The turnaround happened in the blink of an eye, just as the entire audience was still immersed in Lu Qi’s Wan’er securing a pentakill.

The broadcast crew thoughtfully replayed the pentakill, clearly showing that most of the ARE team members had low health, and Wan’er was essentially cleaning up.

But a pentakill was a pentakill.

Moreover, pentakills are rare in KPL history.

In JK’s history, Lu Qi’s pentakill was the first.

JK’s fans cheered: Starting today, their team also has a pentakill! And it was a comeback pentakill while behind by five or six thousand gold!

After the excitement, some fans started discussing editing a highlight reel for JK.

—Mainly because today’s match between JK and ARE was incredibly thrilling.

Ambushes, comebacks, pentakills!

And stealing the dragon!

With so much excitement, who needs anything else?

The current score between JK and ARE is 2:1. JK just needs one more win to advance.

Under normal circumstances, fans would be glued to the final game, but not today. They couldn’t contain their excitement! They wanted to cut a highlight reel right away so that when JK’s five players stepped off the stage, the whole world would know how fierce JK was today!

They now felt that no matter how JK performed in the end, they could accept it calmly—

Because JK was trying and improving.

They had seen it.

All the effort was worth acknowledging.

When ARE said the two teams were evenly matched, no one believed it: How could it be? Just by changing an insignificant support, could they break free from being a bottom-tier team and rise to the middle? As if the efforts of other teams didn’t exist?

Back in the day, ARE had to make painful sacrifices to escape the shackles of being a bottom-tier team.

Now, JK just changed one support, and they achieved this?

What’s so great about Eden? Just a deeper hero pool? Is she the only support in the league with a deep hero pool?

Sometimes compared to Lian, Eden even seems a bit timid, and even today, lack of coordination still happens. This has been heavily criticized.

Against weaker teams, small flaws don’t matter much; against stronger teams, especially the top four teams, even a tiny mistake can be fatal.

Of course, they all know Eden is a rookie, and rookies need time to grow. But is Eden worth their wait?

—Yes.

From today’s match, they caught a glimpse of this young girl’s charm.

She might not be fully mature yet, but she wants to win, and she’ll do whatever it takes to win.

Eden is timid, that’s true, but for the team, she can also go all out.

No matter how timid she is, she’s still a great support.

A great support makes the team 4+1 greater than 5.

When it came to allocating screen time, JK fans were divided. Should the focus be on Eden, who traveled all the way to the dragon pit, or Ling Chen, who went in the dragon pit solo and secured the steal with precise damage and smite, or Lu Qi, who descended like a god and secured a pentakill?

If we’re talking about that, shouldn’t Da Qing and Da Ming, who provided crucial crowd control, also get some credit?

After weighing it in their hearts, they couldn’t decide who the real MVP of that dragon fight was.

Everyone had their own opinion, and everyone was important.

After some debate, someone suggested, “Since it’s a team game, let’s just edit it all together.”

That made sense.

—But then the question arose: When did the turnaround actually start?

Was it Lu Qi’s pentakill?

Ling Chen diving into the dragon pit?

Or Eden travelling half the map to the dragon pit?

No… no…

It should have been when JK discovered ARE’s sneaky attempt to steal the dragon.

Recalling the scene, JK fans were shocked:

Who the hell discovered ARE’s scheme?

And rushing to the dragon pit without a word, this kind of highly efficient lane rotation—was that something a bottom-tier team like JK could pull off?

‧

Leaving aside the fans’ excitement, the match had reached the fourth game.

After a ten-minute break, ARE’s bot laner, Yang, was still shaken.

“Damn, JK is so weird! I’m telling you, this big furnace! I saw it was still so far away, and then whoosh! It just licked me over!” Yang was on the verge of a breakdown. “Is Taiyi Zhenren’s second skill really that long??? I seriously suspect Eden is hacking!”

The jungler, Li Qiu, laughed heartily, “I told you you were standing there like a wooden dummy, letting her lick you.”

“I didn’t want to! I’m a noble ADC, responsible for dealing damage, I value my life! But I never expected Eden would flash just to mess with me.” Yang paused, then turned to his teammates, “Please ban Taiyi for me later, thanks. I don’t want to see that hero for the next couple of days.”

His teammates looked at the coach, who glanced at Yang and understood that he was mentally broken by Taiyi Zhenren. Considering they still needed him to deal damage, the coach waved his hand, “Ban Taiyi.”

It wasn’t a bad move. Taiyi Zhenren usually pairs with immobile marksmen. Banning Taiyi meant JK likely wouldn’t pick an immobile marksman—and Da Qing and Da Ming’s mobile marksmen aren’t that great, so they probably wouldn’t pick them.

Thus, JK might go for a dual-lane composition.

In that case, the jungler and mid-laner would likely be the core.

“Also ban Wan’er,” Yang added, still traumatized. “She’s too aggressive!”

“…” The coach glanced at him again.

Although the reasoning was different, the result was the same. “Lu Qi’s Wan’er is indeed terrifying. It gives me a headache just watching her. Ban her.”

With that, ARE completed their first round of bans.

JK, on the other hand, remained calm and collected, leisurely banning the annoying Jiang Ziya and Shieldun—

JK really liked banning Shieldun for some reason.

“Will their mid-laner pick a mage assassin?” Qing Guang suddenly asked. “Lu Qi’s mage assassins are pretty good. Although he can play utility mages decently now, I feel like he’ll go for a mage assassin.”

“Possibly,” the coach agreed.

“What magic assassins are available now?” Qing Guang thought for a moment. “Wan’er is banned; he doesn’t play Mai; Kong Ming falls off if he gets shut down early; Sima Yi… I haven’t seen anyone use him this season. If Lu Qi picks a mage assassin, it’ll probably be Diao Chan.”

The coach: “His Diao Chan is indeed good.”

“Should we ban her?”

“Let it through,” the coach said. “Let him pick her. We can counter with Zhang Liang or Dong Huang as support.”

In the first round of picks, ARE selected Sun Ce, while JK picked two top laners: Lu Bu and Fuzi.

At this point, it was still unclear what was happening, and the commentators weren’t surprised: “JK’s picks are standard for this meta. ARE’s Sun Ce could be either a top laner or a jungler.”

“A flex pick.”

“Exactly, we’ll have to see what ARE picks next.”

ARE then picked Dong Huang and a jungle carry, Nakoruru.

JK’s third pick was indeed Diao Chan.

The commentators were amazed: “JK! Is JK getting a bit cocky? Are they really picking Diao Chan against Dong Huang? Don’t they see the trap ARE set? Wow, this draft is bold!”

Commentator B laughed: “Maybe Lu Qi misclicked, hahaha.”

In the second round of bans, JK banned Shi Nian’s strong picks, Gan and Mo, and Catboom, while ARE banned Xuance and Pei.

“Wow,” Ling Chen couldn’t help but comment when he saw the bans. “They’re targeting me. They know my marksman junglers aren’t great, so they’re banning all the jungle carries.”

Commentator A: [Well, we can see both teams are being very aggressive, fully expressing their current mood—if I’m not having a good time, neither are you. There aren’t many viable jungle carries this meta: Nakoruru, Xuance, and Pei. ARE knows JK relies on their jungler and mid-laner for damage, so they took Nakoruru and banned the other two. That’s just mean!]

Commentator B laughed, [If your hero pool isn’t deep enough, you don’t even dare to be on stage.]

[You still need to practice other heroes,] Commentator C added. [Ling Chen’s marksman junglers are his weakness. His tank junglers and standard jungle carries are pretty good, so why can’t he play marksman junglers? Look how passive he is now, completely shut down by the bans.]

Commentator A quipped: [I think Eden could carry.]

[A support that kill steal?]

Commentator C: [What kill-stealing support?]

[I heard when Eden was duo-queuing with Lu Qi, she was very reserved at first, but once they got comfortable, she started stealing his kills like crazy.]

Commentator A: [How hasn’t she hasn’t been killed by Lu Qi yet?]

The three laughed for a while, and finally, JK’s fourth pick appeared.

Cirrus.

—If not mistaken, this hero just hit the live servers yesterday.

It took the commentators ten seconds to find their tongues, and they succinctly commented: ” ——Impressive.”

Impressive indeed. To dare pick a hero that just came out yesterday, not afraid of messing up.

JK was determined to intimidate ARE with their draft today.

After a brief silence, the audience erupted into cheers, loving the chaos.

They love teams that dare to pull out anything!

The forums were buzzing:

[This feels like watching QAQ play, pulling out all sorts of crazy picks, lol]

[The first team to use Yaria, the first team to use Cirrus!]

[If it weren’t for the competition rules, ARE would probably storm over to JK’s base and beat them up, hahaha]

[ARE: I thought I was being sneaky, but you guys are next-level]

[This draft is devilish. Do you think you’ve banned all my jungle carries? Think again! You forgot about Cirrus, who just came out.]

[Wuwuwu, I regret not buying tickets to watch! This looks so exciting!]

After the initial shock, the match had to go on. ARE picked a strong top laner and Princess Frost.

JK’s final pick took a while, and as the timer ticked down, the commentators grew anxious: “Fifteen seconds left! Is it that hard to pick a support?”

“Alright! We see the last pick cycling through several heroes: Su Lie, Da Qiao, Sun Bin… Five seconds left! It’s locked in! JK’s support is——”

The commentators looked like they’d seen a ghost:

“—— The Spirited Doe.”

It’s Yaria again!!