Chapter 30: The Shroud of Despair! A Counterattack in the Face of Crisis!

"Here we go again! Vi has gone crazy! She's not even farming the jungle anymore!"

"While Taliyah's early game handling was excellent, she lacks Flash. This champion has very weak early combat capabilities, and this is her most vulnerable window!"

"My god... going to such lengths to time cooldowns and bypass vision—this is a literal suicide mission!"

"Ever since being caught at level one, this is the third time Vi has tried to initiate on the mid lane. She hasn't even been farming, and her creep score is already trailing far behind Poppy!"

"But it's working. To avoid her, Taliyah is now positioning extremely far back, forced to wait for the wave to push in."

Although EDG gained an early breakthrough by catching Tarzan in the jungle, Ye Bo quickly felt the retaliatory strikes of "Revenge-Tarzan."

Tarzan cleared two camps in the bottom jungle to hit level three without even touching his Red buff, responding directly to Doinb's call to target the mid lane. While Tarzan's improvisation is slightly lacking, he is an excellent executor as long as someone is directing him or a coach has prepared a plan in advance.

Just as the commentators said, Vi successfully executed a flank on Ye Bo by using her Q to dash over the river wall and patiently waiting twelve seconds for the cooldown to reset, effectively bypassing the wards.

Taliyah has her E, but if she uses it preemptively, Vi can simply move laterally during her charge-up to sidestep the range before committing. The only way to counter this is to rely on pure reaction time. Although it didn't result in a kill, it made Ye Bo’s life miserable, causing him to fall behind significantly in farm.

There was no helping it. Taliyah is inherently weak in the early game and relies heavily on levels. Before reaching level six, she depends on her range and wave-clear to survive and transition smoothly. But without Cleanse or Flash, if she were to be hit by Ahri’s E-Flash combo, the instant burst damage from the duo would be fatal.

Ye Bo isn't a superman; he couldn't possibly react to a point-blank E-Flash. Therefore, the only way to defend himself was to maintain a distance of over 1,000 units and patiently wait for the wave to push toward his tower.

However, in doing so, he fell right into their trap.

Doinb finally showcased his greatest strength in this match: his ability to coordinate and leverage the team. By seizing the window where Taliyah lacked defensive summoner spells, he used the powerful Vi-Ahri combo to force his opponent to concede lane priority, keeping Taliyah from daring to contest the wave.

This granted Ahri a 10–15 second window between waves, allowing her to roam freely without consequence. Whether she was invading the jungle with Vi to hunt the opposing jungler or ganking side lanes, they held the advantage in numbers and lane pressure.

Doinb’s decision was to bring Vi for a heavy gank on the bottom lane! Although jiejie successfully counter-ganked to protect his teammates, resulting in no deaths, it still forced the bottom lane to burn their spells and lose lane priority. Following this, LNG had their support rotate mid to gank immediately after spawning!

[Exploit the mid-lane power trough] → [Control mid-lane priority] → [Use mid-lane priority to seize bottom-lane priority] → [Free up the support to return mid for more opportunities].

It formed a perfect positive cycle.

"LNG may have had a rough start, but they’ve adjusted their tempo quickly. The current situation is exactly the rhythm they excel at!"

"That’s right. LNG has finally displayed the mid-jungle synergy that Doinb is famous for! Of course, it’s also because the level-one gank made Taliyah a bit restricted, and Poppy has a hard time ganking Ahri, making it difficult to relieve the pressure in the mid lane," Jiejie explained the situation.

"To be fair, Ye Bo has handled this quite well. At least he hasn't died; he's been very steady," Miller, the Dragonfly Captain, chimed in to be impartial. "Just being down some CS and tempo is already a feat for a Taliyah who is inherently weak early on."

Ahri is known as the "Scraping Queen," but there is a reason she remains a staple in professional play. Her power spikes are flexible, her mobility is high, she has strong laning with no hard counters, and her fighting ability is very consistent. If a champion like that could also possess significant burst, they would truly be broken.

However, the choice of Taliyah clearly wasn't meant to contest the early laning phase, so Ye Bo wasn't in a rush...

"Damn it! It never ends! They're coming again!" Ye Bo muttered after being hit by the support Nautilus’s Flash-hook yet again, leaving him at half health just as he returned to lane.

"They seem to hate you a bit too much... I'll come and counter-gank for you again." Jiejie had been trying to help mid.

But because Taliyah had to maintain distance to guard against Ahri's E-Flash, it meant that Taliyah could not follow up with her skills immediately. Even if Poppy successfully flanked, it was difficult to coordinate.

This is the importance of "lane priority." The impact it creates cannot be solved by a jungler simply helping out once or twice.

"It's okay, it's okay, I can still hold on," Ye Bo said, mostly just venting. "Jiejie, go help bot. Vi is spamming these ganks on me, but she’s falling behind in levels. Once you hit six, we’ll fight for the Dragon!"

The mid lane is the shortest lane, but also the one with the most gank angles. Compared to the top and bottom lanes, the mid lane has at least four flanking entry points that need to be warded—double that of the side lanes! Therefore, unless the mid laner never leaves the tower or crosses the river, it is easy to expose an opening in their positioning. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Fortunately, although Ye Bo's understanding of "mid-jungle synergy" might not be as refined as Doinb’s, who relies on it to survive, he had his own philosophy. Ye Bo never sat waiting for his doom. He would rather make a mistake—even if his decision wasn't the optimal one—than do nothing at all!

Right now, while LNG had successfully suppressed him, they had only managed to claw back their early disadvantage to gain some initiative, without achieving any "substantive results." And one must realize that the cost of doing this was sacrificed at the expense of Vi's "farming." As long as Ye Bo could stay steady, Vi would eventually become a liability.

After all, Poppy hadn't been wasting time. While she hadn't forced many ganks, she had provided cover and, most importantly, maintained the "jungle clearing lead" gained from the start. Once Poppy hit level six, EDG could capitalize on the timing window to force a team fight over a key objective and turn the game around in one go!

LNG clearly saw this issue. Therefore, they were the ones in a hurry.

At 6:20, Doinb pushed the wave in once more. By now, Poppy had reached level six and was organizing the bottom duo to start the Dragon. Ye Bo checked the minimap; since he was level six as well, he could fly over the moment a fight broke out. He wasn't afraid of their lane priority anymore. However, as a precaution, he used Unsealed Spellbook to swap his off-cooldown Teleport for Cleanse.

At this moment, from the god's-eye view, Ahri and Vi were plotting to break through the mid lane!

"EDG is already on the Dragon. The opposing bot lane is pretending to engage, but look at the positions of the LNG mid and jungle!" the commentary desk noticed the trick. "They're trying to catch Taliyah in the final seconds before her Flash comes back up!"

"LNG is determined to turn their previous series of mid-lane attacks into tangible results!"

The first dragon wasn't impossible to give up. By comparison, if LNG could catch Taliyah during the last few seconds before her Flash returned and secure a breakthrough, it would allow Ahri to seize absolute control of the mid lane. That was the only way to truly take the tempo into their own hands!

Nautilus coming mid earlier and burning his Flash to hook Taliyah was exactly the setup for this moment.

"Her Flash isn't up yet, she swapped for Cleanse, it's useless!"

"Tarzan, go!"

Because EDG’s objective was the Dragon, their vision was concentrated in the bottom half of the map, leaving the top half relatively empty. Vi had already charged her punch against the wall and looped around into the brush behind the tower. She locked onto Taliyah, who was clearing minions under the tower.

Ahri feigned movement toward the Dragon, appearing on the river vision as if she were heading to contest it. In reality, she had snuck behind the F6 wall.

"LNG is attacking from left and right—they're sandwiching Taliyah!"

"Oh no! This looks unsalvageable; given the positioning, she's dead!"

Ahri’s Orb of Deception surged over the wall, a pink heart flying out! Ye Bo’s heart skipped a beat, but he reacted quickly and used Cleanse. However, that heart wasn't meant for crowd control; it was just to deal damage and help her teammates tank the tower shots.

Because at the same time, to Taliyah’s left, a punch had been unleashed!

LNG could simply use raw damage to melt the unhealthy Taliyah, then have Ahri tank the tower before using her ultimate to fly out safely. It seemed to be a guaranteed kill.

"Damn it, brothers, there's a ghost here!!!" Ye Bo howled.

However, his mouth and his hands were always separate. Even as he shouted, his fingers didn't pause; he didn't abandon the hope of outplaying them. But what hope was there? Even if his W hit, he could only knock up one person to trigger his E.

Ahri was tanking the tower—whether he knocked up Vi, who would finish him off with two more punches, or Ahri, who could definitely escape with her R, nothing seemed to change the outcome.

Taliyah moved.

Her ten yellow-black fingers plunged into the earth. With a thunderous roar that echoed across the entire Summoner's Rift, a massive Weaver's Wall erupted from the cracked yellow soil beneath her feet!

Vi, who was in her face, and Ahri, who was in front, were both "lifted" by the stone wall!

At the same time, the [Unraveled Earth] was laid out mid-air—colliding perfectly with the two airborne enemies!

The stones shattered! Both were stunned!

Taliyah flicked her fingers again, chaining a reverse [Seismic Shove], knocking the stunned Ahri back into the tower range, and unleashed a barrage of stones.

[Ctrl + R + R + E + W + Q]

Taliyah can only knock up one person with her [Seismic Shove]? The truth is, she can knock up three!

After taking the full brunt of the [Unraveled Earth], and with the tower’s laser heating up, the health bars of Vi and Ahri looked incredibly fragile. More importantly, because the wall had "knocked back" Vi a significant distance, her position became extremely awkward—she couldn't walk out of the tower range, nor could she output damage.

In the end, only Ahri, who had shaken off the stun, could commit her second R charge in a desperate attempt to trade her life.

Stones and Fox-Fire exchanged blows.

Finally, three death announcements rang out across the Rift simultaneously! The entire venue erupted into a frenzy!