You've only been playing for half a year, and you've already reached the finals?

Chapter 207 How could Ming Jing sacrifice himself?

After the second tower dive in the mid lane, the game accelerated at that moment.

Without the early burst of power from the Crocodile, LNG appears somewhat powerless in the battle for resources.

Moreover, after honing his skills in the regular season, Mingjing has reached a state of perfection in roaming, and now he can truly balance laning and tempo.

Not only did they maintain lane dominance and quickly widen the gap between mid laners, but they also roamed offline every second, helping the team secure Rift Herald and Dragon!

"The economic gap has already widened to two thousand, and it's only been less than ten minutes! And EDG hasn't even used their first vanguard yet!" In the commentary booth, Wang Duoduo looked at the statistics panel at the top of the screen. "LNG needs to come up with something!"

LNG really needs to find a solution, because they know they are very close to failure.

Ultimately, they set their sights on the mid lane.

To regain momentum, the primary goal is to close the gap in mid lane as much as possible, at the very least to get Icon back into the game.

They have a jungler and support with Lee Sin and Trundle, and their mid laner Renekton also has Flash, so catching a Syndra isn't actually that difficult.

Although EDG's mid and jungle had full vision in the top and bottom rivers, LNG's execution was extremely strong, with their jungler and support charging in despite the vision.

Meanwhile, Icon's crocodile seized the opportunity and used two E skills to dive in!
However, Mingjing's distance control has always been top-notch. Even if the crocodile uses two E jumps to get close, it will still be some distance away from him, and it will be impossible for it to bite him with W.

Ming Jing remained calm, simply using W to grab the magic orb and slam it over, creating a slowing effect!
On the other side, Iwandy's Troll Warlord pressed W to activate the speed boost. With the help of Boots of Speed, the Troll Warlord ran incredibly fast and charged forward, using a pillar to knock Mingjing back!

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Tarzan's Lee Sin made quick moves, warding up and confidently using Q. While he had applied [Sonic Wave] to Mingjing, he immediately charged in with [Echo Slam]!

Behind them, the crocodile in icon's hand also flashed red, and his Red Fury W was ready!

But at that moment, Ming Jing attacked from both sides, finding a perfect angle, and fired REQ in quick succession!

The ultimate skill is unleashed at the crocodile, followed closely by the E skill. The countless orbs of the ultimate skill have barely hit the crocodile when they are pushed away, and then stunned.

Q [Dark Orb] was placed in the path of Lee Sin's Echo Slash, and was also pushed away, directly interrupting Lee Sin's dash!
An E shot from a tricky angle, simultaneously pushing the ball in two directions, stunning two players!
At that moment, countless people were taken aback.

Did they run away?
But the audience clearly underestimated the determination of the LNG team.

A golden light lit up.

The only troll that wasn't knocked unconscious flashed up and bit into Mingjing, slowing him down!
Then another golden light appeared, and Leng Shao, who had been pushed away, flashed up and used his Red Fury W to slow down Leng Shao!
Then, there was golden light again!
Even without W or Q, Tarzan still managed to Flash in, used E to slow Syndra down, chased her down and punched her a few times, ultimately giving the kill to Renekton.

"LNG finally managed to kill Xiaofei, but at the cost of three Flashes!" In the commentary booth, Wang Duoduo frowned as he watched the exchange. "It doesn't seem like a very good trade!"

Generally speaking, even if you use two Flash to kill someone, you're already at a slight loss, let alone three Flashes.

And most importantly, EDG isn't stupid either.

Since his debut, JieJie has always worked alongside the mid-laner, and this year he has evolved to the point where he is inseparable from the mid-laner.

Now that JieJie has the Herald in his hand, and hasn't counter-ganked in the mid lane yet, where can he go?
The camera cuts to the top lane, revealing the answer.

Flandre Kennen used his ultimate to dive into the tower and initiate with crowd control. Jeje Ferguson then charged in with his fully charged W and finished him off with his ultimate, securing the kill on Ale's Jayce!

Saint Gun doesn't really have much of an advantage in the top lane, since Kennen isn't an easy matchup against Jayce either, as it requires a lot of skill.

But after this wave of fighting, things will obviously be different.

With a large wave of minions pushing into the tower, and the Rift Herald providing additional support, EDG will be able to directly destroy the top lane tower!
"LNG is still losing money!" Wang Duoduo commented. "And it's a huge loss!"

On one hand, three flashes resulted in a kill, and even if you include pushing the lane into the tower and taking two layers of plating, the maximum gold gain would only be seven or eight hundred.

On the other side, it's also about kills, but with the gold from the first tower kill, EDG's total income from this wave will be close to 2,000!

This difference quickly manifested in the economic gap, which had been just over two thousand, but after this wave, it widened to three thousand five!
And most importantly, even if Icon gets a kill, he is still no match for Mingjing.

After Mingjing returned to the game, he was not held back at all because of his death. With Luden's Echo, he continuously attacked the crocodile with his skills.

Ming Jing first used W to hit the crocodile on the head, and then followed up with EQ while it was slowed down.

Luden bursts forth again from above the crocodile's head, bringing it to near-death!

If Mingjing hadn't used his ultimate ability to escape in the previous wave, the crocodile would probably have died again!
However, his extremely low health forced Icon to activate his ultimate ability to heal, and then he waited under the tower for the minions to enter.

Mingjing watched as the crocodile used its ultimate skill, typed out the cooldown in a flurry of words, and then turned and left the mid lane.

Once the crocodile loses its ultimate ability, it's essentially useless. Mingjing didn't bother to continue attacking the crocodile, as the benefits were too small.

Syndra and Fryegor appeared in the bottom lane this time, and a four-man gank on the bottom lane came out of nowhere!

The scene was quite brutal. Thresh used his E to flip two people and triggered Aftershock to tank the tower. Mingjing just used WEQR to instantly take down the bomb's health bar.

The remaining troll, though tanky, couldn't withstand the attacks for long and was eventually killed by Aphelios with a single shot!

"At this point, the time has reached 14 minutes, and EDG can take down the bottom tower and the newly spawned dragon at the same time!"

Looking at it now, the economic gap between the two sides has widened to six thousand.

When the time reached 22 minutes, the number had widened to 10,000!
Taking advantage of their huge lead, EDG chose to close the gap and initiate a team fight around Baron Nashor.

LNG, however, did not give up and launched a desperate battle.

However, in this team fight, Flandre capitalized on the opponent's inability to establish vision under adverse circumstances. He circled around from behind LNG's top red buff area, and Kennen's Thunderstrike landed, delivering a fatal blow to his former team!
A perfect 0-for-5 exchange was executed.

Without needing Baron Nashor, EDG pushed forward and ended the game at 23 minutes and 45 seconds.

Congratulations to EDG for winning the first game of the playoffs!

"Yes, congratulations to EDG!" Tongxi watched as the five EDG players stood up and high-fived, a smile involuntarily appearing on her face. "I didn't expect this game to end so quickly!"

"This is a classic EDG-style victory!" Wang Duoduo laughed. "Once they gain an advantage, they'll snowball it quickly, and the game will end very fast!"

"Actually, LNG's draft strategy was quite good, and their lineup structure was excellent, but unfortunately, they had problems in the mid lane, which led to a complete loss."

"Hopefully, Icon can go back to the rest room and adjust his mindset so that he can deliver a more consistent performance in the next game!"

At this moment, the live stream chat was filled with comments, all of which were from fans celebrating.

Although LNG is on a strong run, no loyal fan would believe their team will lose to LNG.

Inside the LNG back-office lounge.

LNG coach Rather looked at the returning players, a ruthless glint in his eyes.

Rather is Griffin's former coach and came to LNG with Tarzan.

In South Korea, where there is a strict hierarchy based on age and status, coaches hold a very high position. These coaches don't care about the players' mentality; if anyone commits a crime, they will be immediately taken to court!
The person being summoned to court this time is, of course, Leng Shao from the mid lane.

Icon had nothing to say about the coach's criticism, only lowering his head to admit his mistake, "My bad, the other side played too well, I couldn't handle it." In fact, Leng Shao was also quite helpless about this collapse.

Even after the match, he didn't think he had made any major mistakes.

But the other side is just that freakish, what can you do?
Coach Rather was speechless for a moment after listening to the translator's words.

Some things are clearer to them from God's perspective. It can only be said that the moment the crocodile was locked in, this game was destined to be difficult.

In the face of the strong, conventional relationships of restraint do not exist.

"Next game, we need to play it safe," Rather said seriously. "Don't think about winning against Phi in lane, that's too difficult. As long as we can hold our own in mid lane and play our part, we have a chance."

When icon heard this, he nodded and had no objection.

After this match, Leng Shao was brought back to reality.

Phi is truly different from other mid laners.
Immediately afterwards, OMG began discussing the draft picks and bans.

The side-selection rules for this summer playoffs have been slightly changed. Only the first round of the playoffs still uses the fixed side-selection rules as before. The teams ranked higher in the regular season will directly get the right to select sides for the first, third, and fifth games.

However, subsequent matches will fully adopt the loser-chooses-sides rule, aligning with the World Championship rules.

This time, they opted for the loser's side, choosing the red side, because they really couldn't afford to lose.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the EDG team, who had just won the game, were much more relaxed, and several of them were praising Flandre's performance in this game.

Flandre played reasonably well this game, had a slight advantage in the laning phase, and took off completely after taking the first tower, with Popo unleashing a powerful ultimate!

Because of his perfect team fight performance, coupled with an undefeated record, he even snatched the MVP award from Ming Jing.

Saint Gun has actually won MVP quite a few times, even fewer than Meiko.

This guy probably has the same twisted sense of humor as Mingjing; he gets especially excited every time he plays against his former team.

"."

The break time passed quickly, and both players returned to the stage for the second round of ban/pick.

This time, Mingjing was placed on the red side and had the second turn. It seems that LCK didn't dare to be careless this time and honestly locked in Syndra.

Syndra is arguably the highest priority pick in this patch, but there are actually quite a few champions that can counter Syndra within this patch; it mainly depends on the player's personal style and ability.

Seeing that Irelia wasn't banned, Mingjing didn't think much of it and immediately locked in Irelia to counter her.

Although Irelia's W skill was nerfed, her wave clear ability wasn't fundamentally damaged like Lee Sin's, so she's still playable.

In fact, after the nerf, Irelia is even stronger against some ranged champions.

Previously, W would instantly kill ranged minions, but now it sometimes severely damages minions, allowing Irelia to use Q to dash through minions and close the gap.

On the other hand, LNG also quickly began to demonstrate its understanding of the version.

Having already secured Syndra, they surprisingly switched their pick to Galio in the final second round, fourth and fifth moves!

This choice is quite interesting.

"Galio?" Meiko couldn't help but adjust her glasses upon seeing this choice. "So Syndra is in the bot lane?"

Syndra as a bot lane carry was quite common in the S9 patch. In the group stage of that year's World Championship, Syndra was even a regular pick in the bot lane to replace the weak AD carry in the early game and enhance early-game competitiveness.

But now, LNG has made a comeback.

And it must be said, there's a reason for this.

Because Viper locked in Aphelios this game, this champion obviously can't lane against Syndra.

Galio also has a very strong counter effect against Irelia!

And a crucial point is that LNG also chose a top lane weapon.

With this champion picked, it will be very difficult for EDG to get Irelia to the top lane, as Irelia cannot counter Jax.

"So what do we do?" Maokai asked, "Who wants to play Irelia?"

It's true that Irelia has the ability to be played in the mid or top lane, and LNG's mid and top laners are good at countering Irelia, so they obviously anticipated EDG's Irelia pick.

Whoever plays Irelia is the one who gets sacrificed.

"Need I say more? Let's play!" Holy Gun Bro said nonchalantly, "How can Ming Jing be sacrificed? He should be the one killing the other side!"

Flandre has a clear understanding of his role in the team; he is the one who should be sacrificed.

Sacrifice Mingjing and make him the core leader? That doesn't make sense.

Maokai smiled when he heard this.

EDG is really worry-free right now.

He turned and asked, "What about Mingjing? Is there any hero who can counter Galio? We're lacking AP damage dealers this game."

Galio is a mage's nemesis, so it's actually quite difficult to find a mage who can easily defeat Galio.

“No problem.” Ming Jing looked at the lineup in front of him, and a choice immediately came to mind.

This was a hero that Icon had previously chosen, and after Ming Jing noticed it, it was naturally added to his arsenal.

This hero possesses devastating teamfight capabilities, but in the early game, he primarily focuses on AD damage output, even starting with a Doran's Blade.

It was Kennan!

Heart of the Berserker, locked on!
Picking Kennen this time was truly a smokescreen effect.

After all, Flandre just won MVP, and he is indeed a good choice to play against weapons; he looks like a top lane Kennen.

However, after Kennen was moved to EDG's mid lane, he never changed again until both teams locked in their lineups and entered the final confirmation stage.

Wang Duoduo finally realized something was wrong: "Huh? On EDG's side, Kennen seems to be in the mid lane!"

Icon was all set to use Galio to fight Irelia, and even had the Bone Plating rune selected, but after returning to the game interface, he realized something was wrong.

Mid lane Kennen?

Isn't this my trick?
icon frowned, quickly opened the talent page, and replaced the skeleton with double resurrection.
(End of this chapter)