PCK Challengers: SC vs. JG
"And SC takes the first pistol round!"
"That's a good start for SC, isn't it? Nebula is burning hot right now. Three kills in the pistol round alone!"
Of course JG's retake failed. It was the only natural outcome. The moment their Breach—the one holding Concuss, a skill made for making life miserable for enemies who had already taken ground—couldn't get off C, the odds of that retake fell through the floor. Nebula's quick read had caught Breach out, and that read had carried them all the way to the first-round win.
There was a problem on SC I had always believed and never once said out loud. It was trust: the gap between Nebula and the rest of the roster. Watching now, that problem looked already fixed. The Nebula on the screen was trusting his teammates and playing the best game he had in him.
"All right, they're heading for C?"
"SC's guns reach, so they don't need to take the narrow fights on B or in Garage. They should check the enemy's advance as far out as they can and play it safe."
"JG, the other way around, has to make dropping the enemy's guns the whole point."
Just as the casters said, SC—Spectres and a Bulldog in hand—had to respect the weapons that turned vicious at point-blank range. The Shorty. The Frenzy. And the tight throats where those guns ran wild, Garage and A Short and B site, needed extra care. SC seemed to be watching for exactly that. All five of them headed for C. Only...
"Ah. This is a four-stack..."
Had JG read the movement too? Everyone but Killjoy was already hidden on C. Leaving A completely empty was a gamble, and it was only possible because this was an eco round—lose it, and the risk was nothing. Right now that gamble was a breath from paying off in full.
"This is a four-stack! Is SC just walking into it?"
"This is the picture JG wants! They'll hear the sound, fake, and get out, right?"
Flash—!
Breach's Q, the flashburst. Fire it into a wall and it blinds whoever is waiting on the other side, and it pops so fast that turning your head in time is brutally hard.
For ordinary people, anyway.
Tat-tat-tat-tang!
He saw Breach's flash, snapped his view away in a perfect anti-flash, and then one-tapped both peeking heads—Breach, then Ground.
"Ah, Pola!"
"That anti-flash was perfect, right? And JG's timing on that was gorgeous too!"
"Whoa..."
Even I, who barely stir for a middling play, had to give that one a little admiration. It was that clean.
Ground and Breach were dead. While Pola reloaded, JG's Jett peeked through with a Sheriff—
—but Nebula was right there with him and took the Jett instead, and Pola finished the reload clean.
"Nebula with the cover!"
"Their chemistry is ridiculous today!"
"Wow. That combo was really good."
Now that I thought about it, had the two of them held a site together in the scrim as well? I remembered them shutting down AFS's fast execute side by side in the final. No wonder their timing was tighter than anyone else's on the team.
"At this point, what's left of JG is better off dying where the spike blows. Step out and you're just filling Nebula's ult. He's already on five points."
Three were already dead, and the ones still alive were an Omen with no smokes and a Killjoy who had spent every skill. They seemed to have decided there was nothing left to do.
In the end, the survivors chose to die in the blast and hand over nothing, rather than fight and gift the enemy ultimate points for free.
They had won the pistol, then taken the buy round that followed in a flawless. From SC's side of it, the start felt very good.
"Nice, nice~. SC's been perfect so far, huh?"
"Yeah. It does start now. Still, what matters is that they aren't losing the aim duel to JG."
Aside from Pola, most of SC were rookies with no pro experience at all. Take Nebula out of that, and most of them were players the big-name orgs hadn't even scouted as trainees. The team across from them had lived in the upper middle of the first division and threatened the strong sides from there. Of course the squad was wobbling—badly enough that losing their ace, Forest, had dropped them into the second division.
"Mm... my pick to win?"
Who did I think would win. If I followed my heart—it was my dad's company team, and Nebula was my friend—I wanted to say SC...
"JG."
Even so, JG still looked like the side more likely to win.
The viewers were skeptical, and fair enough. I'd labeled the room an SC cheer stream and then said I thought JG would win. I wouldn't have understood it either.
"Of course I'm cheering for SC. But I still think JG takes it. SC's defense hasn't been proven..."
Get dragged into the other team's attack plan and the whole roster bluescreens at once. Clumsy Operator play on top of that. SC's defense had far too many holes. Remembering that chronic illness—the team shaking as a unit the moment they were on defense—picking JG was the rational call.
"Still, though..."
"Pola's form looks good today, so I think SC might actually show something on defense."
In the end, an FPS is a fight over nerve. JG had come down from the first division to scrap with second-division teams. SC had started in the second division. The pressure sitting on them couldn't be the same. SC had announced a goal of climbing into the first division, so I couldn't say they were free of it either—but it still had to weigh less than it did on JG.
"From SC's side, this is about as pleasant a start as you can ask for. They won the pistol, bought guns, and closed the buy round flawless."
"Right. But JG saved their money last round, so they're bringing rifles this round. This is the one where they get to say, 'From here, our guns come out.'"
So the match would be decided from here. Which side took more of the rounds where rifle met rifle—the so-called real duel, the round worth two points. That was what pointed the win.
Round three. SC reused the guns from the round before, and JG bought. For SC, even a lost round had one job: drop as many of JG's guns as they could. JG had to keep theirs and chase a perfect win.
"Smart, doubling the peek!"
"You have to respect a player like Nebula. Walk out one-for-one, drop another gun, and it's a disaster."
The third round went to JG.
"Ah! That's annoying. They could've gotten one more..."
"Long-range fights are hard for them to win anyway, so for SC it's better to just crash in and force the trade. They did catch two that way..."
SC's read, just then, hadn't been bad. Hit the site before the cover arrives, and even if you die, take as many as you can. But JG's answer was too clean. They had the better guns and still refused to force anything, calmly pulling the fight out long and taking only the shot duels that favored them. On the last man standing—Nebula—they even used the numbers and peeked him two at once.
Second-division team or not, they were not letting their guard down.
So the third round ended as JG's win, built on the gap in the guns, and SC came away with the modest prize of two dropped rifles.
Which side came out ahead... that was a question.
"If I had to pick, JG. Two rifles is a loss you can live with. Three or more, and it's a different conversation..."
The side that shows up on round three with rifles gets graded on how many of those rifles they keep. All five kept is a perfect win. Four is nearly as perfect. Three kept is a win you can live with happily. Two is a loss. One is an accident. Lose all five and lose the round on top of it, and that's just a collapse. The game is halfway blown apart.
"So both sides have a case... and from here is what matters most."
Whoever lost now was likely to lose the next round too. Lose, and the money for rifles isn't there, so you have to eco and save. Win, and you can take two points on the so-called real duel—and that real duel started immediately, on round four.
The game turned into a vicious grind. They closed the first half at 6–6. SC won the second-half pistol and the buy round after it, pushed the score to 8–6, and went up by two. Then JG, rifles in hand, paid them back across the third round and the real duel that followed, and the score was tied again at 8–8.
"No, seriously, what day is it for these two teams? What kind of level is this..."
"I figured JG would have a hard game today, but it's harder than I thought. They can't have imagined struggling like this on a map they picked themselves."
"Oh."
"And the moment we say it, Pola's Operator money is there. He buys it on the spot."
"Looks like the Operator is on A... oh, they're going to meet."
Pola, Operator in hand, was holding A Short, and JG's main pack was headed for A as well. Which meant JG was about to meet an Operator head-on. Even a single kill and a getaway would be an enormous win for SC...
Bang!
"Huh?"
"No—and he whiffs!"
It was only a win on the assumption that he hit. The Operator's greatest weakness is the instant after the shot. Fire once, and the wait until the next shot is long. And that bolt-cycle window was—
Tat-tat-tat-tang!
—more than enough time to eat the swing back.
"Huh? Ah—no!"
"Hold on! We've got a massive throw, right now!"
"The Operator he scraped the money together for is on the ground, and this is a free walk onto A!"
Wait. Hold on...
Did that just completely blow up?