Scrim vs Team Cro-Magnon (2)

If a professional caster had been calling this match, they would have said something like this in Cro-Magnon's defense:

"I get where their heads were at, and I understand the concept. But the snowball started rolling the moment they gave up that first death in bot lane. They got impatient, and the plays turned extreme."

It was super high risk, low return in every sense of the phrase.

The expected value was terrible, and all that forcing did was hand the other side even more points.

It wasn't precise or sharp so much as a full-throttle charge of the "make it work or die trying" variety. Sure, that kind of thing might fly among amateurs. If once doesn't cut it, try twice. If twice fails, go for three.

And against a different team, it might even have broken through.

But against the Winter Army, it was the last thing you wanted to do.

Charging in with no strategy against a team that had a clear commander? That was no different from herding your own teammates into a death trap.

If ramming them had shown even a sliver of a comeback window, fine. Playing like this, though, was just going to keep cracking Cro-Magnon's skull open.

They tried two more bot-lane setups after that, and the only real result was slowing Graves's growth even further.

"Yo, I think we just win this."

All the Winter Army had to do was keep rolling smoothly and the game would fall into their laps.

But there was one thing not to forget: the Winter Army were amateurs too, not pros.

"Should we reverse-dive bot once?"

"Don't. Just manage the wave."

"Let's go. Gangplank has ult."

"Do-yun, I'm heading down. Wait up, we'll go in together."

"I said don't."

Jin Gyeo-wool's voice rang alone through the voice chat channel.

It wasn't as if she didn't know they were hot-blooded kids, but this was a pretty important scrim.

Still, if she screamed them into obedience, they'd just make the same mistake the next time a similar situation came up.

Better to let them experience it firsthand and analyze the loss themselves—or so she decided, pressing her lips shut.

Choi Do-yun hesitated over whether to listen to Gyeo-wool.

But the team was already well ahead, and fewer bodies on the map only made a dive less likely—that was just common sense. He'd also been getting an earful about babying top lane too much, and his pathing happened to be swinging bot anyway. He got pulled along by Gong Je-hyeon and joined the dive whether he wanted to or not.

"Going in."

A somewhat deflated Trundle laid down his ice and slipped behind the red tower first, drawing vision. Xayah and Rakan, who'd pushed up with the wave, crossed the tower line and started advancing as well.

The enemy Jhin read the room and peeled back into a rear position fast. Gong Je-hyeon, just emerging from the brush onto the lane, shouted,

"Wook-hyung, what are you doing?! Pull tower aggro, hurry!"

"Ah—right."

If Ha Jeong-uk had been even a little more proactive, he probably would have judged the situation around now and started preparing to peel off. Getting the kill would be nice, but even just baiting a teleport without securing a kill was still a win.

He was passive enough that Gyeo-wool had specifically called it out as a weakness, though, and at Je-hyeon's order he absently poked the Leona who'd been holding vision under tower.

Ping. Tower aggro locked onto Rakan's head.

Leona, who'd been waiting for nothing but a chance to swing the fight, stunned Rakan and used E—Zenith Blade—to rocket onto Xayah. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠At the same instant she dropped her ultimate, Solar Flare.

A thick pillar of light crashed down over Xayah and Rakan's heads.

As if they'd been waiting for the cue, Sion and Karma both teleported to the tower. Two beams of light stacked, and a dense summoning ray slammed down onto the structure.

"Whoa. Commander. Backup. Can we get backup?"

"I told you not to go in."

"So does that mean no backup?!"

"……"

Gyeo-wool kept silently shoving the top wave, magnificently ignoring Je-hyeon.

As if anticipating the hair-pulling that was coming the second this game ended, Je-hyeon's scalp started tingling.

If we take a loss here, she's definitely grabbing me by the hair when it's over!

To save Xayah and Rakan, Je-hyeon had no choice but to drop his ultimate—Hero's Entrance—and try to cover the locked-down Rakan—

"Jeong-uk-hyung, E me, quick!"

"Yeah, using it!"

Rakan bolted toward the already-fleeing Xayah, and Je-hyeon's Galio dropped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠alone into the middle of the enemy team.

"Hey, if you leave like that, what about me?!"

"Figure it out yourself!"

A panicking Je-hyeon glanced at the three-way brush on the left side of the lane—only to find Choi Do-yun's Trundle, who'd been right nearby moments ago, already bouncing away on a pinecone.

"You son of a—Choi Do-yun, you're running off alone?!"

Do-yun was about to argue that he wasn't running when he came down off the pinecone and spotted Graves dropping from mid.

"Hey! Graves is on the river! I'm rotating bot!"

Do-yun whipped around toward bot in a panic.

Je-hyeon's Galio, dropped right in front of the tower, was as good as dead. In the sudden four-on-five, the top priority was keeping Xayah alive.

The fight split in two.

Up by the tower, Jhin and Leona closed in on the cornered Galio.

Down the lane, the fleeing Xayah and Rakan—plus Trundle looping in from the river—faced off against the teleported Sion and Karma, with Graves descending the river to join them.

Rakan somehow body-blocked the roaring Sion as he ulted in, but under Karma's relentless poke Xayah's health was already below half.

Sion, having crashed into Rakan, used Q—Decimating Smash. Xayah, still inside the range, had nowhere to go.

— Featherstorm!

Ult was the only option left. With the sound of sharp metal tearing the air, Xayah launched skyward.

"We're screwed. Karma's ult is probably up."

"Min-jae's dead!"

As expected, Karma used her refreshed ultimate—Mantra—to fire an empowered Spirit Bond blast.

— Sá, elá, sá tiriví

Boom. A massive surge of energy slammed into Xayah's body as she landed. From far off, Jhin—who'd been lining up the angle the whole time—planted a precision sniper round clean through her.

"Wait, are we all about to die?"

Trundle arrived to cover, but Xayah was already popped. The moment Rakan became the next target, he spun and bolted. Trundle threw his body in the way as hard as he could to keep Rakan alive, but escaping a Sion who flashed in and dropped Decimating Smash was close to impossible.

Even after running all the way to the blue bot tower, Trundle died in Rakan's place. Je-hyeon, still fleeing upward, died too.

They'd started the game feeling great with a three-kill lead—and then, for no good reason, handed three kills right back.

"Commander unnie, why didn't you help? You had teleport!"

"I told you not to go in."

"Yeah, but… still, helping would be…"

"So I should go die with you? Sometimes you have to take the L."

Je-hyeon opened his mouth to argue further, then shut it.

Push back and, the second they hit the replay review, Gyeo-wool would beat him half to death with facts so brutal they'd leave bruises.

While the three of them were dying, Gyeo-wool hadn't done much of anything.

She'd used her ultimate to shove out the emptied mid wave.

And she'd pushed the top lane Sion had abandoned, cracking the top tower.

It might have been a nightmare for her teammates, but for Gyeo-wool it was a rich stretch of growth that would underpin her late-game carry.

"That's what you get for forcing it."

Her teammates ignoring her orders was a little irritating, but when she ran the numbers, global gold was either even or still in the Winter Army's favor.

So instead of getting angry, Gyeo-wool settled into the game in a pretty good mood.

"Stop doing useless crap and shove bot tower first. Looking at the items, we're still ahead."

"Dammit… I wanna fight."

"If you fight them, you're giving them exactly what they want."

Cro-Magnon was going to keep looking for fights.

Until the scales were perfectly balanced, every passing second favored the Winter Army.

When the other side is desperate to scrap and find a crack to sink their teeth into, running away is simple.

Build a solid defensive line, lock down vision around you, and don't overreach.

Of course, it was the kind of simple that almost nobody could actually do. Among people who played League of Council, the ones who could keep a cool head for an entire game could be counted on one hand.

On that front, Gyeo-wool was already several mushrooms ahead of her competition.

She still flashed her temper often enough—but the Warm Spring Breeze effect let her naturally suppress that anger. And the higher her tier climbed and the sharper her thinking became, the easier it got to keep her explosive streak in check.

"Unnie, I'm swapping lanes."

"Yeah, heading down."

"Ah—wait. I got jumped. Sion's here."

Choi Do-yun, who'd been soloing the wind drake, shouted in a panic. Gyeo-wool took over jungle orders in his place.

"Min-jae, Jeong-uk—check our blue before you rotate up."

"Oh, is Graves coming?"

"They just spotted our Trundle. Check it."

"Okay."

Sure enough, her read was dead on.

While Trundle barely escaped Sion on a sliver of health, the jungle thief used his only dash—and the only ability that could hop a wall—E: Quickdraw—to slip clean into the blue team's blue buff camp.

"Unnie called it."

"Ult right now?"

"Yeah. Hook him, hyung."

Rakan, who'd been waiting in the brush, flipped on his charm aura with a cheerful "Yeehaw!" and charged. Graves, grinning at the thought of free blue, got charmed before he could even react.

While Rakan's CC chain lofted him into the air, Xayah's metal-shard feathers came raining down—papapak—and pinned into the ground.

Charm into airborne into root, a clean chain, plus Rakan's Ignite on top. Graves's health tanked into the danger zone in seconds.

He'd already used his dash, so flash was the only escape left. He scrambled to flash over the wall.

But right before he died, one more of Xayah's feathers hit him—and then Rakan's Resolve rune, Shield Bash, dropped once more.

It was one of the few little damage tricks Rakan had, thanks to E: Battle Dance letting him stack shields twice in quick succession—but in a near-death situation like this, nothing was more useful.

"Ah, sorry. I snagged the kill."

"It's fine. Nice."

Ha Jeong-uk apologized for stealing the kill, but Yu Min-jae told him it was okay.

Whoever took it, a kill was a kill—and they'd just deleted one of the enemy damage dealers. If the support babysitting the ADC was the one who got it, all the better.

It was one of those little things that happened between bot lane duos, but for Ha Jeong-uk there was nothing happier.

Ever since joining the Winter Army, he'd never once been treated like a "tool," and his self-esteem had been climbing steadily day by day.

With this I can buy two more control wards.

Gold a support earned went straight into the team's vision and overall macro. And because he'd gotten a kill, he'd work harder not to die throwing—which meant fewer brain-dead engages in teamfights, and fewer times getting picked while warding or scouting.

If that wasn't a win for the Winter Army, what was?

Time rolled on to around the twenty-six-minute mark.

The snowball had been rolling so naturally nobody even noticed.

After Gyeo-wool's hard lesson, her teammates instinctively started avoiding forced fights. Exactly as she'd predicted, every lane started banking free advantages, and the occasional mid-scale skirmishes kept producing kills.

Kill score 7–3. Global gold lead of seven thousand.

Gangplank and Xayah's items were so far ahead that as long as nobody did anything stupid the second a fight broke out, they simply won.

The overall mood was overwhelmingly favorable.

They invaded the enemy raptor camp, fished with a ward, then cut two people with a Rakan engage and a chain of CC bombs.

Gyeo-wool's Gangplank dove deep into bot, threw his life on the line, and even secured the Peacock.

Buffed with the Peacock, Gyeo-wool's army marched proudly into mid and bot. Cro-Magnon, already staggering, didn't have the legs to stop them.

They tried to hold around the inhibitor turret, but Rakan—beautifully grown at 2/0/7—walked in for a blatant engage. He hooked in and charmed three with his ultimate; Trundle's big, beautiful pillar sealed the escape route; Galio dove in with an AoE taunt; and Rakan's airborne hit them one more time.

On top of all that came Gangplank's barrage of cannon fire. It was pure pandemonium.

Three of Cro-Magnon's champions went down in an instant. Before the Peacock buff even expired, the twin turrets fell and the nexus shattered with them.

And just like that, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Winter Army claimed their first satisfying scrim win.

The instant the nexus went down, Choi Do-yun yanked off his headset and shot to his feet.

"Let's gooo!"

Meanwhile Gong Je-hyeon was doing a nonexistent championship ring ceremony like he'd carried the whole ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thing himself—

"Carry."

—and Yu Min-jae immediately pinched him for nearly throwing bot early with his brain-dead play.

"…Honestly, hyung, you got us wrecked bot."

"Didn't we all agree to go in together…?"

Only then could Gyeo-wool smile and stand up from her seat.

They were unpolished rough stones, and she'd worried a lot. But whether her subtle coaching had helped or not, she could see them gradually patching up their weaknesses.

The part where they forced plays out of sheer bravado even when they didn't need to—that might never get fully fixed. But once they reached a level where they could just overwhelm people, a little swagger like that wouldn't be the worst thing for team morale.

Looking at the whole hyped-up group, Gyeo-wool spoke in a lazy drawl.

"What are you doing? Get ready for the next game."

A soft voice and a face that didn't match it at all.

Remembering how he'd ignored orders and inted in the last game, Gong Je-hyeon flinched first and dropped back into his chair.

"The Commander has spoken. Get ready for the next match, ASAP."

Because Gyeo-wool's merciless fingers looked ready to seize a fistful of his hair at any second.