Prepare Mid

"Our red buff was stolen."

Inside the Hua Cai Battle Team's booth, seeing the plump figure of Twitch appear in the top lane, Feng Mu's voice suddenly grew heavy.

It didn't take much deduction; just looking at the red ring beneath Twitch's feet made everything clear—the enemy Twitch hadn't rushed to the top lane because he had stealthily stolen their red buff first.

Although Twitch's health bar showed almost no damage, everyone on the Hua Cai team was well aware of Twitch's kiting techniques to clear jungle camps without losing health.

Furthermore, Twitch's delayed appearance was naturally due to the time it took to solo the buff.

And this indicated two things.

First, the opposing Blue team essentially had a red buff start.

"Damn, that's sneaky."

As the jungle Kha'Zix, the Hua Cai player couldn't help but curse. He could already guess that the enemy jungle Jarvan IV was likely taking his own red buff right now, and would later secure his blue buff. His tempo would be much better than Kha'Zix's, who had lost his red buff right from the start.

Second, for the next period, the top-lane Renekton's laning phase would be extremely uncomfortable.

"Fuck, how are we even supposed to play this—"

Flanked from the tri-brush by a certain Twitch, hit by a few auto-attacks, and slowed by the red buff, the Renekton was immediately hit by the enemy support Nami's Q bubble. He was forced to burn his Flash to escape back under his turret.

Grumbling, the Renekton player was extremely frustrated.

Burning his Flash was one thing, but he had originally started with a Doran's Blade to aggressively lane against Nidalee. Now, he was forced into a 1v2 lane swap scenario... meaning his Doran's Blade was completely wasted.

A Cloth Armor would have been much more practical!

...

But as mentioned, under this strategy, the biggest issue for the Purple team's top-lane Renekton was that he would find it almost impossible to farm in the top lane.

Huang Gou's support Nami, following the strategy of "Jungle Professor Xiao," immediately froze the wave, making the Purple minions stack up and causing the lane to push toward the Blue turret.

And the Hua Cai Renekton had unfortunately auto-attacked the minions a few times too many.

As a result, the top-lane wave remained near the Blue turret. Zheng Tian and Feng Mu couldn't freeze it, while the enemy Nidalee happily continued to soak experience under her turret.

In the top lane, Lin Xiao's Twitch only needed to freeze the wave slightly while Nami stood in front of the minions. The Renekton didn't even have the courage to step up, unable to even soak experience.

In contrast, the Blue team's Nidalee was having a much easier time—

Instead of rushing to lane, she had cleared two jungle camps with her jungle Jarvan IV, recalled to buy supplies, and then leisurely walked to her turret. By then, the enemy Lucian and Thresh could no longer freeze the wave.

So she could comfortably farm the wave under her turret.

"This won't do."

As the Hua Cai captain, Chu He frowned. They had picked a strong top-lane champion like Renekton, but this lane swap strategy completely neutralized his advantage. It was too costly.

Furthermore, the enemy Twitch faced absolutely no pressure, allowing him to comfortably farm and scale.

So, this had to be resolved immediately!

"We're swapping lanes too!"

Zheng Tian gritted his teeth and growled. For him, he had to shut down Lin Xiao's Twitch no matter what.

...

Soon after, the Purple team made their adjustments.

After shoving the bot-lane wave, Lucian and Thresh quickly recalled and headed straight for the top lane.

Meanwhile, inside the Nan Hua Battle Team's booth, Lin Xiao calmly gave his next instructions:

"Nidalee, recall after clearing this wave and head top. We're swapping back down."

It was a guerrilla strategy, after all.

Hit and run. After shutting down Renekton in the top lane, they would swap to the bot lane to keep suppressing him. In short, they would absolutely avoid a standard 2v2 matchup.

Yeah, it would drive the opponents crazy~

"So smart!—"

In the stands, watching the lane swaps of both sides from a spectator's perspective, A Ya's eyes filled with admiration.

She simply thought the Blue team's Twitch and Nami had timed their lane swap perfectly, as if they had foresight. But what she didn't know was that this seemingly casual adjustment was actually incredibly difficult to pull off.

The key difficulty lay in reading the opponent's mind.

If it weren't for a psychological master like Lin Xiao, who was among the best in the world, ordinary pro players trying to execute continuous lane swaps would often mistime it, only to end up running straight into the enemy duo.

That would be outsmarting oneself and backfiring.

Fortunately, such a backfire would never happen under Lin Xiao's watch.

...

Around 8 minutes and 30 seconds into the game, when Zheng Tian and Feng Mu rushed to the top lane, they were extremely frustrated to find that the opponents seemed to have swapped lanes again.

And the timing was so perfect that the enemy Twitch and Nami appeared in the bot lane almost simultaneously.

As a result, the top-lane wave remained near the Blue turret. Zheng Tian and Feng Mu couldn't freeze it, while the enemy Nidalee happily continued to soak experience under her turret.

But in the bot lane...

Their teammate Renekton was still being suppressed under his turret, barely soaking experience while unable to get a single last hit.

What? Step up and fight?

Are you kidding? The enemy Twitch's red buff hadn't even expired yet!

"What do we do?"

On the Hua Cai side, the Renekton player was completely lost. He had never encountered such a chaotic situation caused by lane swaps.

As the captain and shotcaller, Chu He was also having a massive headache.

After all, he didn't have much experience dealing with such professional-level macro strategies. This left him somewhat flustered, and he almost got chunked down by the enemy Syndra in the mid lane.

Chu He was truly annoyed. He had originally thought the Nan Hua team's biggest weakness was their weak macro, but he hadn't expected to be completely shut down by their lane swap strategy in the very first game.

But regardless, the issue had to be resolved.

"Clear this wave, then we'll swap again."

Chu He could only offer this solution, hoping that the opponents wouldn't keep swapping lanes repeatedly.

After all... swapping so many times would surely hurt the enemy Twitch's farm as well.

But he was wrong again.

Indeed, repeated lane swaps were troublesome, but behind Lin Xiao's tireless strategy lay another plan.

9 minutes and 30 seconds into the game.

After recalling, Huang Gou's support Nami headed toward the top lane again, while Lin Xiao controlled Twitch out of the base, sending a signal to Tang Yang:

"Mid lane, get ready."