the way too! PNG are missing their support in this fight!”
Blade Demon immediately activated his ultimate and followed up with Q2 plus W's slow, attempting to bait out Park Se-woo's mobility skill.
But Park Se-woo was a veteran of countless battles. At the crucial moment, he remained exceptionally calm, controlling Broken King with nimble footwork and simply walking out of the slowing zone of Wei Ye's [W - Infernal Vortex].
“Blade Demon wants the slow here—but Leave sidesteps it completely with pure movement! That little hip-twist from Leave was absolutely clutch! Myerii wanted to bait out the dash but couldn't get it. He's still holding onto Q3, not rushing it, waiting for the right moment!”
“How does this play out? They have to be very careful here!”
At this moment, Ji Yunyu was approaching from Park Se-woo's flank, and Broken King had already been marked for assassination by Fanlei. Park Se-woo was constantly dancing at the very edge of danger.
Fortunately, Sui Ning hadn't arrived yet, and Ji Yunyu was also waiting for an opportunity instead of charging in immediately—
Both Teleports were about to land at the same time.
Sui Ning had already noticed Choi Hyun-woo's position. “Watch the mage,” he said decisively.
Ji Yunyu instantly understood. Abandoning Park Se-woo, he turned and sprinted straight toward UG's tower!
The instant he arrived, a [Q - Abyssal Path] sliced across the wall, extending directly toward Choi Hyun-woo's teleport destination.
Along with it came a pitch-black shadow—
Their first target was Choi Hyun-woo.
An absurd scene unfolded in the top lane. The two top laners, who were supposed to be the protagonists of the fight, were completely ignored. Every eye on the battlefield was fixed on Choi Hyun-woo instead.
Chao Mi's eyes widened. “Wind—is he trying to camp False's teleport landing spot?! They want to kill Phantom Trickster first?!”
“Come toward me!” Park Se-woo urgently warned, hurrying toward his teammate.
Kim Seok-chan, meanwhile, had been frantically pinging On My Way the entire time. Ping. Ping. Ping. The sound rang endlessly. Unfortunately, he didn't have Teleport, and Spirit of the Forest's legs were simply too short.
The moment Choi Hyun-woo landed, a dagger flew straight at his face. He paused for a split second. Then, in that instant, he took in the entire battlefield.
No matter how mobile Phantom Trickster was, his abilities were still limited. UG had the numbers advantage. Every skill he cast needed to be calculated perfectly. Every target selection had to be precise. Not a single point of damage could be wasted.
The ghost-like Fan'en and Fanlei were attacking from both sides. Clearly, they weren't easy to deal with.
In that case… Choi Hyun-woo's sharp battlefield instincts told him that skirmishes like these were never simple multiple-choice questions with only two answers. There was always a third option. A fourth. A fifth.
-207!
Fanlei's dagger landed a critical hit. At the same time, Shadows were closing in from both directions.
Far from feeling nervous, Choi Hyun-woo became even more excited. Calming himself, he cut through the chaotic battlefield and locked onto Wei Ye's position. Then, with practiced precision, he activated:
[W - Phantom Trail]. [R - Repeat Performance]. Then Flash.
Phantom Trickster vanished from his original location. The next second, he appeared on the opposite side of the screen. Several shadowy skill projections streaked across the battlefield as Choi Hyun-woo traversed over half the screen in an instant and arrived directly in front of Wei Ye!
“WOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH—!!”
The crowd stared with mouths hanging open. Many rubbed their eyes repeatedly, convinced they had seen it wrong. Since when did Summoner's Rift have a displacement this long?!
At this point, why not just fly directly from the fountain into the enemy base?!
“W-What?!” Qing Ci nearly choked on his own breath. “What was that?! Flying Thunder God Technique?!”
After the ultra-long-distance three-part movement, Wei Ye instinctively dragged his camera over and barely caught a glimpse of a streak of purple light.
A bewitching black rose bloomed. The petal-shaped damage amplification passive had already been triggered on Soul-Sealing Blade Demon.
-597!
“Look at him?” Choi Hyun-woo called to his teammates. Before his copied ultimate landed, his fingers moved at incredible speed, weaving in an additional Q to maximize the combo's damage.
“What the hell?!” Wei Ye shouted. He immediately turned and tried to run toward his teammates. But Blade Demon's massive body was already bound by [E - Phantom Chain], and another huge chunk of health vanished.
In a panic, he cast Q3, trying to knock Choi Hyun-woo airborne. Yet Choi Hyun-woo narrowly avoided it using the invincibility frames from the second activation of his ultimate.
For a moment, Wei Ye couldn't decide whether he should be angry or amazed. That invincibility frame can't even be 0.01 seconds long! How did he dodge that?!
That had to be luck!
Seeing Blade Demon's knock-up miss, Park Se-woo immediately followed up. Broken King's bone sword came crashing down. E-A-Q-A-A, stacking bleed effects before finishing with [R - King's Judgment], dealing massive execution damage and triggering the ultimate's special effect—
“False's damage was just a little short! Leave adds a few more hits—ULTIMATE—!!”
[UG_False (Phantom Trickster) has slain PNG_Myerii (Soul-Sealing Blade Demon)!]
The cold kill announcement echoed across the Rift. Wei Ye collapsed instantly.
Then, in the next moment— Another "Blade Demon" appeared beside Blade Demon's corpse.
“He transformed!!”
The commentators' brains had completely failed to keep up with the sequence of plays that had just occurred. Chao Mi could only stammer out the result. “—Leave successfully executed him with the ultimate and transformed! His Q, W, and E have all become Blade Demon's abilities now! What happens next in this fight?!”
“FAAAAAALLLLLSEEEEEEE—!!!”
“WOOOOOAAAAOOO!!!”
“ULTIMATE! ULTIMATE! ULTIMATE—!!”
It was a play that electrified the crowd. That cross-map assassination instantly sent UG fans' adrenaline surging through the roof. Faces flushed red with excitement.
Truthfully, most of them had no idea what had just happened. But that didn't stop them from erupting into cheers for Choi Hyun-woo's spectacular play.
[Holy shit??? Daddy False is finally popping off?]
[Good lord, the Demon King's damage came out so fast. I didn't even see how Brother Ye died!]
[Even though I don't like the team next door, the Demon King really deserves to be called "Daddy." Forget everything else—how many mid laners could find an opportunity like that?]
[ I'm a solo stan so I'll say it outright: the guy on the other side can do it too! My little team, stay steady!!]
"..." Sui Ning bit his lower lip, his eyes sweeping repeatedly across the battlefield, still searching for a way to turn the fight around.
But with UG's top, mid, and support grouped together, while PNG had lost their frontline crowd-control Blade Demon, the situation had instantly swung from favorable to unfavorable.
Choi Hyun-woo's reactions and decision-making were truly terrifying. Not only had he found a way out of a seemingly hopeless situation in the blink of an eye, he had even turned it around and killed Wei Ye.
“I'm here, I'm here!” Kim Seok-chan's Spirit of the Forest finally arrived, panting. “I have Flash. We can fight!”
“Wait,” Choi Hyun-woo immediately stopped him. “Slow down.”
The moment those words were spoken, the atmosphere on the Rift suddenly became heavy. It was like a symphony reaching its most climactic crescendo, only to stop abruptly. To the commentators and audience, it simply looked as though both teams had mysteriously stopped attacking at the same time.
But the players understood exactly what was happening. Both sides were calculating.
UG had three players present and held the numerical advantage. More importantly, Choi Hyun-woo's W, which he had used for the huge displacement, still had its return activation available. Whether PNG chose to chase or not, whether they camped his return point or not, the initiative largely remained in Choi Hyun-woo's hands.
That was why Sui Ning and Ji Yunyu, after backing away from the tower, couldn't find a good angle to continue the fight.
At the same time, UG didn't dare overextend either. The top lane connected directly to the river and jungle. If a full fight broke out there, they might not come out ahead.
In the end, the tower dive fizzled out. Thanks to Choi Hyun-woo's individual brilliance, UG managed to recover some of the momentum they had lost.
——
After barely stabilizing the game, UG attempted to continue contesting PNG during the mid game.
But PNG's composition was the textbook definition of the longer the game goes, the stronger it gets. After trading a few jungle objectives, they simply hunkered down and avoided fights. Helpless, UG tried to force something around Baron at the twenty-minute mark. PNG refused to take the bait.
“PNG has no reason to start Baron proactively right now. This composition isn't particularly strong between fifteen and twenty minutes,” Da Ju explained. “Their two carries are in an awkward item timing. They have lots of components but not many completed items.”
“UG wants to force a fight. Reeco's Bombardier has already reached its power spike, but they're not actually good at Baron fights. If PNG focuses entirely on trapping people, UG could take Baron and still lose the trade overall.”
As both teams pulled and counter-pulled, the juicy Baron Nashor suddenly found itself completely ignored.
UG devised another plan. If we can't fight at Baron, what about forcing a fight mid lane? A giant straight road. Surely nobody can keep hopping over walls there, right?
Unfortunately, starting a fight in mid wasn't easy either. After a long search, Kim Seok-chan finally found an opening. Spirit of the Forest flashed forward with his ultimate. Before the crowd-control effect could even connect, Cheng Su instantly responded with Prophet's R+E, granting a burst of movement speed to the entire team. Everyone immediately used their mobility abilities to disengage.
Spirit of the Forest's engage landed on empty air.
Qing Ci sighed in admiration. “Prophet's speed boost only lasts 0.75 seconds, but that's already enough to create some separation! If your teammates have mobility spells available, this completely shuts down hard-engage supports!”
Chao Mi nodded. “When Prophet was reworked, all of his smaller abilities got nerfed as well. We talked about this R+E combo back then. A 0.75-second speed boost and a 150-point shield in mid game? People wouldn't even take that for free! At the time, everyone focused on the shield. One hundred and fifty was just way too little. Look at it now—even a non-critical auto attack from Mior hits for five or six hundred damage.”
Da Ju added: “But after seeing it in actual games, the real value of R+E is clearly the speed boost! Once cooldown reduction comes online in the late game, you get a team-wide speed buff every dozen seconds or so. The strategic value is incredible. I dare say that after today, Astromancer Prophet is going to become a staple support pick!”
The commentators continued discussing the intricacies of both team compositions. Meanwhile, UG looked at mid lane and concluded: Can't start a fight here either. Aha. Then let's split-push. A classic 1-4 split.
Wei Ye was overjoyed. This one I know!
Back when Old Treant got bullied in lane and couldn't scale, he survived entirely through split-pushing and farming side lanes. Nobody knew this better than him.
The commentators laughed. “Both teams are splitting up into side lanes, but PNG still has the advantage. The longer this drags out, the stronger PNG's composition becomes! Honestly, if UG wanted to copy PNG's old style, they could let their mid laner split-push as well and run a 1-3-1 setup. The only downside is that the remaining three players have to survive a 3v4 and absorb a huge amount of pressure.”
“Clearly Wind and Cloud have put too much pressure on UG this game. They don't dare play with fewer people on the main front. Fan'en still has his ultimate available. Starting a fight is too easy for him. A 4v3 could go catastrophically wrong.”
“We were worried earlier about PNG's teamfighting. Their support switched to a Prophet that can't reliably engage, and their jungler is a pure assassin.”
Chao Mi paused and smiled. “—Now it looks like we were worrying for nothing. This composition can engage when it wants to engage, disengage when it wants to disengage, and once the items are completed, it completely controls the pace of the game.”
It wasn't until nearly twenty-nine minutes that PNG's collection of teamfight maniacs finally reached their major power spikes. Only then did they seem to remember that a creature called Baron Nashor existed. The team grouped up and moved toward the pit.
The support carefully swept and cleared vision around the area first, making absolutely sure they wouldn't throw the game through carelessness.
Ji Yunyu walked up to Baron. One slash. Then Sui Ning and Lin Zhaoxu joined in.
The commentators stared intently at the screen. “First secure the vision... right, very cautious. PNG chooses to start Baron directly! UG has absolutely no vision in the Baron area right now. This Baron is becoming a real possibility!”
Wei Ye positioned himself on the outer edge of PNG's formation, glaring at every UG player who dared approach.
Park Se-woo immediately moved toward the river. “Baron, Baron, Baron. Can we check Baron?”
“Can we get over there? We have no vision on that side anymore. Can we look?”
Kim Seok-chan hurriedly stopped his teammates. “No, don't rush it. Blade Demon is controlling the entrance. Fighting through him is difficult—”
“What do we do? What do we do?”
One teammate asked: “Do we contest it, or do we give it up?”
“Hm...” Kim Seok-chan frowned. This Baron… Could they really afford to let it go?
Before Kim Seok-chan could finish sorting through his thoughts, UG's frontliners had already entered PNG's vision.
Wei Ye, who had spent the entire game holding himself back, curled his lips into a malicious grin. His fingers slammed down on the keyboard. [R - World Ender] activated!
Blade Demon raised his blade. Bang! Bang! Bang! Three consecutive [Q - Deathbringer Blade] strikes came crashing down on anyone reckless enough to step forward.
Ahn Seung-soo had barely taken a look when several sword strikes landed squarely on his head. His health instantly dropped to sixty percent. At the same time, a slowing vortex appeared beneath his feet.
His face went pale. He immediately burned Flash. His health bar was already dangerously low. He still didn't know the positions of PNG's other players. If he died first as the jungler, Baron would unquestionably become PNG's property.
Beside him, Park Se-woo was getting knocked into the air over and over, unable to touch the ground.
“Wait, hold on?! What's going on with this Blade Demon?!”
Chao Mi stared in astonishment at Ahn Seung-soo and Park Se-woo's rapidly disappearing health bars.
Something about that damage wasn't right. As if remembering something, he immediately switched to Wei Ye's inventory. The moment he looked, he was nearly blinded by two luxurious attack-damage items.
“—Two tank items and two damage items!”
Chao Mi shouted in disbelief. “He built DAMAGE! TWO OF THEM!!”
[?????]
[LMAO look at Chao Mi's shocked expression hahaha]
[He even bought two. He really did it. I'm crying. Hahahaha]
[Is Blade Demon building damage really news? Oh wait, it's Myerii... Hold on, WHO?]
[NO! Mye, you can't betray the Treant!]
[Verdant Treant is in tears. So in the end, all of this was just love once upon a time…]
[You only see Blade Demon smiling. Have you ever heard the Treant crying?]
Chao Mi was still struggling to recover from the shock. “T-This build! Blade Demon can tank and deal damage now! His items have hit a major breakpoint! PNG invested heavily into top lane and they've actually fed Blade Demon into a monster! Myerii's early game was incredibly smooth. Sure, his scoreline looks ugly, but he's actually over a thousand gold ahead of Leave! It's all tower gold and farm income!”
“It's this blue-side choke point again! Blade Demon is holding off two people by himself! Q1, Q2, Q3—he forces Serpent's Flash and pushes Leave back too! Myerii looks like a god of war right now! UG has absolutely no chance of contesting Baron!”
The chat exploded with memes.
[THIS is the power of damage items! Mye, do you finally understand?!]
[Throw away your tank disguise and embrace your true self! Restore glory to the fighter class!]
[Restore glory to the fighters!]
[When I watch the mechanics, he's a descended god. Then I look at the scoreboard and see 0/2/2. I can only say he's never truly forgotten his Treant roots.]
With a godlike Blade Demon standing in the choke point under ultimate and blocking the road, UG had no choice. Lee Dong-il could only throw a long-range ultimate toward Baron pit as a desperate scouting attempt.
The bomb landed and revealed vision. Ji Yunyu had already anticipated it. Baron's health was still perfectly safe. Lee Dong-il wasn't given even the slightest hope of a steal.
Soon, Baron's dying roar echoed across the Rift.
The commentators could barely suppress their excitement. “PNG secure Baron! They have a chance to siege the high ground now! This is going to be very difficult for UG to defend!”
At 33 minutes, Wei Ye charged forward at the front of the army. Leading a wave of Baron-empowered minions, he unleashed a barrage of attacks on UG's top inhibitor turret.
The rest of PNG split between mid and top in a classic 1-4 formation, covering one another. Perhaps Wind and Cloud had already traumatized them. The moment Sui Ning tried to lay down a Q path in advance, UG's entire forward formation collectively retreated several meters.
Lee Dong-il displayed the ultimate principles of elite marksman cowardice. Relying on his long range, he simply positioned himself underneath the Nexus turrets. It was as if he feared Fan'en might suddenly Flash forward and eat him alive.
Sui Ning: ...?
It's not like I Flash-engage him every single time… Probably. Sui Ning thought righteously.
I'm actually very gentle. Flash is precious. I definitely wouldn't use it recklessly.
Then, one second later— A golden flash lit up the battlefield. A silver-white blade followed immediately behind it.
Lee Dong-il nearly laughed from anger. God damn it, are you people sick in the head?!
“WIIIIIIND——!!!”
After watching the replay several times, Chao Mi finally managed to follow what had happened. He jumped to his feet and roared: “Flash into R! He finds Reeco's position instantly! R2 swaps him with Cloud entering the fight! R3 retreats back out!!”
“False reacted incredibly quickly and tried to camp Wind's shadows! But there are FOUR shadow clones on the field! This is pure guessing! And every PNG teammate is guarding a different shadow! The coordination is unbelievable! They're way too practiced at this!”
“With their items completed, both Fan'en and Fanlei are doing absolutely absurd damage now! Reeco died with his eyes still open!”
[PNG_Wind (Specter of Shadow) has slain UG_Reeco (Bombardier)!]
[PNG_Wind (Specter of Shadow) is Dominating!]
This was the eighth time Lee Dong-il had been instantly deleted this game.
He was practically numb at this point.
Choi Hyun-woo's ambush failed. He immediately located Sui Ning's position. Fan'en's ultimate had been nerfed before. The mandatory one-second delay between swaps was his most vulnerable moment—
Ding!
“It's useless, useless, useless!” Qing Ci shouted excitedly, making a joke on the spot. “Your combo speed is indeed lightning-fast, and your damage is certainly explosive! But what if—just what if—we happen to have Astromancer Prophet's resurrection available? How would you deal with that?!”
The answer was simple: He couldn't.
One carry had already died before the fight even properly began. UG could only rely on Choi Hyun-woo's damage output to force out Cheng Su's ultimate.
Now they had forced it. And then what?
This wasn't an infinite-cooldown game mode. Phantom Trickster still had to wait for cooldowns. Where was the team's follow-up damage? Normally they had a marksman. Right now, their marksman was lying dead on the ground.
Even someone as monstrously talented as Choi Hyun-woo felt overwhelmed.
He couldn't help thinking: If only I weren't an assassin mage focused on single-target kills. If I were an AoE mage like Soulreaper King… One combo would leave PNG's entire team on the brink of death. Even if the support resurrected one person, it wouldn't matter much.
Or… If they had simply banned Fan'en. The threat to their backline would never have become this terrifying.
Unfortunately. Unfortunately. Choi Hyun-woo sighed inwardly.
At 35:24, UG's Nexus exploded.
PNG successfully tied the series. 1–1.
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