Chapter 115: The Story of S18

Coach Duoyu carefully reviewed the replay of this match.

He shook his head slightly.

Although the team he coached had not performed well in the KPL, it was still a KPL team, and he was the head coach. Soon, he pointed out the problem.

“He truly has great talent, and his understanding of positioning and skill accuracy is profound, but his playstyle doesn’t quite fit with ours.”

The coach pointed to the equipment bar on the screen.

“Look at his Nuwa—he’s building full magic gear. This shows his understanding of Nuwa leans toward an assassin-style burst damage approach. It’s not necessarily bad, but Nuwa’s skills are relatively hard to land and have a low margin for error. In the KPL, Nuwa is mainly used for attrition battles. To improve the margin for error, the build usually goes for the Holy Grail path.”

“Playstyle is one aspect, but another is the understanding of the mid lane role in KPL. The mid laner is expected to be more of a utility player. His approach is clearly that of a mage carry, almost a high-attack assassin style. This playstyle requires either accumulating a large number of kills early on to gain experience and gold or having teammates funnel resources to him, at least not sharing the mid lane farm. But do you think that’s realistic?”

“Every kill is hard to come by in professional play. Now with the jungle-core meta, if the jungle is ahead, the whole game goes smoothly. So the jungle needs resources. How do they get it? Side lanes rotate slowly and are vulnerable to counter-ganks, so the jungle must rely heavily on mid lane farm.”

726 knew this was the trend throughout the KPL now.

But having been around since the early days of the KPL, he didn’t think mid laner resource priority was wrong, so he retorted, “We can build a training system centered on him; maybe we can be like the old Jiucheng teams.”

“The times have changed,” Coach Duoyu patted 726 on the shoulder. “Jiucheng, once the representative mage carry, is now just a substitute on AC’s bench. He had a successful and mature system, but it’s no longer used because the core role is going against the meta. AC tried it last year but suffered many losses. If we really go down that road, we’d likely follow Jiucheng’s fate.”

“Besides, look at Maoshen, once the symbol of mage-assassin playstyle in the mage-core era. He used to take just one blue buff early on, but now he’s switched to support.”

At this, Coach Duoyu sighed softly.

The club’s revenue model meant that a single poor performance could lead to a prolonged slump.

Developing a player from the youth academy required great investment, but the output was uncertain. Individual skill could be gauged, but the chemistry of five players together was unpredictable.

If the team failed to assemble a strong lineup for a year and got eliminated early in the KPL, sponsors might withdraw, reducing the team’s exposure and ultimately impacting revenue.

Then, in the next transfer window, lacking funds, it would be impossible to acquire top-tier players, creating a vicious cycle difficult to break.

The team’s relatively poor results were a fact, but Coach Duoyu intended to focus on rigorous training rather than a complete overhaul of the roster.

······

Tonight’s match, though for entertainment, stirred discussion within many teams, especially those participating.

Haoran naturally attracted considerable attention. Both Yuange and Nuwa were rare picks in the KPL, but they were widely acknowledged as heroes with high potential waiting to be tapped.

Unlike VC’s internal thoughts about recruiting Haoran, other teams had no such intention.

What they cared about more was whether Nuwa’s playstyle needed adjustment.

For instance, in this match, using Nuwa against Baili Shouyue proved a clever tactic.

Look at that sniper, Xiao Jue—Nuwa completely shut him down.

Many content creators, after the event at Shark’s venue, quickly spread the word, praising Lin Hao’s Nuwa performance with headlines like “Destroying the professional sniper Xiao Jue’s Baili Shouyue,” shocking the KPL community.

Lin Hao, however, paid no attention to these. He was focused on climbing the ranks in the peak competition tonight.

Opening the peak competition interface, Lin Hao saw he had risen to ninth place.

His current score was 2481, but the top-ranked player, Weiliang, had already reached 2615.

There was a gap of over 100 points!

Upon closer inspection, the first and second places were familiar names.

Second place was Yifan, with 2575 points.

The gap was significant.

Climbing to first place would be a long and arduous journey.

While waiting for viewers to enter the live stream, Lin Hao quietly clicked through the profiles of the top ten peak players.

Their profiles revealed their frequently used heroes. At this rank, players usually specialized in one position. Players who filled in often stalled around the top 100 mark.

If the top 100 relied on hero versatility, the top 10 depended on deep mastery—thorough understanding and precise execution of details to rise higher.

Besides Lin Hao, who played Yuange, Ma Chao, and Guan Yu, and Yifan, who played Lao Fuzi, Charlotte, and Ma Chao—mostly side lane heroes—the other eight players in the top ten all played jungle heroes.

“That’s why they call this the jungle-core meta,” Lin Hao chatted with his viewers. “Only me and Yifan are side laners; not a single mid laner in the top ten.”

Fans eagerly joined the discussion.

“This is Weiliang’s era of dominance!”

“I think the problem lies with some of the support mechanics being way too strong. They must be banned so those powerful junglers like Lan, Jing, or even the newly released Xun can appear.”

“Haozi, I order you to rush to number one in the peak rankings!”

“Mid laners have it rough—giving up their lane to teammates, praying the jungler knows what they’re doing, or else you can’t win!”

······

When the viewer count reached around 2.8 million, Lin Hao clicked start to queue for the peak competition.

At the same time, Tiger Tooth Live streamed.

Han Han, real name Liu Wei, once the king of the jungle, now… not exactly fallen, but rarely seen in the top ten peak rankings.

He began matching for the peak competition.

While waiting, he chatted with viewers.

“You guys are craving some nostalgia, huh? Come on, let me refresh your memory about Han Ge’s glorious Season 18.”

He then pulled up his Season 18 peak leaderboard screenshot.

The first, second, and third places all bore the same avatar and a very orderly sequence.

The names were: First place: Han Han.

Second place: Han Han.

Third place: Still Han Han.