I Don't Want to Die as a Clown. I Don't Want to Be Remembered as a Clown.
I'd thought that before.
If I can't make it as a pro, I'd rather die. I won't survive as a clown.
But right now, I was streaming.
It was possible because the current me wasn't the pro gamer Dice, but the streamer Pudge Dice.
Not the arena's fool, but the plaza's jester.
What was the difference?
The key was status, probably. Dice, kicked out of the pro scene, and Pudge Dice, no longer a pro gamer, were different people.
But the moment I revealed I was Dice, what difference would there be between them?
...Very few people knew I was Dice right now. A handful from Tundra's front office, Coach Kim, Yuseung, and the doctor who treated me.
As long as those few from the front office kept quiet, it wouldn't be hard to live hiding that I was Dice.
I didn't particularly want to announce it. If anything, I didn't want to.
But would it really be that easy?
Who knows.
With zero viewers since I turned on the stream, my mind kept wandering to useless thoughts.
The usual toxic troll who haunted my streams wasn't around today either. I'd started too early. Normally I went live in the evenings, but it was lunchtime now.
Of course, I'd just woken up. I'd lived regularly for a while after quitting pro, but my sleep schedule ended up like this anyway.
Anyway, I'd hit Grandmaster. It was just recovering my old rank, but it didn't feel like a big deal. I'd always been someone who played in Challenger anyway.
The games would be tough, sure. I wouldn't pour my life into them like before, but it'd be a bit more inconvenient.
I didn't think I could climb higher from here anyway, so I'd just play relaxed.
Queue popped. Mid lane. While pondering bans, something weird happened in chat.
My ally top laner suddenly acted like we knew each other. Who was this? I'd never met them before, no memory of them.
I quickly checked their profile on the match history site. New account from last season, a top laner scraping the bottom of Grandmaster.
No clue. We'd probably crossed paths while I was grinding solo queue, but I couldn't remember every random player's name. And even if we met then, they wouldn't recognize me now.
Who the hell? It worried me, but the next chats revealed their identity.
...I still had only one regular viewer who stuck around. That toxic asshole who sat there every day poking at me.
They used "ㅇㅇ" as their nickname on stream, so I never imagined. Turns out they were high tier.
No, Grandmaster was higher than me right now...
But this wasn't a welcome situation at all. On stream, it was just low-level trolling chats, fine enough. But in-game? Who knew what kind of troll shit they'd pull?
And this asshole picked Butcher. Super hyper carry that slaughters everyone if it scales, but easy to counter with its simple kit, so upper tiers rarely used it.
Honestly, at this point, my trust in Aranggaiger was zero. I debated muting, but figured a Grandmaster wouldn't intentionally troll, so I held off.
But one chat a second later made me realize I should've muted. Losing was fine, but I didn't want to play with intentional trolling...!
~
The game started with a sigh. Luckily, Aranggaiger's chat was just a joke—they didn't throw. Though even without throwing, their Butcher couldn't do much against the enemy's tanky Paladin with self-heal.
Anyway, I couldn't keep watching top. I had to focus on my lane.
I picked Saintess, OP lately with a new build discovery. Enemy went classic strong mage, Elementalist.
Saintess was fundamentally a support, rarely laning, but the new sword build was so OP against assassins that it popped up often now.
Of course, Elementalist wasn't an assassin, so the build was weaker here. But Saintess gained value over time, no big issue.
Elementalist scaled late too, but its poke was covered by my heals.
Ganking Saintess was tough, so enemy jungler pressured bot mostly. Our jungler eyed mid ganks aggressively. But both teams saw no big plays; game flowed quietly.
It was around minute 7, just before the first small epic at 8. Chaos erupted top.
Butcher solo-killed Paladin.
Stunned, I glanced over. The Butcher who'd solo-killed was twerking over Paladin's corpse without pushing lane. Was this guy nuts?
Solo-killing was impressive. Paladin wasn't a hard counter, but tanky enough that solo-kills were rare. Usually it'd be Paladin solo-killing Butcher, not vice versa.
But taunting without pushing meant no irreversible damage. Revived Paladin teleported back, ate the wave. Butcher, no TP, lost lane hard.
Then,
Butcher, casually farming CS, caused another upset. Solo-killed Paladin again.
No, Paladin was under tower this time—how?!
Luckily, no taunting chaos, so no tower dive death. But enemy didn't let Butcher escape.
Enemy jungler, Barbarian Warrior on panther, hurled a spear. Butcher had pushed to kill, so even if it died now, it'd be worth.
But,
Butcher counter-ganked and killed Barbarian Warrior.
Outside tower this time, Butcher twerked carefree. Seriously?
Maybe they weren't lying about Challenger? Main account really Challenger? But I didn't know any top Challenger this crazy.
Anyway, with Butcher at 3 kills, the game was decided. Just set up lanes for carry, unbeatable.
Around 14 minutes, we saw River Apostle spawn by top river. Huge catfish-like epic that dropped a relic to upgrade an item, plus massive XP for the killing team.
Relic claimable by enemy after 5 seconds, so in pro scene, securing it post-kill was standard teamfight.
Solo queue? Rarely precise 5v5s.
Enemy bot came up to fight for comeback. Our bot just pushed lane. Smart—abandon Apostle, gain elsewhere.
Until Butcher dove the 5-man group solo...
3-kill Butcher snagged their ADC successfully. Problem: Their ADC got Butcher's Suppress, and enemy took Apostle obviously.
We'd planned to give Apostle, so no one backed Butcher up. And Suppress on ADC? Disaster.
...Felt our ADC's pain fully, but no point fighting more. Butcher still snowballed huge, bot gained tons.
But Butcher's state was off.
Ignored pings. Left alone on lane, they'd kill enemy then return. Warned of gank, wouldn't retreat. Counter-gank win. Next gank comes, dies.
From the chats and play, didn't seem intentional throwing.
Just a brainless berserk dino. How'd they even reach Grandmaster like that?
Our Monk calling shots for upcoming epic. Suddenly Butcher dove enemy jungle opposite warded vision, straight into their base.
Backdoor.
Through warded path. Vanguard not up yet, so enemies swarmed Butcher.
GG.
Butcher dies here, Vanguard goes enemy. Buffs minions, revives on death for a time. To their fed ADC? Game over.
But,
How many "buts" this game?
...What did I just witness?
I'd wondered earlier how they reached Grandmaster with that brainless play.
Answer: Overwhelming, pure physicality.
Butcher dodged all skills, killed 3 of 4 enemies chasing it, then died.
We were speechless. Naturally took Vanguard; enemies lost will to fight.
Surrender popped soon after. I notched a win.
Aranggaiger typed that and vanished, then appeared in my stream chat. I just sat there dumbfounded.
What to say? Some weird feeling hit me, so I just shut off the stream. No energy to reply more.
Why did winning feel like losing?