The game state was already pure torture for SKT.
The moment mid got solo-killed, LeBlanc vanished from the minimap, and Gnar started playing even more aggressively.
Zeus's scalp went numb. He immediately pulled his Graves back.
With LeBlanc this fed, if he got caught and ate one full combo down to half HP, then with Gnar following up, even burning Flash wouldn't save him.
Last game, he'd already been lectured by the coach for getting ganked to death. This game, he couldn't let the same thing happen again.
Even if Gnar rubbed it in right in his face, if he had to play scared, then he'd play scared.
The mid gap was right there—what else could he do?
He chose this team himself, so he had to swallow it.
In reality, Lin Fan didn't waste time. He recalled to update items again. Needing an ultimate just to kill Azir still felt unsatisfying—when three basic spells could do it, that was when you were truly "out of the mountain."
Seven and a half minutes: three kills, one turret plate, and 62 CS.
His growth really had surpassed the timeline. He had Lost Chapter, plus Blasting Wand, and Dark Seal.
Three small spells might not one-shot, but getting hit felt almost the same as dying.
…
When Faker finally returned to mid, the wave had already been eaten clean by the turret.
Oner didn't go to cover the wave—he hovered bot instead, looking for an opening.
And he actually found one. JackeyLove, as usual, got cocky—once he got hyped, he loved to rub it in.
But bot lane's early fighting power was indeed absurd, and Zeri's damage at this stage was nothing but tickling.
JackeyLove forced a trade that gave Mark a kill—and it was a kill on Zeri. Support for ADC is always a profit for TES.
Not even eight minutes in, TES's two carries each had three kills.
It was hard to imagine what SKT was about to face.
Tian farmed the jungle while laughing. Oner, I've got two big dads—what are you using to fight me?
Then Lin Fan's voice came through.
"After you finish Raptors, Tian, come top with me. We can dive Graves this wave."
With mid this far ahead, camping Azir was pointless. The only lane still peacefully farming was top—it was time to slaughter Graves too.
As SKT's "big dad," Zeus had been targeted strategically the whole tournament. After all these games, Jayce had never once been left open for him.
When you can't handle something, the best choice is to ban it and be done.
With Lin Fan on the roster, Luo Sheng knew the enemy coach would always target mid once. And with Lin Fan's champion pool being deep enough, it wasn't scary at all.
So during Ban-Pick, his thinking could stay open instead of getting boxed in.
Plenty of people said White Moon's Ban-Pick had received an epic-tier buff—at the very least, the comps no longer looked like auto-loss. In the worst case, they could still hold a 50–50.
That was never wrong. A good draft is the first step to winning.
A garbage draft can still get carried by raw strength, but it drains a terrifying amount of energy—because one slip, and the game can collapse.
So Ban-Pick really is crucial. For a club with championship ambitions, you can't just hire any random coach. Otherwise you'll end up with a "steak" and a draft that's a complete mess, and what are you even playing for?
8:37.
LeBlanc hopped over the wall with W and appeared behind top outer turret.
Zeus put on a "pain mask."
He was already sitting under turret and they still targeted him.
No choice. After thinking, he decided to dash at LeBlanc's face. If he tried to run, he'd just die—maybe one-on-one he still had a chance.
But in the next second, he realized how wrong he was.
Q-R-E procced two marks, plus Electrocute. Graves—who was at three-quarters HP—got deleted by that one rotation.
"Damn it!"
This MSI, he'd probably cursed more than ever.
Every time his screen went black, he had to throw out one or two insults.
"This damn LeBlanc's damage is way too high!"
Faker, farming mid, heard that and his face went dark.
Saying that was basically saying mid was the problem, wasn't it?
"Stabilize!" Oner immediately sensed the team atmosphere turning sour and quickly spoke up.
But with a deficit this huge, "stabilize" wasn't a simple thing.
Because the damage numbers weren't even on the same level anymore.
When the Shurima Emperor hit level six, LeBlanc was already level eight.
If Faker hadn't reacted fast and used a small drift to dodge LeBlanc's chain earlier, he'd already be back taking a fountain bath.
At low HP, he didn't dare stay under turret. He immediately hit recall.
Naturally, the turret lost another plate.
They didn't stay to take more because Tian invaded and ran head-on into Oner's "fist girl," Vi.
A girl who likes to throw fists—one drunkard alone couldn't handle that violent output. They needed the Black Rose to come educate her.
Oner glanced at the minimap, saw LeBlanc disappear, and knew she was coming to support. How could he dare keep wrestling with Gragas?
He was exhausted in body and mind.
Time to run—he had to run.
But Tian clearly had no intention of letting him go.
He stepped up to intercept and hold him.
From far away, LeBlanc used WR to force a point-blank engage.
QE landed cleanly on Vi.
With LeBlanc's damage pouring in, Vi's HP got erased in an instant.
Unstoppable!
With five kills, LeBlanc was already impossible to stop!
The jungle blue buff was handed straight to Lin Fan.
Then they immediately went top again.
Zeus had started rotating toward the jungle when he saw LeBlanc coming. He instantly changed direction and ran for his tier-two.
But he still got cut off.
Gragas—belly out—grinned and shouted, "Come on!"
Zeus refused instantly.
But after being forced into the belly slam, refusing didn't matter. Enjoy it or not, he could only accept the explosive damage and go back to fountain.
Clean and seamless—the timing of killing Vi flowed straight into killing Graves too, and they even grabbed a double kill.
Six-kill LeBlanc—just looking at her was despair.
Zoom didn't get to participate, but he happily ate two turret plates.
Kills or no kills didn't matter. Getting plates top already felt amazing.
TES rotated right back to Rift Herald.
They took it easily. The tempo was firmly in TES's hands.
In the Chinese broadcast, some viewers had already started celebrating.
At this point, they genuinely couldn't imagine how TES could lose.
A six-kill LeBlanc!
With items updated—Luden's Tempest plus Mejai's Soulstealer—she was inflated to the extreme. No joke, she absolutely had the capital. Whoever came, died.
People even started joking: which lucky soul would be the first to write a thick, glorious stroke into this freshly-bought Mejai's?
At this rate, the "golden crispy chicken" mid was probably the first to get written into the book.
Sure enough, the next time mid met, Lin Fan didn't give him a friendly face.
W in, ultimate, QE—one stomp.
Azir tried to drift, but the explosive damage made him drop out mid-air.
Mejai's hit ten stacks and "flipped the page."
In the Busan Esports Arena, sighs rose one after another, like a mourning wail for the Demon King's downfall.
On the caster desk, the three casters had long since lost the energetic spark they started with.
"Dine… is absolutely the most unexpected player of MSI. His dominance is beyond imagination, smida."
"Yes. You can absolutely say that—he killed the match.
His champion pool depth… I feel it's far beyond Faker's." He let out a long breath.
"Maybe we really should admit it: Faker's era is completely over. Now it's the era of the younger generation—like DK's mid laner, ShowMaker."
Hearing that, the live crowd nodded in strong agreement.
"If ShowMaker were here, how could he let him be this arrogant!"
"Exactly. Even if Azir is hard into LeBlanc, ShowMaker would at least stabilize lane. There's no way he'd get beaten into this."
"…"
They started debating, seemingly forgetting that SKT had won the LCK spring title.
As long as DK showed up, they'd definitely crush TES and restore the glory of the Republic of Korea.
At 13 minutes, LeBlanc struck from the shadows in bot and easily picked up a double kill, completing Godlike on the spot.
Mejai's even climbed to 22 stacks. Just looking at it made your scalp tingle—the gap was huge and hard to accept.
But the tempo kept going. After the double kill, bot outer turret fell easily.
Then they rotated to the dragon pit and started the dragon.
The first dragon was Cloud Drake, but with Cloud Drake for faster rotations, they could snowball the lead even harder.
At this point, every SKT player was dizzy. They were playing purely on instinct. Game plan? None.
They were just woodenly waiting for the match to end.
A little after 15 minutes, Yuumi attached to Vi and directed teammates to set up vision.
In the next second, LeBlanc burst out from the shadows and one-shot Vi.
Then she turned her gaze to the unattached Yuumi.
The ending was naturally beautiful: jungle-support linkage—one dies, one donates.
"LeBlanc is way too outrageous right now…"
"We can't go out anymore. We can only defend under inhibitor turrets."
"Rely on inhibitor turrets and stall a bit. LeBlanc won't have room to play late game."
Everyone understood the logic. But could they really stall in this situation?
Oner didn't believe it. Faker didn't believe it. Zeus top didn't believe it either.
This was already chronic death. Even the time of death wasn't theirs to decide—they had to watch the enemy's face.
The "Godlike" sound effect kept ringing through the Busan Esports Arena, again and again, and the fans' expressions only grew uglier.
At this stage, the ones who could still laugh were mostly international students and fans of other teams who just liked watching chaos.
After SKT won spring, those fans had been extremely arrogant.
Now getting beaten into this shape was pure backlash.
The worse SKT lost, the louder they laughed.
Nice, TES! Hit them harder—don't give them face.
Gumayusi and Faker were already nailed to the pillar of shame.
One got blown up by a wildcard team in a 4v1 carry-ADC setup.
The other wasn't much better. People hyped up the Demon King's revival, saying he'd live a "fourth life," and yet he got smashed every game.
At this point it was just spectacle.
At this stage, did anyone really believe SKT could reverse sweep from 0–2?
The gap was too huge. Every game ended within twenty minutes.
Actually, calling it twenty minutes kind of flatters them.
To be precise: the base got bulldozed in seventeen or eighteen minutes.
It was hard to imagine a team like that pulling a reverse sweep.
At least, it wasn't realistic to them.
If he could do it, it'd be absurdly idealistic.
If he ever ran for president, giving him a vote wouldn't be the worst idea.
At 18 minutes, SKT's mid and bot inhibitor turrets were broken.
From a thousand units away, LeBlanc jumped onto Graves's face, proccing his Shieldbow and pulling Vi back at the same time.
They focused her down and began a new wave of offense.
They'd originally planned to reset for items and then look for Baron, but with Vi dead, they accelerated—of course they had to give him face.
They cleared the wave and pushed nexus turrets.
When mid and bot waves met, Gnar found an angle to engage and they launched.
The damage gap wasn't even in the same universe. And with SKT down a member, they only lost Thresh—yet still got aced.
Now nothing could stop TES's push.
They turned into demolition machines.
TES delivered another dominant performance, destroying SKT's base and shattering their confidence.
Down 0–2 match point, they couldn't see any hope of winning.
…
"Hehehe—TES takes another one! 2–0!" Wawa, Miller, and Guan Zeyuan were all grinning.
"Does that mean today we don't need to—" Guan Zeyuan started, but Wawa and Miller instantly covered his mouth.
"Don't cast, don't cast. Just watch quietly."
"Yeah, yeah. Stuff like that can't come from you—leave it to the two of us."
Hearing that, the livestream chat exploded again.
"LMAO, they literally interrupted the casting."
"Honestly, with Tian playing this well today, Guan Zeyuan deserves credit."
"At this rate, 3–0 is easy, right? Who's for it, who's against it?"
"After these two games, I can only say White Moon feels like two words to me: unfamiliar! Damn it—his tactics are actually this good."
"Finally watching TES without yelling that Ban-Pick is stupid."
Backstage, SKT's coach watching the match felt like he was about to cry from his own stupidity.
He slammed the table—bang—and his hand turned red.
The enemy was too dirty. It was a complete tactical scam.
It was hard to accept.
They were on blue side and still didn't get an advantage. They lost the game they absolutely should have won.
Next game, TES would be on blue side.
How the hell were they supposed to draft?
SKT's coach went numb. He had no idea what to do.
If Kkoma were here, what would he do? How would he break the deadlock and change the situation?
From players to Ban-Pick, they had no advantage anywhere.
What now? What now?
His mind was a complete mess, falling into deeper and deeper thought.
At least in this situation… he really needed Sister Wu to give him a hand.
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup