Putting Them in Their Place

Nayeon Princess sat there with a brazen confidence so absolute it left everyone speechless. Curry took one look at that shameless composure, clutched the back of his neck, and collapsed. The viewers, of course, simply reveled in the whole spectacle — every last one of them.

"AAAAAAARGH!"

Curry's scream tore in from off-camera. The chat erupted into another ocean of laughter, and the firepower was no joke. Messages were scrolling so fast they couldn't even be read. The server itself seemed unable to withstand the overload — buffering began to creep in, frame by frame.

With the stream on the verge of exploding, Curry scrambled back to his feet.

The moment he switched on followers-only mode, the unstable stream began to settle. The buffering stopped, and the quality that had been locked at 360p snapped back to normal.

Having weathered the brink of a stream detonation, Curry checked his current viewer count.

I broke twenty thousand?

Curry's average viewer count usually hovered around five thousand. On a collab stream with another creator it might climb to ten thousand — but never past that, not like this. Maybe someone had dropped his coordinates on a community site. He couldn't make sense of the sudden surge, but that wasn't what mattered right now.

This is an opportunity.

For a streamer whose channel had been stuck in a growth drought for a while, the situation was a windfall — a golden chance to yank his stagnant numbers skyward in a single stroke.

Having cleared the crisis, Curry sat back down. He gave the stream one last check for any remaining issues, then, reassured, turned his attention back to the game.

"Uh— uh uh!"

Curry saw how little ban time was left and frantically started moving his hands. Fail to ban during the ban phase and the game dodges — and dodging during a promotion series counts as a loss. With two losses already stacked in his promos, Curry absolutely could not afford a dodge.

He moved his hands for dear life and barely managed to ban a random champion. Thankfully it didn't dodge — the problem was that the champion he'd banned was Aatrox, one of his own mains.

"Haah, dammit…"

Curry bit down on his lip at the realization that he'd just severed one of his own limbs with his own hands. And as if that weren't enough, the enemy had banned his remaining mains — Renekton and Camille. All three of the blade champions that every unhinged top laner loved had been wiped from the board.

Malphite, the champion he sometimes picked as a change of pace — banned by the enemy. Sett, the one he'd recently started having fun with — also banned by the enemy. The only champions he could still handle were Ryze, Tryndamere, and Garen. All three of them firmly in the off-meta tier.

He shouldn't jump to conclusions — but looking at snipe bans this blatant, a reasonable suspicion was inevitable. There was plenty he wanted to say, but he held his tongue for the sake of the stream and reluctantly first-picked Garen.

The moment Curry locked Garen, his allied jungler picked Udyr.

Udyr held the top spot among the three trash-tier jungle legends, alongside Ivern and Skarner. He'd briefly soared as AP Udyr after a recent buff, but it hadn't aligned with Goliath's "design intent," so his wings got clipped. The idol of the slow-walkers, nailed back into his coffin — and now Curry's allied jungler had picked him. The situation itself was a disaster.

Then the enemy side started locking in. Their choices: Lucian and Vayne.

"Ah, why are you bringing a ranged champ to top."

"Ah, thank you for the ten-thousand-won donation."

With every pick that locked in, Curry's insides burned — but the viewers just enjoyed the fire from a safe distance, chatting away at their leisure. At least bot lane had locked in proper picks, though that did nothing to ease the anxiety sitting in his chest.

If it hadn't been for the snipe bans…

Curry was a streamer who tended to be generous about sniping. Anyone who streamed Legend of League, he figured, was destined to get sniped sooner or later. But when they went this far — blatant snipe bans and counter-picks stacked on top — it was enough to make his head spin.

The only hope left was that someone would dodge for him. Curry considered asking Nayeon Princess if she could dodge just this once — then he remembered the chat from earlier and abandoned the idea of typing anything.

The one remaining thread of hope he could cling to was a single name.

Nayeon Princess.

All he could do was pray that this sniper — the one walking the razor's edge of the line — would somehow carry him.

"Hnn…"

I made a little nasal hum as I studied the enemy's composition. Top Lucian, jungle Lillia, mid Yasuo, ADC Vayne, support Alistar. A roster built entirely of champions designed to push our team into the dirt.

"How arrogant…"

I didn't like it. Those bastards, openly snipe-banning and locking counter-picks. The fact that they were snipers same as me rubbed me the wrong way.

When five thousand people were watching, these clowns were nowhere to be seen. The second Curry's viewer count ballooned, they crawled out to pull this half-baked sniping garbage — and it was pathetic. More than anything, even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knowing through the stream that I was on Curry's team, they'd spent their ban cards pressuring Curry instead of me. That felt far too bold.

I was well aware that sniping wasn't the right thing to do. And precisely because I knew it wasn't right, I never did things like stream-peeking or snipe-banning while I was at it.

Well — honestly, whether other snipers crossed the line I drew or not was none of my business. I wasn't the leader of some secret sniper society. Forcing my personal rules onto every individual who sniped was an impossible ask.

But from the perspective of someone who'd gotten here first and was already having a perfectly good time harassing Curry, those muddying the water were nothing more than annoying obstacles in my way.

It was like being in the middle of playing with a toy I'd grown fond of, only for other kids to start using my toy however they pleased. Feeling that filthy sensation I'd known once before, I slowly moved my mouse.

The final pick for Curry's team. Against the enemy mid Yasuo, Nayeon Princess selected Yone.

And so the game began.

Loading finished quickly. Alongside the familiar announcer's voice, I bought my starting items.

From the very start of the game, Yasuo was running his mouth in all chat. You could write it off as one of those mentally unwell types you occasionally run into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in solo queue — except Yasuo was the one who'd banned Camille in champ select.

Even in the hell-tier of solo queue, it was rare for people to start flapping their mouths like this before the minions had even spawned. I only had circumstantial evidence and no smoking gun, but…

…no. The enemy team was just openly advertising Hi, we're snipers~ at this point.

No matter how much of a diseased game Legend of League was, and no matter how much this bracket was called hell, you didn't get people — no, peoples — who zeroed in on one specific player and started politicking like this.

I glanced over at the stream. Curry was in the options menu, disabling all chat.

The second Curry turned off all chat, Yasuo typed that. Watching Yasuo put the absolute floor of sniper-kind on full display was enough to make me sick.

Yasuo kept yapping after that, but I ended it by muting his chat and emotes. I muted every other sniper running their mouth too. I even went as far as Curry and disabled all chat entirely.

"…"

Muting them didn't erase the scenes I'd already seen. Thinking back on what had just played out, a filthy, unpleasant feeling crawled up my spine. I wiped the smile from my lips and focused harder than I ever had.

Before I knew it, the minions had reached the lane, and the real laning phase began.

In Legend of League's official lore, Yone appears as Yasuo's older brother. Because players had nicknamed Yasuo "STEM Major," Yone had been called "Humanities Major" even before his release.

In truth, Yone posted abysmal stats right after launch. But there was one player at the time who put up an overwhelming record on him.

Total record: 50 games, 50 wins, 0 losses. A 100% win rate.

Not some common mid-low elo bracket, not even Diamond — a player oscillating between Master and Grandmaster. In the end, that mysterious Yone one-trick hit Challenger on him, and then never played the game again.

Plenty of players wondered why the mysterious Yone artisan had stopped playing. The question was never answered, and he slowly faded from everyone's memory.

…And now.

The weeb-named Yasuo one-trick who only sniped Diamond streamers. The infamous toxic sniper duo operating in Grandmaster. And every other sniper who'd jumped in for the aggro, snipe-banning along the way.

Every last sniper who'd come for Curry found themselves facing a colossal wall.

A wall so high they couldn't even dare to look up at it.

The announcer's voice thundered across the Rift.

All of it had happened in a mere ten minutes of game time.