Accessible Replays

The match review was approaching its end. Yuel finished talking about the three main troublemakers, so only Vincent and Lars were left.

"Next, Vincent," Yuel continued. "All in all, you played well. There are many things I can say about your performance as a Support, but I believe that's not so important for us going forward. After all, you'll be playing Top from now on."

"Indeed, I will."

"So, if you want to hear my criticism regarding your supporting, we can discuss it in private later. I don't want to drag out this match analysis any longer than it needs to be."

"Mhm, a reasonable decision indeed."

"As for your performance in Top, you did well overall. DragonMaster overwhelmed you a little at first, but you successfully turned the tables on him with Luke's help."

"All thanks to your genius advice."

"I did throw you a bone," Yuel said. "But, it was you who successfully organized and pull off that strong play. So, it's your accomplishment."

"My, you flatter me." Vincent waved his hand as if embarrassed.

"With that said, you made a couple of mistakes." Yuel made sure to state that before Vincent got carried away. "I'd like to briefly go over them now."

The video showed plays in which Vincent committed a small mistake or didn't perform as optimally as he could have had. But, all in all, none of the plays received any harsh criticism.

"There's only one play I consider very questionable." Yuel paused on the final section. "It happened when the enemy rotated to push Top as a group. You and Kai were defending the lane at the time."

"Oh, that intense moment is burned into my memory!" Vincent made noise. "It was such a nerve-wracking situation! I could feel the Bermuda Triangle of Certain Doom closing up on me! The end was nigh!"

"It was a difficult situation, that's true," Yuel agreed. "But, the way you responded to it only made it that much worse. Instead of retreating immediately, you stayed behind to stall the enemy. That was a mistake."

"But, wasn't it thanks to my noble sacrifice that Kai made it out alive?" Vincent took pride in that sacrifice. By stalling StormMonster just enough, Kai successfully escaped from the clutches of death! What's more, she gathered the courage to stand up to that evil and turned the tables on her pursuer, killing him in the process! It was a glorious moment!

"You're using hindsight to justify your actions," Yuel said. "Kai nearly died despite your sacrifice. The situation was down to the wire. You couldn't know for sure whether she'll survive."

"Nevertheless, I believed in our valkyrie!" Vincent proclaimed proudly. "I knew that if I keep her alive, she'll bring about greater results than me. And indeed, she did not disappoint!"

"It's nice that you have faith in your teammates, but it was blind faith in this case. You had no reason to believe Kai will make it out alive. You knew all too well how good of a pursuer StormMonster is. A little bit of stalling won't stop him from catching up to his target."

"Very well, I concede." Vincent gave up. "Indeed, it wasn't one of my brightest ideas. I must've fallen prey to anxiety."

"I assumed as much," Yuel said. "Next time you find yourself in a tight situation, make sure to ask yourself twice whether your planned course of action is sound. Maybe share the details with somebody else to get more opinions. You might notice you were about to commit a misplay due to being nervous."

"Yes, sir."

"Aside from that, all in all, you've accomplished everything I requested from you in Game 5. It was a solid performance."

That's all Yuel had to say about Vincent. The guy wasn't overly talented and didn't have anything special going for him skill-wise, but he was a solid balanced player, similar to Gilbert.

So, even though Vincent didn't accomplish anything great by himself, neither did he commit any grave mistakes. There wasn't much for him to "fix". He simply had to polish his existing skills and gain more experience.

Next, it was Lars's turn on the chopping block. At least, that'd normally be the case, but...

"Lastly, Lars..."

"Oh boy, here it comes!" Lars gulped and smiled awkwardly.

"There's not much to say."

"Wut?" Lars almost slid off the chair. "Nothing to say? Okay, who are you and what did you do Yuel?"

"I know this is rare, but that's how it is," Yuel said. "You didn't play Carry in games 1 to 4, so these aren't relevant. As for Game 5, you played a solid game from start to end."

"No way!" Lars exclaimed. "Did I just score a hundred on a test!?"

"No, not a hundred." Yuel was obligated to deny that on the spot. "There are many things I can say about your performance in Mid and we'll review all of that later today."

"Oh noes..."

"Fortunately, those problems aren't important for the team going forward. After all, you're going to play Carry from now on."

"You betcha!"

"So, to keep this review short and concise, I'll skip discussing your performance in Mid."

"Heh." Luke snorted. "'Short and convince' my ass. It feels like we've been sitting here listening to this lecture the whole day. Shit is more tiring than studying, word."

"In that case, I'm sure you'll be happy to know this concludes the match review."

"For real? That's it? Are we finally free!?" Luke jumped from his chair and stretched his arms. "YAAAAS! FREEEEEEDOM!"

"Or, is it really the end? Huhuhu." Vincent smiled meaningfully. "I believe I prepared one more treat for Gunz."

"Oh, that's right." Yuel remembered. "You had more footage prepared for Lars, didn't you?"

"Indeed, indeed! Footage that showcases our ace's glorious achievements like none other!"

"Okay, okay." Yuel sighed and turned to Lars. "Since Vincent insisted so much, we included some footage of your best plays from Game 5. Do you want to watch them?"

"Oh!?" Lars jumped like an excited puppy. "Show me, show me!"

"Okay, here they are." Yuel played the video.

The footage showed how Lars dominated against Renegade during the laning phase, how he defeated DragonMaster while pushing the Golem, and how he killed Renegade with Kai's help at the very end, which was the play that essentially sealed the fate of the game.

"Yooooo! This is sick!" Lars jumped in excitement. "Can ya run it one more time? Pretty please!?"

"If that's what you want..." Yuel rewound the video and run the segment again. He had nothing else to show anyway, so he might as well let the goof enjoy the show. The other club members seemed entertained as well, so there was no harm in running it one more time.

"Maaaan." Luke nodded repeatedly. "This mad lad makes pro plays look easy. This is a 'Top 10 Plays' compilation video right there."

"Indeed, indeed" Vincent agreed. "The superb performance of the Insane Beast of the Apocalypse is a sight to behold! My one and only regret is that I didn't have the time to narrate over all these plays. I'm terribly sorry for that!"

"No worries, dude," Lars said. "This video is awesome. I wanna show it to my folks too. They keep saying I should've focused on basketball and stuff, but I'mma show 'em how cool Mancers can be!"

"In that case," Vincent said. "I absolutely must add narration and extra effects. If you give me but a couple more days, I shall deliver you a far superior version of this showcase!"

"Really? Isn't it a lot of work?"

"Indeed, it is quite an ordeal. But, worry not. I also do this for my own entertainment and to practice my craft. It's no hassle at all."

"Okay, then I'mma wait." Lars nodded. "I bet you gonna make it a thousand times more epic!"

"I shall do my best to live up to these expectations!"

This one video invoked a lot of chatter in the clubroom. Even though the long match review should have worn everybody out and they all showed signs of losing focus, they instantly became energetic the moment Yuel played this positive video.

[It's amazing what a showcase of a few good plays can do to the atmosphere.] Yuel thought.

If he went ahead with his original plan and focused only on everybody's misplays, he'd be dealing with a room of drowsy zombies by now. Most of the audience wouldn't have been able to maintain their concentration all the way to the end.

Fortunately, the few positive clips revitalized the entire audience on the spot, helping them regain their concentration. In fact, these positive parts even gave everybody the incentive to discuss the topic among themselves, something they barely did during the rest of the meeting.

[Looks like mixing in some positive clips during match review is the winning formula.] Yuel concluded. It sounded like a waste of time on paper, but it had amazing results in practice.

Humans weren't entirely logical creatures, so the most "efficient" method didn't always work the "best" for them. As such, even though focusing on the important misplays should've been the most efficient way to review the match, it didn't necessarily work the best in practice. Sidetracking to show a couple of "good plays" proved to be exceptionally helpful too, as wasteful as it sounded.

[The more you know.] Yuel took a mental note of these results. The art of communicating with people and conveying information was endlessly deep. It felt like he still had a long way ahead of him before he masters it.

As the chit-chat died out, Yuel took the opportunity to say one last thing about Lars's performance.

"As I said, you did great in Game 5," Yuel repeated. "I have no real complaints there."

"Praise me more, teacher!"

"Don't get carried away. You definitely made a couple of plays that weren't optimal, so we'll discuss those later today. Don't even worry about it."

"Oh boy, sounds like I'm in for a day full of lectures..." Lars smiled wryly.

"Anyway," Yuel continued. "There's one important fact to keep in mind regarding Game 5. You played Gunslinger that game, which is one of your two best classes."

"Yep, Shooter and Slinger for days, yo!"

"You made a lot of impressive plays that game. Plays that you could've only made with these two classes."

"Hey, you never know! But yeah, some of these situations would've been pretty dang tough if I wasn't playing Slinger."

"Right. And, as you all saw, there was an audience watching the scrimmage, most certainly filled with scouts from other teams. So, from this point on, we can expect all our future opponents to know how good Lars's Trickshooter and Gunslinger are."

"Oh, dang!" Lars jumped. "We got exposed!? That ain't fair, yo! We gotta find all them spy dudes and tell them to forget what they saw!"

"Too late. I'm sure they already showed the replays of the scrimmage to their teams."

"Wait, replays?" Lars cocked his head. "I know we got them because we actually played the games, but why would dudes from the audience have them? You think they recorded some stuff with their phones or something?"

"No, they could simply purchase them."

"They can buy the replays!? Is there a black market selling our stuff!?"

"Yes, there is. It's ProCenter itself," Yuel explained. "They allow visitors to purchase the replays of the games they watch."

"Yo, that's shady as heck! It's like they're selling all our secret tech!"

"The fact they charge money for it is a little questionable, but otherwise there's nothing strange about it. Scouting is something you'll find in any competitive sport. Even for basketball, I'm sure your club had people who went to scout and record other teams' games."

"Oh, now that you mention it..." Lars was struck by a sudden realization. "We sometimes watched videos of rival teams before playing them. Coach usually gave us pointers about the enemy players and all that."

"And, where did you think these videos came from? Surely, you didn't think the enemy recorded the video and sent it to you as a gift?"

"To be honest, I never really thought about it, haha."

"Somebody from your club went to record it, either the staff or fellow club members. Or, maybe they purchased the videos from somebody else. Either way, there was some spying involved."

"Man, so much spying in this world."

"That's an inevitable part of any sport," Yuel said. "Information is power. The more you know about the enemy team, the more countermeasures you can come up with. It's only natural for serious teams to investigate each other."

"Yep, makes sense. Though, I still dunno how I feel about ProCenter selling our replays. I thought it was just a nice place for dudes to get together and play games, but turns out it had some shady business running on the side."

"I think it's a nice service," Yuel said. "It would be nicer if ProCenter gave out the replays for free, but they already sell each replay cheaper than it'd cost you to buy a soft drink from a vending machine."

"Oh, really? That's practically nothing."

"Right. You even get a discount if you buy the entire bundle, so it's really nothing. It's more like a 'good faith deposit' than anything."

"You make it sound nice and all," Luke interjected. "But, it's still a shady practice. It's like paid DLC for stuff that should be free. Like, do they even legally own these replays?"

"The replays are recorded while we play in ProCenter, so yes, I'd say they have a right to them. I don't know much about the legal side of it, but I'm sure they're covered."

"But, they can't make any replays without us, the players. So, where is our cut in all of this?"

"Well, we do get the replays for free."

"Heh, how nice of them. Imagine you were an actor for some big movie but, instead of paying your salary, they'd only let you watch the finished movie for free. Big stonks."

"Except, it's not a movie and we're not professional actors. I agree that the service could've been more consumer-friendly, but it's actually an amazing service for small teams like ours."

"Why so?" Luke tilted his head.

"Think about other sports," Yuel said. "Teams have to send trained scouts to manually record the games of other teams, right?"

"Yep, I knew a few guys who handled that job in the soccer club. They always complained it was a pain in the neck, haha."

"Right, it's not easy work," Yuel explained. "They have to bring a camera and manually rotate it around to capture the flow of the match. It can get especially difficult in a sport like Soccer which has very a wide court. You can't just leave such an important job to anybody. You need to train these scouts and provide them with appropriate equipment."

"Yeah, sounds about right," Luke nodded. "I heard they usually do this in groups, too. Like, one dude handles the camera, the others take notes and discuss things, etc."

"Yes, it's quite the operation. Not to mention, the club also has to finance all the equipment used for scouting, on top of financing all the regular club equipment. So, you can probably imagine that any small soccer club will find it difficult to get all the right equipment for scouting. And, they probably won't have as many free hands to send people to scout all the time, not to mention the problem of training such scouts in the first place."

"Dang, sounds rough." Luke nodded. "But, why are we pitying low-budget clubs, again?"

"Maybe because our club is one of them?"

"Oh snap, you're right!" Luke held his head. "This is terrible! Unfair! Capitalism at its finest!"

"That's reality for you," Yuel said. "Fortunately for us, none of that applies to Classmancers thanks to the ProCenter service you complained about a moment ago."

"How so?"

"Think about it. We're a small team, right? It'd be difficult for us to scout other teams in a professional manner."

"Yeah, I don't think the school gonna give us a pro camera for it."

"Right. But, thanks to ProCenter's services, we can just pay a small amount to get ourselves the full in-game replay of the entire scrimmage. It's the best recording you could ever ask for, with zero recording mistakes and lots of built-in analysis tools. Nobody can get better game footage than that, so we can compete against rich powerhouses like the Leopards on equal grounds when it comes to information gathering."

"Dang, never thought of it that way." Luke nodded. "Alright, maybe that paid DLC they provide isn't that bad after all. Though, I still say they should give us a cut of the profit."

"Or, they could just hand them out for free," Yuel suggested. "Anyway, back to my initial point. As you all understand by now, the scouting meta is very strong in this competitive scene, seeing as everybody got easy access to replays. So, Lars."

"Yes?"

"Make no mistake, all our future opponents will know about your Trickshooter and Gunslinger. They'll most certainly ban them, so don't expect to get any more easy opportunities like you had against Taurus."

"Weeeelp, that's a bummer."

"It's not just a bummer, it's a serious issue. If we want to make it far in the tournament, we'll need your overwhelming strength as a Carry."

"Leave it to me!" Lars gave a thumbs up. "I'mma carry you dudes all the way to the moon!"

"Yes, you will. That is, if you play your best classes. Unfortunately, those will be banned."

"No problem! I can carry with any marksman!"

"In Ranked maybe, but definitely not in the competitive scene. I'm sure you understand that too by now.

"Heck yeah." Lars grinned. "They got some serious dudes over there. That Nirvana dude was tough as heck! I even had some trouble against him with my Gunslinger."

"That's why it's important to not relax just yet," Yuel said. "Even though I said you performed well against Taurus in Game 5, it doesn't mean you don't have anything to improve on. It's just that Taurus wasn't prepared for us, that's all. Our future opponents will ban your best classes for sure. So tell me, what will you do then?"

"Beat them with my second-best classes!"

"It won't go that smoothly," Yuel objected. "You know better than anybody how big of a skill gap there is between your best classes and the rest. If we want to keep on winning, the team will need the power of your best classes. Any less than that won't cut it. And, unfortunately, you only have two such classes. You need more."

"No problem!" Lars gave a thumbs up. "I'm already working on my Elf. Dude is getting stronger by the day, yo!"

"Good." Yuel nodded. "Please focus on it for the upcoming weeks. Make sure your Elf is ready by the time we face the Leopards."

"Okey-dokey. I'm working on it almost every day."

"Make it [every] day," Yuel insisted. "You told me before that you practiced Trickshooter and Gunslinger every day to bring them to this level, right? Then please put the same amount of effort into your Elf as well."

"Okay, I'mma give it some more love," Lars promised. "But, I still gotta maintain my Shooter and Slinger, or I'mma go rusty."

"I'm sure that's important too, but it's far more important to get a third class up to par in time. Even if the skill levels of your Trickshooter and Gunslinger drop a little, it won't affect things too much for the next scrimmage because these two will most certainly be banned."

"I get what you're saying, but I can't just neglect my Shooter and Slinger," Lars insisted. "There are all sorts of strong dudes competing out there. If I ever get a chance to fight them with Shooter or Slinger, I have to be able to beat them!"

"You're right, but that's only relevant for the far future. We first have to reach the point where we can force our opponents to leave these classes unbanned. Until then, you won't get any chances to play your main classes. So, please prioritize your Elf."

"Okay, will do." Lars scratched the back of his head. [I get what Yuel is saying about Elf, but I can't just drop my daily routines with Shooter and Slinger. Them dudes gotta be in top shape, ready to be deployed at any time. Welp, it sounds like I hafta train more hours every night to polish all three classes. Ez, yo!]

Lars will master Elf while also working hard on his Trickshooter and Gunslinger, such was his resolution. He definitely had to add new scary weapons to his arsenal, but he also had to make sure that none of his existing weapons rusted. Night training was going to become even more intense than ever!

On that note, the long match review finally covered every single team member. Or, at least, every member that was present...

All that was left was to discuss the future of the club as a whole and the upcoming opponents, the Leopards.