Carrot and Stick

Back when Yone first released, there had been a stretch where Yasuo's pick rate skyrocketed overnight.

Part of it was the flashy ultimate combo the two of them could pull off together — but for most players, it was the opposite itch. They just wanted to line up against a Yone as Yasuo.

Even in a game like Leori, where lore barely mattered, it still left a mark.

Yasuo, forced by a false charge into killing his own brother. Yone, who only later understood what Yasuo had been through, and came back from the dead. Their story bled straight into Summoner's Rift.

In the high ranks, there was a famous Yasuo one-trick. A craftsman who had reached the so-called pinnacle of Yasuo — the kind even pros were wary of. Back when I was climbing hard on Yone, I ran ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into that Yasuo constantly.

I lost lane sometimes. I won lane sometimes. But when the dust settled, I had won every single game we played.

That pinnacle Yasuo had romance. What he didn't have was the one thing that actually mattered: knowing how to close out a game. That was why I could beat him. And that was why, facing this one-trick who barely deserved the title of craftsman, I was certain of my win.

Losing to him would have been an insult to every Yasuo who had truly reached the pinnacle.

The moment the minions hit the lane, I stepped up and shoved.

The whole Yone-versus-Yasuo matchup hinged on the level-two trade. If Yasuo hit two first, the lane flipped on its head in an instant.

From level one he pressed hard, trying to poke me down — but his blades never touched me. I poked him back instead, stripping his shield and chunking his health. The skill-shot gap was already obvious. Still, matchup advantage wasn't something pure mechanics could always overcome.

If he hit two first, the whole vibe would reverse. Luckily I got there first — and he leveled right after me. I took W immediately. Yasuo started aggressively riding the minion wave, closing the gap. He moved like someone who knew the early matchup cold.

I gave ground in small steps and kept the trade going. At the perfect window I popped W and ate the damage. Bone Plating from my Resolve secondary shattered and cut the hit even further. He'd gone Precision-Domination, so he had no Bone Plating of his own.

I managed to bait our minions into focusing him one-sidedly — but I hadn't crushed the trade outright. It still wasn't over.

The exchange dragged longer than expected. Conqueror lit up on him and he tried to see it through to the end — until the next wave crashed into the lane and the pressure flipped. Even with Conqueror stacked, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trading through early minion damage was just stupid. He'd been hunting a kill angle, but the moment he felt the minions melting him he finally realized he'd overstayed, dashed out on a minion, and peeled off.

After a life-or-death trade that left him half-dead, Yasuo had no choice but to shrink back. My own health wasn't pretty after that long exchange either — but I was fine. My keystone was Fleet Footwork, built for exactly this kind of lane sustain.

I slow-pushed until the next cannon wave. Yasuo couldn't recall on a cannon timing, and my aggressive forward steps had him so cowed he wouldn't even leave tower. I'd chugged a potion right after the trade and proc'd Fleet Footwork enough times that I was nearly full again.

What I wanted now was the Yasuo camping under tower, waiting to catch the big wave. That meant a dive — and you don't dive without health. Mine was perfect.

The second the two melee minions in the cannon wave died, I stacked my second Q. Level three hit at the same time; I took E and locked in the kill angle.

It was a gamble — a kill catch built on the assumption Lillia wasn't near mid.

Yasuo was sitting under tower, completely relaxed. I hit him with E-Q-Flash and closed the gap in a blink. He never reacted to the sudden Yone dive. Q connected, he went airborne, and the rest of Yone's merciless combo followed.

I couldn't tank the tower any longer. One more E for roughly a hundred true damage finished him. Two tower shots had dropped me below half, but it was fine — my summoner was Teleport, not Ignite.

Normally you'd recall and TP back to lane. I trusted the nearby Udyr and kept shoving instead. Glancing top, Lucian was leaning hard on Garen. Garen was a pure melee brick wall with the worst matchup imaginable into ranged — of course he was losing. Top was where first-pick and counter-pick hurt the most, so I could more or less guess how much stress Curry was under right now.

I finished the shove, hit four, and sprinted top.

Our Udyr, who'd been pathing river, swung top with me. We were almost there when Curry's Garen — who'd been tanking Lucian's poke forever — finally popped Decisive Strike and Courage and charged forward. Lucian must have thought he still had the kill even at that range; he didn't use his escape. The silence landed, and Udyr's stun locked Lucian's feet in place.

Lucian finally woke up and tried to peel with E and Flash — but a blood-crazed Udyr with Phase Rush, Ghost, and Nimbus Cloak all lit up chased him down to the last pixel and finished the job.

"UDYRRRR!!! Now that's a real fucking Udyr one-trick!"

Curry's delighted voice rang in my ears. Udyr had played well, sure — but had he forgotten about me? Suddenly Curry felt so ungrateful that a petty little urge started bubbling up.

"Cut that piece-of-shit sniper who first-picks ranged top!"

Whatever he'd been bottling up must have finally burst — Curry was too busy roasting the dead Lucian to notice. Making me feel petty not once but twice. I typed out my messages slowly, leisurely, one after another.

"Haaah… fuck. What even is Master supposed to mean…"

Curry muttered it in the voice of a tired old man, like the existential dread had finally hit. Just hearing that reaction sent a weird little thrill racing through my whole body.

I recalled while still typing, bought items, and checked bot. Samira and Nautilus must have lost the early trades — they were getting shoved in one-sided. Their health bars looked awful. I kept bot locked in the corner of my eye so I could TP the second I needed to.

If the junglers hadn't crossed paths, they were usually on opposite sides of the map. Lillia hadn't shown when Udyr and I went top, so a bot-side path was extremely likely. And if I'd been Lillia, I would have dived bot without a second thought.

I watched for a few seconds — and sure enough, Lillia stepped out of the brush near the Ancient Krug. Dive incoming. I'd already hit Teleport. Enemy Alistar engaged first, aiming for our Samira — but she Flashed cleanly and Alistar's headbutt-pulverize combo whiffed entirely. Lillia's W missed her too. One Flash had burned three of the enemy's most important skills.

Samira still died to the combined Vayne and Lillia damage — but I TPed in, and together with Nautilus I cleaned up all three of them after the tower had left them on scraps.

They'd scattered three different directions, so cleaning up took a second — but three kills was a massive swing either way.

Udyr covered mid too, so…

Our jungler wasn't bad. The champion was what it was, but a lot of junglers in this spot wouldn't even bother backing up a lane. Udyr covered without needing pings and kept the losses minimal.

I rotated back mid and killed Yasuo. No extra commentary required — the item gap between us was already grotesque. When you already lose on raw mechanics and game sense, and then you lose on items too?

Flash or no Flash. Hugging tower or standing out. Didn't matter. If Yasuo was on my screen, he died. Enemy jungle and support rotating to save him didn't matter either. Yone's E snapping back to its set position was just that broken of a skill.

Ten minutes into the game.

Phantom Dancer, Berserker's Greaves, and a B.F. Sword. Nothing on the map could stop me.

Wherever I went, a bloodstorm followed, and our kill score climbed.

From the enemy's side, Yone was a reaper. The kind that stole a life the second it showed its face — cold, merciless, absolute.

"Whoa… that's actually insane."

"Did you see that combo just now?"

"Hands must be crazy fast."

"No vision and he still found him? Is that the game-sense thing people talk about?"

At some point Curry's stream of awed muttering had become constant background noise. I flicked a glance at my phone, where his broadcast was running — and there was my Yone, filling Curry's entire stream screen.

"Pfft."

I couldn't help laughing. Who would look at that feed and think it was Curry's personal stream? He was spectating my play and just pouring out admiration nonstop. Every time he did, that same unnameable thrill took over my whole body. The adrenaline flooding my system was the clearest proof I was alive.

I turned back to the game and played Yone even flashier. Clean, practical play would have been more stable — but the game's balance was already so shattered that stability was pointless. I hunted Yasuo and only Yasuo. Every time we met, I killed him. Eventually he started running from me on sight. When he still died anyway, he just stopped leaving fountain.

The last time Yasuo was seen on the map, his score was 0/8/1.

With the enemy team vanishing from every lane, the classic Diamond open-map stomping ground opened up again. Normally I wouldn't have felt much of anything about it. But thoroughly crushing the people who'd touched my toy — no, the streamer I'd been sniping — put me in a weirdly good mood.

I deliberately refused to end on the nexus and just ran around being a menace, so the fifteen-minute surrender came out on its own. The enemy nexus exploding marked the end of Curry's fourth promotion-series game.

I backed out of the post-game screen immediately and pulled up Curry's stream. What hit me first was a chat room in full festival mode — pure chaos.

No matter how many times I saw it, I never got used to a chat room this unhinged. Follower-only mode was on and it was still this loud.

I sipped my drink and waited for Curry to calm the chat down.

"STOP SPAMMING!!"

One line from Curry purified a chat room possessed by pure mania. The moment "STOP SPAMMING!!" itself became the spam, Curry let out a sigh of relief and said quietly:

"From now on if you spam I'm hitting 'STOP WATCHING,' so be careful."

Curry's quick little bit brought the chat back to normal. With the overheated stream energy cooled down, he opened his messenger and whispered the person listed as "NayeonQueen."

NayeonQueen's instant reply set the whole chat off laughing. What sniper in the world would look a streamer dead in the face and announce they were going to snipe them?

Ah. Right here, apparently…

Curry, mid-type, looked into the cam and grinned.

After Curry's messages went up, chat went quiet for a while. Sensing something off, Curry closed the messenger, opened his friends list, and looked for NayeonQueen.

She wasn't there.

He opened the messenger again — NayeonQueen's name had gone gray.

Curry stared blankly at the grayed-out NayeonQueen name for a while, then the corner of his mouth curled up. He flipped the stream to a waiting screen and, for the final promo game, began a psychological war with an invisible sniper.

"Mmh…"

I stood up from my chair and stretched. Sitting in the same position for that long had fatigue crashing over me all at once. I thought about sitting back down — then just let myself fall onto the soft, plush queen-size bed instead.

Savoring the cozy feeling, I stared up at the ceiling, and the scene from a moment ago floated back on its own.

After getting wrecked by me that hard, instead of hating me he was lighting his competitive fire even hotter. I actually laughed. I was a weirdo, sure — but Curry was a weirdo on a whole different level.

"Still… today was fun because of him, so…"

Just for today, throwing him a game wouldn't be so bad.

Lying there, an interesting thing I'd read in an encyclopedia as a kid drifted up. The Crespi effect — the idea that the stronger the rewards and punishments get compared to before, the higher a person's performance climbs. Better known as the psychology of the carrot and the stick.

I'd tormented Curry plenty today. Didn't he deserve a matching reward? Push someone too hard and they break — or some quiet corner of their heart snaps. I didn't want that for Curry, so I logged into his streaming platform, Teu-ichi.

Once I was on Teu-ichi, I loaded 2.1 million won. Then I went into Curry's channel and hit Donate.

"WAAAH! Thank you for the 100k donation! Yes! I'll take any mission!"

A sudden 100,000-won donation made Curry — who'd been shadowboxing with an invisible sniper — nearly jump out of his skin.

The whale's appearance sent the quiet chat exploding with messages again.

"I'll take any mission! What kind of mission were you thinking, FlowerShopBoss?"

Curry asked, and a moment later a new mission appeared.

"HUEEEEEEEK!"

The number was even bigger than he'd braced for. Curry's eyes spun. He rubbed both hands over his face, checked the amount again, and let out a hollow laugh.

Had the shock been that bad? He sat frozen for a second, then slowly opened his mouth.

"Nayeon, hurry up and start sniping. I'll slip you a tip."

"Why would I."

I answered out loud before I could stop myself. I was alone, but it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was still embarrassing enough that I clamped my mouth shut.

Curry came back to his senses a beat late and continued in a trembling voice.

Ahaha, I was just kidding.

"If we end up on the same team and you win it for me, I'll give you 300,000."

"Nah, just kidding, just kidding. I'll climb on nothing but my own skill."

"Nayeon, you know, right? You're not allowed to snipe."

And just like that, the arrival of a mysterious whale set the whole stream buzzing again.