Chapter 43: Complete Reversal, The Helplessness of RNG Players

"Letme is trash."
"Classic poetic performance."
The live stream chat was ruthlessly flaming Letme.
In professional play, getting solo-killed is the ultimate sin.
However, was this really Letme's fault? Not really; Letme was just the unlucky scapegoat who had to take one for the team.
With zero resource allocation, having to absorb EDG's relentless targeted pressure, and facing a farmed-up Ryze—the strongest scaling champion on the map—Letme received the least amount of resources while doing the dirtiest and most exhausting work.
Yet, nobody cared.
Even when iCOn tried explaining in his live stream why Letme got solo-killed, the chat still insisted that iCOn was merely whitewashing Letme's mistakes.
Even mlXg felt that Letme's solo death was problematic.
"How did you die? Why did you even fight him?"
"I wasn't fighting him, he dived me under the tower. What was I supposed to do?"
The two didn't argue further. By this moment, everyone on RNG could acutely sense the danger.
The Ryze had quietly transformed into a final boss.
Watching Ryze kill the Maokai and then casually auto-attack the tier-two tower down piece by piece, RNG couldn't help but grow anxious.
"Let's do Baron."
"Otherwise, the Maokai death and the tier-two tower are completely wasted."
"At the very least, we have to force out Ryze's Teleport."
After a quick discussion, RNG's members directly initiated a Baron rush.
"They're starting it!"
Everyone's spirits perked up.
Immediately afterward, Wawa frowned. "They're doing it kind of slow."
Indeed, the Baron's health bar wasn't dropping very fast.
Miller remarked, "RNG's team composition is just like that when it comes to taking objectives."
"Though it feels like RNG doesn't really want to finish it; they probably just want to bait out Ryze's Teleport."
What the casters could see, EDG naturally could see as well.
Seeing it was one thing, but teammates were still afraid to gamble on whether RNG would actually commit to finishing the Baron.
"The enemy is doing Baron."
"Teleport?"
Clear Love wanted Chen Yan to return to the main battle line.
However, Chen Yan had zero intention of going back. After destroying RNG's tier-two tower, he continued pushing toward RNG's bot lane inhibitor turret.
Meanwhile, he communicated with his team: "You guys hold them in the center, I can keep pushing."
"..." EDG's members were somewhat speechless, but they still followed his call.
Chen Yan felt a bit helpless.
EDG as a team possessed solid macro-play and strong discipline, but their flaw was being far too conservative, coupled with a flawed understanding of the game.
Could he return here? Absolutely not!
If he went back now, RNG would be completely relieved of all pressure.
By then, both teams would return to staring each other down, eventually leaving the game's outcome to whoever happened to get caught first in a deciding teamfight.
Still, Chen Yan could understand; current LPL matches were all played this way, where winning entirely depended on teamfights.
Had any team ever thought about playing a 1-3-1 split-push? Yes, but the result was always the player split-pushing eventually giving up and wandering back to join teamfights.
Up to this point, virtually no team in the LPL could properly execute a split-push strategy.
The root cause lay in their understanding of the game.
Just like this situation, RNG's poke composition clearly struggled with taking Baron quickly, and with Rumble—the dragon-pit god—on their team, defending the objective was completely effortless.
Therefore, Chen Yan was fully determined to push the wave straight onto RNG's base.
"No Teleport? Ryze still isn't Teleporting?"
Seeing this, Wawa and Miller were somewhat astonished.
Neither of them expected that even with RNG forcing Baron, Ryze chose to continue pushing waves.
"This Ryze has an iron will."
"But because of this, RNG is caught in a difficult dilemma."
"Will RNG actually finish off the Baron?"
The casters frantically analyzed the unfolding situation on the map.
On screen, the Baron's health had dropped to fifty percent.
RNG was agonizing over the decision.
After a moment of hesitation, RNG ultimately didn't dare to commit to the Baron.
"They're backing off! RNG is backing off!"
"Backing off is the right call," Wawa said. "Otherwise, if Rumble drops a single ultimate into the pit, RNG's teamfight could explode. Plus, what if the Baron gets stolen by the Kha'Zix..."
Throwing the game at Baron was no joke.
Once they backed off, RNG hurriedly rushed back to defend against Ryze.
By this time, Ryze had already chipped away more than half the health of the base turret.
However, seeing RNG members approaching, Chen Yan showed no greed and immediately fell back.
Along the way, he casually cleared out the neutral camps in RNG's jungle.
From this single split-push wave, Ryze had devoured multiple minion waves, a defensive tower, and numerous jungle monsters.
His gold skyrocketed immensely.
Upon recalling to the fountain, Chen Yan completed his third completed item—Righteous Glory.
"???"
Seeing this item, a countless stream of question marks flooded the live chat.
"What kind of garbage item is this?"
"You don't even recognize Righteous Glory?"
"Why on earth is Ryze building Righteous Glory?"
Let alone the viewers, even Wawa and Miller were completely bewildered.
Having casted games for so long, this was the first time either of them had ever seen a Ryze build Righteous Glory.
"Is there some secret theory behind this item?"
The two exchanged glances, only to find each other equally clueless.
Miller could only force a bitter smile and say, "Perhaps player Chen Yan has his own unique understanding of Ryze."
"Righteous Glory..." iCOn watched Chen Yan purchase the item on his stream and was utterly baffled.
"What use does this item even have? Building a Void Staff would be infinitely more practical."
However, it wasn't long before iCOn's expression changed.
mlXg's Nidalee recklessly tunneled into EDG's jungle, only to be ambushed on the spot by Ryze.
The moment saw Ryze activate Righteous Glory, sticking close to apply a heavy slow to the Nidalee, completely denying her any chance of wall-jumping to escape, and simply running the cat down until she died.
"Caster, say something!" The live stream chat instantly boiled over.
iCOn offered a sheepish smile. "I admit, this item actually has a tiny bit of utility."
Meanwhile, seeing Ryze secure another solo kill, Wawa and Miller were exceptionally ecstatic.
"Ryze gets another solo kill!"
"This team would literally fall apart without Ryze."
Miller gazed at the rookie on the screen and sighed emotionally, "Never would I have expected that the one holding EDG together in the end would be a rookie."
"So what if he's a rookie? Rookies are all absolute monsters," Wawa joked.
Then, looking at the Righteous Glory on Ryze, he added, "You know what? Ryze building this actually looks quite effective; there is definitely a deep understanding behind it."
...
Following mlXg's death, RNG plunged completely into gloom.
They realized RNG's lead was evaporating, and they could no longer suppress EDG the way they did in the early game.
Furthermore, they simply had no answer for Ryze.
The drawback of running Ignite began to manifest at this exact moment.
With Ryze holding a Teleport advantage, only Maokai could match Ryze's side-lane pressure, but Maokai couldn't win duels against Ryze, creating an awkward stalemate.
"Gank this Ryze first."
RNG attempted to target Ryze, but Chen Yan was as slippery as an eel, and RNG's composition lacked hard engage. Uzi's Ashe tossed several cross-map arrows for a lottery shot, but the results were consistently disappointing.
Just like that, Chen Yan utilized split-pushing to carve out space for his teammates to farm and scale.
At the thirty-one-minute mark, the gold between both teams was completely even.
Meanwhile, through vision control, Chen Yan spotted Nidalee appearing in the lower quadrant of the jungle.
"Everyone, come here!"
Chen Yan summoned his teammates together in advance, directly casting his ultimate to teleport into the dragon pit, instantly initiating a Baron rush.
Unlike RNG, EDG's team composition melted the Baron at terrifying speeds.
Even though RNG spotted Ryze leading his team into the pit, any attempt to rush over and stop them was already too late.
Nashor had already been executed by Kha'Zix.
Hearing the system announcement ring out, a profound wave of helplessness washed over every member of RNG.
With such a massive early-game lead, why on earth did things turn out like this?