The team members seemed a bit skeptical, but naturally, I had made this judgment after calculating it several times in my head.
I hadn't tried it many times in solo ranked, but I'd already mastered the techniques and tips while scouring the community. In favorable lane matchups, you don't necessarily need extraordinary skill.
From the start, Xan'Che and Mordekaiser are champions at opposite ends of the spectrum, with Mordekaiser having a significant advantage in lane.
First, there's the range difference. Swinging down a mace is naturally longer than flailing around with tonfas in both hands.
Moreover, Mordekaiser is essentially a no-cost champion, only affected by cooldowns. Compared to Xan'Che's mana costs, he has better sustain.
This creates a specific lane dynamic. When Mordekaiser swings his mace from a distance, Xan'Che has three options: don't give any distance at all, take some hits while killing minions, or use skills to dodge and counterattack.
If he doesn't give distance, he can maintain his health, but giving up gold means surrendering the game to his team. Unless victory is completely impossible or enemy intervention is certain, this is an attitude top laners should avoid.
If he takes some hits while killing minions, it might be worth it for cannon minions, but as damage accumulates, his health could become so tattered that he can't respond even when allies come to help.
If he tries to fight, short trades will put Xan'Che at a disadvantage even if he dodges the mace.
What about extended fights? Mordekaiser still benefits.
Xan'Che has only one timing to make his move: after quietly farming minions, he can look for a kill opportunity when he learns his ultimate. He can convert defensive stats to offense, showing an attack-oriented style. It's a battle between a heavy warrior and an agile tank. If he can close that gap a little, Xan'Che's contribution to team fights increases afterward.
Conversely, Mordekaiser can consistently pressure Xan'Che if he's careful during that window. The only thing that bothers Mordekaiser against Xan'Che is that his ultimate—which drags opponents into another dimension for a one-on-one duel—can be blocked by Xan'Che's unstoppable skill.
The motion of raising his arms to create another space can be countered with the right skill. Any player Gold tier or above could react to it. Even Bronze or Iron users could do it with good reaction speed.
While Xan'Che might have a higher win rate in higher tiers, that's only when his team successfully transitions to the team fight phase. If I were to face Kin in lane, I'm confident I could render him completely ineffective.
So what if they anticipate being unable to survive lane and swap lanes? Mordekaiser's mace-swinging skill has decent range for a melee champion, allowing him to last-hit minions adequately. Xan'Che, however, struggles to farm unless minions are pushed to his tower, due to his short range.
Even with a mutual destruction strategy, I'd come out ahead. Despite all these lengthy reasons, I ultimately had the advantage in the lane matchup. Based on that, even though their composition might enable more stable team fights, I could overcome that difference by gaining an advantage in growth.
But I couldn't explain all this to the team during my 30-second pick window, so I just pushed ahead with it.
"Noel, if you're confident, you should push forward like this. Your teammates trusted you, so there's no need to justify yourself further."
"You're right. All that's left is to prove it."
Yeseul is right. There's no point in muttering to myself with all these justifications.
As a professional gamer, I need to prove that every mouse click and keyboard press is the right choice. That's all I need to do.
The early game flows exactly as I predicted. Whether they thought I was a threat or believed Xan'Che would struggle against me in a one-on-one, Genji's team invaded our jungle camp from the start.
As they blatantly split the map like a sandwich into a triangle, claiming the upper side, we quickly made a counter-decision.
"Fight?"
"No, our Ashe is at the bottom. We'd be at a disadvantage."
"Let's split the map. We'll take all the jungle camps on our bottom side. Noel, do your thing."
"They didn't lane swap last time. Now that it's the finals, they've prepared strategies."
Even without me saying anything, our teammates are all professionals. With their understanding of tactics and engagement dynamics, everyone except Gyeonghwan moved organically, and even Gyeonghwan, who seemed somewhat clueless, followed orders well.
I made my own judgment and moved accordingly.
"Since I'd just get dove if I stay top alone, I'll go down and help with the territory control. I can beat Xan'Che in a side lane anyway."
"Right. That's probably part of why they're trying to counter you."
"Wow, Noel's world-class now. Getting targeted as the ace."
"Top is just the easiest lane to harass, that's all."
After Dongkyu embarrassingly praised me, making me feel awkward, we all started demolishing the bottom lane tower along with the minion wave.
Not wanting to let it fall so easily, Genji's team pounded on the top lane tower while sending Rella to defend the bottom. Specifically, they sent their support to prevent us from freely demolishing the tower since they couldn't farm minions anyway.
This left us with two options: either distribute our personnel similarly and transition to a lane swap, or take down Rella who was trying to defend near the tower.
No matter how tanky Rella is, that's only relevant later when she has crowd control skills and items. At low levels, both tanks and damage dealers die under focused fire.
"Tower dive?"
"We have to. She's arrogantly trying to defend alone. Seungjun, come get this."
So we called Seungjun, who was clearing jungle camps, and with everyone except Jinseok (who was laning mid), the four of us planned to take down Rella.
Genji's team must have known that Rella would die meaninglessly in this situation. Perhaps that's why an orange swirl began circling around the bottom lane tower. Someone was trying to join with Teleport.
"Who's teleporting?"
"It's not Smoldi."
"Then it's Xan'Che."
With Seungjun not yet joined, the situation changed from 3v1 to 3v2. With them having tower protection, it became a bit more burdensome for us.
But retreating now would waste the time we'd invested. If we tried to plan everything perfectly before engaging, and they allowed that, they wouldn't be professional gamers.
So I had to make a decisive move here. The moment Xan'Che, who had just teleported in, used his mobility skill anticipating our attack, the decision was made. As the tower fired once at a minion, I extended my ghostly grasp. Spirits that seemed to rise from hell pulled Xan'Che toward Mordekaiser.
As Mordekaiser swung down his mace, Ashe's arrow pierced Xan'Che. Unfortunately, Leonia's follow-up couldn't connect, perhaps blocked by minions, so we couldn't deal critical damage to Xan'Che. But we took down more than half his health, and our only loss was me taking one tower hit, which was just a slight sting.
"What? Did you already fight?"
"With this, we can kill Xan'Che and fight properly. Just need you to come."
With Seungjun joining us after getting his buff, our chances of winning increased dramatically. Both sides had two skills each at level 2, but Seungjun was level 3 with three skills.
As soon as Seungjun arrived, Leonia blinked to Xan'Che and struck him with her shield. Following her skill combo that left no room for response, we all focused our firepower on Xan'Che.
No matter how extremely tense a professional gamer is, they can't react to movements that exceed basic human reaction speed. Somehow, with Rella's cover, he managed to survive a bit longer.
But Seungjun's Zyro summoned a killer plant that delivered the finishing blow to Xan'Che, and Leonia, having done her job, died taking tower hits.
Four of us invested to take down one person and lost one in return. But it doesn't feel bad. Our jungler got the kill, while their support got a kill.
"We gained an advantage, so let's cover top now. They took two plates."
"Wait, let's pretend to back off and bait Rella. I think she'll come for vision."
"Would she really come? Well, we can't openly recall, so we need to back off anyway... hide in the brush."
With Dongkyu's order that exploited human psychology working perfectly, we caught Rella who was moving to secure vision. A very painful story for a support, but what can you do?
Because of that, when I returned to the top lane and started farming, the enemy team's movements felt strange.
Ezreal trying to force trades while taking tower hits. Even though he's a ranged damage dealer and I'm a melee champion, how could he make such bold plays alone?
So I immediately sensed it: this was a dive. Whether angered by our bottom lane dive earlier or not, they were preparing to dive me.
Whether predicting this or just coming to secure vision, Dongkyu's Leonia was on her way behind me.
"I'll stay hidden for a moment. I think they're coming."
"Looking at Ezreal's movement, they're definitely coming. Just keep coming."
"What, Noel's intuition? I trust you."
Just like before, a top laner with a support defending near the tower. The difference is that this time we're on defense.
Seeing Leonia join, perhaps wanting to finish us before other players could intervene, the mounted rider and scorpion monster began charging at us.