“What? A solo kill?” Cup Noodles yelped into his microphone. “What the hell is that Ahri doing? Wasn’t she low health? Why did she not back?”

“No, wasn’t like that,” Old Huang replied. He looked at his screen, blowing out a large breath of smoke, and shook his head. “That Orianna played that good. She flashed in the very exact moment that Ahri threw out her orb. There was nothing she could do.”

“Damn really??” Cup Noodles laughed. This is only Gold, what did I expect… He clicked his tongue and said, “Whatever. Just a typical solo kill in Gold. When that Ahri hits Level 6, she’ll be fine. She’ll dive and I’ll get my time auto attacking while they all jump on her. First blood was mine. I’ll carry this game. Easy.”

Cup Noodles had a point. Tristana was a late game hyper carry. A maximum level, full item build Tristana was almost unstoppable! The more kills she got in the early game, the faster she reached that point. That super late game didn’t always come to pass, though. But that didn’t really matter either. Starting from two items, a third on her way to completing her build, she would suddenly receive a big power spike!

“Mhm.” Old Huang stared at his screen, nodding. Everything Cup Noodles said sounded logical, but it still didn’t feel quite right. So he warned, “Just be careful. You can have a little more fun at bot, but then go take care of mid! Late game Orianna can get really strong. I don’t wanna see that. The viewers would hate it. You gotta carry this one. Carry it hard!”

“Chill! Chill, man!” Cup Noodles said. Then he chuckled and added, “You just said that Ori used her Flash, right? Here. Let me show you what we do with a flashless Ori!”

✹

At 5 minutes, Lin Feng returned to base and spent his gold. The items he bought gave him the edge over the Ahri. When he returned to lane, he started pressuring the Ahri even harder than before. She wasn’t allowed to do anything but sit behind her tower and try to stay in range for the experience. Lin Feng continued to widen the gap, accurately getting every last hit on the minions while keeping her from even getting one. It was painful to watch.

Lin Feng was pushing into the outer tower in mid lane, when he spotted the Tristana walking up the river into his lane. She Rocket Jumped on top of him and placed a bomb on his head–Explosive Charge! Then she Rapid Fired at him with her auto attacks, dealing physical damage and charging up the bomb! His Orianna’s health fell. The bomb would explode in a few more seconds too. He pushed down on his E and then his W. Orianna’s Ball retreated to her side and protected her with a shield before it sent out a pulse of energy. This pulse boosted her movement speed and she sped away.

The Tristana kept firing at the Orianna all the way until the Orianna reached Blue team’s outer tower. Then she had to give up. Her damage in the early game just wasn’t enough. It’d take a little more scaling before she could burst down her targets. But she did leave the Orianna with almost no health.

Lin Feng rubbed his chin and grinned. “Hehe, that Tristana looks a little interesting. This might be fun!”

The Tristana’s gank wasn’t a gank in its truest form. Unlike most Junglers, Tristana didn’t have any crowd control. All she could do was fire off her cannon and harass, in this case, the Midlaner. There was never a real threat to the Orianna. It was just a little trick to help the Ahri in her lane and force the Orianna to give up on some of the pressure she was exerting.

✹

Cup Noodles had his Tristana walk back to bot lane while laughing into his microphone. “Haha! Did you see that? Did you see her run away? Haha! Man, I totally pissed her off! She’s probably tilting off the edge of the world right now! Haha! Did you see that? Haha!”

Old Huang blew out some smoke, smiling. “Not bad, not bad. That was some quick thinking. Great move! It really worked great! This should make the game even easier! Now let’s get that Quadra or Penta!”

Cup Noodles had played this little gank in mid lane to perfection, as could be expected from a Master player. He first pushed out his wave in bot lane, making sure that there was nothing he was losing from his roam, before going up to mid lane. Then he attacked the Orianna, forcing her to give up on a minion wave and retreat. He got the Orianna’s health down, made her lose CS, and gave the Ahri some breathing room to finally get some CS. This little gank couldn’t have gone any better for Cup Noodles!

“That’s how you reach Master as ad-carry. Takes some real awareness,” Cup Noodles said into his microphone. He started laughing, proud of his little play. Then he decided he should explain it to Old Huang in a little more detail. Old Huang wasn’t a Master, after all. “If you can’t push for any direct advantages in bot lane, you want to look around the map and see if you can put pressure somewhere else. Like here, I saw Ori pushing in mid. It was the obvious choice. You help your Midlaner, and that helps you later into the game. Now I tilted that Ori and this’ll be an easy win.”

Cup Noodles got back to bot lane and almost instantly started pressuring the Jinx again. This lane was too easy for him. He looked back up to mid lane. His Ahri was really far behind. He rubbed his chin and said, “Ahri can use a little more help. Plus, it’ll be so much fun to tilt that Ori even harder! I’ll go for another gank in a few! Hahaha!”

“Alright, sounds good.” Old Huang checked the footage from the last gank in mid and saw some openings for his commentary. “Make it good. I can talk a story around it. This should be good! Let’s do it and get a useful game!”

《An ally has been slain.》

Cup Noodles panned his camera to mid lane. It hadn’t even been a minute! The game clock read 6:30 minutes. And there was already another kill! “What the… How did she die again? Is she feeding? Trolling? What is going on?”

The Ahri wasn’t feeding. Or trolling. She was a Gold player playing against a Challenger. Playing against one of the best players in the world. Lin Feng had baited her, showing an opening that really wasn’t there. The Ahri had just reached Level 6 and learned her ultimate–Spirit Rush! She dashed forward and fired an essence bolt at the Orianna. Then she dashed again and attacked the Orianna with three Fox-Fires! That was when the real threat revealed herself. Sejuani. Blue team’s Jungler. She charged at the Ahri and knocked her Airborne with her Arctic Assault.

Fidget Spinners flew at the Ahri. The Orianna’s Ball was on top of her, also dealing damage. She wanted to get away. Flash or the third dash of her ultimate. Either could work! But neither would. She was Airborne and couldn’t do anything. Then, as she hit the ground again and used her ultimate again, a shockwave spread out around her. It damaged her and dragged her back towards Orianna’s Ball. Her health was almost zero. She was dead.

Behind his computer, Lin Feng shook his head, smiling. “So naive. She really needs to be a little more careful next time. Hehe.”

If the Ahri player knew what was happening, how she was being played by a Challenger on the Ionia server, she’d understand her frustration and anger. This was unfair! Absolutely unfair! There was nothing she could do about this. She couldn’t win this game. She just wasn’t good enough to face a Challenger. She was Gold! Dirty! This was a dirty play! Nothing more!

✹

Cup Noodles started to feel a little worried. That Orianna now had two kills. His own lane opponents, the Jinx and Thresh, were playing absurdly defensive on top of that. He could get all the CS he wanted, but it was impossible to get anything more out of this lane. The Orianna would scale faster. Would deal more damage. Might even carry the game. “This is shit. We need to shut down mid asap!”

Mindlessly farming minions in bot lane, unobstructed by Blue teams Botlaners, Cup Noodles panned his camera to mid lane again. He had to do something, or risk losing control over the game. “I’ll make another roam mid in a bit. Just have to wait for Ahri’s ult to come off cooldown. If we play that right, worst case scenario we force Ori to blow her Summoner Spells. Best case, we get a kill and a tower. That should shut that Ori down. Ahri should finally be able to get back into it then.”

At 8 minutes into the game, Cup Noodles had pushed out the minion wave in bot lane. He roamed up the river, looking to gank mid lane again. The Orianna was standing close to the bottom side river brush, farming minions in the middle of the lane. Cup Noodles chuckled. “Perfect. You’re dead! Hehe!” He walked through the river brush and then placed an Explosive Charge on the Orianna’s head before Rapid Firing away, dealing physical damage and charging up the bomb!

Cup Noodles grinned, happy with his little plan. This is going to be easy. Doesn’t even matter that I’m not Level 6 yet. There’s nothing that Ori can do to me anyway. Even if everything goes wrong, I still got my Rocket Jump. I’ll just fly away! Haha! And there’s also the Ahri. She’s a little behind, but should still deal enough damage to be of some he—

The Orianna’s Ball flew straight towards Cup Noodles’ Tristana and hit, dealing magic damage. Then a pulse of energy spread out–Command: Dissonance! “Shit!” Cup Noodles exclaimed. The Ahri was right there! He expected that the Orianna would run away in this 2vs1. It didn’t make any sense for her to stick around! But the Orianna didn’t flee. She was going hard on him instead! His Tristana’s health was getting low and the Ahri hadn’t even started helping yet. He flicked his mouse and pressed down on his W key–Rocket Jump! His Tristana aimed her cannon at the ground and fired, launching herself into the air.

Lin Feng smiled and muttered, “Keep coming mid. Heh. Keep coming mid…” He pressed down on his R key. This was Orianna’s ultimate skill Command: Shockwave! A skill that sent out a large shockwave around Orianna’s Ball and pulled in all Champions caught within its range. It didn’t matter if they were in the middle of an animation or not. The Tristana was pulled out of her Rocket Jump to safety and suddenly found herself in a peculiar position.

“Fuck.”