A Friend Whose Mind Isn't All There?
Yuseol's lecture began.
"First, let's settle this. League of Champions has five positions."
"Ah, yes. I know that much."
Top, where physical prowess matters a ton. Jungle, controlling the whole game. Mid, needing both physical skill and brainpower. ADC, growing steadily to carry the late game. Support, backing up the ADC and sometimes acting as the team's eyes.
Since RioCham is a 5v5 game, picking your position is crucial. Sure, some people can play all five, but that's not for a total newbie like me.
"Honestly, I have no clue. I only know the theory."
"Hmm, normally you'd pick one champion and stick with it, but..."
Neru doesn't get that stuff. She flipped through the list of unlocked champions, looking for something to do.
"This won't do. Follow me in a 1v1, Neru."
"Huh?"
Suddenly, Yuseol queued up a custom match. I was dead certain I'd lose a hundred out of a hundred times for real. But luckily, it was just in-game.
Yuseol picked a ranged dealer called Eze and told me to do the same.
"Come to mid."
"Okay..."
"Here come the minions. Last-hit them to kill."
"Got it."
We loaded into the game, and I headed to the mid tower. Time passed, minions spawned, and our team's clashed with the enemy's.
"Last-hit with right-click..."
Thanks to that game streaming package I bought earlier, my brain felt sharper somehow. When a minion was almost out of HP, I right-clicked—Eze fired a projectile, nailing it perfectly. Then the next one, step by step. Q skill shot a simple missile, so I tried that too. Out of six minions, I snagged five last-hits, raking in gold.
"Oh, you're better than I thought."
"Hehe, I've got some talent."
Hard to explain, but with my boosted computational power, I could calculate exactly when to attack for the kill. Way more useful than I expected.
I cleared the farming phase quicker than anticipated.
"Next up: I'll lane against you now. Dodge my attacks while farming."
"Wait, the difficulty just spiked."
"You've got talent."
Yuseol picked Eze too. She stood opposite me, last-hitting our minions, then shot her Q at me.
"Ow!"
"How do you dodge that?"
"Uh... well?"
"...No, hide behind your minions."
Ah, right. I ducked behind them and farmed. Then she came at me with auto-attacks.
"Ow, can't dodge this?"
"You can't dodge autos."
"Ah, so what now?"
"That's why you kite—stay out of their attack range, dodge appropriately, and hit back. It's called kiting."
Pro term dropped. I'd heard of kiting before—back in high school, all my friends were obsessed with RioCham, so I picked up a few words. But I still got smashed and died to Yuseol.
"Your farming's solid, though. You could do top or mid."
"Oh, really? Then I'll go mid."
"...Why?"
"It looks cool?"
From my research, mid was like royalty or something. Dae-sang-hyuk plays mid, right?
"Fine. Pick one champion and jump into real matches?"
"Already?"
"RioCham's a learn-by-losing game."
I grabbed Vega, a mid champ that wasn't too hard and pretty strong, and queued quick play.
...
Long story short, my smooth RioCham debut was anything but. The general playerbase wall was higher than expected. The game package helped for sure—farming felt easier, and I could predict skill shots roughly. I was getting props as a solid newbie, but I wasn't satisfied.
"Champs that get solo kills and fight a lot don't feel right."
"Hmm, yeah?"
To fully use my computation and pattern analysis, I needed a different style. ...Or honestly, my physical skills couldn't keep up with my brain's ideas. I could predict skill paths, but my hands were too slow to dodge. Switching champs would hurt mastery, too.
"...Should I try support?"
"Mm, supports are newbie-friendly since they're easier."
Support needs less physical skill than other lanes. Perfect for my brainpower.
"And an easy one... This looks good."
Lena caught my eye. Difficulty one out of three, intuitive skills, solid performance. Q: extra damage and stun on next auto. W: tankier. E: spear toss that roots on hit. R: AoE slow and stun.
"Support grinding starts today."
This marked the dawn of a grand saga.
...
Over the past few days streaming RioCham, one thing stood out: you can't win solo. As support, I worried less about laning, used pattern analysis to guess enemy jungler paths, track flash cooldowns precisely, know when to engage for high win odds. That's macro, right? My calls were spot-on, but teammates ignored them.
"Why won't these idiots listen..."
Randoms never retreated from kills, even if I pinged. Even when enemy ults were up, they'd dive anyway—my pings got me nothing but flames.
"No, that's not—!"
lmao Yasuo's losing it
that's bronze for ya Neru hang in there
support's limits...
"These f***ing lunatics..."
Inappropriate word detected. Censorship performed.
"...Is she a friend whose mind isn't all there?"
The stress was real, but so was my spite. Viewers acknowledged my skill, at least. My tier sadly couldn't keep up with my win streak.
Demoted to Bronze II.
"Arrrgh!!!!"
br2'd~
Neru you're not at fault
how's your luck this bad lmao
Boosted computation didn't boost luck. No magic queue timing to match me with skilled players. With the package, this was my tier—if I hadn't bought it, I'd have quit ages ago.
Not all bad, though. Average viewers jumped noticeably during RioCham streams—from 6-7k to 8k peaks.
"Lena alone won't climb."
expand champ pool
Lena's good but not a cracker pick
practice others
Other champs, then. Lena got me this far, but now I know the flow and win conditions. Time for a new one.
Not passive like Lena, though.
"Let's narrow candidates."
I opened Notepad and listed them out.
- Blit: Good if you can hook
- Tresh: Same, great ally saves
- Lily: Utility support's a must
- Papy: Great for creating chaos
Something like that. Still felt lacking. I glanced around and added one more.
- Talia
Talia's originally a mid mage handling rocks. Skills looked killer—early damage too. When enemy mid Talia got 5 kills and roamed bot, it was apocalyptic.
"Trust me, guys."
Neru caught Hongdae syndrome
not bad tho lol
reason no one plays it lol
Mostly negative vibes. That just fueled my spite more. Watch me master Talia and flip the world!
"...First, learn the skills."
Of course, it'd take a while.