Meta Pick

Meanwhile, even as Kayak hit a million views and ran ASMR streams, the Abyss League Spring Season marched on without pause.

First place, of course, belonged to Fusion Gaming. From the opening match onward, no team could stop them once they pulled out their joker pick — Camilla.

Was this what it meant to be a powerhouse? Halfway through the league schedule, they still sat unshaken at the top of the standings.

But the other teams weren't about to sit back and watch Fusion Gaming run away with the season.

The Korean league was said to be the fiercest of all the Abyss World Leagues. Every other team was desperate to get their hands on the championship cup, which was exactly why they'd spent no small amount of money rebuilding before the season even began.

From the very start they'd declared that this season would be different, and for the sake of the fans who'd believed them, this season had to be different.

So they did whatever it took to win. Studying the Camilla pick that Fusion Gaming had unveiled for the first time was just one more of those "whatever it takes" measures.

"Oh, what's this?"

"Camilla — Camilla is back on the Rift! Following Fusion Gaming, Hanseong has pulled out Camilla as well!"

"It's certainly a pick that catches you off guard, but… will Hanseong actually be able to make Camilla work?"

Kayak had poisoned the league!

Contrary to the casters' concerns, Hanseong put on a Camilla performance every bit as solid as Fusion Gaming's and carried the match to victory.

Perhaps because of that, Camilla continued to be studied by team after team even mid-season, and she kept showing up in matches that followed.

A few teams found her so troublesome they started banning her on sight.

That, too, was a measure of Camilla's status — her sheer presence. It was living proof that Camilla had become a meta pick.

After all, a pick that truly belonged in the meta was always one of two things: banned, or picked.

Teams that couldn't handle Camilla banned her. Teams that had finished their research picked her. And so the matches went on.

The shift wasn't confined to the pro scene, either. As Camilla became a legitimate meta pick and started appearing regularly in tournament play, more and more people thought, Huh, maybe she's actually decent? — and decided to try her out for themselves.

That was why Camilla's pick rate in solo queue exploded. And naturally, the number of people suffering because of it — and complaining about it — rose right alongside.

So when the stats-tracking site that ranked every hero based on solo queue metrics slotted Camilla into Tier 1, it wasn't exactly a surprise.

Maybe it was because the tournament season still hadn't ended. Contrary to Kayak's expectations, Camilla's nerf didn't arrive right away. The fact that she'd settled into Tier 1 almost certainly had something to do with that.

Everyone had expected her arms and legs to get chopped off in the very next patch — but she didn't even catch a single cut.

Thanks to that, Camilla started being treated as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a free-win hero as long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as you had decent mechanics and some practice under your belt. Quietly, more and more people began trying to learn her.

People had only avoided her because of her performance, after all — her design alone was never going to be unpopular. Now she'd become something like a "bug" hero: the kind only skilled players could actually make work.

Following in the footsteps of the Renok bugs, the Alex bugs, and all the rest — the Camilla bug was born.

And at the same time, people started flooding into Kayak's stream, the one place that specialized in Camilla. A kind of trickle-down effect.

Word was she'd even passed her builds on to the pros.

They hadn't forgotten Lee Jun-hyeok's bombshell interview — the one where he said he'd learned everything he needed for tournament play from Kayak, the master of Camilla.

Faced with the surging crowds, Kayak finally caught on to what was happening and quietly curled the corner of her mouth into a smile.

Well. My analysis was wrong. Given Ionicx's habit of clamping down hard whenever a single hero got too popular, I'd figured they'd slap Camilla with a nerf immediately.

So why did I feel good even though my prediction had missed? Probably because it was a happy kind of miscalculation. Camilla didn't get nerfed, so she kept showing up in tournaments, which drove up her pick rate, which finally pushed her all the way into Tier 1.

A perfect butterfly effect. And the fact that I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was the one who'd set it off was another pleasant little bonus. Sure, this wasn't what I'd intended — but the results were good, so overall it worked out, right?

Lately it felt like nothing but good things kept happening. Was that just me? I had this nagging sense that something terrible was about to drop out of nowhere…

I'll deal with that when it happens.

I shook my head hard, brushing off the anxiety creeping up on me.

Anyway, as demand for Camilla grew, so did the number of people flowing into my stream.

Just yesterday I'd heard people thirsty for Camilla knowledge begging me to run a coaching stream. You should've seen how surprised I was.

A streamer has to adapt to change fast. You could say you need a good read on the times — the ones who can spot a trend are the ones who succeed in this line of work.

And the current of this era… was Camilla. That was the short version. And if the times were flowing that way, it meant the times were calling for me.

What I needed to do was simple.

Tap. Tap.

I was writing up an announcement.

What kind of announcement? A student recruitment notice.

People had been asking for a coaching stream for a while now. It was even coming up in donations, so it was fair to say demand was through the roof.

When demand is high enough, there's no reason not to supply. Coaching streams were something of a specialty of mine, too. How many people had I already taught on stream?

I could've just kept playing on stream and pumping out Vtube videos, but I'd decided this approach was better. Eye-level education — matching the lesson to the student's level. Past experience had taught me how important that was.

Showing my own play was usually too high-level for people to follow. And explaining every single decision — why I did this here, why I did that there — wasn't realistic when games at my rank moved that fast. There was no room for it.

In the end, I'd have to do what other streamers did and make a smurf account. But if I was going to go that far, wouldn't it be better to just take on a student — a trainee — and use that person as a teaching specimen?

I also had a quiet aversion to making a smurf just to play Camilla. If I created an alt and got matched against people, what crime had they committed by losing to me? I hated the type who farmed lower ranks for an ego trip. Becoming one of them was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out of the question.

"Hmm…"

And so, here I was, writing the announcement. A notice that I was recruiting students.

For now… maybe a beginner class. Bronze or Silver range felt about right.

The so-called low elo. Viewers loved to lump Bronze, Silver, and Gold together as "BSG" and laugh about it, but statistically, Silver had the biggest population in Abyss. My stream wouldn't be much different.

Which meant someone from that range made the ideal specimen. Players at similar ranks tended to share similar problems, and the audience could easily relate — Oh, I've thought the same thing — and so on.

Intermediate and advanced classes could wait until people asked for them. There still seemed to be plenty of folks who hadn't even grasped the basics, so diving into advanced material felt premature.

And so the announcement was finally complete.

I'd put real effort into it — it might've been the finest notice I'd ever written. If I were a student who wanted to learn Camilla, I felt like I'd apply on the spot.

But the moment I finished, a new thought crept in. One of those small-but-enormous questions that only hit you after the fact, with a sudden wait a second—

Should Bronze-Silver-Gold players even be allowed to play Camilla?

Wasn't this basically the same as teaching math to apes?

I might be about to unleash a catastrophe on low-elo ranked games.

Staring at the finished announcement, I sank into thought for a moment.