Cautious Duo

Thanks to the huge early-game advantage, Yuel's team dominated the match with leisure. They scored many more kills as the match went on and pressed the enemy from all sides.

『An enemy has been killed!』

"Yeah! Got 'em!" Luke pumped a fist as he took down another unsuspecting opponent from behind. He was playing such a low tier class and yet the enemy couldn't shut him down. As much as Yuel hated to admit it, Luke has been putting on a strong display.

Rogue's biggest issue was how fragile the class was. It relied heavily on the element of surprise and had to score multiple early kills to get going. If the enemy successfully starves the Rogue during the early game, the Rogue will start lagging behind during the mid-game. And, once Rogue starts lagging behind, it was terrible at catching up.

On top of that, even when the Rogue managed to get going during the early game, its future was still uncertain. There was a chance he'll snowball out of hand and will go on a killing spree, but that only happened on low levels of play. On higher levels, the enemy would counter Rogue with Stealth Wards and that'd tie the Rogue's hands. Even if the Rogue gets fed, it'll be pointless if he can't sneak up to opponents from behind to assassinate them.

But, the way Luke played almost made it look like Rogue actually worked. He scored three kills during the early game and kept going with that momentum for the rest of the match. His performance alerted the enemy team and made them deploy countless Stealth Wards, but that didn't faze Luke in the slightest.

"Hehe, found it," Luke plucked out yet another Stealth Ward. At some point, Yuel lost count of how many wards Luke has destroyed throughout the game. The number definitely hit the double digits.

This was Luke's counter-strategy against Stealth Wards: excessive counter-warding. Every time he returned to base, he always bought two Sentry Wards before heading out. By using educating guessing, he found out where the enemy placed Stealth Wards and exposed them with his Sentry Wards.

That led to excessive warding. However, unlike Julia's bad habit of over-warding, here it was a legitimate tactic. However, that didn't mean it didn't involve some big sacrifices.

Luke slowed down his build a lot to buy all these wards. That was unthinkable for Rogue, a class that wanted to get strong as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, Luke used this heavy counter-warding strategy and that allowed him to freely sneak around the map. He made up for the gold he spent on wards by securing easier kills all across the map.

Alas, Luke was just one player. He couldn't possibly beat the warding of the entire enemy team on his own. And, he wasn't a superhuman either, so it's not like he correctly guessed the location of every single enemy Stealth Ward. He needed some backup to win this warding war.

[Where else did the enemy place Stealth Wards?] Yuel wondered as he examined the map. Most of the important crossroads in Bot Jungle have been covered by Luke's Stealth Wards, but Top Jungle barely had any wards on the enemy side. The enemy team was no pushover and also counter-warded every now and then, so Top Jungle was most likely heavily warded.

To counter-ward, the enemy had to place Sentry Wards of their own because only Sentry Wards could expose other Sentry Wards. Therefore, in every area where the enemy has recently taken out an allied Ward, they assuredly placed a Sentry Ward of their own. It was important to counter-ward those wards eventually, but they weren't Yuel's focus at the moment.

Where did the enemy place Stealth Wards in Top Jungle? Even though it cost them extra gold, they define bought some Stealth Wars in addition to Sentry Wards. No matter what they thought of Rogue's tier, they were definitely wary of Luke's momentum and wanted to shut him down. Therefore, they had to resort to Stealth Wards.

Optimally, they'd place Stealth Wards in the most strategic jungle locations which had lots of traffic. However, such spots became warding war zones, so the enemy has already invested money into warding them with Sentry Wards.

Placing a Stealth Ward near a Sentry Ward was inefficient for two reasons. First, it didn't grant the team any additional vision in the area. Second, the enemy would have an easy time taking down both wards at once with vision from a single Sentry Ward.

Therefore, despite how good these strategic warding spots were, the enemy usually avoided populating them with Stealth Wards. So, where did they place their Stealth Wards instead? This called for a process of elimination.

Every major strategic spot, where the enemy has recently placed a Sentry Ward, most likely didn't have a Stealth Ward anywhere near it. So, Yuel simply had to target the strategic spots that had secondary priority.

[Found it.] Yuel cut down an enemy Stealth Ward in front of a jungle entrance. It was a good warding spot for monitoring who went in and out of the jungle through this entrance, but it didn't tell much beyond that and therefore wasn't a top priority warding spot. However, this ward was definitely great for alerting about an incoming gank from a stealthed opponent.

Indeed, the enemy chose wisely by placing a Stealth Ward here. Unfortunately for them, it's because this spot was so good for a Stealth Ward that Yuel could single it out and take out the ward.

He applied the same reasoning to other parts of the map and took out a fair share of Stealth Wards. Together with Luke's efforts to take out Stealth Wards, the enemy had virtually not anti-stealth vision on the map and that allowed Luke to rampage.

"Hey, man," Luke said. "I see ya also take out their Stealth Wards. Thanks, makes my life much easier."

"It's not like I'm doing it for you," Yuel said. "Having many Sentry Wards boosts the entire team's map vision, so it's good for everybody."

"Yeah, of course," Luke nodded. "Anyway, it helps me out a lot, so thanks."

"You welcome," Yuel pursed his lips. It wasn't like he supported the game plan of a memer or anything. He just counter-warded for his team and happened to prioritize spots with potential Stealth Wards because that made Luke more effective at scoring kills.

"Oh, it's so touching," Vincent raised his voice. "The ever serious Chessmaster goes out of his way to help a memer so they can win the match together! Such friendship!"

"Nothing of the sort," Yuel objected. "I still stand by my point that Rogue is a bad pick. But, since we're already stuck with it, I might as well do what I can to prevent it from blowing in our faces."

"Come on, admit it," Vincent smiled meaningfully. "You actually want to see Luke do well this game."

"Not really."

"I also thought he'd be a problem at first. But, after seeing him play, I was convinced - he's the Meme Jedi!"

"Great, now how about you explain that in plain English?"

"Haha, the Eternal Party Pooler strikes again," Vincent shook his head and switched off his dramatic tone. "Basically, the guy is really dedicated. He plays memes but he plays them well. He almost makes them look legit."

"He does seem to know what he's doing. But, the way I see it, he just preys on opponents who don't know how to counter him. It won't work against higher-level opponents."

"True, but isn't it inspiring? He's like a lone ranger who only got junky tools at his disposal but nonetheless stands up against evil and fights his hardest! Through hard work and dedication, he has become a master of his junky tools and turned them into weapons of mass destruction!"

"I'd relate to that ranger more if he didn't choose to use junky tools just because he thought that's more fun."

"But, that's what makes the tale so great! He could've chosen anything but he went for the bottom of the barrel! He challenges the world with the weakest set of tools!"

"Whatever you say," Yuel shrugged. Maybe a part of him really did root for Luke and wanted to see Rogue perform well. After all, by the end of the day, it's not like Rogue was a completely worthless class beyond salvation. It underperformed compared to other assassin classes because it had glaring issues, but it was still borderline playable.

In his earlier days, Yuel researched Rogue extensively in training mode because it was a class that gave players a lot of trouble on low levels of play. A team had to know how to ward and maintain a minimal amount of coordination in order to not be run over by a Rogue. Therefore, Yuel wanted to get his hands on as many countermeasures as possible to increase his win rate with randoms online.

However, once Yuel started playing with Lars and reached Ranked, Rogue has pretty much faded to obscurity. Legends said Rogue still terrorized Bronze and Silver ranks to this day but Yuel didn't get to experience much of it.

So, Rogue became a niche meme pick and all of Yuel's in-depth research became irrelevant. But, what if he could use all the knowledge he accumulated to turn this niche class into an anti-meta pick? Maybe he could turn Rogue into a sleep hitter class, the same way one pro turned Shadow Walker into S tier back when nobody was paying too much attention to it.

Unfortunately, that went nowhere. Part of it was because their group lacked a good Jungler at the time, so nobody could truly test out Yuel's ideas for Rogue. He tried some of them himself but he lacked the mechanical skill for executing some of the intense high-risk high-reward plays he had in mind.

After various attempts, Yuel had no choice but agree with the consensus: Rogue was an underperforming class which was about as good as a meme pick. Even Dan, the Jack-of-all-Trades who played every single Jungler role, regarded Rogue as a meme pick for when he felt like having fun. It was never a pick for serious matches.

Therefore, it was interesting to see Luke's spin on this class for a serious Ranked match. The way he handled Rogue almost made it look like Rogue was actually working.

However, that's also what also made Luke kinda irritating. This showed he was skilled enough to put on a solid performance even on a high level of play. Yet, he restricted himself to playing memes and refused to realize his full potential. It was dumb. If Luke played meta classes, he would have been a force to be reckoned with.

"Is there a reason he only plays memes?" Yuel asked in a lower tone.

"Yes, indeed," Vincent nodded. "You see, Luke had a mentor who passed away. The mentor's last wish was for Luke to master the Meme Force and to become the greatest Meme Jedi who'll restore balance to the meta!"

".............."

".......... well? What do you think?"

"Please remind me to never ask you anything ever again."

"Haha, will do," Vincent cracked a laugh. "Well, the guy just likes memes. What can I tell you."

"Nothing useful, it seems," Yuel concluded. Luke was just the type of player who only wanted to mess around with memes and have fun with the game. He seemed to have all the necessary qualities for being a strong competitive player but he had zero interest in realizing his talent.

Unfortunately, not everybody took Classmancers as seriously as Yuel and Lars. For the two of them, Classmancers was a serious sport and they wanted to become pros in it. However, for most other kids, Classmancers was just a pastime. Even though Luke clearly put a lot of effort into researching Rogue and bringing this meme class to its current level, Classmancers was still just a hobby and Luke only cared about messing around like a brat.

Will this kind of player be effective in competitive matches? A smart Rogue could outdo some opponents in Ranked even against high-level opponents. However, the competitive scene was a different story. The amounts of counter-play and adaptation there were on an entirely different level.

Therefore, there was no chance Luke will reach far with his memes. Low tier classes were low tier for a reason. They had weaknesses that competent players knew how to exploit. Even if Luke can catch the enemy off-guard the first time by bringing out a meme, on the second round the enemy will counter him and completely shut him down. As a result, the entire team will be screwed.

A team with a weak Jungler was half as effective as it could be. This was a problem. A huge problem.

Was there any chance at all of convincing Luke to take the game more seriously and pick up meta classes? Yuel had no idea how to approach this issue. Maybe Luke will just naturally develop a more competitive mindset as the team plays in official scrimmages. Yuel could only pray.

Either way, as far as the current match was concerned, Luke was putting on a strong performance. He has scored five kills by the time they reached the mid-game. Yuel also scored two kills while Kai scored three. It was their first time playing together but the entire team was on a roll! Except for one player.

Lars also has been putting on a strong display but something was missing. Unlike the rest of the team, he was still sitting on zero kills. He had four assists and he hasn't died even once, so it's not like he doing poorly by any means. However, he wasn't on a rampage either. It was unusual.

Normally, when the team was holding the upper hand so convincingly, Lars was out there on the front, pulling the entire team after him. He was always the first to ride the momentum and dominate the match. In this kind of situation, he should have been snowballing right now.

Yet, Lars was weirdly docile this game. Even though he still landed shots like a sniper and oppressed any opponent in a fight, there was something amiss. He was lacking spark. He was playing strong but he wasn't dominating. This was a far cry from the usual mechanical beast who crushed the spirits of its prey.

[Maybe it's because he's not the Carry?] Yuel wondered.

In a sense, the team's Carry was like the ace. When the Carry pushed hard and eliminated objectives, the entire team benefitted from that and it created a huge momentum. On the other hand, a mage couldn't take objectives nearly as convincingly and had to contribute in other ways

Then again, scoring kills served a similar purpose as well. When a teammate repeatedly scored kills and removed enemy players from the board, it generated a huge momentum. And, unlike destroying objectives, killing enemies was something both marksmen and mages could do equally well.

So, there was no good explanation for Lars's tame plays. That hungry beast should've been riding the team's momentum and rampaging right now. Yet, he hasn't scored a single kill yet. He only got some assists.

"Why you didn't chase?" Yuel asked after Lars let the Electromancer get away with low HP. "You could've gotten a kill."

"Yeah, maybe," Lars said. "But, he was going to the jungle so it was kinda dicey. Maybe they were gonna gank me or something."

"That's certainly possible, but..." Yuel couldn't believe he was hearing these words from Lars of all people. When did this overconfident hunter become scared of chasing into the jungle? Normally, Lars would disregard everything around him and chase his prey to the end of the world to get the kill. How bizarre.

"You know," Yuel continued. "We're winning right now, so the other team is struggling against us on every lane. You really think they got the spare hands to lure you into a gank like this?"

"I dunno," Lars shrugged. "Better safe than sorry, yo."

"That's...." Yuel opened and closed his mouth. "Sure." That's all he could say in response.

Lars's argument made perfect sense but that's exactly what made it so disturbing. As much as Yuel wanted Lars to be more thoughtful and take fewer risks, he never wanted to hear words like "better safe than sorry" from Lars. It was unsettling.

[I hope it's just this match.] Yuel prayed.

Perhaps Lars was fine with just assisting this game because Luke has been stealing the show with his Rogue ganks. It wasn't exactly what one would expect from a beast that was always hungry for kills. But, it's not like Lars dragged the team down or anything. Even though he let some kills go, he overall contributed greatly to the team's momentum by overwhelming his opponents.

Besides, maybe Lars was still switching gears from Carry to Mid. He had his hands full with playing Mid correctly, so asking him to dominate the entire game was too much right now.

So, he'll definitely get used to it by late-game, right? Before long, Lars will surely awaken his true bestial instincts and will tear his opponents apart. Or, so Yuel hoped.

"Oh, crap," Lars turned around and cast Jet Stream. "Gotta scoot!"

"Why?" Yuel asked. "You still got over 30% HP. You could've killed that Knight and then retreat."

"But, I'm all alone here, dude," Lars said. "What if somebody ganked me before I finished off that dude?"

"Yeah, that could certainly happen, but..."

"Also," Lars added. "If that Knight could get close to me even once, I'd be dead meat for sure."

"I'm pretty sure that Knight is nowhere as skilled as you," Yuel objected. "You should've been able to take him down unless there's something I'm missing here."

"Nah, ya right, I probably would have rekt him. But, it felt hella dangerous, so I thought it's better to leave it alone for now."

"I see," Yuel frowned. There was nothing he could argue here. Lars sensed danger and judged it was safer to retreat instead of chasing the kill. It was such an otherworldly occurrence that Yuel needed a couple of minutes to process this bizarre information.

Lars? Retreating of his own volition from a position where he had a decent chance to score a kill? What's next? Cows will rain from the sky?

[But, maybe that's a better mindset to have.] Yuel tried to convince himself.

Even though this retreat seemed excessively defensive, the mentality behind it was sound. Lars deemed the situation dangerous and prioritized securing his own survival over securing the kill. At such a late stage of the game, even a single death was fatal. So, it made sense to be more cautious than usual.

It felt weird when that goof wasn't going wild and carrying the team, but maybe sometimes it was for the better. The team was holding the upper hand right now, so there was no need to take unnecessary risks. All they had to do was pressure the opposition into submission with their lane advantage and that'll net them win. Eventually.

In the end, even though the team gained such a big advantage early on, the match dragged out for a while. The enemy team refused to give in despite their huge disadvantage and kept defending to the bitter end. It was an admirable fighting spirit, as expected from players who got golden names.

Yuel had some ideas on how to break the enemy's defenses faster but those harbored risks. So, he kept them to himself. There was no need to take any risks when his team was already holding the high ground. He only gave shot-calls when the risk-reward of the call was strongly in favor of the reward.

Eventually, the team broke through the enemy defenses and sealed the deal. It felt like the match should have been over at least ten minutes earlier. Nonetheless, a win was a win. Stratus' first match as a team was a success! Sort of.