League of Legends: Reborn in Season 3, Tuning the Entire League

Chapter 220 FNC is overthinking it!
"Oh my, Sword Demon!"

"NXG isn't going to waste time with your nonsense, they've just thrown out a one-on-two!"

This war will be my masterpiece!

—Aatrox, the Darkin Blademaster.

To be precise, it was the Darkin Blade in its original version.

Passive [Blood Well]: Aatrox can infuse his Blood Well with health through abilities, converting stored health into attack speed and resurrection ability. When he takes fatal damage, he resurrects by drawing stored health from the Blood Well, with the resurrected health being proportional to the stored amount, and gaining 1% attack speed for every 2% of stored health!
(Note: The resurrection cooldown is five minutes!)
Q is a forward leap that knocks up enemies at the center point. W is Bloodthirst/Blood Reward, which is his signature damage skill. Half of it restores health after three attacks, and the other half deals extra damage on the third attack, continuing Riot designers' fondness for the number three.

Aatrox's E skill, "Painful Blade," is relatively simple. He unleashes a sword aura in one direction, dealing damage to enemies and slowing them by 40%.

The final ultimate skill, [Bloodbath], is similar to the skills of Master Yi, Wuju Blademaster, and Highlander Blademaster. Upon release, it deals magic damage to surrounding enemies and increases Aatrox's attack speed and attack range by 175.

From a certain perspective, the old version of Aatrox, with its infinite auto-attacks combined with charging into the crowd and wielding his sword to kill, was more in line with his name. The rework of Aatrox in 2018 not only increased his overall pick rate in both casual and professional play, but also turned him into a reckless brute.

In fact, in the latter half of 2017, Riot Games made minor changes to Aatrox. That version, which required manual control of resurrection, was Jiang Ming's favorite.

FNC frowned as they saw the Darkin Blademaster chosen on the fourth floor.

The most difficult to deal with are heroes who are not part of the intelligence network.

NXG, what are you doing? You're not the stronger party, so why did you play your card first?

Aatrox can be played in the top lane or jungle, and in certain matchups, it's not impossible for him to be moved to the mid lane.

Such a hero who can switch between three lanes, you draw him in the first game of the quarterfinals, who would throw out a royal flush at the start of a game!

"What should I do, coach? Should I pick Zac for top lane?" sOAZ asked proactively.

Deilor shook his head. "Let's switch to Rumble. If Aatrox goes top lane, Rumble can effectively suppress his health."

Aatrox's skills have long cooldowns in the early game, and he has to go forward to last-hit minions to get the healing from his W. Before he gets lifesteal items, it's hard for him to fight against Rumble. As long as you can lower Aatrox's health, Elise, who has excellent tower-diving ability, can take care of him however she wants.

It doesn't matter much if Aatrox is playing jungle, since Elise is already a jungle powerhouse and they have an advantage in early game fights.

By controlling the lane with Rumble, you can better coordinate with the jungler to invade.

As a former professional poker coach, Deilor is very good at analyzing his opponents' thinking and using data to deduce logic to find the key to breaking the deadlock.

Currently, apart from the opponent's unrevealed top laner, FNC has no clear disadvantages in the other four lanes.

“Normally, xPeke, I should recommend you play a champion like Gragas or Orianna, but the enemy team composition is just too solid, so I need you to act as a disruptive assassin.”

After considering top laner Deilor, he turned his attention to his own mid laner, the Mage King.

"NXG's breakthrough point is in the mid lane, and FNC needs a hero to tear open their gap!"

The gap is in the middle.

"Hmm, Talon, Fitz, or LeBlanc?"

After the head coach showered him with compliments, xPeke beamed with joy, practically floating on air. He immediately drew up a whole bunch of hero options from his pool and presented them to the other player.

"Fitz!"

Faced with a long-range opponent like the female police officer fox, the little fish man's agility makes it much easier for him to enter the fray than other assassins.

As FNC locked in Rumble and Fizz on the fourth and fifth picks, Song Yuan and Xu Jing on the NXG player bench laughed as they watched the mid lane picks: "Qiangzi, FNC is clearly not taking you seriously. How can you tolerate this?"

Choosing Fizz over a long-range fox clearly indicates that the mid lane is the point of attack.

Jiang Ming didn't immediately interrupt the players' discussion; he was also curious to know how Yihan, the mid-laner, would react.

"They think I'm the weak link in NXG's team!"

In the center, Yihan smacked his lips, not saying anything harsh, but silently adjusting a set of runes that were more effective for Ahri against Fizz in lane.

Your status is earned through your own efforts; making excuses only makes you appear as someone who is incompetently furious.

These people don't think that they're just coasting by being able to be Ming's substitute. Everyone in the world knows that JM's understanding of the game is unparalleled, and the whole world recognizes JM's command decisions and personal strength.

So, among all the players in the world, who is closest to JM and can receive his guidance and experience at any time?

After the ban/pick phase, Jiang Ming's final pick for the team was Kennen, the Heart of the Tempest!

With the top laner Kennen's pick finalized, the team compositions for both sides were officially confirmed.

On the big screen, the energy bars of the blue and purple sides clashed fiercely—

(Here's a rendering of the actual site)
FNC (Blue Side): Top lane Rumble, Jungle Elise, Mid lane Fizz, Bot lane Corki and Sona.

NXG (purple side): Top lane Kennen, Jungle Aatrox, Mid lane Ahri, Bot lane Caitlyn and Zyra. As the cheers for NXG from the audience rose and fell, head coach Jiang Ming suddenly stopped on his way backstage.

While the viewers in the live stream were wondering what was going on, the camera captured an unexpected scene: Jiang Ming reached out his hand to the FNC head coach.

This move made many people realize that in the past, many teams in the region did not have a head coach, and the handshake was limited to the players; but on the stage of the World Championship, when most teams are equipped with tactical cores, the lack of a courtesy greeting between head coaches is indeed like a main course without dessert.

After a brief moment of surprise, Deilor also extended his right hand, "Perfect BP!"

Only he himself knew the true nature of the problem that the person in front of him had presented him with after everything that had just happened.

The two picks, Caitlyn and Ahri, seemed like they were likely to be targeted first in the draft, but in reality, both carries are long-range types, making it difficult to counter them effectively. Instead, the opponent largely figured out the reason why the team chose support first.

Jiang Ming winked and smiled at Deilor's compliment, replying, "There is no such thing as a perfect BP in the world."

"However, I am quite satisfied with the choice I made today."

"me too."

Looking at the two coaches on screen, many viewers in the live stream added their own commentary:
JM's handshake opened up a new world in the history of League of Legends esports.

This is just a small step for him personally, but a giant leap for the professional League of Legends scene (doge emoji)

[(Humorous) He not only filled the gaps in the procedures, but also silently defined a new paradigm of etiquette for professional sports events.]

……

The scene shifts, and we are suddenly in Summoner's Rift.

NXG's five players started from slightly different positions. Pang Ran controlled Zyra and followed Ahri in the mid lane to the top half of the map, placing the first ward in the bush near his red buff wall.

The female police officer Kennen and the sword demon have reached the river in the lower half of the map.

Watching FNC's Fizz sneakily moving along the wall from the bottom lane's tri-bush, Xu Jing complained:
"Tsk, the analyst's heatmap is really reliable. They really like to have the mid laner ward the bottom half of the map."

"That's normal. Once Fizz learns E at level 2, junglers won't be interested in him much in the early game unless he uses his abilities voluntarily. Instead of wasting wards in the mid lane, it's better to control the bottom half of the map. If Sona leaves an extra bush in the lane, she might gain an advantage in the lane."

After wandering around the top half of the map, Pangran and Fox immediately moved to the bottom lane.

"With Rambo and Spider-Man on board, let's get this going!"

The vision ranged up and spotted the positions of Spider and Rumble. Without hesitation, NXG's five players placed Ahri in the mid lane to taunt Corki, while the other four quickly pushed into FNC's red buff area.

Just as Deilor had considered, Aatrox couldn't directly confront Rumble and Elise in the early game, whether in the top lane or the jungle.

Therefore, controlling the Spider's movements in the jungle in the early levels can help Aatrox relieve a lot of pressure.

"NXG invaded the red zone, and FNC noticed. Hey, the Corki and Sona went straight up. Is this a deliberate lane swap?"

Miller was a little confused.

Why would FNC switch lanes if they already have Rumble?

Xiaoxiao seemed to understand a little, but she wasn't very sure. She could only guess and say, "I think FNC's coach probably thought that the probability of winning against NXG in a normal laning phase was not high, so he adopted a lane swap strategy. Judging from their bot lane going straight to the red buff area, they must have come prepared today."

"Fortunately, NXG has excellent vision control and detected the movements of the FNC players immediately."

"The minions have already spawned, and it's too late for the bot lane to rush to the top lane now. NXG has no choice but to accept the lane swap for the time being."

"However, we can see that Norsha has a lot of experience in dealing with lane swaps. He didn't rush to spawn the first wave of minions. He learned the E skill and attacked a group of Krugs first."

NXG is perfectly willing to accept the need for cable replacement.

Not to mention that Zyra, the female police officer, can control the dragon in the bot lane, even Aatrox, with his passive ability, is no less capable of tower diving than Elise.

In terms of tower diving details, they even did a better job than FNC.

At two minutes and fifty seconds, Pang Ran and Xu Jing slowly pushed the first wave of minions. Once the Sword Demon arrived, the two, having reached level two, pushed the second wave of minions under the tower.

Three level-twos against one level-one Rambo – the outcome was predictable.

Zyra initiates by tanking the tower, then uses her Q and E abilities to retreat at lightning speed, causing the tower's laser to switch to Aatrox.

Despite sOAZ's masterful play, managing to dodge Aatrox's Dark Leap with Flash, Zyra's E skill, which involved some prediction, kept him firmly under the tower.

The policewoman followed up with a trap, and as the Sword Demon was forced to his limit and his passive was triggered, a headshot from Poppy took him out.

"Hehehe, I told you FNC guys were overthinking it."

Off the field, PDD, watching the quarterfinals, burst into laughter.

(End of this chapter)