When an Alpha is Marked by One of His Own Kind

Chapter 64

Team COCO followed a Korean macro style of play that was especially effective back in S7. During that season, they were the LPL team that advanced the farthest in the world championships.
As everyone knew, before DG won the championship title last year, the strongest league had always been Korea's LCK. Their style of operation was extremely unique—

Each team didn't necessarily have to have incredibly strong players to make their tactics work. The players simply had to develop on their own in a match, then combine their powers together to snowball their way to an immense advantage. Once they were ready, they could initiate a team fight around a boss monster and use their combined strength to gain the upper hand, ensuring higher rates of victory.

During LCK's long reign at the top of the world of League of Legends, other teams intently scrutinized their style of play.

COCO was the type of team that chose to imitate them.

DG, on the other hand, was the type that chose to crack them.

During last year's world championship tournament, and during this year's international tournament before Lu Zhe's injury, DG had been able to win against various Korean teams because of Lu Zhe's strong sense as a jungler. He was always there to oppose the enemy every time they tried to make a move, hindering their development and disrupting their rhythm. He never allowed them to gain too much of an advantage.

But this style DG adopted was heavily reliant on their jungler.

When Lu Zhe first joined DG, before he made a name for himself as a powerful carry, people often said the true daddies of DG were their middle and bottom laners. Qianbao was notoriously powerful in the middle lane, and Old Wo and Er-Hua were a formidable duo in the bottom lane. As long as the top laner and jungler held their own, DG could definitely win.

However—

In reality, before Lu Zhe sharpened his claws and Old Wo truly matured in his own play style, DG could only have been considered a middle-of-the-pack team. Back then, they didn't possess the unstoppable momentum that they gained later on.

Last week's opponent, WTG, was the same type of team as DG. They used similar tactics to disrupt their opponents' rhythm.

WTG was extremely strong in the jungle. They were able to rely on their jungler to set the pace of the game and destroy DG's own rhythm. Meanwhile, DG's players were still struggling to get on the same wavelength as their new junglers. As a result, their cooperation was lacking during team fights. Whenever they clashed with their opponents, in big or small bouts, only destruction awaited them.

But this week—

The determining factor in the match against COCO would be which team managed to throw the other off their rhythm.

Would COCO dominate with their usual style of play? Or would someone on DG flourish and lead the charge for their team?

Fans eagerly awaited the answers to these questions.

……

In today's game, DG had Zheng Zhizhuo take the field first.

They even let him choose his best champion, Gragas.

Unfortunately…

During a critical team fight, he failed to time his ult with the rest of his team's movements, missing out on a big opportunity to turn the tides. That mistake, combined with the small gap COCO had opened between their teams earlier in the round, allowed COCO to continue steaming onwards without giving DG a chance to recover.

The five members of COCO stuck together, using their advantage in numbers to gank DG's middle and bottom lane several more times. Finally, they pushed all the way up to DG's base in one go and claimed the first win.