1 The Big Announcement and Transistion

Jack Sterling was an employee at Apple who was focused on the quickly exploding game of Triumph of the Tricksters or ToT as everyone called it. With a player base that has already reached 10 million active users, it was a huge business opportunity He was watching an announcement that would change the nature of his job for the years to come.

"We have decided that it is time to start a professional league for our game," the spokesperson for the creators of ToT, Trickster Games was speaking. "Our league will start in 4 months. The participating teams will be decided by a guild rankings system we are introducing to the game. By earning points through various in-game competitions, the top 20 guilds will be able to create a team to compete in our new league. Of course to make this exciting, we need a large prize pool. The number we have decided on for now is $1 billion, $300 million for the winner. All of this is US dollars, of course, and will definitely increase almost tenfold in the coming years. With that, good luck to all of you."

Jack and various others around the world went directly to their bosses to share the news. This was huge business. Not only was there a massive prize pool, but there was also massive opportunity in advertising. It was imperative to create a guild as fast as possible in order to attract some of the talented players before they were stolen by other teams or companies. He would also need to make some special phone calls to professional players from other games who would probably also be extremely good at ToT.

"Boss, should we just go after all the top players from World of Warcraft."

"No, Jack, remember that ToT is inherently different form World of Warcraft. While it retains the same goal of defeating the enemy team, that's about all that the two games have in common. In fact the game is much more like League of Legends(LoL) stylistically. You set up for the battle by gathering information and killing jungle monsters before one side initiates a short team fight that determines the winner. It requires far more spacial awareness, strategic planning, and clever use of information. Fast hand speeds and reaction times are still important but not as vital. Look specifically for players that have been praised for these qualities."

The first player on his mind and his boss's was obviously Rohit Perla, a player whose tactical skills were unmatched. He had been famous in the League pro scene for always being aggressive and pressing his team's advantages in order to win. He won 2 world championships in a row. However, for the last two years, he had been unable to adjust to the new tank meta that required more slow gameplay and rewarded high level mechanics and reactive play. He was still one of the best players in the world, but he definitely had something to prove to the world, and ToT seemed like the perfect place to do so.

"So can I call Rohit?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

Jack was fairly certain that with his willingness to pay Rohit upwards of $20 million, he should be able to land the deal. However, as he and others in similar positions in other large companies like Nike, Microsoft, and Google were about to find out, things weren't that easy. No matter the offer, Rohit's reply was always the same.

"No!" Then he elaborated.

"I'm going to build my own team."

As he logged out of his League of Legends account for what was probably one of his last times, Rohit Perla went through a moment of reflection. He had joined LoL at its infancy, when he was just 13 years of age. After a few years of playing MMO's with his friends, he was quite excited. Although he'd miss all the story and exploration that MMO's had to offer, the new battle mode with cool new champions and quick, explosive bloodbaths appealed to him. He found that he had a knack for this type of game and, by the early age of 16, he became a pro. He was known for his ability to initiate fights at the exact right moment. He became a world champion and was widely considered the best player in the world.

However, all of that changed with the recent metas. He had been unable to reach the same heights of glory that he had experienced before. At the age of 20, people were already calling him washed up. That's why Trickster's of Triumph seemed like a perfect opportunity to prove all of these people wrong. He'd get to go back to his MMO roots and create a guild from the ground up. He'd get to play the battle style he had so much success with in LoL, and picking up a portion of that $1 billion prize pool didn't sound that bad either. However, to him it was important he did this without the help of a big company. That's why he declined all the requests that came his way. He was good looking and had gained enough money to lead a comfortable life through sponsorships.

Now, logging into his Triumph of the Tricksters account, named Confident Sword, that he created for fun when it came out 3 months ago, he was ready to get started. No 30 minute tutorial to complete.

Back then, he had also given his account to a power leveler. Because of this, his account was now at level 45/100, well past the level 25 that is required to choose a class. Knowing that the game developers were fairly good about balancing all the classes, he had chosen Rogue— the class that felt most appealing to him. In ToT, the advice was to choose one class to perfect because each class was so different and since the developers had given no indication that they would add bans to the competitive mode, Rohit saw no reason to challenge this rule of thumb.

Rogue was a class that had 5 skills, like most other classes. Its big advantage was its short casting time. However, it had a really weak normal attack that death that barely any damage to balance this out. The skill set was quite diverse. First, was it medium distance slow named Dagger Toss. By throwing a dagger, it could slow enemies for a full two seconds. Next, was its dash, Dash. The dash consisted of two parts: the instantaneous movement to a place that was within 2 units(a very small area) and a 1 second knock up. These two attacks formed a staple combo that could easily setup a kill. The Rogue could also conceal itself using Mysterious Cloak. Or use nearby teammates to escape quickly through See You Later. Finally, there was the ultimate. Rogue's ultimate, Backstab, was very easy to charge up and dealt a large amount of damage — enough to take out half the enemy's health if they were playing some squishy class — to an enemy who was within one unit. However, this ability was very easy to dodge and usually only worked on stunned or knocked up enemies.

Another thing Rohit did when he created his account was create a guild. He had put his name on it and, sure enough, he attracted quite a few players. Unfortunately, there were very few high leveled players. However, Rohit decided that he should do a examination of all of his 99 guild mates. Even if he couldn't find anyone good, he would at least be able to learn about their skill levels so he could advise them or create well balanced teams. Finally, it would serve as a good way for him to start getting used to his new character and start learning some of the nuances in ToT combat.

He decided to start with a player named Noob Crusher. Crush this noob, loser!