The Thorn Birds delivered an almost perfect answer in the MSI group stage.
Such an answer undoubtedly makes fans and even domestic media very satisfied.
SKT had two games against the Thorn Birds in the group stage, but failed to score a single victory, which greatly disappointed fans in the LCK region.
Especially clid, it was sprayed to the sky.
"The blind monk was banned and retired on the spot", "Hero Bowl", "Spoon Jungler" and a series of other criticisms were written on Clid's face.
But Clid couldn't refute it.
He admitted that as a veteran jungler, his hero pool is indeed a bit shallow.
Before this, clid had always adhered to the principle of "just enough".
Because he never thought that his opponent might spend a lot of ban positions to target him who is not the core of the team.
But when facing the Thorn Birds, the Thorn Birds focused on him and ignored many heroes who were regarded as a thorn in the other teams' eyes.
This is the confidence that a team with strong strength only has.
This is also a problem that the SKT team must solve.
But the headache for Kkoma goes beyond that.
faker's performance in this MSI was unsatisfactory.
Although the superficial data is not bad, there are two mid laners who can pose a more direct threat to faker.
One is G2’s mid laner caps.
The other one is Xiye.
Don’t forget, there are only four mid laners in the top four.
In other words, faker can only be ranked third, and this third place is not stable.
For example, TL team's mid laner Jian Huang has a different style from other mid laners, and Jian Huang is also a person with a terrifyingly deep hero pool.
In contrast, the problem of clid, which has been criticized the most, is not that big. After all, clid can steadily suppress the junglers of other teams, which means that it cannot beat the Thorn Birds.
In addition, Khan was targeted so badly by the Thorn Birds. When they wanted to target Brother Holy Gun in turn, Brother Holy Gun used his greasy playing style to tell SKT that it was impossible to target him. You can
Press him, but don't think of using him as a breakthrough.
Bottom lane duo…
Can't beat it either.
How to play in Xibal?
Just when Kkoma was worrying about it, the knockout groupings also came.
According to the rules, the team with the highest points in the group has the privilege of choosing their opponent.
In other words, the Thorn Birds will independently decide who their next opponent will be.
What’s interesting is that before the grouping, the G2 team also had a very “friendly” interaction with the Thorn Birds on Twitter.
During this interaction, G2 did not forget to step on SKT. Ah P directly said that as long as the Thorn Birds don't pick them, they will kill SKT in the knockout round.
When these remarks of the G2 team were conveyed to South Korea, Korean netizens were naturally very angry.
But they had no way to refute before the two teams met again. After all, judging from the group stage data, the two sides only tied 1-1.
In e-sports, results speak for themselves.
Judging from the current results, it seems that they are not 100% sure that they can crush G2.
Domestic netizens expressed the hope that the Thorn Birds can directly choose SKT and send the Korean team home first.
However, in the end, domestic netizens were disappointed.
The Thorn Bird made an unexpected but reasonable choice.
T.L.
The thorn bird chose this light of North America.
When Li Luo, as the captain, stood on the stage and expressed his choice, Wolf, the representative player of the SKT team who walked up with him, was obviously relieved.
Wolf didn't know why. He had experienced hundreds of battles and had rich competition experience, but he was a little timid when facing Li Luo.
This feeling is very bad.
Wolf also knew that he shouldn't be like this, so he tried hard to adjust himself and try to forget this mentality.
However, facts proved that his adjustments were in vain.
This timidity seemed to be hidden deep in his soul, a seed that had already taken root and sprouted in the wolf king's mind.
It wasn't just Wolf who was relieved.
There is also Kkoma.
After a lot of hard research, KKoma has gradually figured out how to deal with the thorn birds.
But...he needs time.
League of Legends tactics require training and practice before they can be put into use.
Kkoma had to admit that right now, they didn't want to encounter the thorn bird right away.
In fact, according to Kkoma's idea, their favorite scenario is that the Thorn Birds choose the fastest G2 first, so that the TL team is their best grindstone.
However, things went counterproductive.
…
Soon, the knockout rounds began.
On the eve of the knockout rounds, the officials invited players from the four teams to make a simple promotional video.
The content of the promotional video is also quite concise, somewhat similar to a trash talk segment.
The knockout round was held in Taipei, so the filming session was also held in Taipei. Li Luo briefly participated on behalf of the team, and then unexpectedly discovered that Koreans' mouths... are really hard.
Li Luo originally thought that the SKT team, which lost to them twice in the group stage and was frustrated by G2, would calm down.
However, faker still stated during the session that they would avenge the Thorn Birds in the finals, and his attitude seemed to have great confidence.
Li Luo would never be so confident.
In Li Luo's impression, faker has always been like this.
No matter in the peak period or in the trough, he is like the leader of the team, full of confidence every time he faces the media.
And even if he was slapped in the face afterwards, few people would criticize him.
After all, as long as there are enough shining moments, these little slaps in the face can easily be covered up.
But Li Luo couldn't figure out whether Faker had thought of a way to deal with them or was it just to show the team's confidence in front of the media.
Li Luo is not in a hurry, time will tell everything.
There are many more tactics they have in store.
The soldiers will come to block it, and the water will come and the earth will cover it.
The game between Thorn Birds and TL soon kicked off.
When the Thorn Birds walked onto the stage and prepared to start the pre-match BP, Xiangguo glanced at the bottom of the stage and suddenly became happy: "When did Team TL have so many fans? I almost thought this was the home stadium in the United States.
"
Li Luo also raised his eyelids.
The TL team’s team logo is quite eye-catching.
Wherever you look, at least two-thirds of the flags belong to the TL team.
When players from both teams took the stage one after another, only Li Luo from the Thorn Birds team cheered loudly.
The rest of the Thorn Birds, including the veteran jungler Xiangguo, received very little applause and cheers.
In contrast, the atmosphere in the court was very lively when every player from the TL team came on stage and waved.
"I have only one way to deal with this situation, and that is to fight hard and use my strength to shut them up."
Liu Qingsong put on an indifferent face.
He's not the kind of player who likes to cheer.
What he likes is tearing open the wounds of his opponent's fans.
丶
Zhu Kai didn't say much in this bp.
TL hasn't made any personnel changes in a long time.
They had this configuration last year, and it is still the same this year. As early as the end of the group stage, Li Luo had already put forward some precautions when playing against the TL team.
On the surface, the real core of the TL team is senior adc.
But in fact, TL is actually a very balanced team.
Impact in the top lane, Xmithie in the jungle, and Jian Huang in the mid lane.
Core Trident has rich combat experience.
Moreover, the TL team's tactics are relatively simple, and this season they like to use a pure late-game core lineup. Except for the top laner's impact, which occasionally turns into a sharp knife, everyone else is very stable.
Therefore, the Thorn Birds' BP will not use targeted tactics and routines like when they collide with strong teams in South Korea or Europe.
When playing TL, just rely on your strength.
The first game between the two sides kicked off quickly.
The lineup chosen by the Thorn Birds team is Kennen in the top lane, Lee Sin in the jungle, and Trickster in the mid lane, paired with the very straightforward tower-pushing system of Policewoman and Titan.
When Thresh was banned, Liu Qingsong chose Titan as the core support to match the policewoman. This was actually not a particularly good choice, but the TL team banned too many supports. In order to increase the overall number of the team
With his ability to start a group, Liu Qingsong could only settle for the next best thing.
In contrast, the TL team premeditatedly killed Silas and at the same time grabbed the bull head themselves.
However, although this choice is good, it is inevitable that the bottom lane of the TL team will be imprisoned. The senior brother is also a pure ADC enthusiast, so after hesitating for a long time, the senior brother finally chose the hero to deal with the policewoman.
The impact decision on the top lane became a variable for the entire team, and they finally settled on Akali.
However, this first game showed the gap in the laning ability between the two sides from the beginning.
Although Impact has won the S3 World Finals, its strength has been very stable since coming to North America.
But his age is there after all.
Although Impact's laning ideas are very sophisticated, what he faces is the young Holy Spear Brother.
As a player who started professionally three years earlier than Li Luo but is one year younger than Li Luo, Brother Shengqiang is at the same age.
For LPL events alone, Holy Spear can be traced back to January 2015 at the earliest.
In comparison, Holy Spear Brother is much younger than Impact.
Youth is capital.
Taking advantage of Kennen's long hand, Holy Spear Brother easily gained an advantage in the laning phase.
Xiangguo's thinking was very clear. Although Jian Huang had rich experience, he could not withstand the completely unreasonable attacks of these two people.
It's not like the Excavator has never squatted before, but whether it's the Blind Monk or the Enchantress, these two heroes are too flexible.
When the Thorn Birds' midfielder and jungler duo suppressed each other, Li Luo's suppressive power in the bottom lane also showed. Even less than four minutes into the game, Li Luo had already lost the first place in the bottom lane with Titan's cooperation.
Layer tart crust.
Although Big Brother's wheel mother plays well, his support drags him down.
The assistant's two attempts to strike first by Li Luo were seen through. It didn't matter if they were seen through, but Li Luo was able to counterattack. Two hairpins combined with Titan's first strike directly hit the flash of the bull's head, and then even more
He pushed the cow's head back home.
Although TL's jungle excavator helped the top laner impact and kill the Holy Spear brother once, it only addressed the symptoms but not the root cause.
Holy Spear Brother can still maintain the pressure on the lane before Akali reaches level 6.
But the other lanes put too much pressure on the TL team's sidelines.
Game time is 6 minutes and 30 seconds.
The enchantress in Xiye wandered onto the road with a wave of spirituality. After two chains tied Akali in succession, Akali died on the spot.
Less than a hundred minutes later, Xiangguo cooperated with Kennen to complete a wave of tower jumping. Akali had very little room to operate when she was kicked against the wall by the blind monk.
When the game time reached 15 minutes, the economic gap between the two sides had widened to nearly 5,000 yuan.
What really broke TL's psychological defense was not long after.
15 minutes and 30 seconds.
This scene seemed familiar to the audience.
It's just that this time the hero Li Luo used was changed from Varus to a policewoman.
Impact manipulated Akali to find a wave of opportunities to capture the policewoman alone.
When the impact circled around and approached Li Luo from the river in the lower half of the wild area, Li Luo was briefly surprised and then directly controlled the policewoman to move closer to the grass in the river in the upper half of the wild area.
The large army of Thorn Birds is currently fighting the Canyon Pioneer.
Moreover, Liu Qingsong was already moving closer to where he was. It was obvious that Li Luo's first thought for this wave was to join up with the larger force, so that there might not be a need to dodge.
But soon, Team TL’s Wheel Mom and Niutou appeared within Liu Qingsong’s field of vision.
Wheel Mom was activating her ultimate move and rushing towards Li Luo along the red square F6 position.
If Li Luo continued to move closer to the river, he would obviously be caught by them.
To put it bluntly, Li Luo's position at this time can be described as very embarrassing.
Impact's first move was undoubtedly very decisive.
The moment he saw the policewoman, he decisively used a wave of extremely skillful RE combos to hang Falcon Wu on Li Luo's policewoman.
Just by receiving the technology gun from RE, the policewoman's health dropped by about one-third.
And this scene also caused a ghostly scream to be heard on the scene.
However, the moment Li Luo Akali pressed forward, he released a clip in front of him.
When Akali handed over an E and the hero retreated, Li Luo began to stand on the spot and circle around the clip.
In this position, as long as Akali dares to hand over the second E, she will definitely get caught.
Li Luo, on the other hand, controlled the policewoman at the "corner" on the edge of the river wall.
Impact is waiting.
Liu Qingsong has tried to limit it, but he can limit one person, but not two.
Seeing that his teammates Luan Ma and Niutou were already roughly in place, and his E skill was just about to disappear, Impact handed over the second stage of his E and pulled towards the policewoman without saying a word.
However, at this time, Li Luo faced Akali and moved closer to Akali.
The moment Akali was hit by the clamp, Li Luo handed over the healing acceleration, and at the same time walked past Akali. After adjusting his position, Li Luo backhanded the EQ 2nd Battery and retreated towards his first tower.
At this time, Li Luo had eaten the Q skill released in mid-air when Akali's second stage E came back, and his blood volume was already less than half. Even if he handed over the healing spell, his blood line was not raised to a very healthy level.
This blood line...
impact has a deep gaze.
Relying on his understanding of Akali, given his level advantage, he could take away the policewoman's health with just RAQ.
The policewoman is still her prey.
Therefore, at the moment when the policewoman handed over her EQ and retreated, Akali, who had recovered her mobility from the restraint of the clamp, suddenly handed over her second-level ultimate move and rushed in the direction of the policewoman's retreat!
stop!
Golden light flashes.
Impact's complexion changed slightly.
Li Luo's timing of releasing this flash was very clever.
It's also very fast.
Because the policewoman's Q skill had just been released at this time, but the policewoman had already escaped.
The policewoman's Q skill shot through Akali's body.
This is not the most important thing.
What was really fatal was that Impact found that after releasing this R, the landing point of R came within the attack range of the first tower in the middle of the Thorn Birds!
Moreover, the moment Li Luo dodged out of the way, he threw another trap with his backhand on his way back.
Impact subconsciously retreated and his face turned pale when he heard a soft sound from Kacha in his ears.
Counterattack.
See also counterattack.
It is precisely because of this wave that Li Luo got another nickname.
Akali killer.
How many times has an ad shown off as an assassin?
And the assassins on display are all Akali?
In the early stage, Li Luo's tower pushing rhythm itself was very smooth.
It's a pity that Li Luo has never been killed.
"Impact is so considerate. I will give you a pillow when you feel sleepy."
Xiangguo said cheerfully.
TL's two-man attack failed, and the Canyon Pioneer was easily captured by the Thorn Birds.
When the canyon pioneer helped the Thorn Birds demolish the first tower, the Thorn Birds' advance was out of control.
In the first game, the Thorn Birds easily won in 27 minutes.
In the next two games, the TL team also made a lot of adjustments.
Jian Huang even took out a single Lux in his hand, trying to stir up some variables in the overall situation.
It's a pity that due to the absolute disparity in strength, all this is destined to be in vain.
3 to 0.
The TL team was easily won by the Thorn Birds.
Li Luo, who defeated TL, was also a little bit sad.
At this moment, thinking of IG before his rebirth, Li Luo still felt quite emotional.
When thinking about the group stage, the outstanding point of the IG team is their excellent teamfight performance in the mid-to-late game.
During the laning phase, IG's many mistakes did give their opponents many opportunities.
As a result, the IG team, which ended on September 1st in the group stage, learned from the pain. They used the offseason in the middle to make adjustments and greatly improved some of the problems the team encountered during the early laning.
In the knockout round against the TL team, IG's early performance also proved this point.
In the early stages of almost every game, they steadily dominated TL. King Ning took the lead and helped the team get first blood.
But in the middle and late stages, IG seemed to have changed into a different team. In the first two games, the big advantage in the front was overturned in the middle and late stages.
The laning has been improved, but team fights have become less effective.
This is also the reason why the TL team was chosen as the Thorn Birds' first opponent in the knockout round. Li Luo was also curious about the quality of the TL team, which was beaten 3-0 by G2 in the finals, but could win 3-1 against IG.
But now after testing it, Li Luo has a certain evaluation of TL's strength.
…
Just when the Thorn Birds entered the finals without any surprises.
SKT, which had high hopes from countless LCK netizens, fell to G2 after five fierce battles.
