All-round Mid Laner

Chapter 65

Both sides swiftly chose their heroes. Binghun took a bottom lane duo first—the Master Machinist and the Machine Gun Huntsman. Seeing that, Ye Shaoyang couldn't help but turn to Chi Shuo to discuss.

“They want to run a tower-pushing comp?” he asked quietly.

Chi Shuo also answered quietly, “Binghun is very good at destroying towers quickly. With Chen Qianhua's protection, it's very difficult for the enemy to kill their marksman. If their enemies allow the Machine Gun Huntsman to get even two pieces of attack speed gear, it'll become very hard for them to protect their outer tower.”

The ensuing events proved that this was true. The first game was entirely focused on the bottom lane.

Binghun had Chen Qianhua as their support on the bottom lane; Jingzhe had the famed bottom lane duo of the support Li Yunmo and the marksman Xie Yuan. In a 2v2 between these duos, it was very hard for anyone to get a decisive advantage. The junglers on the two teams frequently drifted down to the bottom lane to gank, but with Chen Qianhua acting as support, it was very difficult to kill Binghun's marksman.

During the first team fight around a minor dragon, Binghun blew away everyone's expectations and took two kills while losing none of their own heroes!

The support Chen Qianhua had dispatched his mechanical soldiers in rather exceptional places. He used those soldiers to stun Fang Zhengqing and Xie Yuan at the perfect moment, immobilizing the two carries of Jingzhe's two-core comp.

After Xie Yuan and Jingzhe's mage were stunned, Binghun's jungler found an opportunity to take a decisive double kill!

Ye Shaoyang was practically scared witless. “Binghun really is strong in team fights!”

Chi Shuo said, “Little Chen's ability to seize the right opportunities is indeed powerful. His hit rate with his control skills is extremely high.”

After the minor dragon fight, Binghun's economic advantage began to snowball. Their marksman geared up with attack speed boosting equipment. Along with Chen Qianhua, the marksman started to push Jingzhe's tower with abandon. Jingzhe held out until the twenty-five-minute mark of the game, until Binghun used their tower-focused comp to destroy all of Jingzhe's outer towers. Then, Binghun calmly took down the grand dragon and destroyed Jingzhe's base crystal in one push.

“Congratulations to Team Binghun for taking the first game!”

“Although Jingzhe sealed off two supports that Binghun can initiate team fights with, Captain Chen's support hero pool is extremely deep. It's very difficult for them to completely seal him off.”

“The finals use a cumulative picks and bans format, so let's look forward to seeing how Jingzhe will make a comeback in the second round!”

Hearing that, Ye Shaoyang couldn't help but whisper to Chi Shuo, “Cumulative picks and bans?”

“Mm,” Chi Shuo said. “Division finals are best of five matches. You'll need to take three rounds to win. The world finals are best of seven matches. Four rounds to win. Both follow a cumulative picks and bans format. The heroes you use in one match can't be used again in the next match. It's a major test of the coach's ability to construct viable teams.”

Ye Shaoyang understood now. “If it's like that, then players need to have deep enough hero pools.”

The cumulative picks and bans format was akin to placing all of the heroes in the game, more than one hundred in total, in a large pool. At the beginning of every round, the two coaches would ban a few, and players would be able to pick from the remaining heroes in the pool.

The heroes used in the first round wouldn't be able to be used again in the second round. For example, Binghun's tower-pushing comp was very powerful. But Chen Qianhua had already used the Master Machinist in the first round. Even if Jingzhe's coach didn't ban the Master Machinist in the second round, Chen Qianhua wouldn't be able to select that hero again.