Wild Build Expert
"Everyone, charge!"
The blonde-haired girl swung her banner high and shouted the command.
Her spirited voice was more than enough to lift the allies' morale, and the soldiers surged forward at the order of a commander younger than themselves.
Among them stood heroes of superhuman strength who operated on an entirely different level from ordinary troops.
Their merciless assault, striking precisely into every gap, shattered the enemy formation in an instant.
In this case, the commander's order had clearly been effective.
Of course, Ririyang—who had picked Theodora—possessed no such commanding ability herself. She had simply cast her skill at the right moment, exactly as I had told her to use her ultimate.
Even so, that alone was tremendous progress and a solid achievement.
In this tournament, the lowest-tier, least-expected Bronze-level players earned praise simply for landing their ultimates properly.
It was like a child who had only ever crawled suddenly taking toddling steps and receiving applause from everyone around them.
And Ririyang's play just now was the equivalent of that crawling child suddenly standing on two feet and hopping around.
"Whoa, that ultimate angle was insane. You just punched straight through them?"
"Ririyang, you're amazing!"
"Hehe…."
The flood of praise and compliments from the teammates was only natural. They had all been worried about Ririyang, who had been lagging behind on her own.
Something surprising had happened. During the last practice session she had grown depressed over her sluggish play, declared she would train alone, and run off—only to suddenly announce today that she had switched to support, and then succeed at the transition so thoroughly.
Already three wins in a row. Every victory had included a meaningful share of Ririyang's contribution. The situation had reached the point where they needed to start recruiting scrim opponents from among the streamers rather than just playing normals.
While Ririyang smiled awkwardly yet proudly under the continuing praise, Hak-chu asked her out of curiosity.
"But why the sudden role swap? You only ever played ADC before."
"Ah, well… Teacher recommended it."
"Teacher?"
"Yes. Teacher. I mean Kayack."
Ririyang's calm, almost reciting tone carried a deep trust that had never been there before.
"Kayack is your teacher…? Ah, right, you two left together that time."
"She watched me play a few games and told me support would suit me much better. After that I tried a few matches following her advice, and the results really did improve."
"Ahh…."
That made sense. They had just witnessed with their own eyes the plays Ririyang had made and the games she had carried.
Honestly, her current presence felt far stronger and more troublesome for the enemy than her forgettable ADC days.
After Ririyang's support conversion, everyone's attention shifted elsewhere.
"Wait, Kayack, you can do that kind of thing too?"
"What kind of thing?"
"Finding the right hero for each person and changing their position. Isn't that something only professional coaches—like pro-team staff—do?"
Lime-tak's words sounded half-joking, yet the teammates roughly grasped how remarkable it truly was.
Especially Hangang, who sat in a high tier and had connections with pro-organization staff, knew exactly how absurd this was.
Of course the pro scene and this kind of casual event match were worlds apart. Ririyang's rank was still only Bronze—nowhere near the level of professionals.
But that did not mean coaching Ririyang was something just anyone could do.
She coached her a little and results showed up immediately?
Hangang had experienced plenty of event matches and had even participated in the first Abyss Streamer Tournament before this one.
Coaches ranging from Challenger rank 300 players to overseas second-team pro coaches and even Asian Games gold medalists had come to teach, yet not all of them produced results.
If anything, they had struggled with teaching. Unlike coaching pros, the people they had to instruct were amateurs—many of whom did not even know the skills of the heroes in Abyss.
There had even been cases where the carefully invited experts simply failed to understand the players.
It was the feeling of "Why can't they do this?" Someone had even said it felt like their common sense was being destroyed.
Those past days had not been smooth. That was why this time they had deliberately not called anyone in as a coach. The team's first practice had also gone relatively smoothly except for Ririyang.
Still, there was no reason not to receive training from someone whose ability had already been proven.
"Kayack, could you take a look at me later too?"
"Me too, me too! Actually I prepared a joker card—"
"No way. Teacher is already busy enough just teaching me."
Countless requests for instruction poured toward Kayack.
Hangang quietly watched the scene, then broke into a broad grin.
It seemed this tournament was worth aiming for the championship after all.
"What the hell is with this team's builds…."
Meanwhile, Kayack's team was not the only one making thorough preparations ahead of the tournament.
Among the four teams, Han Sang-su—the unofficial coach of the team that included Nikang—scrolled his mouse wheel and frowned.
He had been brought in for coaching and analysis through his connection with team leader Yu-hye, but there was actually little coaching to do.
Not much time remained until the tournament. There was barely enough time to teach anything.
In such a short period, expanding an amateur's hero pool or teaching them new builds was pure nonsense.
It was far more effective to schedule scrims and analyze the opposing teams. At least, that was how Sang-su saw it.
So right now he was analyzing the other teams.
"Fuck, what is this now?"
He could not help swearing.
Just what kind of team kept producing these bizarre builds?
The list of builds and heroes he needed to watch out for—compiled while reviewing the other teams' practice streams—was more than double the number of any other team.
The sheer absurdity made Sang-su shake his head in exhaustion.
"What is it this time?"
"What do you mean 'what'? I don't even know the name. Calliope is running Mace and diving the enemy ADC with the frontline to smash their skull—"
"Ah, Mace Calli. That's Kayack's team. They're pretty rough. You might actually lose if you're not careful."
Yun-seong, a former pro gamer who had also been summoned by Yu-hye, immediately added.
"Might lose," huh. Sang-su did not like the sound of that at all.
This tournament was being run on a considerable scale with Ionic's sponsorship. If they won, even an unofficial coach like him would receive a decent cut of the pie.
To make that happen, he needed a more thorough understanding of the team he was currently analyzing.
"Ririyang? This person's tier is Bronze. No way a Bronze cooked up this build. Someone on the team made it for her?"
"Apparently the God of Camilla made it."
"God of Camilla?"
"Kayack, on that team. It was an existing build, but she looked it over and optimized it."
"Isn't that person a Camilla one-trick? She made a Calliope build too?"
Sang-su was already familiar with the name Kayack. As a long-time hardcore Abyss player himself, there was no way he would not know that nickname.
But the fact that she also possessed build-crafting ability was news to him.
"…This is basically a wild build."
That was the conclusion Sang-su reached after examining the builds and play footage.
Wild build. A rootless, gambling-style build. Because the gamble was heavy, the strengths and weaknesses were clear. Counterplay was not impossible—yet Sang-su's face only grew darker.
"The players won't be able to judge and respond to this on the fly. Unless Yu-hye gives orders really fast, maybe."
"With this many builds, even Yu-hye will have a hard time reading them. Unless we make him memorize every single one…."
It was not impossible to counter. Not impossible—
But for amateurs it would be tough. That was Sang-su's conclusion.
In an event match where more than half the players were low-tier with poor game understanding, these wild builds were nothing short of a disaster. The impact was almost like possessing a tactical nuke!
"Kayack made all these builds?"
"From what I saw on stream yesterday, yeah. She was handing out a build to each person like some kind of Santa Claus—"
Sang-su shuddered anew at Kayack's viciousness and meticulousness.
Creating these surprise builds was one thing; revealing them on stream was another.
It meant she almost certainly had several more builds still hidden away.
Showing strategies as a smokescreen during practice streams and saving the real ones for the actual matches had long since become an unwritten rule in tournaments like this.
This is hopeless. Completely hopeless.
Even the wild builds she had opened on stream were already numerous. As Sang-su tried to calculate the possibilities and prepare countermeasures, he clutched his head.
There was far too much work to do, and even if they did all of it, he still could not feel confident of victory.
Sang-su's bleak sigh filled the silent Discord channel.