SC's Problems, and New Gear (Just Chatting)
The fifth round of the second half had been the hinge the whole game turned on.
Pola's shaky Jett cost them the Operator they had scraped the credits together to buy, and a missed ultimate read cost them everything else. Every gun gone. The round, a wipe.
A team with no money left was always going to hand the sixth round over just as emptily, and that was how SC found themselves shoved all the way to match point.
Losing that fifth round had been brutal. It was not, however, the kind of damage that meant you folded the map and went home. A comeback was still sitting there, if anyone could reach for it.
The trouble was that the loss had not stopped at credits and rounds. It had landed harder on the players' heads than on the scoreboard.
The SC on screen now showed none of the connected, slippery team movement from the matches before this one. They were not even making the calls a team is supposed to make. An enemy would already be on site before anyone drifted over, late, to help, and if they were talking to each other at all it did not show. Two of them died back to back off the exact same bait angle.
A total mess. There was so little trust left between them that it was hard to believe this was still a team.
One of SC's real strengths was supposed to be five players moving as one. Set beside that, the round was absurd. Or maybe it was the most natural thing in the world. That praised synergy had always been closer to a side effect of obeying Nebula without question. He was the whole team's brain. Once he started to shake, of course the rest of SC shook with him. A strength had flipped into a weakness between one round and the next. The piece that used to be a plus had become a minus, and an empty collapse was simply what came after.
Tat-tat-tat!
"That's set one."
The spike still had not been defused, but with the time left on the clock it was going to be. If the defense felt like trolling and simply left it there, the game would not end. Nobody in the pro scene was going to do that.
Click.
The spike went down, and set one on Haven — JG's map — ended as JG's win.
"I'd love to say 13–9 means they lost and still fought well, but..."
Looked at coldly, even if SC were aiming at the first division, they were still a second-division team. Measure the gap between those leagues and it was only natural that a side with JG's first-division pedigree got to treat them like underdogs. The JG of right now had been relegated, and their ace, Forest, was out, so if you asked whether this JG was actually first-division level, most people would say no. The point still stood. On the number alone, 13–9, this set was SC showing they had something.
Yes. If you only looked at the number.
"Once SC's mental goes, it does not come back. Putting your head back together is one of the stats that actually matters for a pro."
It had been the same against CLC. The moment SC made a mistake, the team movement vanished entirely. More precisely: the moment Nebula's mental went, the synergy that was supposed to be their edge vanished with it, and all five brains stopped at once. That was the truer version.
"The more I think about it, second-half round five is just painful. Up until then the round was actually fine, and then they fell apart from there..."
Chat had a pile of theories about why SC had lost, and every one of them had a point. Pola's Jett really was short. Coach Kim Sangho refusing to call a timeout really was strange. Nebula's mental really was thin, and the way that thinness poisoned the team was real too.
Even so. Even so.
"Aigo... guys, yes, Nebula's mental is soft, but there's something you need to remember. He only just debuted."
Blaming him for it was cruel. He was already doing his share, and then some. Not only his own job, but more than two players' worth, inside the game and out of it. Count what he had carried today and it was closer to three. They had handed an entire team to a rookie who had not yet been a pro for a month. Even Spax, a veteran among veterans, settled strategy by talking it through with the rest of KZ. And this boy was supposed to do all of it alone? The load on Nebula was far too heavy. It was a load no one person could carry.
"They only lost the one set, right? And it was the map JG picked. We just have to hope set two goes better."
Sure. Anyone could see the blown mental was going to follow them into set two.
Still... you had to hope.
They were making disgusting reads on attack, so why is the whole squad playing with their brains scooped out?
Ascent is the map they picked. What are these bastards doing?
[Nebula profile photo]
Upvote if you feel bad for this bastard lol
1. Pola's Jett proficiency
He buys the Operator and does not even precharge Tailwind. His Operator itself is shaky, and his Jett is shakier still.
The smoke-dash entries are far too straight. See set one of the JG match, pistol round, where he got chewed up by Killjoy's Nanoswarm.
From what I felt in the exhibition match, Pola's aim on its own is fine. He would be better dropping onto the sentinel line and lurking.
Viewer: Why a sentinel, of all things?
An initiator has to spend utility on the fly, reading whatever the round becomes. A sentinel can set the same skill setups map by map and get somewhere just by memorizing the spots, and that suits Pola better.
And rather than team play he still is not comfortable in, giving him a role he can play on his own would simply be easier on him.
2. Nebula's mental
Right now SC is a warped team that lives on Nebula's calls. If Nebula says "We're going A," they go A. "We're going B," they go B. "Rotate," and they rotate.
Nobody has to negotiate. Comms stay short. The play looks consistent, so the synergy looks good. The downside is the same size as the upside.
The moment Nebula's mental goes, every player on the team brain-freezes. That is not really Nebula's flaw. It is the lack of anyone beside him who can hold a call up.
Conclusion: five rookies is way too much. They needed to sign at least one veteran.
Sadly, SC beating JG never happened.
Coach Kim Sangho's old illness — the position roulette — flared again. Every setup they had drilled in scrims went out the window, and in its place came a combination nobody sane would have drawn up: Pola on initiator, Nebula on entry. In set two, SC showed none of the structured play they had managed before. It was brainless full sends, and then a 13–5 loss.
They had given me nothing but disappointment, so I ended the broadcast the way it was and went to lie down.
I finished earlier than usual, and after that I did what I always did: stretched out on the bed with my phone. Then—
Knock, knock.
"Eunha, your package is here!"
The housekeeper's voice came through the door.
"Huh? Already?"
If it was a delivery, the only thing I had ordered lately was that, so I hurried for the door.
"Coming!"
It could not have been two days since I placed the order, and here it was. Packages really did move fast these days. My computer had shown up a day after I ordered it, too, though that one almost certainly had Father's hand on the scale.
Rrrrip. Rrrrip.
She took the box apart with a cutter like she had done it a thousand times. For the record, I was not allowed to touch anything sharp in this house. Father had forbidden it.
She lifted the contents out, tipped her head, and peered at them.
"Didn't you already order all your gear last time? Is this something a little better...?"
A little better. That was close enough.
"Yes. It ought to be a lot better than what I have now, at least."
"I see."
She nodded and passed it over. I never spent money on anything useless, so neither she nor my parents paid much attention when I ordered something. They checked what it was, decided I must have needed it, and let it go. This particular order, of course, was not going to sit well with Father.
"Thank youuu."
"If you need anything from here on, don't sit there fretting. Just call me."
I carried it straight to my room.
Humming under my breath, I trotted up to the second floor, and what I had in my hands—
"Hmm-hmm-hmm~"
—was a camera, and the lighting rigs girl streamers always seemed to have switched on beside them.