“Hehe” Luke snickered fidently. “I bet you’ll never guess which css it is!”

  “Dark Knight?”

  “Wha-!?” Luke jumped. “H-How the heck did ya figure!? Are you a mind reader, bro!?”

  “It wasn’t too hard to deduce,” Yuel expined. “You’ve started pying lots of Dark Knight retly and you’ve been putting on an uedly... well, ‘not terrible’ performance, I suppose.”

  “Right? Right!? Dang, I nning to keep it as a surprise, but looks like the cat is already out of the bag, haha.”

  “You weren’t very discrete about it, holy. In the past two weeks, your usage of Dark Knight skyrocketed pared to all your other csses.”

  “Wait, how do you even know that?” Luke asked. “Do yurly collect these statistics or something?”

  “Yes, every now and then.”

  “Dang, and to think that I tried extra hard to keep it under ers by switg csses all the time...!”

  “I’m not sure why would you even want to keep it a secret, but it was easy enough to spot the Dark Knight because you usually ge csses very regurly. The distribution of your other css picks was rather uniform over the st two weeks, save for Dark Knight.”

  “Dang, curse you and your 200 IQ analysis skillz!” Luke waved an angry fist. “But anyway, whatcha think? A brilliant idea, right? Right!?”

  “I think you meant to say a terrible idea.”

  “Whaaaat? an. I totally rocked that Jungle DK, didn’t I? We steamrolled so many games thanks to it!”

  “Yes, we did win over half the games,” Yuel admitted. “But, the sample size is too small to say anything clusive.”

  “But, you remember how we totally DESTROYED the guys we did beat, right? Jungle DK is that OP, I’m telling ya, man.”

  “It’s somewhat effective against weaker teams which we catch off-guard, but that’s about all it do.”

  “So, you agree there’s a ce we win with it.” Luke grinned.

  “Yes, a ce, and only against the weaker teams that’ll allow themselves to be caught off-guard. Even in Rahe better teams shut down your Dark Knight very early.”

  “Welp, I guess something like that might’ve happened, maybe...” Luke looked away.

  “Now,” Yuel tinued. “If you take into at that the Leopards are probably strohan all these strong Ranked oppos bihen you get the idea.”

  “Man, such pessimism.” Luke shook his head. “, you saw these guys, right? They’re hardcore turtles. There’s no way they gonna shut down my DK. Just no way, man. They’ll be sitting there like ducks, waiting for me to ruhem. I’m telling you, man.”

  “Hmm.” Yuel knotted his brows. As much as I’d like to object, he does make some sense. Cato’s Leopards is a hyper-defeeam to a fault. So, they might uedly struggle against a hyper-aggressive Jungler. But...

  In the end, it was still a meme. Just like in Top Lane, a Jungler Dark Knight was overwhelmingly powerful if it could get going during the early-game, but it’d bee borderline useless if the enemy stop it early.

  And sadly, the Leopards were no amateurs. They definitely knew how to shut down Dark Knight’s strong early-game.

  Though, that knowledge also be used against them. Yuel thought. That actually worked out for us a couple of times in Ranked.

  For example, if Stratus picks Dark Knight right at the start of the drafting phase, it’ll set off arms for the Leopards. They will most certainly assume that the Dark Knight pick was intended for Top, so they’ll respond accly.

  They’ll probably ter with something like Dragonborn, which we soft-ter with Berserker. And, from there...

  Yuel simuted a number of possible bad-forths between him and Cato on the chessboard of the drafting stage. It’ll definitely make for an iing csh of bluffs and outguessing.

  I was already thinking of making Lars py Elf this game, so maybe we try iing everything into offehis time and aim to things up during the mid-game.

  Elf was actually more of a te-game css, but that meant nothing for Lars. His superb meical skill transded suon sense and turned Elf into aremely dangerous css during all stages in the game.

  At least, it would sistently be that way if only his Elf was truly on par with his Trickshooter and Gunslinger. But...

  “Say, Lars,” Yuel called out. “Is your Elf ready for today? Or, would you rather save its debut for another day?”

  “It’s ready and loaded, yo!” Lars fshed his teeth. “You wanna have me go Elf game? I’ve been waiting for this!”

  “Yes, I’d like to, but are you sure about it?” Yuel asked again. “You’ll most likely be fighting Winner again, and you saw how strong he is. I want to know for sure if your Elf is strong enough to test him. Because otherwise, it’s better to go with a different css.”

  “My Elf gonna kick that dude’s ass, believe it!” Lars gave a thumbs up. “I’ve trai real hard these past few weeks, so it ain’t gonna lose to anybody, yo! It’s my third best ow!”

  “Your ‘third best’, huh.” Yuel frowned. “Just to make sure, which css is your ‘first best’ between Trickshooter and Gunslinger?”

  “Hmm. Dang, that’s a toughie.” Lars crossed his arms and tilted his head. “I kinda wanna say Shooter is better because it’s the first css I got so good with, but Slinger is also dope as heck. And, I think it really depends och-up, too. Eeeeeh...”

  “I see.” Yuel nodded. “That answers my question.”

  “Wut? It does?”

  “Yes.”

  In short, he ’t decide between Trickshooter and Gunslinger. Yuel summarized. Yet, he didn’t hesitate to call Elf his “third best”. I wonder if he realizes the disparity there.

  This meant that, no matter how hard Lars was selling his Elf, even he was aware that his Elf wasn’t really on par with the other two csses. That was definitely a cause for .

  The whole point behind making Lars focus on Elf for the past few weeks was to help him develop a new powerful on. He was already at the top of the petition when using Trickshooter and Gunslinger, so he needed just a couple more such powerhouses in order to bee a truly unstoppable threat on the petitive se.

  Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Rome was not built in a day, and the same could be said for Lars’s mastery over Trickshooter and Gunslinger. It took him a lot of time and effort t these two csses to their current level.

  As expected, the Leopards came prepared for today’s match. They banned Lars’s best csses without wasting a moment, and the same pattern will surely repeat in all future matches as well.

  Therefore, Lars absolutely had to master at least two more csses, to make sure it was impossible to ban his entire roster. And so, Elf was supposed to be the first step toward that goal, but...

  He couldn’t make it in time. Yuel frowned. I wonder why. He didn’t have enough time to prepare? Or, maybe he just didn’t allocate enough time for it? After all, he did insist to py Trickshooter and Gunslinger every now and then, even though he was supposed to be fog 100% on Elf...

  Either way, ohing was certain: Lars’s Elf was strong. Sure, it wasn’t on par with Trickshooter and Gunslinger, but it was definitely a league above Lars’s other csses.

  The question is, will this difference be enough against Winner? Yuel wondered. If there isn’t enough pap betweehen Lars might struggle to py Elf aggressively.

  It was a difficult call to make. Elf was ily a defensive css, so without suffit pyer skill, it might actually drag doweam.

  Ultimately, only one person here could testify about whether or not they were up to the task. Unfortunately, that person was the kind of goof who probably believed he could even grab the moon with his own two hands. Really, it was that hard to take Lars’s words at face value here.

  With that said, we don’t have that many options. Yuel reasoned. Even though I have my reservations about the Elf pick, I also won’t feel fortable with making Lars piething mgressive like Impaler. On paper, it’s a pick that should go well with Luke’s Dark Knight, but it’ll also make our lihat much riskier to py.

  With both Impaler and Dark Knight in the same lineup, Stratus will effectively be putting all their eggs in one basket. They’ll absolutely have to win the game during the mid-game, or else they’ll lose by default.

  Oher hand, Elf was a versatile css that could fun well ie-game as well, so it was a safer pick overall. In fact, that was one of the big reasons why Yuel suggested Lars to main Elf in the first pce.

  Not to mention, Elf could be used as a rather misleading pick for the drafting phase. That, bined with the surprise pick of Jungler Dark Knight, may allow Yuel to catch the enemy pletely off-guard. If successful, such a surprise team position will have a real ce of winning.

  It’s a rather unstable idea, but it work. Yuel thought. The Leopards have been pying very defensively so far, and they’ll probably tinue doing so in the game as well. So, now is our best ce to catch them off-guard with hyper-offense.

  As unfortunate as it erhaps trusting in Luke’s Dark Knight might in fact be Stratus’ best option while Nia was asleep.

  Of course, Yuel didn’t yield immediately. He sidered a few more options before drawing his final clusion.

  Oeresting idea was to make Ben py Top and have Vi juhis sounded better than having Ben as the Jungler, but in the end, it didn’t e across as a real winning lineup.

  There might be some other solutions I’m missing. Yuel admitted. But, if I didn’t find them during the two weeks I’ve been preparing for this game, then I definitely won’t find them during this short break.

  “Okay, I suppose we try something like this...” Yuel paused awkwardly before tinuing. The game pn he was going to suggest might sound like ery, especially when taking on a powerful team like the Leopards.

  heless, given the circumstahis bizarre setup was the best Yuel could e up with for the game. So, until Nia wakes up, Stratus will have to somehow preserve like this.

  I hope she’ll be ready for deployment in Game 3 at least. Yuel sighed. Until then, I’ll have to keep finding ways to put Luke to work somehow, because unfortunately, he’s really the best sub we got for the rht now...

  And so, after losing their first game today, Stratus was heading into the sed game with a game pn far more shaky and unstable than their previous one...

  DarkestCymore