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36.84% It Works ...In Theory / Chapter 7: Synergy

Capítulo 7: Synergy

The first thing Miranda wanted was a clear sense of where everyone was at. She opened a word document to jot down notes. And instead of playing as a team, she had each person play a game separately while she watched. Of course she was extremely clear on her own strengths and preferences, she knew Kelly's pretty well, and had some idea of Archie's, but she had no idea of Jacob or Rina's.

"You're gold?" Miranda noted the border around Archie's avatar on the loading screen.

"Yup." He gave her a thumbs up. "Just got it yesterday thanks to that tip about utilizing globals. I've been spamming teleport Traveler and split pushing for wins."

"Do you have any preferences?"

Archie shook his head. "Not really. I still play a little bit of everything but I do play a lot more of whatever is working for me at the time. Oh yeah, do you have any tips on blocking?"

"Not really except to practice."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, you can stick me wherever or on anything. I'm fine with whatever."

"Great. I'll go check on your friends."

"Rina's a god."

"What?" Miranda stumbled. "She's God ranked?"

"Oh, no no no no." Archie laughed at the misunderstanding. "No, she's only bronze. But her animation canceling is absolutely insane. I have no idea how she does it."

"Ah, got it."

Jacob happened to be closer so Miranda went to check on him next. Like her, he wasn't ranked. "I never bothered to play all the placements," he explained. "People flame way more in ranked."

"True. What's your preferred role?"

Jacob frowned. "I don't really know what I'm doing yet. I just know I like playing long range classes."

He was very careful with his positioning from what Miranda could see. Jacob always maintained his maximum attacking range from the enemy. He never stopped moving but tended to be slow at changing direction and he never fired off multiple abilities in quick succession so instead of sounding like jackhammer his keyboard sounded like a small rodent was casually stumbling across the keys. It was kind of relaxing actually.

That said his positioning was safe but far from optimal and the slow speed meant that he was missing a lot of fantastic opportunities. "I've always had slow reactions," he admitted when she asked him about his sedate cadence. "I've never been particularly good at video games. I'll probably drag the team down."

"Eh, don't worry about it. It'll be fine, don't take it too seriously."

Jacob chuckled. "You're like Archie. Guy's got a competitive streak and can be pretty hot blooded but he's super chill." His face fell slightly. "I'm just worried I'm not good enough for Rina. Can't let my girlfriend down."

"It'll work out."

Miranda moved to Rina and was almost punched in the jaw as Rina threw up her fists in victory.

"Haha! Eat that!" She looked back and saw Miranda recovering from having leaned back out of the way. "Oops, sorry."

"All good. You won the game?"

"Nah, not yet." Rina maneuvered her avatar under the Pillar before backing. "What's up?"

"I'm seeing how you all like to play."

"Simple. If I can see an enemy, I try to kill them."

"How's that working for you?"

"It gets me killed a lot by ganks. What'd the others say about me?"

"Well Archie called you a god and Jacob says he wishes he was better for you."

Rina grinned. "That's nice of them not to call me a feeder. Jacob's a huge worrywart but he's sweet and he's cute. He was doting on me so hard the first time I had a bad game trying to make me feel better."

"Are you a feeder?"

"When it doesn't work out which is about half the time."

"And the other half time?"

"I destroy my opposing laner solo over and over again. I always play top or mid. Screw winning the game, I just want to outskill the enemy as many times as I can. Will that be a problem?"

"Nope," chuckled Miranda. "Will you listen to whoever calls the shots?"

"Will they be all over my ass the entire game?"

"Just when the team is making a play or we're trying to coordinate something. Otherwise you're free to do whatever you want as long you're not trying to throw the game away."

"Cool."

Once everyone had finished their games, they gathered around Miranda for her verdict.

"So here's what I have. Let me know if I get anything wrong. Archie is fine playing fill. Kelly and Jacob normally play carry and Rina plays solo lanes."

"What about you?"

"I play fill as well. Rina, I know you play solo lanes, but are you willing to learn jungle?"

"As long as I don't have to farm forever."

Miranda grinned. "Trust me, you won't. I don't want people to focus on roles. I want people to focus on types of classes. I play whatever, Archie plays whatever. Rina, you focus on fighters and your choice of tanks or assassins. Classes that can get up close and personal. Jacob, you focus on classes that have the longest ranges, preferably mages with crowd control and marksmen with mobility. Kelly, play whatever you want and we'll make it work."

"So which lane am I then?" asked Kelly with some confusion.

"Depends on the draft."

Everyone stared at Miranda.


Capítulo 8: Mind Games

Double elimination was not the format Miranda would have chosen for a 100 team tournament, but then again it was the school's decision not hers. One week after the tournament announcement and teams were finalized, the first round was slated to begin. Their team was confident of victory and in Miranda's opinion deservedly so. They'd spent the entire week working not on their mechanics, but on the philosophy she was drilling into them.

Everyone loaded into the lobby. Their team was named Nobody Cares, a joke based on the team's attitude about winning that Archie and Jacob pushed to Kelly's displeasure and Rina and Miranda's ambivalence. Nobody Cares banned three assassin classes. The opposing team, WolfGang, banned the three "OP" classes. That still left the field of pickable classes wide open.

Rina snapped up Electromancer. The long range mage had a highly flexible playstyle and four of them could play it. Everyone except Rina, the one who picked it.

WolfGang responded with one of the unbanned assassins, the Rogue, and their support, the Shepherd.

Everyone on Nobody Cares cracked a smile. They all knew what that meant even before Miranda asked the question.

"Rina, what do you want to wreck that Rogue?"

"Gimme Cavalier."

"Got it. Cavalier and Mute."

When Cavalier and Ninja were locked in, question marks were going off in the heads of the opposing team.

"I thought you said they were going to pick Paladin."

"They should have picked Paladin. Are they being dumb or something? Rogue is going to wreck their Electromancer."

"They also picked both their solo lanes. Cavalier top?"

"I've seen it before. Just pick a tank into it and their finished."

"So we'll go Paladin then?

"Yeah, deny them the pick. It can go top or support."

"We already have Shepherd."

"Oh yeah. Whatever, it'll be good into Cavalier."

After that each team had three of their five classes picked. Now each team would get to ban two more classes before picking their last two.

This time both teams banned out high mobility junglers. WolfGang had to pick first for this phase, but they would also have last overall pick. All according to plan. They instalocked Werewolf and waited to see what their opponents would pick.

Ninja. Telekineticist.

Everyone on WolfGang's faces went blank. Two squishy supports and no tanks? They had to be throwing the game on purpose right? WolfGang last picked Sharpshooter. The game plan was simple, win the lanes and then crush the opponents in teamfights repeatedly.

The game was a completely one sided stomp. For Nobody Cares.

Jacob took Mute top against Paladin. As a ranged champion with a lot disruptive crowd control abilities, he had a huge advantage against Paladin whose biggest selling point was being a night unkillable tank with a game defining ultimate. The Paladin ultimate skill Divine Intervention briefly prevented all teammates from taking damage. Unfortunately for him the Divine Intervention was nullified by the Mute ultimate skill Complete Silence which removed all effects enemy avatars such as shields, buff, and debuffs. Unable to affect the game with his ultimate or kill Jacob, the Paladin became just a punching bag.

In mid lane Rina lived up to expectations. Her cavalier destroyed the Rogue. Especially with some early help from Miranda's jungle Ninja, she soon became so strong that she could fight against the enemy jungle/mid duo and get out alive.

Bot lane was the straw that broke the camel's back. Instead of playing a traditional marksman carry, Kelly's Electromancer and Miranda's Ninja had a grand time annihilating whoever Archie Force of Willled. Both Sharpshooter and Shepherd were squishy classes and quickly found themselves being comboed to death by Kelly's burst damage and Archie's crowd control.

Admittedly Jacob was pretty useless outside of using his ultimate to cancel the Paladin's. But that didn't really matter when Rina could rampage freely through the enemy team with Miranda's backup while Kelly picked off targets at leisure protected by Archie. Teamfight after teamfight went over to Nobody Cares, a snowball that couldn't be stopped until the enemy Core lay shattered and the game was over.

"Did you seriously go tank Ninja?"

Jacob was looking at the end of game screen. All of the builds looked normal. Except for one. Miranda's Ninja.

Ninja was played in one of two ways. The full on assassin build went full damage and took bonuses that improved damage done with basic attacks. Go in, kill the enemy, then escape. Then do it again when enough abilities were off cooldown. The more bruiser style build took damage, cooldown reduction, and bonuses that improved ability damage and cooldown reduction. The aim was to give up burst damage from the assassin over build in order to deal more damage over time by being able to go in and fight more often.

But Miranda's build was neither. It had the traditional jungle clearing items which was pretty standard. Other than that it took things that granted defenses, health, and cooldown reduction. No damage items. Jacob couldn't figure it out.

"Yup," replied Miranda. She nodded sagely. "My ruse played out perfectly."

"What ruse?"

"Every time I engaged they blew lots of their crowd control and most damaging abilities on me."

"But you didn't die because of your tank build."

"Exactly."

"But isn't your job to kill people?"

"Sort of? Ninja has pretty high base damages. I still do damage, just not nearly as much as I normally would. Mostly my job was to draw aggro and disrupt them with microstuns from my Shuriken toss."

"Oh I see. It probably wouldn't have worked very well if we weren't ahead in gold though."

"Huh." Kelly frowned in thought. "That playstyle is more optimal with a tank though isn't it?"

"Tanks are less mobile. More importantly they thought I was key damage threat and that caused them to waste so many resources on trying to stop and kill me. If I was playing a tank or fighter they would have saved those resources instead of wasting them."

Archie looked up with a sudden thought. "It doesn't have to be Ninja does it? You just needed to pick some sort of assassin with good mobility and a crowd control ability."

"Yup." Miranda gave him a thumbs up. "I just really like Ninja."


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