PC Bang and Practice Game (2)
In Legend of League, the matchup between heroes matters a great deal. How you handle the ban/pick—bans and picks as a single decision—can be enough for a weaker side to upset a stronger one, and it happens often enough that no one calls it a miracle. In that sense, the ban/pick between our team and Ikueku's was a strategic choice on their part.
Top lane was Vayne. Worse, our top was Gold and theirs was Master. A matchup we were already losing on paper had no business holding.
And that was not the end of it. When the enemy top is a Vayne, you are supposed to answer with ganks—except our jungle had been countered as well. Kindred is one of Lillia's classic counters. Lillia's whole game is darting in and out at speed, but Kindred is a ranged hero to begin with, and both the dash and the ultimate answer Lillia's ultimate. They held the matchup completely. If the game played out like a normal game, it was already obvious how bleak our top side of the map would become.
So we gambled.
Alistar is sturdy, no question, and aimed right he can collapse an enemy formation and shield his own. A fine hero. At level one, though, he is one of the most helpless heroes in the game. Aside from fishing for a surprise burst with Flash-Q, he had almost no way to turn a fight.
Which is why we went for a late invade. A four-man late invade, swallowing the cost to mid. We had already feinted an early invade and cleared their wards with a sweeper, so our path in was clean. Around a minute and forty seconds, we ran straight into Kindred, still grinding blue, and the enemy bot laners with them.
Their mid, Raiji, had surely missing-pinged that Twisted Fate was nowhere in sight—but once we were face to face, that was nothing but hollow noise. Waka burned Flash to land the Gold Card he had been holding, square on Kindred. A Challenger is a Challenger: Kindred Flash-answered on pure reaction and opened as much ground as he could. We had bet far too much on this invade to let him go. Morgana Flashed onto the stunned Kindred and chained a Q bind. A panicked Ziggs hurled a bomb, and Alistar Flashed in with Q, trying however he could to peel for Kindred—but I had seen it coming. I Flashed through Alistar's resistance and caught Kindred and Ziggs together with my Q.
Then Morgana's Ignite flared up over Kindred as he tried to run. Alistar threw his body in the way of the follow-up, but Ashe's W slowed him, and Ziggs—realizing he might die too if he stayed—bailed at once. In the end Kindred died to my Q coming back around, and Alistar, locked by Twisted Fate's second Gold Card, died in front of the bot inner turret.
"Yes!"
"Nice, nice! That was perfect."
The price was steep. My Flash, Waka's, and Mia's were all down, and Ignite with them. On their side, only Kindred's Flash and Alistar's Flash were gone. But Waka and I had a kill apiece, we had taken their blue buff, and we were ahead in levels besides.
Now this is a different game.
Their Kindred had no choice but to swallow the bitter pill and path to red. Come back toward wolves or gromp, and level-two me would be waiting. Bot could not easily back him up either; their lane was already under pressure. I cleared the wolves, the gromp, and the bot scuttle on their blue side without trouble, then recalled.
Boots and an Amplifying Tome later, I spotted Kindred's passive mark hanging over the top scuttle. A shame. We had already taken enough, though. No need to get greedier.
Running for our red, I checked the lanes. Bot looked heavily in our favor. Mid was dead even, Waka playing very safe after the early experience loss and the Flash he had burned. Top, on the other hand...
"Ah, I'm losing my mind. I'm sorry. Forget CS—they won't even let me take experience."
Whatever had happened up there, Vayne was level four while Renekton was level two, hugging his turret and wilting. A losing matchup stacked on a gap in skill: a truly maddening picture. Anyone could see it was a dive angle. I snatched red and sprinted top.
Kindred showed a step ahead of me. He still had not recalled even once—not a single extra item—yet he was level four, the same as me.
"I-I'm dead!"
Renekton had only just scraped level three off minions crashing into his turret. His fury was under half, and waiting for him were a level-four Vayne and Kindred. Challenger and Master streamers, at that. The dive was clean, without a single mistake, and Renekton died. I arrived a hair too late to cover him, and the gap in top was already past saving.
Top is done. Abandon it completely, though, and Vayne hyperscales and rotates in. Then what?
Setting the ruined Renekton aside, neither Lillia nor Twisted Fate could stop a well-farmed Vayne in a side lane. A one-versus-one was no answer. We had to force grouped fights and drag Vayne down into the mud. Waka and Lac had made the same read. I told Wagyu once more to hold on for dear life, and went back to my camps.
"I'm six. Going in now."
"Ready!"
"Me too."
If they were cracking top, we cracked bot without mercy. Synced to Twisted Fate's level six, I was already waiting inside the enemy jungle. If Kindred walked into us, that was fine. If not, we would dive bot as planned.
"Good! That was perfect."
"Mia, beautiful bind."
"Ahem! This is the kind of player I am, you know."
Before level six, Alistar was softer than expected. Twisted Fate ulted in first and pinned Ziggs, Morgana's bind chained off it, and he melted without putting up much of a fight. Alistar tried to cover, but Morgana's Black Shield wrapped me and shut his crowd control down. On the next wave we cleaned Alistar up as well and tore off two whole turret plates.
Call it the law of diagonals: in that same window Renekton died again, and mid dropped a little CS. We could afford that much.
"I'll force a dragon fight."
"Rotating now!"
The first dragon was Cloud. Mia and I pushed into the enemy jungle, planted a ward, and started it. The other team never moved. They must have felt a fight on the bottom side was hopeless, and they looked ready to give it up clean.
"They're on Herald, right? They know the top side is hopeless for us too."
"...I'm sorry."
"No. The matchup was like this from the start. Just hold as hard as you can."
We traded dragon for Herald. It felt like a loss. And since they clearly meant to speed the game up around top, we set ourselves to cover. Sure enough, a moment later Herald was released top, and they went for another dive.
This time we were not taking it lying down. I was already in position, mid had shoved his wave first and was moving a step early, and just in case I had called Mia up as well.
Herald smashed the turret. In that instant Twisted Fate's ultimate, Destiny, lit the whole map. He appeared behind Vayne, and his Gold Card stunned her dead-on. Then Renekton surged forward like lightning, pouring out every bit of resentment he had swallowed until now. He even burned Flash, stunning Vayne a second time with his W.
Kindred, right beside her, started thrashing to keep her alive. At the same time a teleport's light wrapped a nearby minion. Raiji was coming over. I had been waiting for this.
I took Black Shield from Morgana, a step late arriving, and charged. Vayne, barely free of the crowd-control chain, knocked Renekton back and started kiting. Kindred assisted from the flank, and Raiji stepped out of the teleport. I crashed Flash-Q straight over the top of them. Kindred Flash-answered, but Raiji and Vayne were already coated in dream dust. Lillia's ultimate, Lilting Lullaby, went off at once.
Vayne and Raiji burned Flash trying to claw out even a little distance, but it was already too late. Morgana, coming in behind, landed her bind on the sleeping Raiji, and Twisted Fate—stuck to Vayne the whole way—finished her. Kindred hesitated, weighing the ultimate, then gave it up clean. Already outnumbered in the fight, he vanished toward his own jungle.
We cleared Raiji and Vayne both and took the top outer turret. Riding that momentum, we pressured the enemy mid outer, then pivoted and claimed the second dragon as well.
In that same moment, grim news came down from top. Vayne had a solo kill.
"Agh, I really tried to live. I even used Flash..."
"It's okay. We can still play this."
"Okay. Keep the pressure on bot outer."
Our movement said it outright: give ground, or we dive. In the end they yielded a step. With the bot outer down, we pulled Renekton in and charged their mid outer as one.
A clean break!
Enemy Vayne could not have cared less. She was hitting our top inner turret the whole time. A mythic item was already out, and Blade of the Ruined King on top of it. Send Twisted Fate to cover, and there was a real chance he would simply die for it.
"We just keep pushing. Let Vayne drag us around and there's no answer."
"Yeah. That's the call."
It was clearly the right judgment. No one on our team could answer Vayne in a side lane. The correct play was to force a teamfight and pull her to us.
But Vayne never came. And we could not crack their formation any further either. The reason was simple. They had Ziggs. A hero so renowned in a siege defense that people said no one could follow him—and Raiji's waveclear was solid on top of that. Minions kept getting wiped, and the siege on the mid inner turret dragged into a stall.
That was where the game was decided. The anxiety of having only one option left. In the end we chose a reckless dive. It opened on Twisted Fate's ultimate, trusting Stopwatch. Renekton and I dove in together to answer it, but Alistar met the first wave, and just as we tried to cut Raiji down, Kindred's ultimate—Lamb's Respite—went off and dropped us into despair.
As the fight dragged, the turret's fire grew fiercer and fiercer. We chased to the very end and killed Raiji, but Renekton and Morgana died, and we were the ones who came out worse. On the top side, even the inhibitor turret had fallen.
"...Come on, everyone. We can still do this. Let's secure dragon first."
Lac tried to lift our sunken momentum, but the game had already tipped. Kindred had climbed out of the early deficit and scaled hard alongside Vayne, and Ziggs and Alistar stood together like an iron wall, a perfect pair. We lost the third dragon in a head-on crash. After that, the game ran entirely one way.
Even Lac, who had farmed well, poured damage in, but Alistar was somehow tankier than Renekton. The front line melted fast. Twisted Fate, Morgana, and I all burned Zhonya's and tried to stagger the fight, but in the end Vayne's overwhelming firepower swept every one of us away. Then Ashe, left alone, died too.
And so the first game came to an end.