LOL: What does "mid-lane hybrid expert" mean?

Gangnam District, Seoul, South Korea.

SSG team training base.

"Ah...what a pity."

Crown flicked the mouse and muttered a complaint.

Wanting to counter Sion's mindless lane pushing, he signaled for a gank from the jungler. However, as soon as he initiated with [Nether Grasp], the enemy Sion used his ultimate [Savage Charge] to negate the pressure.

"Is something the matter, Minhao-ge?"

Hearing the complaints, Ruler quickly turned around to fawn over him.

Seeing that Crown's water glass was empty, Ruler yelled at the second team's training room, "Damn it... you guys in the second team, do you think the water will magically flow into Minho's glass?"

"It's okay, it's okay... I can do it myself."

Crown took the water bottle handed to him by the new recruits from the second team and put it aside before returning to the laning phase that was giving him a huge headache.

As a player who is extremely skilled at roaming in lane, he has a habit of intentionally controlling his mana regardless of the champion he plays.

Take Malzahar, for example.

The base mana cost of the E skill is 60, which increases to 100 at max level, while the W skill only requires 60 mana even at max level.

Although maxing E in a normal game wouldn't lead to mana depletion, out of caution as a professional player, he still chose to use W to push lanes, in order to conserve more mana for roaming.

But the consequence is that Sion gets to eat a few more small bugs every wave of minions. This probably isn't foreshadowing anything...

  

"Hmm? The mid laner on the other side is called LeeE?" Ruler leaned over to take a look and felt that the ID looked familiar.

"Oh, I remember now, this is the rookie mid laner from the LPL team EDG, who played in the Demacia Cup yesterday."

"The Demacia Cup?"

I've never heard of Crown.

"It's similar to the KeSPA cup in South Korea."

Why does Ruler know so much about this?

The answer, of course, is—endless hatred!

If you were to ask who hates SKT the most in the world, Park Jae-hyuk would dare to say he's second, and no one in the LPL would dare to say they're first.

After all, they were the team that had repeatedly stopped him from winning the championship.

Therefore, because of this, even though Easyhoon and Bengi, the champion mid-jungle duo from SKT, came to the LPL, they still couldn't escape Ruler's watchful eye.

After hearing that VG, who had made a comeback in the summer split, was crushed by EDG, who fielded two rookies, Ruler naturally rushed to the live stream to mock them.

"So how did this guy do?"

As the laning phase progressed, Crown became increasingly curious about this Sion.

It's clear that the opponent knows Malzahar very well; at least from level one until now, I haven't been able to successfully interrupt their Q charge even once.

"Let me think... He's pretty good. Anyway, Easyhoon can't handle his roaming at all."

Ruler thought back for a moment.

As a top professional AD.

From his perspective, it's clear that Li Yi's balance between laning and roaming is not as simple as it seems on the surface.

-----------------

Inside Li Yi's live stream.

"Wow, so many new viewers today! Follow me so you don't get lost. I'll teach you some essential tips for climbing the ranks—last-hitting under the tower!"

Seeing the number of online users still soaring in the upper right corner, Li Yi quickly decided to teach something real.

[You just focus on entertaining the streamer; I have someone else to teach you how to last-hit towers.]

You're not talking about Ba..., are you?

[Are there really people who can't last-hit under the tower? It's practically a given!]

"You guys don't really think that what I mean by 'last-hitting under the tower' is simply waiting for the front-line minions to get hit by the tower twice before last-hitting them, and then last-hitting the back-line minions after they get hit by the tower once, do you?" Li Yi shook his head.

"Come on, let me show you the details!"

Seeing the three backline minions about to enter the tower, Li Yi immediately switched to teaching mode and began explaining the strategy to the audience.

"Look closely at these three back-row soldiers. One of them is at half health, and the other two are at full health."

"Following the normal tower-entry order, this half-health minion, being the one at the very front, will be the first to enter the tower's attack range. This will disrupt our tower-farming rhythm."

"And what is our ideal scenario? It's when two full-health backline minions enter the tower first. They will be attacked by the tower one after the other, and we can easily take them down, and then use WA or QA to finish off the half-health minion."

"So how exactly should it be done?"

Li Yi maneuvered Sion toward the side in front of the tower.

The key to maintaining this distance is to ensure that you attract the aggro of the half-health backline minion while remaining outside the aggro range of the two full-health backline minions.

After seeing Sion's massive body, the half-health minion immediately had three exclamation marks above its head and raised its hand to launch a basic attack at Li Yi.

Under the stunned gaze of the viewers in the live stream, the remaining two backline minions squeezed out from beside the veteran who was attacking Sion and were the first to walk under the tower.

【? ? ? 】

This actually sounds pretty true; I've never heard of it before.

What about the one that only requires hands?

Oh no, where's my hand?

After returning to the city.

Li Yi upgraded his straw sandals to Boots of Lightness and acquired a Sunfire Cape item called "Bambi's Slag".

"At this point, some people asked, 'Why isn't the enemy Malzahar building Mercury's Treads?'"

"The reason is simple: after I used my R to negate the crowd control, the enemy Malzahar will most likely not use his R on me again so easily."

"In this version, Malzahar usually builds Rylai's Crystal Scepter immediately after completing a missing chapter. Sion is very afraid of this kind of long-lasting slow in team fights. If he doesn't want to become a pure punching bag in team fights, he can only choose Boots of Swiftness."

On the way back to the center line.

Li Yi switched screens again to check the bottom lane.

The pace of high-level games in the Korean server is extremely fast; seizing an opportunity can lead to a snowball effect.

After learning that the enemy Lucian had used both of his summoner spells, their jungler decisively initiated two tower dives, successfully helping the bot lane establish a clear advantage.

Now that EZ has acquired key items, he can stabilize the situation in a solo lane.

Bard was thus freed and began to travel around providing support.

"Oh? Bard has given us a 'on the way' signal!"

Seeing Bard picking up the passively dropped Wood Spirits along the way as he rushed towards the mid lane, Li Yi immediately explained to the chat:

"See? Bard chose to give back to me first."

"Although the jungler helps the bot lane a lot and a lot, our advantage is that we help them early! In economics, this is called 'angel investor'."

Confirming that Bard was about to take position, Li Yi pressed the R key, controlling Sion to activate [Rampage] once again!

Die!

Because the passive shield on the grasshopper was still active, Crown didn't immediately think of using Flash to dodge.

However, Sion had already activated his W [Soul Furnace] in advance, and decisively detonated the shield when the model got close to Malzahar, accurately breaking the passive protection of [Void Crossing].

After taking a full combo from Sion, Bard, who was lying in ambush in the river, threw his ultimate ability, Harmony of Fate, at Malzahar.

Crown was forced to use Flashbang.

He knew that if Bard's ultimate caught him, he would be hit by Sion's fully charged Q, and by then he probably wouldn't have a chance to flash.

"OK!"

"The enemy Malzahar could have used his E skill to last-hit minions, but now that his health is so low and he doesn't have Flash, he can probably only stand under the tower and release some small insects."

"We shouldn't push him forward. Just give him the distance to let his worms eat minions. Anyway, every time he uses W, we can get an extra 12 health points."

"That's what you call—"

"Cut five worms today, cut ten worms tomorrow. Then you can get a peaceful night's sleep!"