How Did It Come to This
Win the pistol round, and the buy almost never changes. Medium shields, and a gun like a Spectre, or the heavier SMG that sits just above it.
You spend as much gold as you can, take round two clean, and then—when the other team walks into round three holding the expensive rifles, Phantoms and Outlaw Rifles—you make them drop as many of those guns as possible. In Project A, that is the most ordinary way to run an economy.
I had no intention of playing this game the ordinary way.
Instead of medium shields, I bought light shields, and the gold I saved went into a Phantom—the rifle most people simply call an M4.
Lose a Phantom, and the risk is far worse than dropping a Spectre or that heavier SMG. Reyna's particular gift for staying in a fight covers some of it, which is why I took the buy. Light shields are a weakness too, but overheal off Devour can cancel that out. A rifle, in other words, was a choice you could actually defend.
"Sova, could you recon B Main the way you did last round?" I asked.
Same as the round before, I was pushing up B Main. Their guns would be at their weakest now, and I meant to take as many kills as I could.
Bang!
Sova's recon died before it had even fully come alive, but the information was enough. At least one of them was on B Main.
I peeked as hard as I had last round. Nobody was there. They must have been watching for the recon this time—broke it fast and fell off. If I got greedy for B Main space and died, and they walked away with the rifle, the damage would be ugly, so I held where I was. An angle that could shoot the moment they tried to step in.
Pop!
This was Immortal 1. High enough that the other team weren't idiots. From wherever they were posted, a hawk came knifing in, burst, and scattered flash across the lane.
Guiding Light. Ground's E. You send a hawk out remotely and detonate it—the flash in Project A with the most uses, and the least ceiling on them. Ground decides whether it pops. You can tell whether someone ate the blind, which means you can even check whether a body is standing where the hawk blew. As much an info tool as a flash.
I dodged it on reaction, of course. Guiding Light is still a flash. Don't look straight at it, and the effect falls off hard.
Ptchew!
Their Jett peeked the instant the flash popped, hunting me. Unfortunately for her, I hadn't taken it clean, and the blind was already gone.
If Guiding Light has a flaw at all, under all that cheating, it's only this: you cannot tell whether the enemy anti-flashed the blind or ate it. And you don't need to be a former pro, at my level, to deal with a hawk that flies in that honestly. At this rank, anyone can dodge it.
"They're on B Main," I said.
They were on an eco, hoarding gold. A fast hit was likelier than a default—spreading out, taking map, playing for space.
Pop!
The hawk burst on B Main again. This time I didn't get out of it.
"Ah—"
That is why Guiding Light is broken. A hawk popped that short is genuinely miserable to dodge, even for pros.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Ah. Of course. The soul orb off the dead Jett was still there. I spent it on my E, Dismiss, and slipped out clean.
"Whew. That was close."
That was why I hadn't used Devour after killing the Jett.
"They're coming into B Main."
I could have backed off here and called it reasonable. I decided to hold the aggressive angle one more time.
Three enemy skills actually threatened me: Reyna's Leer, Omen's Paranoia, and Ground's Guiding Light. On an eco, though, nobody was going to buy a 250- or 300-gold skill just to burn it, and Ground had already spent both charges of Guiding Light—the maximum—so the hawk was on cooldown. An M4 against default pistols. The gap in firepower was obscene. I had no reason not to take the fight.
Bang. Bang.
I peeked behind the Leer, off-angle, and their team visibly panicked. One of them, still blind, was prefiring the lane I had to walk, determined to catch me anyway. Another was dumping a default pistol's pathetic little damage into the eye, trying to break it.
"Ahh~ so delicious...!"
"Why are they only hitting B?!" GOandMO shouted.
Watch only my screen, and it might look like they had thrown the round for nothing. From the moment their Jett died, they had almost no path to winning it. They'd rushed in to kill me—the one holding the M4, the single most valuable gun on the map. They never had a chance.
Killjoy and Omen, late to the rotate through mid, ran into a Chamber who had already been waiting. He cleaned them both up.
"Oh my god!" GOandMO yelled.
Somebody wailed, and round two—the round you are supposed to win clean—closed out without a single death on our side.
Round three. Now they would spend the gold they'd saved on the eco and show up with the strongest rifles in Project A, Outlaw Rifles and Phantoms.
Everyone on our side except me was holding a Spectre or that pricier SMG. The job this round was to drop as many of their rifles as we could.
"Eunha... could I watch B, just this once...?" GOandMO asked.
I'd been about to hold B Main again. Geonmo's voice, making the request, was painfully meek.
The kill count was already 6–0. Of course he sounded like that.
"Okay. I'll take A, then."
And no—giving up B was not the mercy of someone comfortably ahead. Nothing that noble.
Come on. You get stuffed on B two rounds in a row, and you hit B again? That was the entire thought.
"B Main's stacked. They're rushing," Sova called.
Unfortunately, my read missed by a mile.
B? Again? And a rush, on round three—the round you're supposed to play slow and stable?
"All five are here! B site, site!" Sova shouted.
"Ah, we've gotta get out. Back, back!" GOandMO said.
They spent Ground's Guiding Light and Reyna's Leer without keeping a single charge in the pocket, and they hard-pushed B. We gave up one, and we had no choice but to leave the site.
"Rotating now. Let's look for the retake," I said.
I came up through CT until I was nearly on B, and I popped the ultimate at once.
Reyna's ultimate, Empress. Six points. For thirty seconds you take a buff called Rampage: fire rate, equip speed, and reload speed all jump, and Q and E stop having any limit on their uses.
While Rampage is up, a kill Devours on its own. You don't spend the soul orb on Q, and the orb doesn't vanish—it stays. Use E and you turn invisible: invulnerable, fully unseen, a survival tool for changing where you stand. The skill you could fairly call the flower of Reyna's kit.
The M4 on round two had been for this. Maximum kills, so Empress would be live on round three.
"Three, two, one, go, go!" GOandMO counted.
We started the B retake on his count. I dropped a Leer at once, to open the entry for us.
Behind the Leer, Geonmo—on Raze—came in on a Blast Pack, his Q, and picked two of them off inside the site. Their Omen traded him a breath later.
"They're all in site! Two back site, one on the box!" GOandMO called.
"Then we just strip every gun off them, right?" I said.
If the whole team was inside B, nobody had rotated out. Let the bomb blow, and they would lose every gun they owned. The numbers were even, three against three. Forcing an entry was worse than holding here and waiting.
The point of the round was dropping their guns anyway. Winning would have been nice. This was the better line.
"No, no, this is winnable. I'll throw Paranoia. Go, go!" Omen said.
Of course my damned teammate didn't listen.
"Why would you even—"
I still couldn't leave allies walking in with no answer behind them, so I went in too, and I hated it.
I threw the Leer and entered with them. Their Omen's Paranoia came flying back the other way.
"Ah."
Bzzzzzt—
Killjoy's Nanoswarm chained straight off it, and we were, in the plainest sense of the word, shredded.
"Why—why are you going in? Just hold!" GOandMO cried.
It was 1v3. Think about it rationally, and saving the M4 was the correct play.
"I'm saving," I said.
A lost round regardless. Geonmo had killed two and dropped two guns. We had done what the round was for.
...They're swinging this?
Empress still had time on the clock. And a Reyna with Empress up is flatly, absolutely strong when she is the one outnumbered.
Their Reyna threw a Leer toward where I was standing. A Leer's durability is 100. Four shots from a rifle break it. I shattered the eye and snapped onto the lane. Reyna and Killjoy double-peeked.
In any normal fight, even if I kill Reyna, Killjoy trades me.
Tak-tak-tak-tak!
I mashed E. At thirty health I barely caught the invulnerability, and I lived.
"Whoa. Eunha, that was filthy," GOandMO said.
"I'm getting out."
I'd pulled so fast I hadn't even properly taken the Devour heal. One more gun on the ground. Now I really did have to leave.
The bomb blew, and the attackers won the round. They had dropped three rifles. I had saved one.
We lost, and round three was still ours.
How did it come to this?
The round had been overwhelmingly in my favor. So why was that the word I had to put in my mouth?
It was too late to ask if we could just void the bet. The viewers were expecting it too hard.
Fine. A bet was a bet. Even with that having happened, I had lost, and a loss was a loss. Which meant I had to take the penalty.
"Pfft—!" GOandMO broke.
Oppa. To a hyung I'd been close with for years.
He didn't remember me anymore. I remembered all of it.
Haa. I actually wanted to die.