A Display of Skill

"Ah, brothers. We'll get this promotion series started for real now..."

The moment Curry got back on cam, he pulled up the lobby screen.

Most of the viewers were thrown off by the sudden jump back into the broadcast — but it didn't take long for them to piece the situation together and stop spamming the chat.

The chat window, which had been a living hell just moments before, was now completely clean. Curry was a born atmosphere-maker, a magician of stream management. He'd dodged the sniper and jacked the tension back up. Two birds, one stone.

But then—

"Huh?"

Curry froze solid the second he saw a familiar nickname pop up in the lobby chat. His hands started trembling; he finally understood what people meant when they said their brain short-circuited. Still, true to his big-agency streamer instincts, he snuck a sidelong glance at the chat.

Contrary to what he'd expected — a chat on fire with spam — the viewers seemed too stunned this time. They were only typing out questions, nothing more.

In the exact moment everyone was locked in stunned silence, a single message floated up in the lobby chat. The second Curry read it, the world in front of him started spinning.

A real demon was here. At least, that's how Curry felt.

The first two games, she'd landed on the enemy team and forced him to lose. Now that they were on the same side, the first thing she asked was You desperate? It was pure devil's temptation.

If he said yes here, he'd probably win the promotion series. But what about next time this situation came around? Once you'd given in once, could you really shake off the temptation again?

If he'd been streaming purely for the money, he would have played along with this toxic sniper's demands and milked the entertainment value. But Curry had always been serious about the game. Leori was his life.

He remembered his past self, the one who'd loudly declared he'd hit Grandmaster on pure skill alone. No matter how many games — over two thousand — he'd been stuck in Diamond, he didn't want to renounce that life.

...Or so he told himself. The truth was, he'd been trapped in Diamond for far too long.

Curry ignored the chat's reactions. There was no taking back words already spoken.

The stream doesn't matter anymore.

He'd already farmed more than enough clip-worthy moments. What mattered now was whether he made Master or not.

Please just pick something normal.

Both teams finished banning. The enemy first-picked Qiyana.

Among AD assassin-type champions, she was widely considered one of the highest-difficulty picks — and depending on who was playing her, her performance swung wildly from god-tier to garbage.

The enemy's pick phase ended. Allied first and second pick began.

First pick was jungle; second pick was mid. Curry silently prayed that NayeonQueen would lock in something strong into Qiyana.

First pick stepped up. They locked in Elise — the safest, most flexible first-pick card that fit into any comp. An immovable tier-one jungler, the so-called cancer of the jungle role. Having her on their side was a good sign.

Then came NayeonQueen's pick.

"You're... picking that?"

NayeonQueen's unexpected pick threw both Curry and the entire chat into chaos.

Where did that confidence even come from?

That was the first thought that hit me the moment I saw the Qiyana first pick.

Qiyana has so many counters.

Back when she launched, she'd been so strong people called her matchup-less. These days, though, she only performed if someone with real mechanics was piloting her. And they just slammed that as a first pick? Their first pick hadn't even bothered to ban anything either. It was basically throwing down a gauntlet at the enemy mid laner.

What champion should I use to punish that Qiyana?

I chewed on that question, and before I knew it time had slipped away. Then I saw our jungler lock in Elise, and I made my decision.

Live by the blade, die by the blade.

My pick was Talon.

Alongside Zed, he was one of the twin pillars of the AD assassin class — a purebred assassin champion. AD assassin mirror matches had always been called hand-fight contests for a reason. There was no better pick to shatter that arrogant first-pick Qiyana.

"Wait... do you even know how to play Talon?"

The second I slammed Talon without hesitation, Curry asked me in a voice thick with anxiety. I deliberately stayed silent and didn't answer. Watching him sweat bullets on the stream feed was too entertaining.

"Ha, fuck it, whatever."

As the last pick, Curry studied both team comps over and over before finally locking in Camille.

Camille, Elise, Talon. An extremely aggressive top-side composition.

The enemy top side, meanwhile, was Jayce, Karthus, and Qiyana — a hyper-aggressive mid and top paired with a scaling jungler.

Both sides finished picking, and the game began.

Looking at it again on the loading screen, our team's comp was solid. No — it was close to perfect. Like watching a complete midfielder who could do everything. Maybe not for pro play, but for solo queue, you weren't going to find a better composition than this.

The enemy comp, by contrast, was an extreme poking composition. Jayce, Karthus, Ashe, Lux — every single one of them had a ranged poke tool. That didn't mean their teamfights were weak, either.

Then again, obsessing over "comps" in solo queue was mostly meaningless. The higher you climbed, the more often games just opened up and devolved. In the end, the real win condition was simple: whose mental shattered first?

And for solo queue specifically, I knew a method that always worked.

I used to pull that kind of play on Talon all the time.

Lost in thought, I barely noticed the loading finish.

Right from the start, our Thresh started slamming pings like a man possessed.

He marked that he'd learned his hook skill and made it crystal clear he wanted to invade. Following Thresh's lead, we pushed into the enemy jungle.

The moment we passed the river brush and entered the red-side hill brush, the enemy team — already hiding inside — swarmed us all at once.

Thresh, who'd been leading the charge, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠melted in an instant. With him already dead, we had no choice but to abandon the invade.

My teammates must have thought the same thing — they turned their backs on Thresh's corpse and spammed the retreat ping. By cutting our losses and dumping Thresh fast, we avoided any further casualties. But Qiyana had snagged first blood.

I recalled home to top off my health, then hustled back to lane. By the time I arrived, Qiyana was already pushing the wave with two long swords in her inventory.

Through the ward planted on red side, I pinged that Karthus had started red.

Any jungler with half a brain would immediately understand what my pings and chat meant. Having set our jungler's pathing, I started trading into the Qiyana who was greedily shoving on the strength of her two long swords.

Even with first blood in her pocket, Talon won the 1v1 until level two, no question. If you took an all-in trade to the death you might come out behind, but proc the passive and the trade was always yours. Level three was when you had to be careful — but we weren't there yet, so I traded aggressively.

Even with the extra long sword, once Talon's passive detonated she lost the trade, and Qiyana chose to let the wave come to her. She securely farmed only the minions she could last-hit with abilities, while I shoved hard to hit level three first.

And just like that, I hit three before her.

A massive wave — cannon wave included — crashed into their tier-one tower. I left Qiyana to catch the minions and slipped out of enemy vision. Then I vaulted the mid-lane brush wall and dropped a ward in their blue buff brush.

Sure enough, Karthus was taking blue. Watching him path upward while clearing it, it looked like he'd skipped gromp and was planning a level-three top gank.

Elise, already done with red and sitting on level three, came sprinting over. She landed a cocoon on Karthus from above, and I vaulted the wall, hit the stunned Karthus with a WQ combo, and detonated my passive in an instant.

Karthus died without putting up any resistance at all. This was exactly why the Elise–Talon duo was so terrifying in solo queue — no champion in the game could survive both of them collapsing on you.

"Holy shit! I believed in you mid-jungle!!"

The moment the kill notification rang out, Curry's howl erupted from the stream. You could hear just how desperately he wanted that Master promotion.

Done hunting the enemy jungler, Elise and I swung our sights to top lane. Jayce, sitting in front of the tier-one tower poking at Camille, was the perfect prey. Camille synced up with our arrival perfectly. Her hook landed clean, stunning Jayce — then Elise's cocoon stacked a second stun on top. My WQ combo connected right after, and Jayce went gray.

The start had been rough. But from this point on, the entire mood of the game flipped one hundred and eighty degrees.

I typed into chat with a leisurely smile.

Barely a second after the message went up, a sound loud enough to rupture eardrums exploded ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in my ears.

"I feel so fucking GOOOOOOD! THIS is a real team!!"

A classic top laner response, I thought to myself.