Clunky Cooperation

The online match began and there were multiple elements of uncertainty about it. How well will Yuel and Kai be able to cooperate in Bot? How well will Ben play in Top? How well will Luke play his meme Jungle Druid? And, how will Lars handle a mage with more delicate execution like Electromancer?

In short, literally everything was uncertain about this match. But, Yuel couldn't focus on everything at once.

Based on the experiences of the last few days, Luke probably knew how to play Jungle Druid. He has already started the game on the right foot by buying Smite, a utility skill that'll greatly help him clear jungle camps.

One of the big reasons Druid was a meme as a Jungler was due to its poor camp clearing speed. So, Luke practically had to buy Smite to be able to do anything at all. As always, the guy lived up to his memeing quality, for the better and the worse.

As for Lars, it was always easy to trust that mechanical monster to handle anything that required execution. Even if he fails to do the optimal Electromancer setup on his first try, he'll optimize it in no time. He was that kind of natural beast. At most, Yuel will have to throw a few reminders in Lars's way in case that goof forgot some of the finer details of the execution.

With all that considered, Yuel didn't have to worry too much about Lars and Luke's performances. The more interesting topic was Ben. As a Top player, Ben will compete with Vincent for that spot once Yuel regains his rightful place as the Support. So, which one of the two was the better Top Laner for the team?

Right off the bat, Ben's absence from every club meeting thus far was a bad first impression. However, Ben wasn't a delinquent and it seemed he genuinely felt bad for missing club activities. Therefore, it was better to ignore the bad first impression and analyze Ben objectively. Was he a better Top than Vincent? That's all that mattered right now.

Unfortunately, Yuel played on the opposite side of the map from Ben, so it might be hard to analyze Ben's skill properly. Worst case, he'll have to watch the replay later.

For now, he'll concentrate on cooperating with Kai in the lane. This was a fresh experience and a good opportunity to better understand her as a player.

Speaking of Kai, she started off on her own while Yuel was still busy thinking about the situation. He didn't even get a chance to see what she bought.

"Why two wards?" Yuel asked while going over Kai's starting items.

"Why not?" Kai shrugged. "We gotta ward, you know."

"Yeah, but it's better to let the Support spend money on wards. We can split the burden of warding if you want but I have no problem warding everything myself."

"I prefer to do some of the warding myself. There are some areas on the map I wanted warded at all times, so I want to make sure they'll be warded."

"You can just ask me to ward there."

"It's okay, I'll handle it. You just ward where you think is best."

"Fine," Yuel gave up. He didn't know how to continue this argument. For some reason, Kai was deadset on doing some of the warding herself. This was rather rare.

Normally, Carries didn't like warding and wanted to focus on laning, kills and pushing. Lars never ever suggested to ward anything himself. He always left everything to Yuel. And, Taison was the exact same way. As far as they were concerned, warding wasn't their job. Somebody else will always ward Bot for them and that somebody was the Support.

So, it was nice to see a Carry who valued warding for a change. With that said, a Carry shouldn't ward too much, especially not during the early stages of the game. After all, there was a reason the Support started off on the same lane as the Carry in the meta.

Most Carry classes were relatively weak during the early game and their top priority was to get their build online and become a force to be reckoned with. The faster a Carry can start pushing objectives, the better. Spending gold on wards delayed the Carry's build so it wasn't something a Carry should do often early on.

Hopefully, Kai only was this persistent about warding herself during game start. If she keeps buying two wards every time she returns to base, they'll need to have a talk about it.

After Yuel and Kai cleared the Ogre Camp together with Lars, they went to Bot Lane. The enemy arrived there earlier, which wasn't surprising. Pirate's clearing speed was a little faster than Impaler's during the early game and there was nothing anybody could do about that fact. It was math.

With that in mind, Yuel and Kai had to play smart and crack the enemy down one step at a time.

During the laning phase, Kai didn't take any risks. She cleared the minions safely but efficiently. She stayed in the rear and fired basics on the enemy frontline. Impaler's passive, Deep Wounds, lowered the target's defense by a flat amount for a brief time. So, first of all, Kai hit every enemy swordsman in order to lower all their defenses.

Then, she followed up with Impale and shot her spear through the line of swordsmen. It was a good farming tactic but, unfortunately, Impale didn't deal that much damage. Especially, not during the early game. Pirate's Backfire Cannon was much stronger, so that's how the Pirate dominated the lane despite Kai's efficient setup.

Every time, a couple of minions from the enemy team outlived all allied minions. That's when the enemy's pressuring began. The Pirate and Lumimancer advanced along with their minions and tried to get as much damage as possible on Yuel and Kai.

So, Kai always retreated to the Turret in a timely fashion. From there, she did her best to kill the minions before they enter the Turret's area.

[Is the plan to keep playing defense during the early game?] Yuel wondered. He didn't get to see much of Kai's performance in Bot because he was always playing Top, so he had no idea how she normally handled disadvantageous early game scenarios. He should've watched some replays, but he deemed it irrelevant at the time. However, now that he was her Support, these things were very much relevant.

[She got a poker face 24/7, so I can't tell what's on her mind.] Yuel squinted his eyes. No matter whether things were going well or poorly, Kai's expression remained static like a statue's.

"What?" Kai glanced at Yuel.

"Nothing," Yuel averted his eyes. He was trying to read her expression but it probably looked like staring to her.

"Something on my face?"

"No, it's nothing."

"Huh." Kai dropped the topic and returned to her tablet.

In truth, there was one thing about Kai which always bothered Yuel: the black sporty cap. Why was she wearing a cap all the way down here in the basement? Surely it wasn't going to help her against the sun. No sunlight reached this godforsaken clubroom.

Thinking of it, Yuel has never seen Kai without the cap. Did she wear it to class as well? There was no school rule against it so nobody would stop her.

"What?" Kai turned to him again.

"Ah," Yuel jumped. The girl had some sort of radar for sure. "I was just wondering about your cap."

"Wanna buy one too? They sell 'em at the mall around here. It's pretty neat."

[Is it just me or she's very good at missing the point?] Yuel wondered. "No, I don't need one. I was just wondering why you're always wearing that cap, even when you're at the club."

"Why not?"

"Because we're in a basement."

"And?"

"Well, as you can probably tell, there's no sunlight down here."

"I'd be surprised if there was."

[This girl...] Yuel didn't know what else to say here. "Do you ever take it off?"

"When I shower or go to bed."

[I feel like the first mention was unnecessary.] Yuel's cheek burned a little as a rude image flashed through his mind. Though, even in that brief steamy snapshot, he still imagined Kai sporting that black cap. He never saw her without that cap so, even in his mind, he couldn't imagine how she looked without it.

With that, the small talk died down. Yuel didn't get to the bottom of the cap mystery and didn't get to see any reactions from Kai. She was one tough customer to deal with.

By the time both sides reached Lv.4, Kai's clearing speed became on par with that of the enemy Pirate. In fact, hers was a bit faster because she has been doing a great job utilizing the Impaler's passive to weaken the swordsmen's defense. So, this time, she was the one to clear the minions first.

This was a great opportunity to strike. Yuel should bring this up and-

"I'll attack," Kai announced before Yuel could make his move.

"Okay," Yuel followed along. "Then, let me create an ice-" He was too late. Kai already advanced to the frontline and activated Iron Maiden, which summoned the metallic torture device right behind the enemy Pirate.

Before the Pirate realized he was trapped, Kai fired her large spear in his direction. The impact pushed the Pirate back and shoved him right into the iron maiden. The Pirate's back rammed into the torture device and the metallic doors burst open. The iron maiden swallowed the Pirate whole as if he was a snack.

CRUNCH. It sounded like a smashed waffle. After delivering the damage, the iron maiden broke apart and revealed the stunned Pirate. This was the cue to go all out!

Like before, Kai didn't waste any time and threw spears at the stunned prey. So far, her attack was well-executed. But...

[I'm the Support. I should be initiating these kinds of plays.] Yuel made a face. It wasn't a rule set in stone, but it was usually the Support's role to initiate fights.

Yuel could've spared Kai the trouble of spend MP on Iron Maiden if she gave him time to cast Ice Wall instead. It didn't matter what kind of wall Impale shoved its target into, the impact would stun all the same. Sure, the Iron Maiden dealt some additional damage but it wasn't even enough to help to secure the kill so it was practically useless.

So, the Ice Wall play would have been superior overall. Yuel had more MP to burn and his resources were less important than the Carry's. On top of that, while Yuel was creating the Ice Wall, Kai could've already fired her Impale to lower the opponent's chances of dodging.

There was a brief recovery animation after casting Iron Maiden, so it took a moment before Kai followed up with Impale. The only reason this play worked out was that the opponent was too slow to react. Most players would have been able to dodge that telegraphed Impale.

[Well, I'll go over it later.] Yuel shifted his focus to the situation at hand. The enemy Pirate was stunned and Kai was driving him with spears but that alone wasn't going to do the job. The Pirate will have a chance to escape once he gets out of stun.

Therefore, to properly secure the kill, Yuel got close to the Pirate. He waited right until the Pirate's stun was about to run out and activated Ice Coffin, spreading chilling air in front of him. The cold hit the Pirate and froze the guy in place. From one stun into another. Nasty but beautiful.

This gave Kai enough time to seal the deal.

『An enemy has been killed!』

"Yes." Kai nodded in satisfaction. It was a quiet and brief celebration but Yuel noticed it. After all, the girl has been sitting there like a statue this entire time, so this was the first time she expressed any human emotion.

[At least she celebrates when she wins. I guess she's a human, after all.] Yuel chuckled.

"Here it is!" A loud voice boomed. "The first blood goes to Stratus! Despite playing as a duo for the first time, Beat and Chessmaster showcased perfect synergy as they took down CrazyDriver!"

[Perfect synergy? More like, barely any synergy at all.] Yuel mentally retorted. The one spreading fake news was Vincent, the only one in the room who wasn't in the match. He was following the match closely by sticking his face to Luke's PC monitor.

"With this play, Stratus seized the momentum!" Vincent went on with his nonsense. "What other surprises will this team deliver today!?"

[Are you supposed to be a commentator?] Yuel made a face. Who was Vincent even commentating for? It felt like he was being loud for the sake of drawing attention to himself.

However, Vincent's grin made it look like he genuinely enjoyed following the match and commenting on it. So, Yuel didn't say anything. But, that didn't change the fact that "perfect synergy" couldn't be farther away from describing the recent play Yuel and Kai pulled off.

"Next time," Yuel said. "If you want to get a kill with a stun combo, let me make an ice wall first."

"Hm? You mean, instead of the iron maiden?"

"Yes. There's no need for you burn MP on Iron Maiden if I can make a wall for you. I got plenty of MP to spare and, even if I run out, it's not a big deal if I leave the lane to recover. On the other hand, if you recall to base, we'll be surrendering lane control to the enemy. So, it's better to exhaust my MP instead."

"Huh, that's a noble sacrifice you're willing to make."

"That's my job as the Support," Yuel chuckled. "You know, to babysit the Carry."

"I don't need no babysitting."

"It's just a term. If you prefer, you can think of me as somebody who works under you and that it's better to work me to the bone when it saves you trouble."

"That's a pretty masochistic mindset you got there."

"That's just how it works," Yuel said. It's not like he wanted to slave away for the Carry, it's just that this was the optimal arrangement for ensuring that the Carry will grow strong and healthy. So, since this strategy was so effective, it was attractive enough to make Yuel ignore the fact he essentially had to work under the Carry. Though, in his experience, he was usually more of a babysitter than a worker. Especially, when playing with goofs like Lars and Taison.

This Bot duo arrangement meant the Support had to work hard for the sake of the Carry, but that's part of what made the role complex and fun to master. He had to ward, protect the Carry, initiate fights, and much more. It was a lot of work and he had to do all of it at the same time during the early-game. It was a lot of responsibility and rather difficult, but that's what made it rewarding.

As such, Yuel didn't appreciate it when the Carry stole some of his work. Even Ellen, who was mostly an independent Carry, still spared the time to strategize with Yuel about their upcoming plays. Ellen barely needed any babysitting compared to the other Carry goofs but she still made Yuel slave away for her as needed.

That was a world apart from what Kai just did. She just charged in all by herself without taking Yuel into account at all.

Sure, Kai did give him a heads up about her plan of attack. But, then she just went through with it without even giving Yuel a chance to react. Kai just made a last-moment announcement and had zero intention of discussing it or asking for help. That wasn't how things should work.

"The next time you want to attack," Yuel said. "Make sure to inform me ahead of time. It's better if I initiate things because that'll put me in the most danger."

"You're really raring to die, huh," Kai smirked.

"As I said, it's always better to burn the Support's resources rather than the Carry's, no matter whether's it's MP or HP."

"I don't need you to sacrifice yourself for my sake."

"It's not like I'm doing it for you. It's just more optimal. As the Support, my job is to get all the hits for the Carry during the early game. I make sure you can get enough farm during the early-game and you carry the team during mid-game. That's how we optimize the team's chances of winning."

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind."

"Please do," Yuel concluded the conversation on that note. But, did the message really get across? Kai's tone was as aloof as ever, so it was hard to tell. Yuel will have to be more assertive the next time they get a good opportunity to initiate.