You promised a top lane tutorial, but you're just using Worlds as material for your videos?

Chapter 552 The Players' Mental Management, White Crescent wanted to hum softly!

Since we had already anticipated RNG's general draft picks for this game.

Therefore, TES only needs to follow the pre-match plan to deal with RNG's "move".

Of course, RNG chose to ban Fiora as their last ban.

White Crescent walked up behind LokeN and said directly, "Take Camille!"

With less than five seconds left on the champion selection countdown, LokeN revealed Camille on the fourth floor of the red team and locked her in.

Upon seeing this, Miller immediately exclaimed, "Wow, that Steel Shadow Lock is incredibly fast! It seems Zhou Shen is very confident!"

Upon hearing this, the doll chuckled and said, "What are you talking about? Does Zhou Shen ever lack confidence?"

"Well, that's true!"

"However," Miller changed the subject, "this time TES is on the red side, and Zhou Shen, just like in the last game, didn't pick a counter-pick. I'm talking about his confidence!"

“It’s really different from the last game!” Wawa added. “In the last game, TES’s top and mid laners were also wavering, and Zhou Shen could wait until the last pick to decide whether to take that counter pick.”

"In this game, Zhou Shen openly picked the top laner first, while TES clearly had Knight take the last counter pick."

"It feels like it's not just Zhou Shen who's very confident, the whole TES team is very confident!"

"Yes," Miller nodded. "It seems TES came prepared for this game!"

At this moment, on the RNG players' bench.

Steak stood behind Langx and said to him, "So, how about this game against Camille? No problem, right?"

Steak's question was clearly asking Langx if he felt much pressure laning against Camille this game, and whether he could hold his own.
But since they are my teammates, I can't just ask them so directly.

Doesn't Langx have any pride?

Upon hearing the head coach's words, Langx nodded with a slightly solemn expression.

At the same time, he said, "No problem, Camille can't wear it!"

Langx has a good grasp of most of these damage-dealing top lane champions.

They have a fairly accurate grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of these heroes.

Seeing that Langx's words didn't seem like the kind of forced pride, but rather genuine confidence, Steak felt reassured.

Next, as planned, RNG secured the top lane and mid lane champions on the fourth and fifth floors of the blue side.

After RNG finished picking their champions, Knight saw Xiaohu's mid-lane pick and, after a moment's thought, chose a champion he was confident in that could counter Xiaohu's playstyle.

With TES support Ben locking in a champion for Knight on the fifth floor of the red side, the draft phase of the second game of the BO5 series came to an end.

The game is in its final minute before loading.

Both head coaches were making the most of the last bit of time to say something to their players.

Steak's lips moved rapidly, clearly explaining the game's details, and he looked rather uneasy.

On the TES side, White Crescent looked relaxed and spoke leisurely, without discussing any specific strategies or tactics.

Instead, he seemed to be "chatting" with his teammates.

White Crescent now genuinely feels that her old friend Dgc still has many merits in terms of coaching.

For example, right now, before entering the game, I chat with my teammates about something lighthearted.

This has a very positive effect on improving the players' mindset in the following matches.

This move was something White Crescent learned from Dgc.

According to White Crescent, among the TES players, apart from Zhou Dian, who has a very strong mentality and remains calm in the face of adversity, and Xx, who is rather carefree and has a reckless personality, his mentality is also quite good.

The remaining few people were all pretty average in terms of mentality.

It's even a bit weak!

In the past, I always emphasized the specific tactics and techniques in the game, but it seems that this is far from enough.

Managing the mentality and emotions of the players is also a very important part of a head coach's job!

The team's data analysts can help with many aspects of drafting, tactics, and operations.

But in other aspects, often only the head coach can do more.

After all, the team's general manager, due to his high position, naturally creates a sense of distance between him and the players.

Unlike the relationship between head coach and players, where they spend more time together and are naturally closer, the relationship between head coach and players is much closer.

After chatting with his teammates for a while, White Crescent was reminded by the staff on site, and immediately took off his headphones and turned to walk off the stage.

As for the notebook that was originally held in his hands, it was closed by the white crescent and tucked under his arm before the business plan was even finished.

White Crescent Moon was walking towards the contestants' tunnel, a notebook tucked under her arm, head held high, a faint smile on her face, exuding composure, as if everything was under control.

In contrast, Steak was urged twice by the staff before reluctantly closing his notebook, taking off his headphones, and turning to leave the RNG players' bench.

As he walked off the players' bench, Steak kept turning back to look at them.

It's clear that he still has things he wants to tell his teammates, but he can't say them.

Steak, with a constipated expression on his face, arrived at the contestant tunnel.

The white crescent moon had been waiting for him there for almost ten seconds.

When the two head coaches shook hands as usual, Steak saw White Crescent's confident and composed expression, and upon closer inspection, one could even see a hint of smugness. Steak's heart skipped a beat.

"This is bad! Damn it, have I fallen for their trap?" Steak couldn't help but feel a little uneasy.

Similarly, when White Crescent saw Steak's lack of confidence, he felt that TES was even more confident in this game.

It seems like we've got it!

After shaking hands, the two head coaches turned around and stood on either side, walking into the rather spacious players' tunnel.

Not far from where they walked, the two parted ways and headed towards their respective teams' rest areas in opposite directions.

When I arrived here, there was no one around, and I was walking alone in the athletes' passage.

White Crescent thought that if TES won this game, they would take a 2-0 lead over RNG.

If we get to the S9 World Championship, we're basically guaranteed a spot.

If we go to the World Championship and have a bit of luck, we might win a title or something.

Then I'd be a champion coach too.
Forget it, I can't think about it too much.

If I think about it any longer, I might just start humming softly!
It's actually quite normal for someone with a white crescent moon to have these thoughts.

Given that your team's inherent strength is no weaker than your opponent's, or even stronger.

They also targeted their opponents in the draft phase.

Winning this game would then be a natural outcome.

However, in competitive sports, all other calculations, if implemented effectively, ultimately cannot avoid one thing.

That's about improvisation.

Before the match begins, any theoretical advantage is just an advantage, not a guarantee of victory.

Victory is earned through hard work.

It's not something derived from comparison.

White Crescent, brimming with confidence and feeling that TES had the upper hand in every aspect of the game, never expected that the player he had always relied on and trusted would make a mistake at this crucial moment.

The person who caused the problem was not Zhou Dian.

It's rare for Zhou Dian to have problems. In this game, Knight, who had a counter-pick and chose his own hero during the champion selection phase, made a mistake.

Accompanied by the unified cheers of the fans on both sides, ten heroes from each side entered Summoner's Rift.

In the previous game, both sides started with a defensive formation lined up along the river.

Therefore, in the early stages of the game, neither side has any information about the other's jungler's farming activities and can only analyze and guess based on other information.

With neither side having any information about their junglers.

In the previous game for TES, Xx made some mistakes in the early game, but he actually used this lack of transparency to get things done and help the team gain an advantage.

In this situation, TES would naturally be very happy to repeat the situation from the previous game.

Therefore, in this game, TES still adopted a purely defensive formation with all five players lined up along the river at the start.

However, this was somewhat unexpected for the TES team.

RNG also adopted the same starting formation as in the previous game.

What they had in common was a purely defensive formation of five people lined up in a row along the river.

In TES's original plan, RNG was to group up and go to TES's jungle to establish vision control at the start of the game.

Since RNG has adopted a four-protect-one strategy, they definitely need to ensure Uzi's development from the very beginning.

After all, during those years of the pig-dog war, Uzbekistan suffered countless losses at the hands of the factory director.

However, as long as you go to the enemy jungle at the start of the game to establish vision, you will know the enemy jungler's specific jungle location.

Therefore, the situation of being arrested at the second level is definitely unlikely to occur.

Even the situation in the previous game where Xx went to the bottom lane at level three or four to harass Uzi was avoided.

Of course, the downside of grouping up at the start of the game to establish vision in the enemy's jungle is that the enemy will definitely come over to establish vision in your other jungle as well.

With both junglers' starting routes being transparent, the gameplay becomes more formulaic, placing greater emphasis on the laning abilities of teammates.

If your teammates have an advantage in their lanes and lane priority, even if the enemy knows your jungler's position, you can still make plays openly.

Currently, both sides have opted for conservative positioning at the start, and neither side can pinpoint the enemy jungler's starting route.

That would put even greater pressure on the jungler's performance.

In situations like these, a well-timed, clever gank in the early game can be the key to winning the entire match.

TES would be more pleased with this situation.

In Xx's opinion, RNG has even picked a four-protect-one strategy, so how can Karsa's jungle route change in the early game?

It's unlikely.

This basically ensures Uzi's smooth laning phase.

Therefore, Xx felt that he would definitely have more room to maneuver in the early stages than Karsa.

However, it wasn't Xx who made the first move and succeeded in this round, but Karsa!

After discovering that RNG hadn't invaded the jungle to establish vision at the start of the game, Xx had already planned his jungle route for the early game.

He plans to take the initiative in the first wave and target Langx in the top lane.

Unlike the era when TES's top laner was still 369.

At that time, TES's top and jungle players had the highest level of rapport in the entire LPL.

Aside from the team's own tactical reasons.

369 really likes to call for junglers, which is also a major reason.

Xx helped 369 far more often than he helped Knight and the bot lane.

If Xx hadn't invested so much in 369, he wouldn't have uttered that timeless and thought-provoking line, "If I help you, you won't win; if I don't help you, you'll definitely explode!"

However, after Zhou Dian arrived, and with his suggestion, Xx began to provide more assistance to the mid and bottom lanes.

The main focus is on the middle lane.

Thanks to Zhou Dian's exceptional individual skills, this approach effectively maximized the team's overall strength.

Since Zhou Dian joined TES, Xx's most frequent description of Zhou Dian is "He can carry even without help!"

This level of attainment is truly beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Among professional League of Legends players worldwide, very few can reach this level.

After TES changed its tactics, the biggest beneficiary was naturally Knight.

With the jungler as a solid support most of the time, Knight was able to fully utilize his laning ability.

His skill in crushing noobs has reached a level of unparalleled mastery.

In the regular season after Zhou Dian debuted with TES, whenever they played against weaker teams, Knight would basically get two MVPs in a BO3 match.

It can be said that Zhou Dian's arrival indirectly helped Knight win the regular season MVP of this year's Summer Split.

Other teams' coaching staff and analysts can easily grasp TES's style changes by simply watching a few replays.

Therefore, after the playoffs began, White Crescent instructed Xx to make some more changes compared to the regular season.

And that's exactly what Xx himself thinks.

In the previous game, he helped Zhou Dian dive a very crucial tower.

In this game, Xx planned to make his first move by going to the top lane.

Zhou Dian played Camille in this game, and this champion is indeed too weak in the early laning phase right now.

Langx can pressure Camille's lane even when playing a tank champion.

In Xx's opinion, Langx's line is just right.

He was just about to go and catch a bunch of Langx.

As for Knight in the mid lane, he picked a counter pick this game and countered Xiaohu in the hero selection, so he started to suppress Xiaohu aggressively from the very beginning.

Xiaohu is hiding in the back now, so even if Xx wanted to help Knight catch him, he couldn't.

As for using Knight's lane priority in the mid lane to invade the jungle.

Without knowing Karsa's starting route, it's not advisable to blindly invade RNG's jungle.

Moreover, given RNG's four-protect-one lineup in this game, Karsa most likely farmed from top to bottom.

Xx was farming from bottom to top in this game. At this point, he was in the upper jungle. If he went into RNG's blue buff area, he would likely find that there were no jungle monsters left.

That would be a complete waste of time!

Taking advantage of the situation to gank the top lane is a better option.

So, after quickly reaching level 3, Xx went to the top lane.

However, Langx was very alert and had prepared a very far field of vision in advance, so he spotted Xx early on and then slipped away.

Since Langx had already slipped away, Xx didn't waste any more time.

Before even reaching the starting point, they immediately turned around and began farming river crabs.

Langx's early warning further convinced Xx that Karsa's jungle pathing in this game was to farm from top to bottom, prioritizing the bottom lane's jungle clearing at the start.

Knight thought so too.

So he intensified his pressure on Xiaohu, pushing all the way to RNG's mid tower.

(End of this chapter)