IKG continued with the same lineup from the previous two games. RAG’s composition remained largely the same, except for one key change: Zed was now in the mid lane.
It was a small tweak, but mid lane was the most volatile role. Any adjustment could trigger a chain reaction across the entire map.
Viewers, including many professional players, immediately began speculating. Everyone was trying to guess what both sides were planning.
In the last two games, IKG had heavily targeted Lu Sheng, not just through champion bans, but also in how their players matched up.
Ara, as a control-style mid laner, perfectly countered Lu Sheng. With his top three assassin picks banned, Lu Sheng had been completely suppressed.
Now that Zed was available, RAG found themselves in a difficult position. Their comp risked becoming an awkward hybrid.
After being completely proven wrong in the last match, Dong-ge was finally back on form and resumed his analysis.
"RAG’s pick here isn’t as strong as it looks. Ara’s ability to lane under pressure is the best in the LPL. Lu Sheng might not be able to solo kill him, which means giving up mid lane control. And there’s another problem. Gnar now has another high-value target. If he can’t get to Qi Yi, he’ll go for Lu Sheng instead. Either of RAG’s carries gets caught and the whole comp collapses. Their margin for error is even lower than last game."
Lu Sheng’s lane was clearly not easy. It had that creeping sense of doom. No matter what he tried, the opponent refused to give ground.
The chat was on edge. Lu Sheng, however, stayed calm.
Ara was very similar to Chen Shi’an. He was the type to throw out hundreds of fake movements every minute. Every step was a feint, a trap waiting to spring. Fall into it, and there was no climbing out.
But Lu Sheng had spent the last few days sparring with Chen Shi’an. He had grown used to this kind of matchup.
All he needed was to stay on rhythm, identify the patterns, disarm the traps, and the kill window would appear.
Of course, there could be no mistakes. One misstep and Ara would become like a venomous snake, striking exactly at his weakest point.
Lu Sheng’s gaze was sharp, filled with undisguised killing intent.
He stopped seeing Ara. In his mind, he was facing Chen Shi’an. Or Bai Yu.
And just like that, the difficulty level of the lane spiked.
To outside observers, the laning seemed steady. But beneath the surface, a brutal psychological war was unfolding. Both players were adjusting constantly, reading each other’s minds with every move.
Ara had faced players like this before. This playstyle burned mental stamina quickly. Most of his past opponents couldn’t keep it up. Eventually they’d falter, and Ara would take control again.
He figured Lu Sheng was the same. A high-mechanics player like him couldn’t maintain this intensity for long. He just needed to wait it out.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Lu Sheng’s tempo didn’t drop.
Ara couldn’t believe it. Was this guy some kind of monster?
He had no choice but to call for his jungler to reset the lane and break the rhythm.
But once mid lane tempo is broken, it’s hard to rebuild. When Lu Sheng returned to lane, he didn’t reset. He jumped right into round two.
Ara’s pupils trembled. What the hell was this guy?
The prolonged psychological battle quickly wore Ara down. He made a tiny misstep in his movement.
That was all Lu Sheng needed.
He seized the moment instantly, starting with his ultimate. Three shadow strikes followed in perfect rhythm.
This was his signature move: Triple Strike Kill.
The crowd recognized it at once. It was the exact same sequence as the legendary play from his World Championship debut. Back then, he had used it to shut down the strongest mid laner in Korea. Analysts later frame-by-framed the play and concluded that not even Lin Kun, the fastest hands in the world, could have escaped.
First blood.
The arena erupted. No one knew what kind of battle had unfolded during the lane. They only knew one thing. Lu Sheng had solo killed the hardest mid laner to kill in the entire league.
Just moments earlier, Dong-ge had insisted Ara wouldn’t die solo. Now he had to eat his words again.
He smiled wryly.
"Maybe I should mute myself. I don’t think I’m qualified to cast RAG’s matches anymore."
[LMAO]
[Dong-ge getting wrecked by RAG again. Not even surprised at this point.]
[This is getting exciting. Like, really exciting.]
[Don't give up on us, Dong-ge. If even you don’t get it, we’re doomed.]
[Don’t you feel like Lu Sheng just leveled up? That kill was so early.]
[Sure, I knew he’d kill Ara eventually. But this early and this clean? No way.]
[I thought he’d get camped twice, or maybe only land a kill in a late-game teamfight.]
[I’ve watched a lot of Lu God’s games. He’s definitely not the same player anymore.]
To professionals, nothing was random. Everything had logic.
TUP’s Chu Fei frowned as he watched. He had known Lu Sheng would improve under Bai Yu, but this fast? It was stunning.
And the transformation was obvious. Just two days ago against TIN, Lu Sheng had outright refused to engage in psychological warfare. Now, not only was he engaging, he was dominating.
Chu Fei muttered to himself.
"Bai Yu really knows how to train people."
Of course, that only worked because Lu Sheng had the ability to match.
His mechanics were elite. If a combo was theoretically possible, he could execute it.
His mental strength was nearly unbreakable. His physical stamina unmatched. His discipline and drive far exceeded that of his peers.
Chu Fei’s heart was racing.
He had the feeling that he was witnessing the birth of a legendary player.
The first blood in mid lane had been part of Bai Yu’s expectations. But the timing still surprised him.
He glanced at the clock and couldn't help but praise him.
"That’s another step forward."
Lu Sheng used to scoff at psychological games. He thought they were pointless. But after two days of scrimming with Chen Shi’an, who had started turning the tide against him, something shifted.
The playstyle he once believed to be unbeatable suddenly didn’t feel like the strongest anymore.
Lu Sheng had always had one goal. To be the best player in the world.
That meant surpassing Lin Kun. Surpassing everyone.
If it made him stronger, he’d accept anything.
With mid lane wide open, Bai Yu’s pressure dropped. RAG took the early lead.
Now came the hardest part. The dragon teamfight.
IKG knew Bai Yu wanted to avoid straight-up five-versus-fives. So they did everything they could to force one.
There was no escape. The teamfight was inevitable.
Bai Yu made the call to fight. Calm and deliberate, he set up the play.
The casters spoke in rapid bursts.
"RAG initiates again with a brilliant setup! Noway has been crucial in all three games with his engages! Akoi dives first. He bursts down the enemy AD carry. But Gnar is here too. Rote is back in Mega Gnar form and he's charging in!"
In the chaos, Rote had one target in mind.
Since Qi Yi had already proven capable of dodging rote’s ultimate in the previous match, this time rote shifted his focus. His new target was Lu Sheng.
With a roar, his champion leapt forward, slamming violently into the terrain and pinning the opponent against the wall. The entire audience held its breath as the impact landed. Every heart in the arena tightened in suspense.
In the lounge, Xu Bo instantly recognized the position on the map where the attack had taken place. It was one of the locations he had previously marked. While Bai Yu and the others had been playing the game on stage, Xu Bo had used that time to frantically identify the most likely places where a teamfight might break out. He had gone over them meticulously, verifying them one by one. This exact position had been confirmed, and he had marked it with 100 percent accuracy.
If the last match had been a gamble, testing theories under pressure, then this match was no longer a gamble. This was a reveal of confirmed data, a calculated execution. All cards were on the table.
Not only had Qi Yi worked hard to memorize those point locations, Lu Sheng had also studied them. In fact, every teammate on RAG had quietly committed the list of positions to memory, no matter whether it was relevant to their lane or not.
So, when rote’s Gnar activated his leap and initiated his ultimate, RAG responded without hesitation.
Lu Sheng, the fastest among them in terms of reflexes, was the first to react. He immediately used his champion’s shadow ability to shift out of harm’s way and into a safe location.
Qi Yi, who wasn't within the expected impact zone, didn’t panic. He simply made slight positional adjustments to maintain an optimal damage output angle, carefully calculating distance and line of sight to ensure uninterrupted DPS.
Fang Zhixu had been standing right next to Lu Sheng. Had he hesitated for even a second, he would have died in Lu Sheng’s place. But perhaps driven by a powerful survival instinct, he too activated his flash ability at the critical moment and escaped the fatal area.
Chen Shi’an reacted just as quickly, positioning himself squarely between the enemy and his retreating teammates, effectively cutting off any follow-up from the backline. His body served as a wall that isolated and protected his teammates.
Bai Yu calmly moved to his designated position, securing a clean pincer formation that enclosed the enemy. It was a precise, coordinated reaction, the kind that could only come from deep preparation and trust.
At the very instant rote’s Gnar landed, the faces of IKG’s players turned grim. They suddenly realized that RAG had countered their supposedly unstoppable formation.
The stadium fell into stunned silence. The atmosphere was electric, disbelief hanging heavy in the air.
Before this moment, rote’s initiations using Gnar had been unbeatable. No team had successfully dismantled his setup. Even in the previous match, Qi Yi had dodged once, but that was considered a lucky moment, definitely not something that could be repeated with consistency.
But what had just happened was different. It went beyond luck.
Lu Sheng not only dodged the full impact of the ultimate flawlessly, every single member of RAG had reacted in time. Each one had executed their defensive maneuvers with textbook precision.
This meant that rote’s trump card, his meticulously practiced, all-in ultimate, had just been countered by all five opponents at once.
rote's expression was ashen. He stared at the screen, disbelief written all over his face. He had spent an entire year perfecting this approach. He had poured all his time, energy, and hope into it. And yet, in just two games, the opposing team had broken through it.
It shouldn’t have been possible.
No one other than Xu Bo had such extraordinary dynamic vision.
Unless, in some unbelievable way, Xu Bo had managed to mark every dangerous terrain location within just ten minutes of prep time...
The mere thought made rote’s face go even paler. He stared at the grayed-out screen, unable to look away from the wreckage of his team. Every one of his teammates had fallen. Not a single member of RAG had died.
In that moment, as RAG advanced steadily toward IKG’s Nexus, rote almost hallucinated. In their five-person formation, he seemed to glimpse a sixth presence, a silent figure walking alongside them.
It was Xu Bo.
He had been the hidden sixth member of RAG all along.
And with the unmatched power of his dynamic vision, he had managed in just ten minutes to nullify rote’s year-long efforts.
The match was as good as over. IKG’s respawn timers were too long. They had no time to mount a comeback. rote sat motionless, his entire body drained. His wrist, strained from overtraining, trembled with pain. He looked at the final screen with hollow eyes.
He had trained with unimaginable intensity. Pushed his limits far beyond what most could endure.
But in the end, it still wasn’t enough.
rote slowly removed his headset, just in time to hear the commentator’s triumphant declaration:
“Let us congratulate RAG for a reverse sweep, winning 2 to 1 and securing second place in the regular season as they advance to the playoffs. Also congratulations to IKG, who finish in fourth place and will also move on to playoffs.”
Second place versus fourth place.
On paper, the difference seemed tiny.
But in reality, that small gap was the difference between success and failure.
The audience saw only the scores, the numbers on the screen. They didn’t see the blood, sweat, and heartbreak poured into closing that tiny margin.
The game ended. The two teams met at center stage and shook hands with civility.
RAG’s players were full of energy, glowing with victory. Even Lu Sheng, usually the cold and detached type, wore a faint, proud smirk. Like a peacock displaying its feathers, he sauntered up to Bai Yu and announced loudly:
“So, what did I tell you? I said Ara wasn’t my match. Next time we meet, I’ll kill him even earlier.”
IKG’s players, already sore from defeat, looked even more miserable at the added taunt. Their expressions were as dark as the night.
Fortunately, their captain Bai Yu handled things gracefully. He offered a warm smile and reached out for a handshake.
“Apologies,” he said with tact. “He’s young and doesn’t know any better. If he said anything inappropriate, I’ll make sure to teach him some manners afterward.”
Lu Sheng might have had a sharp tongue, but in public, and especially in front of Bai Yu, he at least knew when to pull back.
Ara, magnanimous as always, accepted the apology with good humor. He took Bai Yu’s hand and, in slow but sincere Mandarin, replied:
“It’s fine. Honestly, I couldn’t beat him anyway. I look forward to our next match.”
If there would be a next time.
The odds were low.
To meet RAG again in the playoffs, IKG would have to first defeat WG, then beat TIN. That road was long and uncertain.
rote let out a long sigh. At last, he had come to terms with their defeat.
The teammates exchanged words of encouragement and comfort. The tension eased, and they moved forward.
RAG, after thanking the audience, made their exit. Even though they were often bickering, their laughter and banter revealed a deepening bond. As their silhouettes grew smaller in the distance, one thing was clear.
They were no longer just five skilled players.
They were now truly a team.