Rise

Giving away first blood wasn’t great. Anything but. However, that didn’t mean the game was over. KG still had everything in their own two hands. The three casters for the Official Chinese Broadcast knew that as well. They looked around the map, away from the LeBlanc in mid lane, and soon found something else to latch onto. Something was brewing up in top lane. KG’s Jungler was roaming up the river and into the tri-brush directly below SSK’s outer tower. God Roundy let the lane push his way ever so slightly, making sure the Gnar wasn’t any the wiser. Then the Jarvan IV dashed out from the tri-brush and flanked the Gnar. But the Gnar came prepared. He Hopped onto the Jarvan IV and then further towards his outer tower, then flashed the last bit to safety.

“Nice!” Lolo cheered, waving her arms up and down. “God Roundy can now push the lane! The Gnar has to recall back to base and will lose a ton of experience! This is great for KG!”

Stone nodded and smiled. “Mhm, this should give Roundy some time to build up an advantage. But that reaction speed by the Gnar was out of this world. The Jarvan jumped onto him from the fog of war, and he still found the time and accuracy to Hop onto him and then towards his own tower. That’s some real skill there. If he’d missed, he’d have given away a kill to KG.”

“But they got the Flash out. That’s the important thing here,” Qinghe chimed in. He turned back to the screen and watched the Gnar recall back to base, then added, “Plus, if that Gnar teleports back to lane, then that’s two Summoner Spells gone. He can’t go anywhere, while God Roundy can go anywhere on the map and help his team win an important fight. This is looking great for KG!”

The three casters tried their best to spin the story back in KG’s favour. They had to! But that wasn’t how they felt in their heart of hearts. This game wasn’t in KG’s favour. Things weren’t going great. Quite frankly, the game was quickly slipping away from KG’s grasp. In all of League of Legends, there was nothing more terrifying than the best player in the world on his best Champion. But KG had allowed for that to happen. It didn’t even take Rake five minutes to punish them for that mistake. His LeBlanc was something else. She looked like a different Champion entirely when he played her. In his hands, she was a dark cloud looming over the Rift. An absolute nightmare. No KG player who stepped out of the fountain was safe from her. This was Rake’s LeBlanc.

The casters and the fans at home could all see Rake pulling quickly ahead of his lane opponent. And since they could see it, so could Tian Tian. He panned his camera to mid lane every couple of seconds, just to make sure the game wasn’t lost yet. His nerves were making his hand shake, and he missed a last hit because of it. T-this won’t work… LeBlanc got first blood… He knew Rake. They’d played against each other before, all the way back in Season 1. Tian Tian gulped, his eyes wide with fear. He took his hand off the keyboard and placed it on his other hand, trying to stop it from trembling and shaking. N-no. It’s just one kill… He bit down on his teeth and breathed through his mouth. W-we can still do this! I can still do this! I just have to win harder! I-i will carry!

✹

To win or lose a game of League of Legends. Sometimes it took upwards of an hour, or even longer, to find out who would win the game. Other times, it was decided before the 10-minute mark. There were team compositions and specific Champions that allowed for very quick games. Two such examples were Riven and LeBlanc. If either of them got rolling, while the other went down, they could solo carry the game. They could push a lane all the way down to the Nexus, or teamfight 1v5. It really didn’t matter. Once they got going, they could win the game single-handedly. This game between KG and SSK looked to be heading in that very direction, with the game-deciding fight happening at 6:30 minutes.

It happened at bot lane and started off with a gank by SSK. Rake had teamed up with his Jungler and roamed bot. SSK’s Support and ad-carry were informed over voice chat and eased down on pushing out the lane. The next wave of Blue minions was frozen right outside their own outer tower’s range, and KG’s Jinx was extended far out in the lane. This was an opportunity to get a few last hits where she didn’t have to fight over a kill with her tower. It was a whole lot easier to land the killing blow, especially in the early game, when the tower wasn’t firing off powerful energy shots at the minions. But the Jinx shouldn’t have been tunnel-visioning on the minions. She should’ve noticed that her lane opponents had eased off on the pressure.