IeSF World Championship Finals vs Macau (3)

While Jin Gyeo-wool's spectacular facial acting was winning over every heart in the Recon Gallery, Game 2 was already drawing to a close.

"Korea destroys the mid inhibitor! Macau has no one left who can stop them!"

"Ah… dropping three people in that messy teamfight right in front of the Peacock pit was just too costly!"

"They rushed it. Way too impatient. Macau should have stayed calm and responded properly. The game was already leaning hard against them, but giving up the Peacock and just holding on would have been the better call."

"Of course, even then the odds of losing would have been high. A real shame."

Barely a month earlier, the Korean league had put on an uncharacteristically disastrous showing at the CWC, so the casters were in high spirits.

"Come to think of it, Rickman — you do English casting for the CCC, don't you? Korea's style looks quite a bit like the CCC's. Am I reading that right?"

"I agree. I kept thinking the same thing the whole match. Small-scale skirmishes breaking out across every lane, fights that look even on the surface — and yet Korea is the one walking away with the advantages. They rolled that snowball carefully all the way to the nexus. Korea's top side is seriously strong. And the bottom side is holding them up solidly too."

"And as we speak, the nexus goes down."

"Two–zero! Korea is one game away from the championship!"

With only English casting available, it took a little time for the translated content to reach the Recon Gallery. When the gallery finally caught up a beat late, the reaction was thoroughly satisfied: the amateur players everyone was pinning their hopes on had properly absorbed the CCC meta — currently regarded as the gold standard. The 2018 brawl meta that most of the CCK had failed to keep up with was being executed cleanly by an amateur team that hadn't even received professional coaching. That was deeply gratifying. After the failures of 2018, everyone was desperate for a fundamental overhaul of the CCK's identity — and that hope was starting to show itself in the Korean team competing at the IeSF World Championship. The armchair experts offered a range of takes, but most of them converged on the same conclusion: the future looked bright.

One win away from the title, Jin Gyeo-wool came up with a rather entertaining idea.

"We're getting into Hyeonseong either way, right?"

Gong Je-hyeon pulled a face that said he was less than thrilled, but that wasn't the important part. Having fully ascended into tyrant mode, Jin Gyeo-wool handed her players a rather difficult demand.

"Want to run the last game in the 2016 CWC Hyeonseong championship skins?"

The moment the words left her mouth, Choi Do-yun lit up and shouted,

"Holy crap. That would be so fun!"

Unlike the giddy Choi Do-yun, though, Ha Jeong-uk sank into deep thought.

"Hold on — if we're locking in the championship skin picks…"

Jin Gyeo-wool had seen that question coming from the start. Without missing a beat, she rattled off the 2016 CWC finals championship skin lineup.

"Orak, Zaku, Elko, Gin, Nari."

Silence settled over the players at the five champion names. Choi Do-yun was still grinning ear to ear.

"Noona, this is a bit much, isn't it? You that against giving us the sweep bonus?"

"No matter how many bans we land, the matchups alone make this look like a loss."

"They're going to take Akalin and Atrok. How do we even win this?"

As if on cue, complaints erupted from the rest of the roster. A win meant the full-sweep championship prize money. A loss meant nothing. A million won, gone just like that.

"I figured you'd all say that, so I prepared something."

Right on schedule, Jin Gyeo-wool floated a new wager — separate from the solo-kill bets.

"Honestly, Hyeonseong is taking all of us anyway. Doing a performance like this once isn't so bad, right? If we win on this garbage draft, I'll throw in an extra million-won bonus. How about it?"

Gulp. The promise of another million won put a visible tension on every face.

"All right. Money on the table. Win normally and it's a million. Win on the 2016 champions' skin picks and it's two million."

But lose, and it was zero.

Choi Do-yun, who had been listening quietly, spoke up.

"I'm in."

And on Choi Do-yun's lead, Gong Je-hyeon piled on.

"I'm in too! Two million is too good to pass up. Honestly, with our skill we can win even on garbage picks."

When Yu Min-jae and Ha Jeong-uk only sighed without agreeing, Jin Gyeo-wool spoke in a low voice.

"I'm not doing this just to mess around. It's a kind of provocation."

"…Provocation?"

What she said next made the chronically serious Yu Min-jae's heart race.

"Sure, it's nice that none of us got cut and we all get to stay on the same team. But doesn't it feel like Hyeonseong is getting us for free? So let's show them. If the seniors don't get their act together, we're going to take every starting spot."

The light came back into Yu Min-jae's eyes — the same eyes that had been sulking a moment before.

"I like that!"

Yu Min-jae had finally fallen. Ha Jeong-uk glanced around at everyone, then reluctantly nodded.

"Fine. Let's do it."

The final set of the championship.

The casters were thrown into confusion by a draft that was going nothing like they'd expected.

"Orak? Did they just pick Orak?"

"Next pick is Gin. The Korean players are laughing."

"They're already up two–zero, and looking at Games 1 and 2 you get the sense they could win without tier-one picks… but I still don't really understand the reasoning behind this draft."

"Macau's next pick — they'll take Lucin, right?"

"Of course. Not a single jungler banned, and the enemy jungler is Orak, who's considered low-tier right now. No reason not to take it. Pair it with strong laners for synergy, seize the early-lane advantage, and snowball the game fast."

The second ban phase ended, and it was time for the fourth pick. When support Nari — a champion no one expected to see — appeared, the broadcast chat exploded with a flood of missing pings.

Once Macau on the blue side locked in their fourth and fifth picks, the empty fifth slot on Korea's side finally filled with Zaku.

The moment the draft closed, the Recon Gallery descended into chaos.

The on-site casters and crowd didn't catch it immediately, but there was no mistaking it: this was a tribute draft dedicated to Hyeonseong, the 2016 CWC champions.

For the fans, of course, fresh drama was pure entertainment — but for Chae Hojin, it was pure agony.

Victory might have been all but certain, and the skill gap wide enough that they could still win on a draft like this… but this was a gamble too far. The enemy had taken nearly every current meta pick.

Chae Hojin had tried to talk the players down through the entire draft process, but they wouldn't budge. Even Jin Gyeo-wool, who would normally have taken his side, was unyielding today.

The players' confidence had already hit its peak. In a state like this, almost anything they tried would probably work out, and losing one game wouldn't necessarily carry over into the next… but they were still amateurs. If they took a crushing loss this game, there was no guarantee it wouldn't bleed into the following one.

Showmanship was fine — but only when it came from a position of strength. The moment it failed, you lost every advantage and the whole team could spiral into freefall.

As he shook hands with the opposing team's rather charming female coach and left the stage, Chae Hojin felt a distinctly resentful gaze on his back. And of course he did. Korea's draft right now was essentially laughing in the enemy's face.

But this was a world of survival of the fittest — a professional world where you climbed by crushing others underfoot. If you could display showmanship and skill at the same time, turning the opponent into a clown wasn't a bad strategy at all.

Still, watching Jin Gyeo-wool grin to herself as she moved her mouse put his heart a little more at ease. This was her team anyway. Letting her do what she wanted was probably the right call.

Chae Hojin let out a short sigh and hoped Korea would just win without any disasters.

Naturally, the game was not easy. Pulling out a cocky fun draft had been fine in principle — the problem was that the enemy's draft was dazzlingly strong.

Korea started getting dragged into a losing position and, by mid-game, had already surrendered a full twelve kills and two dragons. The gold deficit hit seven thousand.

With a roster full of champions that were simply bad in the current meta, every lane got shoved in smoothly. Even the mid tower — critical for zone control just by existing — had been gone for a long time.

The casters hammered home the importance of OP picks once again, driving the nail in: the spirit was admirable, but beating the strongest champion composition in the game with a bunch of underrated picks was no simple task.

OP pick: Overpowered Pick — champions that, depending on the direction of a given patch or update, perform stronger than any other character in a season.

"Korea's Game 3 is looking really rough. Scuttle crabs are critical for vision control and jungler growth, and they lose every single scuttle fight. Support, jungler, ADC — they keep getting picked off!"

"One by one they get cut, they fail to take the jungle, and the dragons just keep going over. Macau's going to take the third Infernal Dragon too."

"Every lane is a disaster. You can tell just from the fact that Miss Winter already has two deaths."

Jin Gyeo-wool had at least managed to keep her lane even and stay ahead in CS — but even her Orak was sitting on a pathetic midterm report card of 0/2/0.

The relative OP picks were running wild. So no matter how much of a skill edge you had, no matter how well you predicted the enemy's plays, it was impossible to drag a game you'd been losing since laning phase into a favorable position.

The snowball had already swollen huge, and it was rolling straight toward Korea's red-side base.

"Global gold difference of seven thousand! And the Korean players are still laughing!"

"I'm sure the game is fun for them. Just playing this set in Hyeonseong's 2016 CWC championship skins is meaningful enough on its own."

"Maybe they've already accepted that flipping this game is going to be hard. And as I say that — Cerberus spawns in mid!"

With a low growl, the three-headed beast burst out of the void. It began lumbering its heavy steps toward the red team's mid tier-two tower.

"Korea's mid T2 going down is a given at this point. Can they somehow force a good teamfight?"

"Miss Winter's Orak just got hooked by Payek's harpoon!"

"Teamfight starting!!"

While Atrok was teleporting in from bot, the Korean players rode the force of Nari's ultimate — Tidal Surge — and shredded the enemy's health first. They made smart use of the temporary four-versus-five.

But the moment Atrok arrived, that formation shattered.

"Atrok's greatsword hits way too hard! The entire formation collapses! Reminds me of TheSin from the CWC!"

"The item gap makes it hurt so much!! Look at those health bars just chunking off!"

"TakTak picks off Loki first! And this started as a four-versus-five!"

"Still, Cerberus is dead, and if they can just hold the mid T2 somehow— Ah! Akalin re-engages!!"

"Gin is in trouble—!!"

"Flash into Execute!"

Akalin leveraged the relative advantage and drove deep without any fear of the tower.

So this set really would have to be given up. Chae Hojin clenched both fists, jaw locked, his face a portrait of despair.

But even in the heart of hopelessness, the spark of a comeback has a way of catching fire.

"Wait! Zaku just flew back in from behind! Ka'Sha might die!! She was already low from the earlier fight!!"

"Doyoon takes down Ka'Sha! That's a 675-gold bounty!"

It was a spectacular ADC pickup from Zaku flying in out of fog of war — the kind of play Chae Hojin had completely missed in his tension.