"RNG's suffocating tempo let them crack EDG's base in just thirty minutes and grab match point!"
"Once either side got a lead, they just strangled the other team. There was no room to breathe at all."
"EDG's really gotta reset after this one."
Inside the arena, the crowd noise kept rolling like waves, but in EDG's prep room, the mood was ice-cold.
In the Capital City's Wukesong Arena, the voices of the casters—Commentator, Commentator, and Miller—echoed through the stadium as they announced that in this S7 Spring Split semifinal, RNG had already reached match point, while EDG teetered on the edge of elimination.
In EDG's lounge, though, the only sounds were coach Nofe and the translator going back and forth.
"Why didn't you ward raptors level one? You knew Lee Sin was gonna invade your jungle," Nofe asked, his words passed along through the translator to Ailoroli.
Yeah, that's right.
EDG's jungler this Spring Split wasn't the famous Clearlove7, but Ailoroli.
"I told mid to cover me. I asked him to ward raptors," Ailoroli snapped back, clearly annoyed. "My own ward has to be saved for my blue side."
In the last game, Ailoroli had been on Ivern, while MLXG on the other side had locked in Lee Sin.
If there's ever a matchup where Lee Sin is absolutely invading your jungle, it's Lee versus Ivern. You have to prep for it.
"When… did you… ask me… to… ward for you?" Scout finally lost it when he heard Ailoroli pushing the blame his way. He stared at him, face darkening. "You're… kinda… ridiculous, you know that?"
At this point, Lee Ye-chan—Scout—still hadn't fully gotten the hang of fluent Mandarin, so every sentence came out choppy and awkward.
"Did I or did I not ping you? Check the replay!" Ailoroli shot back, completely triggered by that "ridiculous" line. He suddenly stood up, jabbing a finger at the monitor and raising his voice.
"Pinging equals warding now? If you don't say it, how am I supposed to know?" Scout fired right back, also heated now. He didn't even bother with Chinese anymore and just snapped in Korean: "ssi-bal!"
The translator relayed everything Scout said.
Of course, that last "ssi-bal" did not get translated.
"Bro, you're an import from Korea. You don't understand when I talk in Chinese, you don't understand pings… If the other team had a Korean import, I'd honestly suspect you're secretly inting for your home country," Ailoroli said, face going dark as he spread his hands in mock helplessness. "You're unbeatable, man."
If there was one thing Ailoroli excelled at, it was passive-aggressive trash talk. The moment those words landed, Scout just mentally snapped.
"You're the ridiculous one!" Scout stood up too, no longer bothering to hold back.
"You're unbeatable!" Ailoroli shot back, refusing to back down even half a step.
The two of them immediately fell into full-on flaming, trading barbs like they were in solo queue voice chat instead of a pro team's lounge.
Nofe just stared at them, momentarily stunned.
Last year, he'd been the head coach of ROX Tigers. Under his leadership, ROX and SKT had put on one of the greatest best-of-five series in the entire history of professional League of Legends on the Worlds stage.
His coaching chops were beyond any doubt.
But coming from the LCK, he had never seen anything this absurd before.
No way something like this would fly in the LCK.
Yet here he was, watching it happen in the LPL right in front of him.
Nofe felt like a stampede of alpacas was running back and forth in his skull.
He'd never run into a situation like this, and honestly, he was kind of at a loss.
Creak.
Just as the two were going at each other, the lounge door swung open.
Nickname walked in from the hallway.
He'd already heard the mid laner and jungler flaming each other from outside, and he was fuming before he even stepped through the door. The second he came in, he snapped, "What are you two yelling about? Huh? What are you arguing about? I'm asking you, what are you even arguing about?!"
His sharp, slightly nasal voice cut through the room, drilling the same question in three times.
Scout and Ailoroli, who'd both been all fired up a moment ago, instantly went quiet like cicadas in winter.
Nickname was not like Nofe. In EDG, his authority was absolute.
Aside from Clearlove7, there really wasn't anyone he couldn't just stomp all over.
Once the mid and jungle fell silent, Nickname didn't waste a second. Halftime was short, and he had to squeeze every bit of value out of it.
He turned toward the two players sitting in the corner, heads down, quietly playing on their phones with relaxed smiles, and dropped his voice into something meant to sound serious and commanding. "Next game, Clearlove, you're in."
"Huh?" Clearlove's head jerked up, caught completely off guard. "You talking to me?"
A cluster of metaphorical "well, well, well" symbols practically popped up on Nickname's forehead. He forcibly swallowed his irritation. "You're going on stage next game."
"He's telling you you're the scapegoat," the handsome young man sitting next to Clearlove nudged him with his elbow, murmuring with a crooked grin.
Damn.
Clearlove immediately felt like he'd just been sold out.
He hadn't played many scrims all Spring Split. Most of the time, he was just grinding solo queue. Tossing him into an elimination game now—if that wasn't looking for a scapegoat, what was it?
Not that being the scapegoat was anything new for him. EDG's collapse at Worlds in S6 had obviously been on the coaching staff and the whole team, but Clearlove had never gone public to clap back at all the flak he got.
He didn't care about that noise.
He only cared about winning.
…Wait.
Solo queue?
Something clicked in Clearlove's mind. He suddenly remembered just how terrifying Zhou Hanyang had been when the two of them duo-queued.
He stood up all at once. "I can go, but Zhou Hanyang has to go on with me."
Zhou Hanyang, sitting next to him, suddenly looked up.
Whoa, hold up.
It's one thing if you're out here being the sacrificial lamb, why are you dragging me into it?
Nickname's brows pulled tight. He was just about to bark at them.
Clearlove spoke again before he could. "If Zhou Hanyang doesn't go up, I'm not winning either way."
Nickname paused, then let out a short, cold laugh. "Oh? So if he goes in, you're confident you can win?"
"Free win, little bro," Clearlove answered without hesitation.
"Who the hell are you calling 'little bro'? I'm giving you one more shot to say that right," Nickname said, face going dark.
"Guaranteed win," Clearlove corrected himself immediately, not daring to push it.
"Fine. Then Zhou Hanyang goes in for Light," Nickname said, nodding without further argument.
In his mind, this was already their last shot anyway. At that point, it really didn't matter who they put on stage.
Summer Split was coming, and once Hu Xianzhao—Iboy—hit the minimum age, EDG's lineup was going to get reshuffled no matter what.
Damn.
Zhou Hanyang felt like he'd been completely set up and shot a glare at Clearlove.
No way, man.
Ranked is ranked, competitive is competitive. I barely even played scrims. You really think it's okay to just toss me straight into a do-or-die match?
Do you actually think RNG in S7 are a bunch of clowns?
How are we supposed to beat that team?
Sure, ever since his rebirth, his mechanics, reactions, and game sense had all leveled up.
But it's not like he had some cheat system backing him up.
If you want to win, you still need a plan.
You can't just brute-force your way through.
Even though Zhou Hanyang felt like he was being thrown under the bus, he also understood this was his shot to finally show what he could do. He'd been on EDG's roster for an entire split and still hadn't played in many serious scrims.
Who knew how long it'd be before he had another chance to actually walk onto the big stage?
Opportunities and risks always came as a package deal.
Since the chance had come, he might as well grab it with both hands.
With that thought, Zhou Hanyang stood up, expression suddenly serious. "If you want to win, you listen to my draft, and we have to take red side. This game, you follow my calls."
"???"
Huge black question marks practically appeared over everyone's heads.
You're a substitute top laner, the god of the water dispenser.
They're already doing you a favor putting you in at all, and you're out here trying to negotiate conditions?
"We take red side, first rotation we grab Tristana and a big AP mid carry—Orianna, Ryze, Taliyah, any of those work," Zhou Hanyang continued, not giving anyone time to cut in. "Tristana has to be paired with an enchanter support. They'll almost definitely go late-game AD plus enchanter. Then we slam Leona with Thunderlord's Decree. Bot lane can look for a level one all-in right away. Meiko and I ran this on the Korean server—this setup is insane."
After he finished, he turned to look at Meiko.
They really had run this exact trick duo. More than once.
"Yeah, Thunderlord's Leona hits like a truck. We definitely tried it," Meiko said, nodding without hesitation. "Bot lane's basically unkillable—and that's even into Kalista."
Everyone around them suddenly looked stunned.
There was a trick like that?
Zhou Hanyang couldn't help but smile to himself.
This was the secret strat from the Rabbit Team at Worlds that year.
With just this one little wrinkle in bot lane, Rabbit Team had almost sent SKT packing in the quarterfinals.
That's right.
Zhou Hanyang had come back from the future.
In his previous life, he'd been the eternal benchwarmer, the god of the water dispenser, wasting away his best years.
This time around, he wasn't planning to rot in the shadows.
In this life, he was dead set on climbing all the way to the top of professional play.
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