Luckily enough, the last second in draft phase always fell extra long, so at least we didn't get a random pick locked in.

So, Sivir it was. Sivir first. I didn't quite get Janosch's plan behind it, but now we couldn't change it anymore. However, I instantly felt the anger rising up in Gregor, as a single look to my left was enough to read his emotions.

“Dude, Sivir is so trash! I'm not gonna play it.”

“Okay, then I play Sivir support." Veezer's voice was so provocative, it made me just as mad as Gregor.

I was about to say that I could play her mid but... yea, probably wouldn't have helped much either.
I didn't have the mechanics for her anyway.
You might say she is pretty easy to play, which, for the wave clear part, is true, but piloting an ADC in the late game with more than 2.0 attack speed; I'd break my hands in an instance.

“Guys, it's enough. Talk about the next pick please,” Nick's voice somehow brought a bit of peace in the conversation, as we started to talk about the actual game again.

“I already said pick Rek'sai. None of you is making any calls and then when I say something you start talking out of a sudden?!”

The timer was ticking again. Not only for a pick to be locked, but also for someone to go mentally boom, I feared.

“What you want me to do with this buried piece of shit?!” Finn had a point, Rek'sai really wasn't a pick you would see often – although since her rework in season 26, she's gotten her spots to be picked in.

Her strength laid in early game skirmishes, ganking and revealing invisible units, but picking her this early didn't make any sense. Especially against such a tanky champion like Maokai...

“Not my fault you're a fucking Xin otp! It's the only thing that has worked besides it!”

“Shut up you clown...”

At the third pick, as the arguing continued, I spoke up for the first time. “We can pick Xerath here.”

I had a fine matchup against Viktor, and with the combination of Maokai and Jinx I didn't feel like they could pivot their team composition's identity anymore.
They were going for a standard scaling hyper-carry draft and Xerath was great at beating that.

Sadly, my pick wouldn't line up too well with the likes of Sivir and Rek'sai, given that Sivir's move speed steroid wouldn't enhance my champion all that much, except for running away from Maokai ult – not too bad I guess.

Rek'sai on the other hand didn't serve any purpose what so ever. We would never do anything in early game with Xerath and Sivir, and in late game Rek'sai would just be a burden to us whilst not having contributed anything in early game and being out valued by Maokai later on.

But there was no pick – atleats none that I played – that would get us out of this spot.

“No, pick away Lulu or we have to ban it,” Gregor argued against my call.

“But we could just pick Lulu on R4-"

“No they will ban it then!”

“But that's not bad either-”

“HAHA! AS IF I WOULD PICK LULU FOR THIS APE!”, Veezer's crazy laughter sent us all silent.

If he wasn't going to pick Lulu anyway then we should just lock Xerath, right?
The timer went down again and this time I had to pick, so I was already typing 'Xer' in the search bar.

“So?”, I asked in an uncertain tone.

“Pick me Pyke, I will roam.”

Pyke? What the hell is our comp supposed be then?

“Are you sure?”

“Don't keep asking, just follow my instructions!” He spoke to me as if I were his child, daring to speak up to him – it must've been a very strict household where he grew up.
How else could you become this way?

Everything inside of me hated the thought of locking in what he had just demanded, even if the pick made sense it would have felt terrible to give this selfish brat his will.
I rolled my eyes with a big sigh going over my lips, as I followed his command.

Besides Malphite, Xerath, the pick that I had hoped could save us, got banned by the enemy and about our bans, well...

“We have to ban Lulu now!”, Gregor said and I agreed with him. Since now we had picked our support, there was no reason to leave her open.
We had the chance to pick her ourself or leave her open and make the enemy ban her, but we picked a random Pyke instead...

“No, Pyke counters Lulu. If we can't beat her with this, then we have to perma ban her first rotation.”

“Or pick her ourselves instead of crying like a baby,” Gregor replied and banned Lulu, as it was the 4th ban, which was done by the ADC, going down in order from the top-laner to the support.

“Ok, good luck 1v2!”, Veers threatened.

Since we wanted to last pick top-lane, it was my turn to pick.

Let's see how much am I'm going to have to say in this...

“Lux or Ziggs would be fine here,” I hurried to start talking before it would be too late again.

“Dude, you're gonna get perma ganked. LeBlanc would be much better here.” Once again Veezer didn't seem too open for a conversation–he rather just made statements.

“I-I'm not a fan of LB – not my best champ.” At this point I was just worried they were going to make me play it.

I really sucked at anything out of my comfort zone.

“Huh?! So you can only play mages?! What am I supposed to do with such a mid-laner?!”

Speechless, I tried to figure out what combination of words could solve this 'problem', which really wasn't one since he didn't seem to care about our team composition or winning, anyway.

Why is it such a big deal now that I suggested the champions I'd like to play?! Can't you just fucking shut up for once?!

“So Lux you said?” asked Gregor, as I looked to my left and saw his grinning face.

It was his turn to lock the pick and even though I didn't particularely like him or anything, we for sure were on the same page when it came to Veezer.
As the latter realized what was about to happen, I was scared for a moment he would walk up to Gregor's computer and either plug it off or punch him in the face to then lock in what ever he wanted me to play, but he pulled his shitty personality together and left it at banter for now.

After the enemies locked in Renekton and Braum, which wasn't good at all for us, it was up to Marius to save the day.
But what would even save the draft here?!

Blue side:
CrimsonRider: Renekton
Elasticum: Maokai
Samotex: Viktor
Spidget: Jinx
Bastiquez: Braum

Red side:
Axer: ???
Omul: Rek'sai
Me: Lux
Checker: Sivir
Veezer: Pyke