DEFEAT

  Yuel sighed as he put down his troller. Another match, aeam that fell apart due to fming. Everybody instantly locked their picks during css sele, then bmed each other for how the team cked the necessary meta roles. Yuel went out of his way to fill in as a Support, but of course nobody thanked him for that.

  In fact, half the team bmed him for random things and made him feel like the only pyer with a brain. Truly, Support was su unrewarding role. He hated it.

  Maybe there are Cssmancers pyers in other csses? Yuel sighed again. He could py two more matches before lunch break was over, but he was no longer in the mood. He packed his things ahe .

  Supposedly, all sixth graders at his school received Cssmancers lessons, so maybe some kids from other csses got into Cssmancers as well. He wasly the most social kid, so he didn’t know anybody from other csses. heless, he went out of his way to take a look. That’s how frustrating it was to py online alone.

  “Gah! I hate this dumb squid ult!” A girl’s cry caught Yuel’s attention.

  “Khaha, Kraken is mah bro!” A boy gririumphantly.

  Are they pying Cssmancers!? Yuel almost broke into a run toward their table. Ultimate ability + Kraken = somebody ying the Pirate css.

  A 2v2 Cssmancers match was in progress, with two pairs sitting opposite of each other across the table. The only girl in the group pyed ancer and her partner pyed Trickshooter. Their enemies were Pirate and Cleric.

  They pyed on a map that was even smaller than the 3v3 map, with the only ne objectives being Golem and Colossus. Both pairs had a Carry and a Support, so this match was simir to the early game of the 5v5 mode’s Bot Lane. Were they practig this specific sario?

  The girl’s tablet happeo be closest, so Yuel followed her point of view of the match.

  Let’s see if they make this bination work. The pairing of ancer and Trickshooter had some synergy. It wasn’t the most practical bo, but it was exg to watch when it was successfully pulled off. Sadly, the girl’s supp was... abysmal.

  Ugh. Don’t just run! Yuel barely stopped himself from shouting at her. Whehe two teams exged blows, the ancer was the first to distance herself from the fight. She left the Trickshooter alone on the frontlio 1v2 the enemies and soak all the damage. That was the first big no-no of supp.

  Trickshooter was the Carry css, the one dealing all the damage. Only he could bring victory in this 2v2. The Support should be ready to die for the Carry if push came to shove. There were Support csses which had a legit reason to prioritize their own survival, such as Cleric, but the ancer definitely didn’t belong to that category.

  Granted, ancer wasn’t a tanky Support and didn’t have any reliable escape skills, so maintaining some distance from the enemy was important. However, she had to position herself in a way that’d allow her to hinder her enemies. By running away at the first sight of flict, she wasted the important supp tools in the ancer’s kit.

  For example, the ancer’s passive, Frostbite, made her basic attacks slow dowarget’s movement speed and attack speed. That was a great way to weaken the enemy Carry during a team fight, as most Carries relied on high attack speed for their damage output. As, by running away as soon as the fight broke out, she never made use of Frostbite.

  She probably thought her pystyle made sense because of her ultimate ability: Cryo-Freeze. That’s a on newbie mistake among ancers Yuel met online. Cryo-Freeze allowed her to freeze an ally to make them temporarily immuo all sources of damage and rapidly restore HP. By hitting the Trickshooter with Cryo-Freeze right before he died, she saved him from death aored him back to full health, allowing him to tihe team fight. That meant she had a very good reason to prioritize her own safety, right?

  Wrong. Cryo-Freeze definitely provided a lot of healing, but it froze the Carry in pce. While the frozen Carry was healing up, the enemies had all the time in the world to retreat. Even though the Carry eventually returned with 100% HP, the team fight was already over. He merely cheated death, he had no way to finish off the enemies he injured. Cryo-Freeze didn’t help him win team fights in the slightest.

  After retreating, all the enemies had to do was restore themselves to full health and start a new 1v2 team fight. Since Cryo-Freeze was an ultimate ability, it had a long cooldown and was usually be unusable during the following team fight. In other words, the Cryo-Freeze strategy only deyed the iable, it didn’t provide a way to actually win any of the fights.

  In the first pce, ancer is all about the CC. You py Cleric if you want a healer. Yuel sighed. It was frustrating to watch. He knew all these Support csses like the palm of his hand. He khem so well, that he even uood why the girl was making all these on newbie mistakes. Truly, he knew everything about the Support role, that’s how much he hated it.

  Beyond her poor handling of the ahere were many other issues with the girl’s pystyle. She didn’t set up st hits on minions for the Trickshooter, she built too many offeems and so much more.

  pared to her, the boy pying Trickshooter was impressive. Yuel only caught ss of the Trickshooter’s pys via the girl’s tablet, but everything he saw was awe-striking.

  The Trickshooter’s main damaging skill, Trickshot, fired a bullet which bounced off walls. Each time the bullet bounced, its total power was doubled. It was an attack with incredible damage potential, but it was extremely difficult to nd a hit after a bounce. Yuel practiced this skill a lot, until ultimately cluding it was too unreliable for team fights.

  ... is this guy hag? Yuel couldn’t believe it. The Trickshooter on the s he boung shots, ead every one of them. It was unreal.

  Instead of taking the easy way out and firing Trickshot straight at the enemy, the Trickshooter always fired at a nearby wall and made the bullet bouoward the enemy. And it always hit. Always. Without fail. Sometimes it even hit both e once! What!? How!?

  Even without any support to speak of, the Trickshooter held his ground in a 1v2 against the enemy Pirate and Clerio, that’s wrong. He was WINNING against them.

  He juked the majority of their shots while perfectly nding each of his attacks. After enough hits, the Cleri dangerously low on HP and was forced to retreat to the bae, leaving the rest of the fight to the Pirate.

  The fight became a 1v1, but the Trickshooter was still at a grave disadvantage... in theory. He only had 30% HP left, while the Pirate was at full health. heless, the Pirate was stomped on.

  Was that Pirate just a bad pyer? No, it didn’t seem that way. It’s the Trickshooter who was too amazing. He was abnormally nimble and accurate, making it insanely hard to kill him in a duel.

  “Now! Pce a wall!” The Trickshooter shouted. In respohe girl activated the skill Ice Wall aed wall i the ne.

  Ice Wall was normally used to obstruemy movement, but here it served a different purpose. It was a wall for all is and purposes, so Trickshot could bounce off it. This was the well-known bo between Trickshooter and ancer. As expected, the Trickshooter aimed his pistol at... what?

  “Hu-!?” Yuel quickly covered his mouth. Huh? What? The Trickshooter didn’t direct his pistol toward the ice wall. Instead, he fired Trickshot at a nearby wall. The bullet bounced off the wall and flew toward the ice wall, from which it bounced a sed time.

  A double bouhat makes the bullet four times stronger! Yuel trembled from shock. Both the base power and the power sg of Trickshot were pretty high for a Carry’s skill, so quadrupling them allowed the bullet to erase 70% of the Pirate’s HP in one-shot. That is, if it miraculously hit.

  But, there’s no way it’ll hit... right? Yuel was glued to the s. Landing a hit after a single bounce was already hard and doing so after two bounces was expoially harder. The Trickshooter didn’t even spend more than a sed to take aim, so there was no ce this bullet would-

  An enemy has been killed!

  Y-You’re kidding me... Yuel’s jaw dropped so hard he couldn’t close his mouth for at least a mihe bullet wiped out the Pirate after boung twice. Twice! It bouwice! And it hit! What were the odds of that happening in the middle of a fight!? What would happe? A meteor would fall from the sky and wipe out humanity!? Anything ossible at this point!

  H-He’s amazing. Yuel gulped and ched his fists. Despite having no support and effectively fighting 1v2, the Trickshooter didn’t give up and didn’t bme anybody. He fought his best and grasped victory. He was amazing, he was a god. He definitely deserved to win this.

  As, the kill he scored was just the beginning of the fight. The Cleric cast his ultimate ability, Arise, on the dying Pirate. A ball of light traveled toward the Pirate’s colpsed body and refilled it with energy. It was a revival skill which brought the Pirate back from the dead with full HP.

  While the injured Cleric was busy casting his revival spell, the Trickshooter used the ce to assault him.

  An enemy has been killed! Double kill!

  Two kills in a row in a 1v2 situation was nothing but amazing. However, that was the end of the line for the Trickshooter. The Pirate stht behind him with full HP, ready to exact revenge. No matter how amazing the Trickshooter was, he couldn't possibly win with just 10% HP. He didn’t even have enough MP to fire Trickshot or flee with Trickslide.

  The ancer realized it became a 2v1, so she finally mustered the ce to step into the fight and attack the Pirate. However, her damage was ckluster and she was way too te.

  An ally has been killed!

  The Trickshooter fell. He fought well until the very end ahe Pirate with 60% HP, but it was a defeat. Both teams lost one member, but the team which lost the Carry lost the whole 2v2. Even if she wahe ancer had no way to fight back against the Pirate. She immediately retreated back tolem to avoid getting killed, a good move for a ge.

  Winning the team fight allowed the Pirate to push ne hard and bring the Golem’s HP down to 60% in one go. The rest of the match progressed in a simir fashion, with the Trickshooter and ancer getting pushed bao matter how well the Trickshooter pyed, he couldn’t beat the enemy duo. Every time he killed the Pirate, the Cleric used Arise and the fight went south from there.

  DEFEAT

  “Hah, git gud, bro.” The Pirate ughed.

  “Bah, I almost had you i ohe Trickshooter held his head. Based on the bad forth between the pyers throughout the match, his name was Lars.

  “You’re a way better pyer than him.” The ancer, Julia, was quick to sole her partner. “We only lost because they’re pying these cheap csses.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Huh? And who are you supposed to be?” Julia turned around and shot a nasty gre at Yuel.

  “A-Ah, I just watched the match for a bit...” Yuel realized he just blurted his thoughts. What a great way to make a first impression.

  “You also py Cssmancers?” Lars asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And you watched the match, right? Dude, you believe we lost that? I was so sure we’d turn things around at end game! I just don’t get why we lost.”

  “Well, about that...” Yuel threw a g Julia, who was still giving him the evil eye. “ I be blunt?”

  “Sure, go ahead and hit me with any criticism you got, dude.”

  “Then, first I’ll say you pyed Trickshooter very well. You nearly beat them in 1v2.” Yuel tried to soften the ining blow. “But, you didn’t have any support. Frankly, that ancer pyed terribly.”

  “Huh!? What’s that supposed to mean!?” Julia gred at him so hard that he felt like he was stabbed with a knife. Sigh, what a wonderful first impression he made.

  “Haha, you were blunt alright.” Lars ughed while scratg his head. “I gotta agree, July isn’t the best Support, is she?”

  “Eh?” Julia turned meek all of sudden. “I-I only picked it up retly, so I’m still learning. S-Sorry if I’m still making newbie mistakes.” She wore puppy dog eyes while addressing Lars, but she didn’t fail to somehow shoot another murderous gre at Yuel at the same time.

  “Are ya any good as Support?” Lars asked.

  “I do better than her, at least.” Yuel affirmed. If Julia’s gres could kill, he’d be a dismembered corpse by now.

  “The’s py another round, with you as my Support.” Lars said.

  “Fine by me.” Yuel answered without hesitatioed Support so much, that he had an untrolble urge to fix the defeat caused by Julia’s lousy supp. Not to mention that Lars clearly deserved to win this match. “I’ll g my tablet.”

  “Nah, there’s no much time until the bell.” Lars waved his hand. “Just py on July’s.”

  “H-Huh!?” Julia cried.

  “Hm? Is that a problem?”

  “N-No, of course not. Please, go ahead. Be my guest.” Julia smiled like an angel and offered her seat to Yuel. However, as she passed by him, she clicked her tongue and cursed him to death with her gre.

  She sure likes me. Yuel shrugged and took Julia’s seat.

  “Okay, let’s go with the same bo!” Lars picked Trickshain and locked in before Yuel could eve. “Pick ancer so we make savage pys with the walls.”

  “Hmm.” Yuel didn’t ply right away. The bo of Ice Wall and Trickshot was rewarding to pull off and could help the Trickshooter in some sarios. Based on how the previous match went, Lars could be trusted to perfectly nd ead every boung Trickshot, even after two bounces. He was quite literally the god of trick shooting.

  However, precisely because of that, it seemed like Ice Wall wasn’t really necessary for Lars on this small map. The ne was surrounded by walls and he fwlessly utilized them to nd his boung shots. Throwing Ice Wall into the mix would sometimes allow Lars to nd a super powerful double bourickshot, but these sarios were bound to be rare due to their insane difficulty.

  “, what takes ya so long?” One of the oppos pined. Both enemies must had locked in their csses by now. The game room dispyed a 0-3 score in the enemy’s favor, so they must had been pying against each other throughout the whole lunch break.

  “Do they aly Pirate and Cleric?” Yuel asked.

  “Yeah, they’ve been pig them the whole day.” Lars nodded.

  “Then I’m going with Padin.”

  “Eh? But the synergy, dude! The sibos, dude!”

  “Let me ask you something.” Yuel turo Lars with a serious expression. “Do you py to make cool bos or to win?”

  “Oh.” Lars blinked for moment, then grinned. “To win, of course.”

  “Then Padin it is.”

  “Why? It has some secret synergy with Trickshooter?”

  “No.” Yuel shook his head. “Synergy is good to have, but sometimes it’s more effit to ter the enemy instead. Padin do much more work than ancer in this matchup.”

  “I’m really not seeing it, dude. Padin is melee, we gon zoned by their le, yo.”

  “There’s some truth to that.” Yuel was impressed by Lars’s keen observatied csses had a great advantage over melee csses while fighting on the ne. “But don’t fet that Padin is also a tank. He soak some damage.”

  “Hrm. Hrmmm.” Lars still had his doubts. “Say, what level are you?”

  “32.”

  “Oh! You sure py a lot, dude!” Lars’s attitude made a 180. “I’m only Lv.26, so guess that makes you the expert here. Okay, let’s roll with your pn then!”

  Grinding levels doesn’t make you an expert, but sure. Yuel stayed quiet and picked Padin. The match finally started loading.

  Lv.26, huh. Yuel felt stupid. Just what was he been doing all this time? He had been pying online alone for so long, even though there were such passionate Cssmancers pyers right door.

  At first, he wanted win in order to show how proper supp could decide games, but now he had an even more important goal. He had to prove his worth as a fellow Cssmancers pyer so he could join this circle of friends. If he showcased his ability here, the days of pying online alone would be finally over. He had to win, no matter what.