YPHC Chapter 13

In the first team battle, the red and blue teams selected by the coaches looked quite promising on paper. The blue team lineup was strong, but the red team wasn’t weak either, with players like the mysterious jungler Cai Zheng and bottom lane player inBlue.

 

As the blue side’s first ban lit up, Jiang Nan’an heard inBlue chuckle in the mic: “This guy… really ridiculous.”

 

Jungler Cai Zheng looked at the ban in confusion: “Ban Siren? What does that mean?”

 

Commentator A was also puzzled: “Banning Siren first? This hero, while strong, has obvious weaknesses and is relatively easy to deal with in matches. Blue team’s ban choice is quite niche. How to put it-they’re probably showing respect to our Teacher Jiang Nan’an, since we all saw his excellent performance with Siren in the Solo battle stage.”

 

“With Siren gone, what else can mid play?” Cai Zheng changed his strategy, using one of their first three bans on Spring’s signature hero Ars, and the other two on currently strong meta heroes. Before his team’s picks, he asked for Jiang Nan’an’s preferences.

 

After all, average players don’t have deep hero pools-having one specialty is already impressive. As the temporary shot-caller, he needed to prioritize his teammates’ situations.

 

Jiang Nan’an sighed slightly: “I’ve practiced most of the common mid laners. Pick whatever fits the composition, I’m fine with anything.”

 

With this assurance, Cai Zheng’s pressure was significantly reduced. During the selection phase, he prioritized the first two picks for the top laner and support who had relatively shallow hero pools, and finally locked in Snow Maiden for Jiang Nan’an in the third slot.

 

Snow Maiden is quite common in solo queue and appears frequently even in professional matches. This hero has a good kit, full of crowd control abilities, can dive in to assassinate carries when attacking or protect herself and escape when retreating, and is especially effective against assassin heroes like Siren and Ars.

 

Cai Zheng’s temporary strategy for the red team was to focus on a “protect-the-one” composition around the bottom lane. Although both were top-tier jungle players, his and Spring’s strengths differed. Spring preferred a carry jungle style-this worked well during his professional career, but after retiring and playing more solo queue, he gradually got used to carrying four teammates, with many of his highlight plays coming from mechanical outplays and reckless aggression. Cai Zheng, on the other hand, excelled at macro play-filling whatever role the team needed, whether it was crowd control or tankiness, a pure team utility player who knew how to maximize compositional advantages.

 

Looking at paper strength alone, the red and blue teams were evenly matched, making it difficult to predict a winner.

 

As the match officially began, Jiang Nan’an went to lane normally to farm minions. His lane opponent was “Suave Bro,” a recently popular entertainment streamer on a certain platform.

 

Although Suave Bro had high popularity, he was essentially an entertainment streamer with a rank around Master. In this game, he was using Eggsy, a hero without strong lane pressure, chosen as a versatile pick that could flex between mid and support. Against Snow Maiden, who is relatively weak in the early game, the mid lane matchup became somewhat dull. Even the broadcast director didn’t focus much on mid lane, giving most of the screen time to the more exciting bottom lane duo.

 

“Whew, the bottom lane is fighting intensely! I like watching streams too, and inBlue’s personal style is very aggressive and dominant, with strong lane pressure. But what surprises me is that even in this situation, he hasn’t gained much advantage. Now it’s about whose support arrives first… Eh? Mid lane is fighting??”

 

After Commentator A’s surprised exclamation, the director immediately switched the camera back to mid lane:

 

“Snow Maiden’s ultimate Blizzard briefly deprives Eggsy of vision, her E skill Wind Control forces a displacement, and her W skill Ice Cage is already waiting at Eggsy’s landing spot. Under this chain of control, Eggsy has absolutely no chance to fight back! Unfortunately, Snow Maiden’s early game damage is still a bit lacking. Eggsy uses Flash to escape. Will Snow Maiden chase? At this health, there seems to be an opportunity! Snow Maiden is chasing! But Spring’s Nana B has already reached the mid lane bush!”

 

In the broadcast, Snow Maiden was chasing the nearly dead Eggsy, hoping to secure the kill, but the fleeing Eggsy suddenly turned and unleashed a wave of abilities. In that split second, Snow Maiden immediately used her Q skill to enter a void state!

 

Snow Maiden’s Q skill maintains a void state for 1.25 seconds, during which she cannot be targeted by abilities and cannot take damage or be controlled. After the void state ends, Snow Maiden can dash a short distance in any direction-an excellent skill for both engaging and escaping.

 

From Jiang Nan’an’s perspective, all he saw was a low-health Eggsy, and not using his Q skill to chase would be unthinkable. But from the spectator view, blue team’s jungler Spring had been waiting in the grass for some time. Eggsy’s abilities were just bait to force out Snow Maiden’s escape skill. Once Snow Maiden landed, the jungler would immediately make a surprise appearance. Whether Snow Maiden died or traded one-for-one with Eggsy, it would be a loss for the red team.

 

The commentator also thought Snow Maiden was doomed to die under Nana B’s claws and had already softened his tone: “Oh? Snow Maiden’s Q was very precise, avoiding Eggsy’s abilities while in void state. It looks like she still wants to chase, but… wait? Snow Maiden isn’t chasing?! She’s retreating! Nana B’s predicted control ability missed! Did he know Spring was waiting in the bush? But Spring doesn’t plan to let Jiang Nan’an go, continuously using abilities to whittle down his health! Can Snow Maiden escape? Snow Maiden reaches the tower with low health, but Nana B still has her ultimate! With this ultimate dash for a tower dive kill, Snow Maiden would have no chance of survival. We know Spring is a player who loves extreme plays-does he have something in mind?!”

 

When Jiang Nan’an saw Eggsy suddenly turn around, he knew something was wrong. After all, Eggsy knew he still had his Q skill. In this situation, turning to use abilities wouldn’t deal any damage and would just get him killed by Snow Maiden’s dash. So unless the enemy mid laner suddenly lost his mind, the only possibility was that he was deliberately trying to bait out the escape skill, which meant Eggsy’s teammate was likely hiding in the nearby bush.

 

Jiang Nan’an might not know much about the enemy mid laner Suave Bro, but didn’t he know Yan Jie?

 

He had the most authority to speak on how much this person loved ganking mid.

 

Sure enough, just as his Q landed, a Nana B skill mark appeared on the ground. The timing of this ability was perfect-if he had chosen to continue chasing forward, the mark would have landed on him instead of the ground, and seconds later, he would have been a cold corpse.

 

After Yan Jie revealed himself, Jiang Nan’an immediately retreated, but Nana B kept using abilities to damage him, seeming determined to fight to the death.

 

Yan Jie, when playing carry junglers, loved tower diving and extreme plays because he had absolute confidence in his mechanics. So even though Jiang Nan’an had reached the safety of his tower, he didn’t feel secure, especially knowing Yan Jie still had his ultimate. But just when he thought Yan Jie was going to tank tower shots to show off and then dance for praise as he had experienced before, the pursuing Nana B suddenly stopped-

 

He halted outside the tower range and, half a second later, turned and disappeared into the jungle.

 

Commentator A breathed a sigh of relief: “Spring gave Snow Maiden a look and decided not to dive. That’s a bit unexpected-this isn’t Spring’s style at all!”

 

Commentator B analyzed rationally: “A tower dive here would actually be quite risky, since Cai Zheng’s Mountain God hasn’t shown up yet, and Snow Maiden’s control abilities are back up. Forcing a dive could easily result in death under the tower. Since this is a match, it’s understandable that Spring, as both the shot-caller and jungler, wants to play more safely.”

 

After the tense but ultimately uneventful mid lane encounter, the first blood finally erupted in the bottom lane. Yan Jie coordinated with his bottom lane and support to dive and take the lives of inBlue and his support, while Cai Zheng secured a kill on the enemy top laner.

 

Spring, who typically just poked mid lane for some damage before leaving, changed his approach this time and camped bottom lane, unexpectedly ganking inBlue seven times. The commentators, knowing they were good friends in real life, jokingly called it “Spring and inBlue’s love-hate relationship.”

 

Later, the red team lost a team fight, giving up the middle tower and dragon. The red team fell behind, but Cai Zheng’s macro strategy was very clear. He managed to drag the game into the late stage and eventually targeted the blue team’s relatively weaker top and mid laners, winning a team fight and ultimately securing victory.

 

On the way back to the studio, Yan Jie looked at Jiang Nan’an, speaking with a hint of amusement in his voice:

 

“Not bad, Mr. Hang, really impressive.”

 

Jiang Nan’an nodded, instinctively replying:

 

“Thanks, you played well too.”

 

inBlue appeared from somewhere, fiercely hooking his arm around Yan Jie’s neck, and sneered:

 

“So this is why you camped bottom lane? Is there a bounty on my head or something? You just can’t resist poking me for some damage?”

 

“Heh.” Yan Jie thought about it and wanted to laugh, but he tried hard to control himself, earnestly lecturing:

 

“Young man, what’s this bad habit of getting heated and looking for fights? Don’t you know the Rift is full of dangers with evil assassins lurking to take your precious life at any moment? Child, this is training from me as your elder, as your esports veteran. As an excellent ADC, you need to learn to be steady, to handle pressure. Look, after being ganked to death a few times, didn’t you learn your lesson? Your laning and teamfighting became so careful, so cautious, and finally! Hard work pays off-you firmly grasped victory in this game! Tsk, I’m genuinely happy for you. You’ve grown up, really.”

 

inBlue rolled his eyes dramatically: “Get lost!”

 

Yan Jie ruffled his hair, then grinned and moved closer to Jiang Nan’an, smoothly continuing their earlier conversation:

 

“Specifically what was good about my play? Good in what way? Elaborate?”

 

“?” Jiang Nan’an had been distracted looking at the surroundings, and was momentarily stunned by this question. Once he realized what this person was saying, only one thought remained in his mind, which he frankly expressed:

 

“You’re so shameless.”

 

Yan Jie was thoroughly amused: “What good thing is face? How can it compare to Mr. Hang’s approval? Come on, don’t be shy, I won’t get cocky. Just say a few words straightforwardly.”

 

“…”

 

He looked at Yan Jie, then at inBlue, and finally at the cameraman approaching with his equipment.

 

Further teasing seemed inappropriate, but silence would be impolite. What should he say?

 

Good that you didn’t gank mid much, allowing me to safely farm into late game?

 

That seemed a bit like taking advantage and then being smug about it.

 

Good job on those flashy plays when ganking our ADC?

 

That might be a bit cruel to inBlue.

 

Jiang Nan’an was silent for a moment, thinking about Yan Jie’s casual chat with inBlue earlier, when a lightbulb suddenly went off in his head.

 

“The fact that Spring God can still dominate Summoner’s Rift at such an advanced age, guiding young people and creating opportunities for them…”

 

Jiang Nan’an paused briefly, finding this reasoning quite brilliant, and nodded firmly, saying with conviction:

 

“Especially impressive! Really.”

 

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(advanced chapters available on kofi)