When Elusiveness Attracts Too Much Attention

"Overall, it was a good game," Rodriguez opened his lecture with that. It might have sounded like a nice, gentle opener, yet it made the Leopards shudder.

"Surely, you understand at which point things have started going south for you?"

"When the Double Kill in Mid happened," Sonya replied instantly as if she had been waiting for this opportunity her whole life. She knew it was best to quickly own up to her mistakes, doing so should score her some points on the coach's exam.

"Correct," Rodriguez said. "That was the First Blood of the game and a big turning point for both teams. It was an interesting situation, that I assure you we'll analyze in great detail during the match review." 

"Haha, fun..." Ronald rolled his eyes.

"With that said," Rodriguez continued. "To put it simply, the enemy outplayed you in that scenario. They weaved an elaborate scheme that involved great risk, but it paid off for them. As such, there isn't much you can learn from that incident for the next game. Just be more vigilant."

Everybody nodded in response. So far, the coach's assessment of that play was in line with Cato's speech from earlier.

[So, I was in the right direction overall.] Cato nodded in satisfaction. [But, I'm sure Coach won't leave it at that. In fact, I really hope he doesn't because there's certainly one issue I'd like him to bring up.]

Alas, Cato would have to wait a little longer for that. Before dissing the team's biggest troublemaker, Rodriguez first focused on the team's attention span issues.

"That play aside," Rodriguez continued. "There was one glaring issue with the team's focus in this game. Does anybody care to venture a guess?"

"......" Only awkward silence responded to that question. The players exchanged uncertain glances, each of them hoping somebody else would step forward to answer. Alas, nobody seemed confident. 

"Hmm, so you really didn't notice?" Rodriguez asked. "Perhaps my wording was a little vague. There was a certain element in this game that constantly weighed on your minds, wasn't there?" 

Nobody managed to give a response even then. Nothing immediately came to mind.

Unable to bear this silence, the team's brat decided to throw a guess. "I bet it's that we've been playing too defensively, isn't it? That was our downfall for sure."

"Not quite," Rodriguez said. "But, it's not entirely unrelated. It's because the team places so much emphasis on defense that you ended up obsessing over that one threat, to the point of letting it distract you from everything else."

Even with all these hints, the team was still unable to figure out what the coach was alluding to. It was a rare occurrence, as these kids were a smart bunch. Normally, they figured out their mistakes right away. This only went to show how deeply this issue was rooted.

"Hmm, I see," Rodiguez said. "It appears that the 'elusiveness' of that threat is even greater than I suspected."

"Oh!" Cato and Sonya responded as one.

"Are you talking about VanishingFlower?" Sonya asked, just to be sure.

"Yes, I do." Rodriguez nodded. "It seems you weren't even aware of how much attention you were giving her, and what it cost you."

"I believe it was necessary," Sonya asserted. "I'm not sure how clear it was for the audience, but for us, the players, Vanishing's peculiar playstyle caused a healthy amount of trouble. Even I have to admit that she really is a threat."

"Oh, I'm not arguing against that at all," Rodriguez reassured. "In fact, even from the side, I could tell just how sneaky of a player she is. So, it made sense for you to focus your attention on her."

"Right."

"But, haven't you ever felt like you were going a little overboard?" Rodriguez asked. "The number of wards you placed, the way you made laners immediately retreat when Vanishing was spotted in the Jungle, and so forth. It was quite the excessive defense, even by your standard."

"That's..." Sonya wasn't sure how to best respond. She wanted to claim that all of this was necessary to combat a phantom like Vanishing, but she wasn't confident that this was the answer the coach wanted to hear.

And so, Sonya decided to maintain her silence on this one. Nonetheless, she threw Cato an urging glance. [I did my part. Now, it's your turn to deal with this.]

[Oh my, how cruel.] Cato smiled wryly. [Is this where you're telling me to sub in? You're throwing me straight to the wolves.]

Sonya only took the easy part for herself. If the rest of this discussion remained as easy, then she surely would have answered all the questions by herself. For her, these meetings were like an exam, and she was all about acing those.

And yet, Sonya passed the torch to Cato here.

[Oh well.] Cato shrugged. [It's the manager's job to clean up the secretary's mess, after all~]

[I'm not your secretary! And, I didn't make any mess!] They telepathically exchanged these words by using only their glances. Or, maybe all of this only happened in Cato's head. Anyway...

"Yes, our attention span might've been a bit problematic this game," Cato started. "In retrospect, we might've been focusing on Vanishing too frequently, to the point we couldn't fully concentrate on the rest of the game."

"Right." Rodriguez nodded.

"With that said," Cato continued. "I still feel like she's the kind of elusive player who warrants that kind of attention. It's hard to deal with her otherwise."