The Historic First Normal Pick

The climb to Grandmaster hadn't featured as many of those types, but between the CS killer and Starlight from last time, and now this Grandmaster top and support, I couldn't figure out why I only got matched with them in the important games.

...And in the middle of all that, someone was staging a protest by threatening to throw again. At this point I was starting to doubt whether this really was the Grandmaster bracket.

"Ha... I wonder how much meaning a single ban card can possibly hold, for them to fight over something so trivial."

With the mental scars from the Royal Guard Gallery still fresh, the off-role ranked games that were supposed to be today's main broadcast topic had already been blown up by the Royal Guard nuclear bomb.

"Ahaha... Seriously... How did idiots like that even crawl their way up to Grandmaster...? I'm starting to have serious doubts."

Eventually, harsh words began slipping out through the cracks in her broken mentality.

Seeing that some orders... no, a significant number of orders actually seemed to enjoy it, those guys clearly weren't normal either.

"...Why is there never a single normal person around me?"

...Maybe she had a point. I couldn't exactly call myself normal either.

"Anyway, speaking of today's pick, I'm a bit heated right now... so I'm thinking of running an aggressive pick."

Of course, it was no secret that the support and top had kept fighting until the very end and both ended up with terrible picks, forcing us into an extreme early-game one-trick composition.

Oh... so the congregation actually had decent eyes for draft after all? The answer came surprisingly quickly in the order's chat.

"Yes, that's right. I'm going to play an assassin this time."

However, as expected, seeing and hearing were two different things. The moment I locked in the assassin, the chat exploded.

The draft ended with my pick and the ADC's, completing our team's composition first. The enemy finalized their last pick as well, and the game began.

Team BLUE

AAA (Pirate) Saintess (Assassin) DiamondSpoon (StarlightArcher) NationalMageAssociation (Ninja)

Team RED

JoseonFirstSword (Swordsman) BoyManager (Necromancer) LF Lasher (DemonHunter) LF Hermes (Illusionist)

Why was this happening? We'd already lost the draft on paper. The enemy bot duo were actual first-team pros. Even if they were only mid-tier, compared to the golden children I was stuck with, they were a disaster.

"...I guess we'll have to start by targeting bot."

...Even the top laner was a named player? This was one hell of a debut for the assassin.

"Ha... Let me go over the assassin skills one more time."

I roughly knew the assassin's kit, but given the opponents, I needed to check every single detail on each skill.

The enemy hadn't picked any sustain champions in their last pick. Separate from the priest's abysmal tier, the assassin's silence effect seemed to have indirectly banned paladin and conductor as well. I knew the pirate's steal skill countered buffs on berserker and paladin, but this was news to me.

'Well, at least there's some harvest from this.'

If I became a pro later, I'd have to pay attention to these draft details too, so I should study the class matchups I was vaguely aware of once more.

* * *

In the game that followed, since it was clearly a composition where the early game mattered, we kept applying pressure with the ADC and mid before level 3. Although the top laner got caught once, we had secured solid bot priority. But for some reason the teammates seemed dissatisfied and were busy keyboard battling instead of accepting the situation.

"Haha... I'm going insane."

I wasn't a kindergarten teacher, so what the hell was this? Having to cut off fights before they even started by giving orders whenever it looked like one was about to break out was infuriating.

Haha... and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he got caught again in the meantime? The enemy composition wasn't great for the late game either, but compared to our 4-drone comp it was still a value pick, so the game was heading straight into the mountains.

'At this rate we'll have to make the bot dive work no matter what.'

I'd already tracked the enemy mid's location earlier, so I planned to use that to set up a perfect surprise bot dive.

"The enemy mid is near top, so I'll pretend to follow toward top to show myself to the necromancer, then immediately turn bot."

The moment I encountered the enemy necromancer, I used the assassin's ultimate, Stealth, to erase my presence while using the massive movement speed boost to reach the bot lane. A good portion of the ultimate's duration had already been spent just moving, so it was about to end soon. Considering the enemy ADC and support were Demon Hunter and Illusionist respectively, the priority target was the Illusionist, who specialized in counter-diving with her ultimate.

Once the enemy Illusionist confirmed I was approaching, our Starlight Archer's ultimate, Meteor Shower, initiated the bot dive.

*Meteor Shower: Calls down a rain of arrows on a designated area for 4 seconds. All targets hit take continuous damage and are slowed.*

I also ambushed the enemy Illusionist first, triggering the assassin's passive. The silenced Illusionist couldn't use any skills at all, so she couldn't stop me from using the reset Ambush to dive the enemy Demon Hunter. On top of that, with the slow applied, the ninja's CC follow-up and burst damage plus the Starlight Archer's additional attacks landed. The enemy, unable to respond to the unexpected dive, fell as expected.

Maybe it was because I'd roughly explained the play earlier. The congregation seemed to have fully understood my play. And the genuine admiration that came when they realized how impressive it was helped lift my mood a little.

"Now that we've secured objective priority too, we can play this out..."

...I had a feeling I'd raised another unnecessary flag with that comment.