Park Seokho had spoken insolently and had been the one to deliberately provoke the conflict in the first place. Whether online or offline, this kind of provocative solo challenge was not permitted within the team.
Since it was his first offense and because the other members had arrived in time enough to prevent the situation from developing into something more serious, the coaching staff ultimately decided to suspend him for one match and issue a team wide notice as a warning and punishment.
This way, it would not have too much of an impact on the team’s subsequent MSI matches.
Coach Zheng looked through the data from the practice matches. His decision to have Yi Xingran work separately with the members of the first team and practice coordinated play with each of them was already showing its initial results: six wins and three losses. Among them, his duo queue games with Su Letong had almost all been consecutive victories.
Yi Xingran’s playstyle was fast paced and his game awareness was exceptionally strong. Whether it was invading the enemy jungle to establish an advantage or successfully executing ganks in lane, his success rate was remarkably high and his strengths were extremely obvious.
But at the same time, those three losses had also exposed the weakness of this style of play, he could easily become disconnected from his teammates.
More precisely, whenever he initiated a team fight or found an opportunity to engage, his own teammates often struggled to keep up with his pace. If they tried to forcefully follow him and keep the enemy locked down, they could very easily overextend, get picked off and give the opponents an opportunity to turn the fight around.
“Old Cao, in this dragon fight, Fire had already gone in first. As long as you could hold the front line and keep their mid laner under control, preventing him from being able to initiate the fight, why did you hesitate?”
Cao Hanwei looked somewhat bewildered as he rubbed his large buzz cut.
“Did I hesitate? Coach, I really couldn’t keep up!”
Coach Zheng fell silent.
He had watched the replay of this match countless times. Yi Xingran had used Flash to pass through the wall, activated his Rocketbelt to enter the fight, then immediately followed up with two movement abilities to charge straight into the enemy’s face. It had looked almost as though, in the blink of an eye, he had crossed the river from the direction of his own blue buff and dropped directly into the dragon pit.
He secured the Dragon Soul with Smite, then, in the same motion, forced the opposing AD into the corner, where he finished him off with only a sliver of health remaining.
It was difficult.
His hand speed was simply too fast and his style of play was far too reckless. Expecting Cao Hanwei, who had been desperately running along the bottom lane and rotating over for support, to immediately catch up with him was honestly asking too much.
Coach Zheng scrolled to the second match.
“Chen Yi, what about you?”
Chen Yi turned around in his chair and lifted his narrow, single lidded eyes.
“I can follow him with my E skill dash plus Flash but can I actually catch up?”
Coach Zheng frowned deeply.
As the AD carry, Chen Yi using his mobility skill to chase after Yi Xingran was essentially equivalent to giving up his own means of escape and that was precisely what had allowed the opponents to find an opening. They had poured an entire burst of damage into their powerful AD carry, killing him outright and successfully turning the fight around.
“Little Su…”
When Coach Zheng reached the third match, he hadn’t even finished speaking before he was met with Su Letong’s completely innocent pair of eyes.
“Wuwuwu, it’s fine as long as I’m playing Yuumi! But…”
But once he switched to another champion, things became different.
Sometimes he only wanted to go into the river to place a ward, or use a sweep to detect an enemy ward so that he could clear it first. It might take only a few seconds yet by the time he turned his head again, Yi Xingran would already have run eight miles away and more often than not, Su Letong would lose track of him in the blink of an eye.
“Fire, you…”
Coach Zheng looked toward Yi Xingran once again. Beneath his pale pink hair, his brown eyes revealed a trace of bewilderment.
Coach Zheng let out a deep sigh.
“Forget it.”
In all three of those losses, each teammate had their own reason for failing to keep up.
Only the game with Pei Du had not presented any fatal coordination problems. After all, the mid lane had killed the jungle and then Yi Xingran had directly torn through the opposing team. The two of them, one above and one below, had carried their teammates forward until all three lanes took off. With a ten thousand gold lead at twenty minutes, they quickly ended the game.
At the time, the little top laner from the second team had practically been fed all the way to an unstoppable state. Once he simply stood at the front, three opposing players could not even bring him down. It had turned directly into an overwhelming stomp.
Yi Xingran’s playstyle was too independent and his reaction speed when identifying opportunities was simply too fast.
But on the battlefield, the situation could change in an instant. Sometimes, even if he communicated his intentions with the team in advance through voice chat, there might still not be enough time for everyone to react.
Not to mention that the authority to call the shots wasn’t even in his hands in the first place.
“We’ve currently worked out three different lineups and all of them have a certain degree of room for error. Cross, take them through a few custom games this afternoon. If there are no problems, we’ve already scheduled a scrim with Old Yang’s first team tonight. It’ll be the first time the five of you coordinate in a team fight, so test the waters first and see what still needs to be adjusted.”
Yi Xingran was very obedient when it came to following instructions. Seeing that both Cao Hanwei and Su Letong tended to favor semi tank or full tank champions, he didn’t have any objections either. This kind of lineup was generally designed to provide a safety net for the two carries. Even if he, the jungler, completely fell apart and got stomped into the ground, at least as long as the two carries were still alive, there would still be a chance to fight back, right?
Room for error. He understood.
He had played plenty of games like this in his previous life. A few more wouldn’t make any difference.
Yi Xingran had no objections but Pei Du, who rarely contradicted the coaching staff, spoke up first.
“I think all three of these lineups still have room for optimization.”
Coach Zheng had just closed his notebook when he immediately looked up.
“These are the versions with the highest degree of safety that we came up with after discussing them with the data analysts.”
“High safety doesn’t mean the highest win rate.”
Pei Du’s voice remained cool and detached. His eyes, as always, were calm and unfathomable, like a deep ancient well whose surface remained completely undisturbed.
“With the first match of MSI approaching, all we need in the short term is to achieve an effect that catches the opponent off guard and secures the win. We don’t have much time for extensive coordination and practice. We only need to adapt to one rhythm. No matter how the situation changes, the fundamental principles remain the same.”
Coach Zheng’s brows drew into a deep frown. He suddenly had a very bad feeling.
“You want the top laner and support to completely rebuild their champion pools?”
Pei Du’s expression remained as calm as ever. Clearly, Coach Zheng had also realized the optimal solution for this lineup. It was simply that the idea was far too bold and he was unwilling to take such a risk.
“Didn’t you notice? Their win rates on the new champions weren’t bad at all when they were duo queuing together these past few days.”
How could that be the same?!
“We only have one week left! As soon as the play in stage ends, the main event begins. We don’t even know who we’ll be facing in the first match. There isn’t enough time to develop a more targeted strategy!”
Coach Zheng’s expression became increasingly strained.
“Now that Park Seokho has been suspended, the person sitting on the substitute bench is actually going to have to take the field first. He’s a newcomer. Do you know how much pressure he’s going to have to carry?”
Pei Du naturally knew.
His hands were folded together over his knees. He slowly turned his chair and glanced toward Yi Xingran.
“Are you afraid of pressure?”
What kind of international joke was that?!
Yi Xingran was practically the number one person in the world when it came to not feeling pressure.
“Once the network cable is pulled, all the grudges just go to, ”
Yi Xingran sprawled in his gaming chair, forcibly swallowing the final word before it could escape his mouth.
He really was a newborn calf that feared neither the tiger nor the sky. It was practically the very definition of ignorance being fearless!
Coach Zheng continued trying to reason with him patiently.
“This is your debut! Do you understand that in this match, you either prove your worth or spend the entire year being infamous? The public opinion surrounding you is already unfavorable enough. If you lose, have you ever thought about how many people will tear you apart with their words?”
Coach Zheng had seen far too many newcomers who were nothing but momentum and courage. Before stepping onto the stage, they feared neither heaven nor earth but once they were under the spotlight, every tiny detail would be picked apart, magnified and judged.
The sheer pressure of public opinion alone could crush a promising young player who clearly had talent and in even worse cases, it could drive them away from the esports stage forever.
They thought they had prepared themselves mentally, that they were the favored children whom fate had chosen to bless.
But when an overwhelming tide of malice came crashing down upon them, very few people could actually withstand it.
Yi Xingran lifted his eyelids slightly. He raised an eyebrow and gave a light, confident smile.
“Then don’t give them a chance to tear me apart.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
✧ Your mission, should you choose to accept it: FEED THE TRANSLATOR. ✧
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Fire the hole!Chapter 2 · Dude, I’m here to save youChapter 3 · Plaster HeadChapter 4 · I’m well behaved, I don’t talk muchChapter 5 · It’s what Cross needsChapter 6 · What are you barking like a dog?Chapter 7 · “Ah! It’s so… so damn cold~”Chapter 8 · What are you looking at, you pervert!Chapter 9 · The cat I bought for free got dirty.Chapter 10 · Oh no! I forgot to switch to a smaller account!Chapter 11 · It’s my turn to performChapter 12 · Insults? That’s slander! This is slander!Chapter 13 · He’s a very nice personChapter 14 · Hunting TimeChapter 15 · A straight man sells himselfChapter 16 · The number one person who doesn’t eat stressChapter 17 · He is so vividChapter 18 · War! War! War! Kill! Kill!Chapter 19 Part 1 · What’s wrong with guys rubbing against each other?Chapter 19 Part 2 · What’s wrong with guys rubbing against each other?