Chapter 82 — 2023 Platform Exhibition Final: Youngest and Oldest vs. Sprout Patrol
If you boiled AFS's rush on Ascent down to its bones, it was this: plant a Jett on site, then, on the timing, throw Ground's and Phoenix's flashes with Sova's Recon Bolt and drag the defense into a brawl.
Said out loud, it sounded like a perfectly respectable plan. Making it work, though, demanded a harsh condition. The first line and the second had to be plainly better than the players holding site.
It was a body-push with no information ahead of it, which meant the entry's aim had to sit above the defense. In the pro scene, where individual skill had already climbed about as high as it could, a strat like that was difficult to live on — a gamble you sprang once in a while, just to manufacture a variable. This was a tournament between broadcasters. Treating it like the pro scene would be a mistake. Rounds one and two had already shown the gap, Pilluelo on one side and Oldboy on the other.
If Nebula was the one anchoring site, they couldn't expect much from it. That was probably why they had locked Phoenix.
Coldly speaking, Phoenix was not an agent that belonged on Ascent. If a rush was truly all they wanted, they would have taken Raze and entry'd off Blast Packs. The Phoenix pick almost certainly existed for one reason: Curveball, the Q even pros struggled to answer. With that, their win rate in a duel against Nebula would climb hard.
And it had worked.
"Hmm..."
The conclusion was simpler than I had expected.
"Little shits. Out here trying to freeload a round."
Spax called the timeout, and the order he gave was this.
"You want KAY/O on B site?" Nebula asked.
"Yes."
He was swapping the KAY/O we had posted on A Short with the Killjoy posted on B.
"Doesn't that make it harder to get info on A?"
Of our comp, the only agents with information utility were KAY/O and Sova. Putting one on A and one on B, and pulling info off both lanes, was one of the comp's real advantages.
"Killjoy's turret covers that side."
If KAY/O was moving to B, A still needed a body. So the Killjoy who had been holding B shifted to A, and his turret — the E — would be the thing checking A Main.
"So you want ZERO/point choking the entry."
Nothing else about the setup made sense.
"That's right. Once ZERO/point suppresses them, they either dry-push with their bodies, or they wait eight seconds, use their utility, and come in after. Whichever they pick, we say thank you."
A dry push meant the duel landed on Nebula, who would be waiting, and the odds of him winning it were very high. Wait the eight seconds, and our whole rotate would already be there with time to spare. He didn't say it out loud, but swapping Pola and Oldboy — the only two besides me and Nebula who had any real edge in a fight — was part of the same math.
"Then what about mid?" Oldboy asked. "If the turret goes down on A Main, an Alarmbot won't reach mid."
"Zzangdol can watch that. Jump-peek from CT and just check anyone coming into Market."
"Uh... do you think I can?"
On Ascent, mid was an enormous piece of the map. Take it away, and the only lane into site was Main. Whoever owned mid owned an overwhelming information advantage, which was why, until now, Nebula had been the one watching it — or me, when I had the Operator.
"I went through every Ascent scrim AFS has played, one by one. They have never mid-rushed. Not once. That probably means they don't trust it. Still, if they do come mid, don't take the fight. Just fall off."
"Okay!"
Because the smoke was traveling toward the heart of site, the Main smoke would come out faster too. Part of why their rushes had been deleting us so emptily was that our Main smoke was landing later than they were hitting.
"Whew, that clock just flew. It always looked so long when Coach was the one talking... Anyway. Killjoy and Jett on A, turret on A Main, Alarmbot on Short, Omen mid, KAY/O and Sova set on B—"
That put A with Jett — me — and Killjoy, Oldboy. Mid went to Omen, Zzangdol. B went to KAY/O, Pola, and Sova, Nebula.
"Fights go to Eunha or Nebula first whenever you can. Oldboy, Pola, you take the trade. Pola, mind the ZERO/point. You hear me? The moment you think they're about to hit, three seconds out, you throw it."
"Yes, sir."
"Then fighting~!"
"They lost the last round, sure, but it was a bonus anyway. And a big part of why Eunha's superplay actually popped is that Sprout Patrol never even respected an aggressive defense."
The caster was right. Sprout Patrol had reused their guns specifically to drop as many rifles as they could even in a loss, so they still had plenty of money left. If either side dropped this round, the wallet would be empty and the next one would be an eco. That made this round the one that mattered.
"Here they come!"
The instant the buy phase ended, Sprout Patrol sprinted B Main toward site. Just like before, the Jett ignored the defenders and knifed straight in.
A white burst.
The second line, coming in behind her, tried to follow the Jett onto site and throw their flashes—
A thin whine, then a crack. Everyone on Sprout Patrol except the Jett ate the ZERO/point.
"Oh, ZERO/point! All of them!"
"They can't use abilities like this! What do you do, Sprout Patrol?"
Suppression lasted eight seconds. Waiting it out meant the rotate would obviously arrive, and the Jett would be long dead by then. In the end they swallowed the bitter mustard and walked onto B with no utility at all.
Waiting there was not Oldboy. It was Nebula.
"Nebula!"
"That's two! Oh, this is just collapsed for Sprout Patrol!"
It felt as if Nebula were saying it straight to them.
Come fight me without a flash, you bastards.
A flash burst.
"Jett's in. Pola, ZERO/point."
"Already threw it."
"Okay, nice. Just watch the Jett. They're walking in dry."
"Smoking Main!"
"Rotating to cover."
"I'll stay on A."
We weren't spending a ZERO/point on A, so if they turned the hit, someone had to be there. Killjoy stayed. The rest of us swung to cover B.
"Two down on Main."
"Got the Jett too."
"Nice! Wait, what?!"
"Nice."
Three of them: the Jett already on site, and the Phoenix and Ground trying to follow her in. What they had left was an Omen and a Sova. Two against five. The round was already ours.
"Main smoke was good. I'm alive because of it."
"No, I think I was late again..."
"They're just too fast. If it wasn't you, I'd be dead."
"I'm gonna swing their spawn once."
"Oh — should Oldboy go with you?"
"Okay. I'll go."
Two of them were still alive, but if they were thinking straight, they would be trying to save the guns. A Sova and an Omen couldn't push a site back out, and keeping even two rifles for the eco round was the smarter play. So the moment I confirmed we had won the fight on B, I turned.
Even if I died, I wanted one more rifle on the ground.
"Oh, Nebula just stuffed the whole thing!"
"Does Pilluelo get the trade?"
"From behind — Pola cuts Pilluelo off!"
"Full hold on B! After the timeout, they shut Sprout Patrol's rush down head-on!"
Jett, Phoenix, and Ground were dead. Sprout Patrol had no one left who could entry, and no one left whose utility could help an entry. The surviving Sova and Omen walked slowly back toward their own spawn.
"You have to save the guns here. Two of them can't do anything anyway."
"Uh... but Eunha's position is weird?"
Spawn was the place you would have called safest. Most of the time, it really was.
"When did Eunha even get over there?"
They simply hadn't expected her to be waiting first.
"This is about to be a huge accident!"
Sova and Omen were also watching for an A push, so nobody walked into a blind bullet.
"Eunha!!"
Not knowing where the Jett was amounted to the same thing either way. Sova's head opened up. They died in the spot they had trusted most.
"They got her! Can they save even one rifle?"
Both of them had been looking the same way, so losing only one was the small mercy. It was far too early to breathe out in relief.
Killjoy, still on A, had followed Eunha in.
"Oldboy cleans it up, and Youngest and Oldest tie the score at 2–2!"
The trade was instant. Youngest and Oldest gave up only Eunha and wiped the rest.
"Sprout Patrol is going to have to change how they think! They had their fun early, but the money is gone!"
Two rounds in a row, and Sprout Patrol had nothing left to buy rifles with. The choices were two. Play the eco, and buy rifles the round after — or spend what they had on weaker guns and hunt a miracle. Ascent favored the defense, so saving the money was the smart call, and that only made the next round more likely to go against them.
On the scoreboard it was a tie. In everything that mattered, Youngest and Oldest had already turned the match around.