“Hehe” Luke snickered confidently. “I bet you’ll never guess which class 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 explained. “You’ve started playing lots of Dark Knight recently and you’ve been putting on an unexpectedly... well, ‘not terrible’ performance, I suppose.”

“Right? Right!? Dang, I was planning 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, honestly. In the past two weeks, your usage of Dark Knight skyrocketed compared to all your other classes.”

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

“Yes, every now and then.”

“Dang, and to think that I tried extra hard to keep it under wrappers by switching classes 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 change classes very regularly. The distribution of your other class picks was rather uniform over the last 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? C’mon, man. 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 conclusive.”

“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 can do.”

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

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

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

“Now,” Yuel continued. “If you take into account that the Leopards are probably stronger than all these strong Ranked opponents combined, then you get the idea.”

“Man, such pessimism.” Luke shook his head. “C’mon, 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 run over them. 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-defensive team to a fault. So, they might unexpectedly 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 become 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 can 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 alarms for the Leopards. They will most certainly assume that the Dark Knight pick was intended for Top, so they’ll respond accordingly.

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

Yuel simulated a number of possible back-and-forths between him and Cato on the chessboard of the drafting stage. It’ll definitely make for an interesting clash of bluffs and outguessing.

I was already thinking of making Lars play Elf this game, so maybe we can try investing everything into offense this time and aim to wrap things up during the mid-game.

Elf was actually more of a late-game class, but that meant nothing for Lars. His superb mechanical skill transcended such common sense and turned Elf into an extremely dangerous class during all stages in the game.

At least, it would consistently 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 flashed his teeth. “You wanna have me go Elf next 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 contest him. Because otherwise, it’s better to go with a different class.”

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

“Your ‘third best’, huh.” Yuel frowned. “Just to make sure, which class 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 class I got so good with, but Slinger is also dope as heck. And, I think it really depends on the match-up, too. Eeeeeh...”

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

“Wut? It does?”

“Yes.”

In short, he can’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 classes.  That was definitely a cause for concern.

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

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 to bring these two classes to their current level.

As expected, the Leopards came prepared for today’s match. They banned Lars’s best classes 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 classes, 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 play Trickshooter and Gunslinger every now and then, even though he was supposed to be focusing 100% on Elf...

Either way, one thing 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 classes.

The question is, will this difference be enough against Winner? Yuel wondered. If there isn’t enough power gap between them, then Lars might struggle to play Elf aggressively.

It was a difficult call to make. Elf was inherently a defensive class, so without sufficient player skill, it might actually drag down the team.

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 comfortable with making Lars pick something more aggressive like Impaler. On paper, it’s a pick that should go well with Luke’s Dark Knight, but it’ll also make our lineup that much riskier to play.

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.

On the other hand, Elf was a versatile class that could function well in the late-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 place.

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

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

As unfortunate as it was, perhaps 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 considered a few more options before drawing his final conclusion.

One interesting idea was to make Ben play Top and have Vincent jungle. This sounded better than having Ben as the Jungler, but in the end, it didn’t come 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 can try something like this...” Yuel paused awkwardly before continuing.  The game plan he was going to suggest might sound like clownery, especially when taking on a powerful team like the Leopards.

Nonetheless, given the circumstances, this bizarre setup was the best Yuel could come up with for the next 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 role right now...

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