“Ack, crap!” Ronald exclaimed as a shower poured on him outta nowhere. That Aquamancer bruh cast his Rainfall spell outta nowhere!

And, while Ronald was slowed down- ZAP! A laser beam!

The shot pierced through Ronald’s skull. If this were a shooter game, then this would’ve been a lethal hit for sure.

“Whoa, this bruh just keeps landing headshots even in this situation!?” Ronald’s brain short-circuited as he tried to process this. “But wait, more importantly, are they seriously going all in like this!?”

“I told you they’ll use this opportunity,” William said matter-of-factly. “You should’ve retreated as soon as I told you.”

“Yeaaah, I guess I should’ve, haha.” Ronald laughed dryly. “But, no problem! They not gonna get me.”

“They better not, or else we might lose the game right there.”

“Whoa. I guess I’m that important for winning, huh.”

“No, I’m important for winning because I’m the Carry,” William asserted. “If they remove you now, then they’ll have no problem targeting me next, that’s the real problem.”

“Oh crap, you’re right.” Ronald nodded. “Okay, don’t worry, bro! I won’t let them kill me so easily.”

“I sure hope so. Your performance in this game hasn’t been up to par so far.”

“Oh c’mon, I just made one bad call at game start. It’s all water under the bridge by now.”

Says the guy himself. William made a face. These consecutive misplays are getting a little concerning. He’s probably feeling himself because we’ve already won one game, so depending on how things develop, I might have to think of a solution to this.

Frankly, this Carry-Support dynamic was so backward. Instead of the Support babysitting the Carry, it felt like William was the one taking care of Ronald. It was such a pain in the neck sometimes.

At times like this, I almost wish Cato was my Support. William couldn’t believe that this thought actually passed his mind, but it was true. We’d probably bash heads a lot, but at least I can overall trust him to make good decisions as a Support.

William could do nothing more than sigh at the unfolding situation. The die was already cast. Chessmaster slowed Ronald down with Rainfall and Gunz started sniping from afar. The battle was on.

Naturally, this assault triggered the few remaining allied minions. The soldiers turned their attention to Gunz, the offender who dared to touch Ronald.

Technically, it was Chessmaster who launched the first attack. However, Rainfall didn’t deal any damage, therefore it wasn’t considered a hostile action by the bots even though it totally was.

Despite the approaching retaliation, Gunz aimed his rifle once again without a single care in the world. 

“Ron, you should place a-” ZAP! “... a wall.”

The advice arrived too late. Yet another bullet pierced through Ronald’s skull.

“Dang, seriously!? I thought I was gonna juke this one real ez.” Ronald moved from side to side as he ran, doing his best to confuse the sniper. Alas, none of it proved effective. Gunz’s sniping skills didn’t falter at all.

It looks like I’m too dang slow. Ronald realized.

That nasty slowdown from Rainfall really hit him hard. Even though he has already escaped the rain’s area, the slowdown effect still lingered for a few seconds.

“Okay, then a wall it is!” Ronald really didn’t want to waste MP on this skill unless it was absolutely necessary, but right now, it was totally necessary!

Here goes! He turned around for a moment, summoned the wall, and then continued his escape.

With the thick wall now standing between Ronald and Gunz, it was no longer possible to snipe him. The enemy would have to somehow shoot around or over the wall in order to reach Ronald, but that was clearly impossible... or was it!?

“Nice, yo!” Lars grinned at the Ice Wall. “This is exactly like you said it’d happen, dude! I’m totally gonna take advantage of this one.”

Lars went out of Elven Sight mode and turned his back toward the distant ice wall. This was gonna be one heck of a leap of faith!

He activated Elven Leap, backflipping high in the air. And, where did he land? Right on top of the ice wall!

Yeah, that’s right. In this largely horizontal game, Lars reached the high ground through a vertical jump!

Now, he was the king of the hill. Enemy minions wanted to smack him real hard for attacking their dude, but they couldn’t possibly reach him at this height. They charged face-first into the ice wall like brainless bots, in a futile attempt to get into a position to reach Lars.

The fact this interaction was even possible was rather absurd. Generally, leaps were unable to land on top of walls because that would completely break the balance of this horizontal game.

However, Elven Leap was just slightly different from most regular jump skills, and Ice Wall was just slightly thicker than most regular walls. Together, these two small irregularities caused an anomaly.

It was likely an unintended bug, one that ClassSoft has been slow to fix for some reason. Until they do, it remained a totally valid meta play.

It was a case of extremely specific matchup knowledge, one that Yuel successfully drilled into Lars during practice. Though, of course, Yuel had to remind the goof about it all over again…

Landing on top of this wall with Elven Leap was no easy task. However, through hard work, determination, and talent - Lars mastered this specific niche interaction! And now, he was going to use it fully to his advantage!

ZAP! He fired from the top of the wall, aiming straight at the fleeing Cryomancer. HEADSHOT!

“What the-!?” Ronald turned around in confusion. Another headshot!? Impossible!

He totally walled off all the sniping, right? So, there was no way Gunz could possibly shoot him anymore!

But, the mad lad did just that. For some reason, Gunz was standing on top of the Ice Wall that Ronald erected as if he owned the entire area. When and how did this happen, exactly?

“What the heck?” Ronald asked. “Did he jump on my wall?”

“Yes, he did,” William attested. “A well-aimed backflip, I’ll give him that.”

“Daaamn, that’s sick! Haha!” Ronald laughed. “How the heck did he land all the way up there? You can’t even see where you’re going when you do that backflip!”

“He must have good coordination.”

“Yeah, this guy is sick. I see why Sonya rated him so high.”

“Hmph.”

“Ah! But, of course, you’re way better than that scrub, bro!” Ronald was quick to add. “Don’t worry. I messed up a little this time, but next round we gonna be the ones wrecking them!”

“I’ll hold you on that promise.” William had nothing else to add as he retreated along with the troublemaker. This round was completely their loss thanks to Ronald.

Hmph. This wasn’t my fault, so it doesn’t count. William asserted.

Gunz dominated this round beyond a shadow of a doubt. However, it all happened because of Ronald’s misplay, not Willaim’s. As such, this didn’t count as Gunz “winning” against William in any way. This proved nothing about how their skills measure up.

Ron goofed but he didn’t die, so we’re still good. Willaim though. Though, he did lose a lot of HP...

With a power buff in hand and a rather aggressive early-game build, Gunz erased nearly 15% of Ronald’s HP with every shot. Therefore, after three clean hits, Ronald was now down to 60% HP.

Do I tell him to retreat? William pondered. It’s not like he’s in any immediate danger, but he’s still pretty low. This is a dangerous amount of HP to have against a hyper-aggressive team.

Judging by Gunz’s sniping skill with Elf, it was safe to assume that Ronald won’t be able to dodge most incoming shots. Gunz WILL snipe him down even from a maximum distance, no doubt about it. And, thanks to the power buff, each of his shots hit like a truck.

As it stood, Ronald was roughly about 4~6 hits away from dying. This was extremely dangerous, especially considering the CC options of Aquamancer. Not to mention, the enemy’s Jungler was a Dark Knight, of all things.

So yes, there were many ways in which this situation could go wrong very fast.

If only he was a little healthier. William frowned. It’s that last hit that really put him in the red.

If Ronald was still around 70% HP or more, this would have been a no-brainer. That was a healthy amount of HP that wouldn’t have made William worry at all.

But, because of that last tricky shot that came from atop the Ice Wall, Ronald fell into dangerous HP territory. This was probably what the enemy was aiming for.

Gunz went out of his way to spend his leap for this play, just to get this one extra hit. It could’ve easily gone wrong if he failed to land on the wall, and there’s a lot of risk in throwing away his best escape tool like that. Yet, he still went for it.

Most likely, the brain behind this operation was Chessmaster. Or, perhaps Gunz just wanted to flaunt his mechanical skill and show he could land on top of that ice wall, which was honestly quite absurd, by the way.

That Elven Leap + Ice Wall was a familiar exploit, but it was a rare interaction that almost never worked out. It was difficult to intentionally land on top of the ice wall, especially when jumping backward.

William knew that firsthand because he and Ronald tried practicing it before. Needless to say, it didn’t go that well.

William had no problem landing on the wall in a peaceful environment when it was only him and the wall. After many repeated failures, he was able to estimate the ideal distance and angle for landing and staying on top of the wall.

However, real matches never had such optimal conditions. Things were always moving around and it was necessary to make split-second decisions.

When the ice wall could spawn anywhere and at any time, William struggled to find the optimal position on the spot. When he tried to make that leap of faith regardless, it usually ended in one big failure. He either crashed into the wall and wasted his precious leap, or worse still, he went over the wall and found himself isolated in enemy territory.

As for Ronald, the brat didn’t fare much better with this challenge, either. Even in Practice mode, his consistency left much to be desired. He wasn’t even half as good as William there.

On the other hand, in practical scenarios, Ronald’s success rate was somehow higher than William’s. Even though the kid didn’t fare that well in Practice mode, his success rate was almost the same between practice and real matches. Frankly, it was rather bizarre.

Either way, in the end, both brothers gave up on trying to master that exploit. It was a very specific niche interaction in the first place, so it wasn’t worth burning so many hours on it. Instead, it was far better to focus on something universally practical, like the Korean Step Cancel.

But clearly, Gunz begged to differ. He deemed it reasonable to master that niche exploit, and he went out of his way to take the risk and show it off on the competitive stage, of all places. What a show-off.

Either way, regardless of whether that play was merely a spectacle that Gunz wanted to show or a carefully organized play by Chessmaster, the end result put Willaim on the spot. Keeping Ronald around with 60% HP was risky.

On one hand, issuing a retreat would be wise. On the other hand, that’d make Ronald’s wasteful power build even more wasteful.

A Selfish Support could only justify his playstyle by being present on the lane and clearing minions alongside the Carry. Ronald had to actually deliver all that damage he built, or else the whole setup would go to waste.

I can’t allow that. I need as much early advantage as I can get my hands on. William thought. I picked Seraph for the late-game, but Elf is also a late-game class. So, this is a race to see who gets their build online first.

“Ron, I hope now you understand what’s going to happen every time you mess up your farming. Make sure this won’t happen again.”

“No problem, bro!”

That’s all Willaim had to say on the matter. He didn’t utter a single word about retreating, and Ronald didn’t bring up the topic either.

On the other hand, there was one teammate who didn’t quite agree with this.

“My, you’re not going to ask him to retreat?” Cato asked. “It looks to me like somebody here likes playing with fire~”

“I considered it for a moment but it’s not worth it,” William explained. “His power build is only worth it when he’s here on the lane, doing his job.”

“That’s true, as unfortunate as it is.” Cato nodded. “But, do you know what’s also true? That you, as his older brother, could’ve easily demanded him to stop building this nonsense and start playing properly.”

“Spare me that headache.”

“Haha. Well, it’s not like I don’t understand you.” Cato sighed as he recalled his past attempts.

Unlike Willaim, who gave up almost immediately, Cato led a long and tedious crusade in protest of Ronald’s Selfish Support builds. Seriously, Cato tried every trick in the book to get Ronald to give up on that nonsense, he even involved the coach.

But, in the end, nothing worked on that blockhead. Even Rodriguez couldn’t change the brat’s mind.

“Just let him try and fail,” Rodriguez said back then. “He’ll not be convinced by anything as long as it keeps working for him. I’m sure he’ll change his tune once you face stronger opponents at the nationals.”

Apparently, that was one of Rodriguez’s policies for dealing with stubborn off-meta players. He lectured them a lot but if they still refused to yield, he simply let them play however they wanted.

Essentially, he waited for them to crash into a wall and learn a valuable lesson from that. According to him, that was the most efficient method for teaching such blockheads.

That’s exactly how he handled Jeniffer last year, who insisted on playing Combo over any meta build. In her case, that worked out splendidly thanks to the defeat she suffered against StormBlitz’s second-string.

From there, she realized the importance of meta classes and even managed to improve in time to join the first-string for the regionals. It was quite a touching story.

So, this passive approach for dealing with troublemakers definitely worked sometimes. But...

I can’t say I’m a fan of it. Cato thought. So please, Yuel. Trash this kid real hard for me, will you? Thanks in advance.

From that perspective, allowing Ronald to remain in lane with 60% HP was for the best. If Yuel successfully capitalizes on this opportunity and wrecks Ronald hard, then it might teach the brat a lesson or two for the future.

On the other hand, if Yuel really does take advantage of this opportunity, it might spell doom for us. Even the tiniest misplay can snowball against a hyper-aggressive team.

This was such a difficult dilemma. On one hand, Cato wanted Yuel to succeed in crushing Ronald, yet at the same time, he didn’t want to suffer the consequences of such a development. Truly, what a pain in the ass Ronald was.

Fine. I’ll allow it for now. Cato sighed. I really hate to admit it, but this brat usually knows how to pull his weight when it counts. So, I doubt he’ll go down without a fight.

There was definitely risk involved in this decision but Cato concluded this was better for the team's future. As the overlord, it was sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice his pawns for the sake of powering up the team!

I really didn’t want to deal with high stakes like in this game, though. Cato frowned. We were supposed to win this game decisively, to show that we’re the far superior team...

The way this game started for the Leopards was shaky, to say the least. The early-game was clearly going to lean heavily in Stratus' favor. Right now, the Leopards looked like the real underdogs here.

I can’t say I like this, but it’s quite alright. Cato smiled impishly. We can start off with that handicap, it’s not a problem for us. In the end, victory will be ours once again!

With that belief, Cato approved of Ronald’s continued presence in Bot Lane despite the dangerous 60% HP. But, was this decision the right call? Or, will it bring about disaster? Only time will tell...