Countermeasures Against VanishingFlower

"Next up is another oddball," Sonya said. "VanishingFlower. She appears to be the team's main Jungler, with Memer being the sub."

"Vanishing who?" Ronald scratched his head. "Oh, yeah. That Jungler they had at the beginning, right? Totally forgot about her, haha."

"She didn't leave much of an impression on me either," William said.

"It's a peculiar thing, isn't it?" Cato smiled meaningfully. "This girl played more games than Memer did and she was in the games in which Stratus actually won. And yet, somehow, it's easy to forget about her, isn't it?"

"Is it, really?" Sonya blinked. "I remember her. If anything, there a few plays she made that I can't forget even if I tried to."

"I also remember her, of course," Cato said. "But, I admit I caught myself forgetting about her multiple times when analyzing the replays. She's a sneaky one. If you don't keep her in mind all the time, she'll slip away."

"Is that how it works?" Sonya pushed her glasses. Honestly, she didn't relate to any of this. The two of them discussed this topic before today's meeting, but it sounded as bogus as it did back then.

"If you can forget about a whole enemy player, then your map awareness isn't up to par."

"I agree," Cato said. "It's a crucial point against Vanishing. As her name implies, she's going to vanish on you if you don't keep your eyes on her."

"Dang," Ronald said. "Sounds like a ghost, haha."

"She might as well be," Cato admitted. "My map awareness is airtight, if I say so myself. But, even I caught myself losing track of her. As a chess player, that's quite embarrassing. It's like forgetting that a certain enemy piece is on the board. That usually leads to the biggest blunder."

"Haha, maybe you just suck at chess then." Ronald stuck out his tongue.

"Do you want a first-to-ten against me? I'll let you win the entire set if you beat me just once."

"Haha, no thanks. I don't play that boring stuff. It's a game for old men."

"My, my, my. A victim of the common misconceptions, as usual." Cato shook his head in disappointment. "Anyway, from what Sonya and I gathered, it's crucial to be vigilant when Vanishing is in the game. If this girl slips out of your mind even once, you might forget all about her until she appears behind you and stabs your back."

"Hmm. Odd," Ronald said. "If she's that forgettable, doesn't it mean she's not doing much the entire game?"

"That's the peculiar part," Cato said. "It's not like she doesn't have any achievements under her belt. In fact, she seems rather capable if we go over her plays." He navigated to the next slide in the presentation.

"May I?" Sonya stood up from her chair.

"What's wrong?"

"I'd like to cover this part of the presentation." Sonya's eyes conveyed unyielding determination. It almost felt as if lecturing about VanishingFlower was the very purpose she was born for.

"Sure, you do you." Cato handed over the controller without any objections. [Okay, break time.] He sat down and let Sonya take the stage.

"A-Alright then." Sonya cleared her throat. She was a little fidgety now that she was standing in front of the audience.

"S-So, VanishingFlower..." Sonya stumbled over her words a little but gradually got the hang of it. She started by bringing up Vanishing's stats to buy herself some time to compose herself.

『Roles: Jungler』『Class Variety: Low(?)』

『Mechanical Skill: 8/10』『Decision-making: 3/10』『Game Knowledge: 5/10』

『Playstyle: Plays assassins and sneaks up to her opponents. Follows farming flowcharts.』

After everybody got a couple of seconds to process the information, Sonya spoke up again.

"Vanishing seems to stick with assassin classes. She might be able to play bruisers too, but she hasn't picked any in the three games she played."

"Also," Cato added. "It looks like she likes stealth in general."

"Oh, r-right." Sonya almost forgot that part in her nervousness. She quickly scanned the paper in her hand to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything else. "Ninja and Drow, that's the two classes she played."

"She picked Drow right after Ninja was banned," Cato added. "It'd be great to have a third example to go by, but I think there's already strong evidence to suggest she's into stealth classes. Her playstyle further reinforces that impression."

"Right." Sonya nodded. "Her game plan is like a textbook example of an assassin, though it struck me as an amateurish one at that. For the most part, she stays in the jungle for long periods of time and follows farming flowcharts to a T."

"Wait," Ronald said. "How is that amateurish? Sounds like she's following the good ol' meta."

"I argue she follows it too much, almost blindly at times."

First, Sonya presented clips in which Vanishing followed standard farming routines. So far, so good. Based on this footage, Vanishing came across as a knowledgeable Jungler who studied the meta.

However, next came the incriminating evidence. It exposed Vanishing for the flowcharter she really was.

There were scenarios in which Vanishing had the opportunity to counter-jungle after killing an enemy, yet she chose not to. Similarly, she had opportunities to alter her rotations ever so slightly to apply pressure on one of the lanes for free, without losing on any farm in the process. Alas, she skipped on all these optimizations like a clueless fool.

With that said, some of these were advanced scenarios. Out of the entire audience, probably only Cato and William fully understood all the examples.

Of course, Sonya knew all about them as well. Going by game knowledge alone, Sonya could play any role. Top Laner and Mid Laner were simply the roles she chose to focus on for the team.

"For the better or the worse," Sonya continued. "Flowcharting is the least of her problems. Vanishing's decision-making as a whole is... bad. So bad."

Sonya moved on to another detailed example. It featured a drawing of the mini-map with various rotation paths on it.

"My, you sure put a lot of effort into this segment~" Cato smiled meaningfully.

"Effort? Not really." Sonya glanced aside. "There's just too much to say about this player, that's all."

[She's really passionate about this one~] Cato giggled to himself.

Sonya always enjoyed analyzing and discussing everything in depth. But, usually, she knew how to stop herself in time before the topic became bloated.

But, not with VanishingFlower. For this one, Sonya was hellbent on exploring every angle. She even personally took the stage, which was even rarer.

"A-Anyway" Sonya continued in a hurry. "Here you can see the route Vanishing took when she rotated to gank the DK in Top. As you can see, this rotation route is... atrocious, to say the least."

The diagram showed Vanishing taking a long and roundabout route to get to Top Lane. There were plenty of paths she could've taken to sneak into the lane, yet she chose one of the most convoluted options possible.

"Yeah, I see what you mean," Ronald said. "She sure took her sweet time getting there. Did that gank work in the end?"

"Yes, it happened to work this once," Sonya admitted against her will. She played the clip for this segment, showing how Vanishing successfully infiltrated the lane and scored a kill.

It was a successful play overall, but it could've been executed much faster and with far better efficiency. If Vanishing took a shorter path, they could've killed the Dark Knight sooner and it would've given them more time for counter-jungling before the next wave.

"All's well that ends well, I guess?" Ronald shrugged. "I mean, she took the long path but she got the kill in the end, so that's what matters, right? It means she's a little slow but she gets the job done."

"You don't seem to understand," Sonya scolded with a stern expression. "She wasted a lot of precious time. And, this wasn't a one-time occurrence either."

Sonya presented more plays in which Vanishing chose convoluted routes. With every new example, Somya's scowl grew bigger and bigger.

[All these deliberate misplays are killing me.] Sonya ranted internally. There was a limit to how much nonsense she could stomach at once. [Why did nobody scold her about it? Their shot-caller should've made her stop this foolishness. I thought he's smarter than that.]

Alas, nobody stopped Vanishing, not her allies and not her foes. The criminal kept running in circles in the jungle, taking the most inefficient routes in existence.

And, the worst thing? Somehow, amidst all this absolute inefficiency and redundancy, Vanihsing's ganks just… worked. Yes, they did. Most of the time, her ganks were on point, much to everybody's surprise.

Everything Vanishing did was an insult to game theory. It made no sense!

"Okay," Cato interrupted. "I understand you're passionate about this, but-"

"I-I'm not! Not really." Sonya denied it as if her life depended on it. "I just wanted to make sure you all understand her weaknesses."

"And, you're doing a great job at that, no question." Cato nodded. "But, aren't you forgetting something here? Or, are you deliberately ignoring it?"

"Did I miss something?"

"Yes, a small but vital piece of information. I remember mentioning it when I went over the presentation."

"Hmm." Sonya pressed her thick-framed glasses up her nose and knotted her brows. She scrolled back and forth in the presentation, but she couldn't spot that important detail she supposedly missed. [Did I get nervous and forget something again? I don't see it.]

"The wards," Cato dropped a hint. "I told you this last time. You're right that Vanishing's routes are needlessly long and convoluted, but you also have to factor the wards in that equation. I'm surprised you forgot."

"Oh, I didn't forget," Sonya said. "I examined all the cases you brought up."

"As expected for TheTheorist." Cato nodded. "So, how come you haven't said a single word about it"

"I concluded it's all conjecture."

"Excuse me?"

"It's not real. You only have minimal circumstantial evidence to support that dodgy theory."

"Okay, just so we're all on the same page," Cato addressee the others. "We're talking about how Vanishing's rotations, as odd as they are, often played around enemy wards. Taurus weren't cheapskates about warding but Vanishing often slipped through their surveillance."

"I noticed that too," William said. "I agree her rotations are silly and inefficient. But, as a fellow Jungler, I have to hand it to her when it comes to slipping past enemy wards. I wish I could be as unnoticeable as this girl."

"Except," Sonya argued. "She didn't even rotate that often in the first place. So, we don't have that many samples to begin with."

"That's actually what makes it even more interesting," Cato said. "She doesn't rotate 'enough' and she always takes the 'convoluted routes'. Combined, that makes her sound like a total amateur, doesn't it? And yet, the few convoluted ganks she went for managed to catch the enemy off guard and seal the deal. Her success rate is actually very high."

"You're trying to make it sound more conclusive than it actually is," Sonya objected. "In practice, she didn't provide us with enough samples of her playstyle. Yes, the few rotations we saw happened to work, but otherwise, she didn't rotate nearly enough. Especially, in the third game, she was lying low the entire game."

"Well, you know how it is," Cato said. "We have to work with whatever data we got in hand."

"Finally, something we both agree on. With that said, I rather stay away from conjecture."

"You're right that the sample size is small, I'll concede that much. But, the same applies to many things we've discussed today. We've barely got any reliable data about any of these players."

"That's... true, I suppose," Sonya admitted reluctantly.

Admitting such a thing stung a little because it put all her efforts into question. She spent days preparing for today's presentation together with Cato, but they derived most of their conclusions from small sample sizes. Therefore, there was no guarantee that anything from Sonya presented today was actually true. It was a depressing reality for an analyst like her.

"I say, let's just keep this little trivia in mind and move on." Cato offered a compromise. "Neither of us can prove anything about Vanishing at the moment, so let's just agree to disagree."

"Fair enough." Sonya nodded and turned to the others. "With that said, I analyzed the matches the most and prepared most of today's presentation. Keep that in mind when deciding with whom to side on this matter."

"My, is that a coup d'état I'm smelling here? Could it be? Is my secretary secretly planning to overthrow me!?"

"Who are you calling 'secretary'?" Sonya gave him a look. "Yes, I did most of the preparations for today, but it's not like I'm working for [you]."

"The denial is strong with this one. I'm the captain, so you're all working under me~"

"The word 'delusional' doesn't even begin to describe you." Sonya sighed. "I took on this responsibility because I believe it suits me the best. That's my way to contribute to the team."

"And, I'm very grateful for it," Cato said. "You make my life at least ten times easier. Thank you for being such a helpful secretary~"

"Hah…" Sonya couldn't even find it in herself to retort anymore. Instead, somebody else spoke up.

"Man, this dude be dodging responsibility like crazy," Ronald said. "Isn't it the captain's job to prepare these meetings and all that?"

"I don't remember such a thing being specified anywhere in my employment contract," Cato said. "The way I see it, the captain's job is to assign the right person for the right job. And, there's nobody better at analyzing matches than our dear Theorist."

"Oh." Sonya blinked in surprise for a moment, then cleared her throat. You won't get anything from sucking up to me now."

"I would never. I'm just stating facts."

"Is that so." As much as she didn't want it, a smile crept up on Sonya's face.

"By the way," Cato continued. "You're free to take a seat. I can continue from here."

"Oh, thanks." Sonya returned to her previous position, one from which it was much easier to deliver the rest of the presentation.

Thinking back on it now, she put herself in an awkward position for no reason by standing up. It was quite unusual for her to challenge the demons of the stage of her own volition. Having so many eyes on her was rather stressful.

[I'm not even sure how well I delivered the message.] Sonya wondered. [I nearly missed some key details at first. Good thing Cato reminded me.]

Truly, lecturing on stage was not for her. Sonya was fine with collecting data, explaining it to others, and even reading it out loud in the meetings. However, standing in front of an audience was too nerve-wracking for her. It's like the spotlight was concentrated wholly on her.

[I wonder if Vanishing also hates the spotlight? Maybe that's why she plays the way she does.]

But, that was also conjecture. For now, it was far more reasonable to write Vanishing off as an inexperienced player with weak decision-making. Hopefully, after playing against her in a real game, Sonya will be able to reveal more about this oddball.

"So," Cato clapped once. "One last thing about Vanishing and wards. Normally, you'd advise exercising caution even against rather unlikely theories. So, is there any reason why you're denying this particular theory so much?"

"Yes, there is," Sonya replied without hesitation. Now that she was seated, a big load lifted off her shoulder and she could employ 100% of her usual brainpower. That's how she remembered she actually prepared a counter-argument for this exact conversation.

"After you pointed out that her routes played around wards, I looked into the matter in more detail."

"As expected from my secretary~!"

"... anyway, my conclusion is that it's impossible."

"Impossible?"

"Yes, impossible. Vanishing couldn't possibly know the positions of most of these wards. Some of them were meta wards, but others were more niche choices that nobody would play around."

"How niche are we talking about here?"

"Hmm." Sonya knotted her brows. "I suppose most of them were still rather popular warding spots, just not the first choices you'd usually go for. Either way, it doesn't sound sensible to me that somebody would go out of their way play around all these warding options without any hints."

"I see," Cato said. "Thanks for checking it out."

"No problem."

"Will, what do you think about this?" Cato asked.

"I can't really tell," William admitted. "As you said, we don't have enough footage of her games. But, if I had to go by my gut, I'd say this girl got [something]."

"Oh? Do elaborate."

"She comes across as a very sneaky player in general. So, sneaking past wards sounds up her alley."

"My thoughts exactly." Cato nodded. "The way she 'sneaks' past wards just fits too well into her profile. Her strong point is to sneak up to people, and playing around wards is what enables her to do it. But, that's just my intuition speaking."

"Intuition..." Sonya mumbled. It was a word that never made any sense to her.

What exactly was "intuition"? Dictionaries defined it as ["an ability to understand or know something immediately based on your feelings rather than facts or reasoning"]. That that sounded vague at best.

[It's not scientific in the slightest.] Sonya criticized.

Why would intelligent creatures like humans even come up with a term like this? They should always operate based on facts and logic. That was the ideal way to solve problems.

Adding vague feelings into the equation only clouded one's perception of things and made them commit terrible mistakes.

[Still, that 'intuition' thing of theirs hits the mark every now and then.] Sonya debated against herself. Even though the concept was rather alien to her, she had to admit it had merit at times. On rare occasions, there were things that this "intuition" deduced correctly despite the lack of hard evidence.

[But, I argue it's not so much "intuition" as it's an "educated guess".]

Cato and William were the logical types, so they'd never rely on a vague gut feeling without anything to support it. Their "intuition" was a product of their robust experience and game knowledge. Over the years, they developed the ability to "intuitively" grasp certain things that were difficult to explain with logic.

"Alright." Sonya brought her notebook closer. "Since you both insist that Vanishing can play around wards, I'll add it to the list of things we have to look out for."

"It's just a little bit of extra caution," Cato reassured. "Vanishing strikes me as Stratus' wild card, so we have to be extra careful about how we handle her. If we don't watch out, she might pull the rug from under our feet."

"I agree," Sonya said.

"To minimize her chances of surprising us," Cato continued. "We have to make sure somebody always keeps tabs on her. That person will be responsible for warning others about the possibility of incoming danger."

The most dangerous element about Vanishing was the way she made her opponents forget about her existence. That, combined with the fact she rarely allowed wards to expose her position, made it very easy to lose track of her during the game.

As such, it was necessary to assign a watchdog whose job would be to keep tabs on Vanishing throughout the entire game.

"I can handle this job when I'm the Jungler," Cato said. "But, I'm not sure I'll be able to do it as a Support. Especially, not against this team's Bot duo."

"I can be in charge of Vanishing in both lineups," Sonya volunteered.

"My, are you sure? Focusing on Vanishing means you have to sacrifice the rest of your map awareness to some degree."

"I can keep tabs on her while maintaining my usual map awareness. It shouldn't be that hard."

[I feel like she's underestimating this problem.] Cato smiled wryly. [Well, I kinda get where she's coming from. Even I think I sound a little paranoid about this whole topic. But, better safe than sorry.]

It was questionable how well Sonya understood the gravity of the matter. For her, Vanishing wasn't anything special. As far as she was concerned, the only reason Vanishing successfully snuck up to so many people was because they "lacked map awareness".

It wasn't wrong per se but it wasn't the entire truth either. These players found themselves ganked by Vanishing time and again. Perhaps they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but they were nonetheless players with adequate experience. So, they should have adapted to the situation and started paying more attention to Vanishing.

But, they didn't. At least, their actions didn't show any indication of any such adaptation. It meant Vanishing had some true expertise at disappearing and delivering unexpected ganks. Therefore, caution was required.

Just because the Leopards had strong players with a solid map awareness, it didn't mean Vanishing wouldn't be able to surprise them at all. After all, nobody here was at pro level, save maybe for the Emperor.

[Honestly, it'll be a riot if Vanishing sneaks up to that arrogant brat~] Cato snickered. [But, that's not going to happen. They won't even get to play each other in the scrimmage.]

After Cato, the next best person for keeping track of Vanishing was undoubtedly Sonya. She possessed the necessary analytical skills for reading the map's data at any given time, so she won't lose track of anybody no matter how low profile they were. The same way Cato translated the map to a chessboard, Sonya read it up like a book.

However, that strong point of Sonya was also one of her weaknesses. She was so serious about maintaining map awareness that she won't forgive herself for missing any details, no matter how small. Therefore, no matter what she says, she won't permit herself to give Vanishing any special treatment.

Sonya [might] be able to force herself to give that phantom a little more attention than others, but she'd surely insist to keep examining and analyzing the rest of the map as well. As a result, her attention will be split across the entire board and she might let Vanishing slip past her.

[Isn't there anybody else who can handle this?] Cato glanced at the rest of the room.

Matthew couldn't do that in Lineup A because he was the Carry. The duo of Chess & Gunz won't give him a moment's rest, the same problem Cato had in that lineup as the Support.

Then, Ronald? No way. That kid had the attention span of a goldfish. If anything, he had the greatest chance of becoming one of Vanishing's victims.

The last option was William, but the older brother was almost as dubious as the younger on this matter, albeit in the opposite manner. His map awareness was airtight, but it wasn't a "global" one.

While Cato and Sonya analyzed the entire board for the sake of the team, William focused only on matters that were important for his personal needs. Therefore, he might flat-out ignore anything that wasn't directly related to him.

[He hasn't offered to take on this job either.] Cato thought. [It means he either doesn't want to do it or that he knows he might not be up to the task.]

In the end, there were no other viable alternatives. Sonya will have to handle the tracking role in Lineup A, whereas Cato will be in charge of it for Lineup B.

With that decided, the discussion moved on to Beat, the female captain of Taurus.