Hwasong High Charity LoC Tournament — Latter Half (2)

There hadn't been much room for Jin Gyeo-wool to shine in Game 1.

Whatever Choi Go-yun had learned from his little brother, he'd picked up Jarvan IV and single-handedly carried the entire match. It was true that a well-fed Vladimir had torn through the enemy ranks in every late-game teamfight, but the one who'd contributed most to opening that massive early-to-mid gold lead was Choi Go-yun.

After an easy Game 1 win, during the break, Choi Go-yun voiced his dissatisfaction with Jin Gyeo-wool's half-hearted champion select.

"Hey. Three Vladimirs in a row is a bit much, don't you think?"

"So?"

"I mean… it'd be nice if you showed something else for a change."

"Eh. If they really can't stand it, they'll ban it."

Of course, just because a little of the terror had worn off didn't mean he could raise his voice in front of the Follicle Thresher. Choi Go-yun, as if he'd completely forgotten how he'd been grumbling during the game, curled right back into a shrimp and smacked Yuk Min-su on the shoulder. A solid thwack rang out once from Yuk Min-su's shoulder, and once from Choi Go-yun's own back.

As Jin Gyeo-wool said, if Vladimir looked like he was going to blow the game open, the enemy team could simply ban him first. But so far, not a single team they'd faced had banned Vladimir. They'd had to spend their ban cards on Camille, Syndra, Irelia, Fiora — the current meta Tier 1 picks that Jin Gyeo-wool was most likely to lock in — so there simply weren't enough bans to go around.

There were other ways to crack open a different lane, but over the course of match after match, a conviction had taken root: if you couldn't stop Jin Gyeo-wool, you could never win. That conviction hardened into an obsession, and once it did, the enemy had no choice but to tilt.

And so Game 2 began with the set score at 1–0.

This time, surprisingly, Vladimir was banned right from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠start. It didn't particularly bother Jin Gyeo-wool. She'd only been repeating the same pick because she didn't feel like adding to her fatigue. The game was already going well on Vladimir — there was no reason to pull out something else. It was a good thing the enemy team had banned him; otherwise, Jin Gyeo-wool would have played nothing but Vladimir straight through to the end of the finals.

When the first ban phase wrapped up, it was three meaningless Gyeo-wool-target bans. Vladimir, Camille, and Irelia gone — and the enemy took Blue side first pick and hovered Ornn.

Choi Go-yun muttered at the sight.

"If they were gonna play Ornn anyway, why ban Vlad?"

Jin Gyeo-wool answered with a crooked little smile.

"They're tilted, I bet. Mosquitoes are that annoying."

"Okay, fair."

It wasn't as if the enemy hadn't tried mosquito control in Game 1. They'd tried all kinds of methods — they'd just taken pure losses for the effort. The blood-sucking was irritating enough, but the real nightmare was the survivability. How were you supposed to deal with a mosquito that tanked a full can of spray ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and still wouldn't die?

"Well then… I've got something else to show them too."

"What are you gonna show?"

"Oh. Something fun."

The look on Jin Gyeo-wool's face as she said it was downright vicious.

With Ornn still unlocked, Jin Gyeo-wool — Red side first pick — found her champion.

— Shall we troll a game?

With a soft pop, the portrait of an ugly troll appeared on screen. Choi Go-yun nearly fell out of his chair.

"Hey! Are you insane? You're actually gonna troll? This isn't even a fun-game pick level of bad!"

"What are you talking about. I'm picking it because they're on Ornn."

"No… wait, hang on… is this okay?"

Of course it wasn't okay. Choi Go-yun's head started spinning.

"Aaaah… jungle… what the hell do I jungle…"

While Winter Kingdom's jungler sank deeper into despair, the enemy finally burned through the entire pick timer and locked Ornn. Without a second of hesitation, Jin Gyeo-wool's Trundle locked in — and a groan bordering on collective despair erupted from the spectator seats.

"For real, that was exactly my reaction."

"Ahahaha!"

At Jin Gyeo-wool's bright, mischievous laugh, Choi Go-yun could only droop his eyelids and let the corner of his mouth sag.

In the early laning phase, against everyone's expectations, it was Jin Gyeo-wool's Trundle who was getting shoved in. More precisely — everyone except Jin Gyeo-wool, Choi Go-yun, and Lee Do-jin, who had expected to lose the early game from the start.

Ornn might have been a tank, but the passive nuke that followed his skill combo was an undeniable early-game strength. Trundle, on the other hand, didn't have much to do early. His true value only started showing once he learned his ultimate.

The ultimate, Subjugate, stole the target's armor and magic resist, dealt damage over time, and healed Trundle in the process. Soften Ornn into a wet noodle, tank teamfights with absurd self-healing, wall off escape routes with ice pillars, and then beat people with a club — that was the entire reason she'd picked Trundle.

So of course Trundle was going to struggle before level six. But if you used that well, you could turn it around and eat the enemy alive.

"Uh-oh. Ornn's in danger here!!"

Three minutes into the game. While a half-health Trundle wagged his tail at Ornn in front of the Red team's tower, Sejuani abandoned her top golems and sprinted for the tri-brush.

"That's a kill."

"Already? You're seeing a kill angle already?"

"Yes."

Lee Do-jin's commentary, already calling the kill. The caster, flustered, snapped his eyes back to the monitor and started narrating the unfolding scene as fast as he could talk.

"Ah! Ornn took the bait on Trundle's taunt!"

In that window, Jin Gyeo-wool's Trundle had danced just at the edge of Ornn's range, spamming emotes to provoke him. That frivolous little hop from foot to foot. No top laner could sit still for that.

Ornn cracked. The moment he used his unstoppable W / Bellows Breath to clear the remaining wave and land even a single auto, Trundle suddenly charged him.

"Ornn noticed the gank late!"

"But if he tries to back out now, it's already too late."

A flurry of club swings followed, and right in front of Ornn's escape path, an E / Pillar of Ice erupted from the ground. It perfectly cut off Ornn's E / Searing Charge, which had launched at the exact same timing.

"WAAAH! Predictive pillar!! That's insane!!"

The caster was practically screaming with admiration. Trundle briefly lifted into the air from the Searing Charge collision radius, but after that there was nothing left to watch. Sejuani arrived right on cue. Ornn burned Flash to run, but Jin Gyeo-wool flashed after him and slowed him with Q / Chomp. Sejuani's Frost passive stacked on top of that, and Ornn's health was already below half.

He'd somehow crossed the five-minute ridge of the lane, but the road ahead was still far too long.

"He's dead."

"Wow! Just as Analyst Lee Do-jin called it!"

Early-game troll clubs and flails were pathetic. But even spoon-fed damage, if you kept eating it, led to death.

"First blood! Winter Kingdom takes the opening point in style!"

They'd happily claimed first blood, but the game dragged on after that. Both teams went twenty-one minutes without another kill, locked in a fierce gold war, until the second Infernal Drake finally spawned and the standoff heated up for the first time in a while.

They were holding the line along the bottom river. Lee Yeong-bin, completely unaware that a Tristana was tucked into the mid-lane lower brush, recklessly walked into an unwarded bush and casually tossed out an E-W-Q poke combo.

"Aaaah! Ezreal's massive poke!!"

And by pure luck, every skill hit the hidden Tristana. It was the classic case of stepping on a mouse while walking backward — but it forced the ADC off the line, and the mood of both teams (minus the two top laners) flipped on a dime.

Choi Go-yun's thoroughly worked-up voice came through the mic.

"Yo, Lee Yeong-bin. Are you out of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠your mind?!"

"Ah… no. Why did that even work?"

The reason Lee Yeong-bin had walked into that brush: Yuk Min-su, who normally knew nothing but all-ins, had been so thoroughly housebroken by Jin Gyeo-wool's control that since last week he'd been showing excessive caution and playing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠passive even on vision control. So Yeong-bin, too frustrated to sit still, had gone in himself — Ezreal at least had a solid escape tool.

But face-checking an unwarded brush was still fundamentally the wrong play unless you already held a complete combat advantage. In a team game, a stunt like that could get you stamped as the culprit and roasted for the rest of the day. You had to be careful.

"Okay, just — shove in fast!"

"Want me to go on Jarvan?"

Thanks to the engage Lee Yeong-bin had accidentally started, PrizePlz's formation split cleanly in half. Jarvan, who'd pushed the deepest, hurriedly escaped on his flag-and-drag, but he couldn't dodge Taric's dazzling gem smash and the stunning stun that followed.

Yuk Min-su, who'd been hiding behind Lee Yeong-bin and poking half-heartedly until a moment ago, started shouting with pure joy.

"Gem! Gem!"

Then came the focused fire. Lee Yeong-bin, who'd grown cleanly through twenty-one minutes without a single death, slammed painful damage into the back of Jarvan's skull.

Enemy jungler down. Watching the fight, Jin Gyeo-wool sprinted toward the river below top and shouted.

"Peacock timing. Shove mid and everyone come up."

"Huh? Right now? It's 4v5."

"Taric's invuln is up and we've got all our spells. I said come."

The courage it took for Choi Go-yun to ask "why" when the Queen herself said come. Either he'd escaped the terror of the thresher, or he'd achieved enlightenment — one of the two.

Meanwhile the caster was so worked up he was filling the entire voice track by himself.

"Lee Yeong-bin, who'd been quiet this whole time, lands a clean shot! Are they going straight for Peacock? They're going right now? They're clearing vision as they move, but it's 5v4! This could be dangerous! Wait — Jin Gyeo-wool is already hitting it! Peacock's already at half health!"

When Peacock's health hit roughly half, the four PrizePlz players led by Ornn arrived at the mouth of the pit. Ornn's horn blared.

"BWOOO—! He's summoned the Magma God! And Taric answers with his invulnerability — Cosmic Radiance—!"

Two of them caught the Magma God's slam, but the invulnerability window that followed wrapped the whole team in warmth. Peacock's health was down to a mere two thousand.

Jin Gyeo-wool's order to land the Smite cleanly, and Choi Go-yun's defiant insistence that of course he would, swept through team voice chat. Outside the headsets, the caster was in full rant mode.

"Fifteen hundred! A thousand! Six hundred, three hundred! They got it! Peacock belongs to Winter Kingdom!!"

The Peacock take was over in an instant. And they didn't stop there — Winter Kingdom spun on their heels and started hunting PrizePlz outside the pit. Jin Gyeo-wool took the lead, dumping her ultimate into Ornn first thing.

"Focus Tristana and Shen! Ignore Ornn!"

When an ugly club-wielding thug came charging with fire in his eyes, the little yordle had no choice but to run for her life. Tristana escaped on her hop at half health, and just like that the fight was 5v3. In the ensuing group beating, Shen's head was the first to drop.

In the middle of the chaos, Jin Gyeo-wool called Do Ho-jae's Kassadin — who'd been about to solo chase the nearly dead Tristana — back toward the pack. She must have been too lazy to even speak, because her champion check-pings flooded the chat at a ridiculous speed.

However fast she'd been mashing it, she hit the rate limit in under a second. Do Ho-jae's Kassadin spun around in a panic.

"Okay, okay, stop pinging! I'm going that way!"

Even through all of that, Jin Gyeo-wool stayed on the front line and tanked every scrap of enemy damage with her face. This was what it meant to be the Troll King.

We were winning anyway — why would you peel off alone and throw your life away, Do Ho-jae.

Jin Gyeo-wool, apparently in a great mood after securing the Peacock buff plus three kills, bellowed at the top of her lungs.

"Alright, let's gooo!!"

Meanwhile, Lee Do-jin watching all of this had a complicated look on his face.

Did she pick that on purpose…?

Not long ago, in a tournament match, Lee Do-jin had played a game with Trundle on his team. But Hyeonseong Universe's top laner had failed to do his job, and the result had naturally been a loss. The role itself was simple and clear — stand at the front and protect your teammates — but his teammate hadn't managed it. He couldn't hold the lane the way Gyeo-wool could, his CS was abysmal, and by the end you couldn't tell if he was a tank or a block of tofu.

Of course, not every circumstance had been identical to Gyeo-wool's, but objectively speaking, you couldn't help but ask, "Why did you even pick that?"

She's showing me she can do it this well. She's taunting me… right?

Jin Gyeo-wool was someone who followed CCK religiously, and even if she didn't show it now, she cheered for Lee Do-jin from the bottom of her heart. As far as Lee Do-jin was concerned, there was no way she'd picked Trundle today with zero intention behind it.

"Man, Trundle's actually kinda good though? I thought it was a trash champ."

But on the road toward the enemy base, Choi Go-yun's question drew the blunt answer Jin Gyeo-wool would have given — one Lee Do-jin couldn't hear.

"It is a trash champ."

"…Then why'd you pick it."

Jin Gyeo-wool turned her head toward the flustered Choi Go-yun and said,

"Because you guys have been riding the bus all tournament, so I figured I'd ride yours for once, you bastards. You're actually popping off today!"