The Namtat Tournament (2)
The match begins.
The chat, packed a moment ago with cheers for whichever team each viewer had claimed, drifts off into a distant murmur. So do Life and Summer on the cast. Everything else shuts out, until the only thing driving into my head is my teammates' voices—and I keep the ask short.
"Leash me to two hundred."
"Huh? Yeah, got it."
"We'll be late for level two, though. That's kinda bad, isn't it?"
"We're not hitting level two first against Jhin and Xayah anyway. Unless you want to gamble it all on a level-one Leona Flash-Q, we're better off managing our health and taking it slow."
"Okaaay, unnie!"
I take a harder leash than usual. Red buff already sitting on me, I fire E, vault the wall sealing the Dragon pit, and push toward the enemy Blue.
Bot and mid are nowhere near this stretch of the map. Only junglers live here. The instant it becomes a true one-on-one, every sense goes needle-sharp and my focus surges.
On the clock, Yumi's Nocturne should still be on Gromp. We both have Smite. A jagged instinct—hackles standing straight up—sends the signal.
Right now.
I round the corner without a flicker of hesitation and step into the open. Gromp's health is hanging by a thread. I throw Q at Nocturne and the camp together, then Smite on pure instinct, not even bothering to count what the monster has left.
Nice!
A perfect steal. Nocturne, chewed down to two-thirds health from the fight, eats a Red-buffed shotgun blast full in the chest. She panics, burns Flash, and vanishes over the wall toward bot's inner tower.
A danger ping flares from bot. Xayah is gone.
A level-one Xayah? Hah. Let her come.
I drop a ward on the diagonal above the bush by Blue and rotate to Wolves—a spot that will read their path completely if Xayah and Nocturne chase. Meanwhile, thankfully, the enemy mid is still holding lane. Nothing here can scare me.
Bang. Bang. I save my skills and clear the small wolves with autos first. Then Nocturne and Zyra appear below.
Leona starts rotating in late to back me up, but I ping her to stay on the wave and take the lead, then hop the thin wall to the right of the wolves and throw them into chaos. Their target vanishes over the wall in an instant. The wolves pace the jungle, growling, while Xayah and Nocturne hesitate, unable to tell whether I've already slipped out toward mid and into the river. I'd already confirmed on team voice that Zyra had skilled Q at level one, not her root.
I wait for E to come back, then show myself without hesitation. A level-one Xayah. A level-two Nocturne. Two of them, so the effect of Guillotine Match drops away—but it's still a fight worth taking. A level-two Nocturne with no E is nothing but a sandbag to a Red-buff Graves, and a level-one Xayah without her root isn't much of a threat either.
As long as their mid or their ADC doesn't join, this is more than doable.
And the longer it dragged, the more I stood to gain. Their ADC was only Platinum. Take Xayah—the star their whole hands-gap was built around—out of the picture, and Lac and Mia could spend the entire day beating on that lane.
She seemed to realize it. Mid-trade, Xayah gave up first and returned to lane. Nocturne abandoned even the wolves and slunk off alone toward her own Red.
No kill. Still an enormous early lead. I finished the wolves, hit level three, hunted the bot Scuttle, and recalled at once. Boots and a Long Sword, then I skipped our Blue and the rest of our camps and headed for the top Scuttle—for one more look at Nocturne's face, still limping along at level two even after Raptors and Red, because I'd stolen her Gromp.
She peeked the river, greedy for the top crab. The moment she saw me she startled and vanished back into her own jungle. I cleared the Scuttle fast, swept with Oracle Lens, and walked straight toward the enemy small Krugs, where she was obviously going to be.
Top lane... is fine.
Renekton and Sett were squabbling around the middle of the lane, a fight that belonged only to them. Mid was the same. So I vaulted the wall with E again, no hesitation.
There she was—small Krug already dead, Nocturne just barely level three. I greeted her with a Q, then Smited the camp and stole it. A perfect-timing steal, courtesy of Guillotine Match. Experience flooded in. I hit level four.
She popped E and fought back hard. I Flashed toward her escape path, sidestepped the fear, and kept autoing as I ran her down. She'd already burned Flash back at Blue and never recalled, so aside from her jungle item she had nothing. Boots on my feet meant she had no way out of my hands.
Nocturne handed over First Blood with nothing to show for it.
Sett shoved his wave with everything he had and arrived late for backup, only to find himself in another one-on-one. We were both level four, but he still hadn't recalled, and his items were worse than mine. Gold tier, besides. In a word: a sandbag who would never be my match.
I hunted him with glee and gnawed his health to the bone. He scrambled under his tower in a panic. Bot's lead, and now top's as well. Wagyu popped his grinning-honeybee emote, delighted.
I pathed down from top, picked up Blue, Gromp, and Wolves, and recalled home again. One piece at a time I finished the components of the mythic Immortal Shieldbow. With the leftover gold I bought a Control Ward and headed back into the jungle.
Not my Red side. I boldly abandoned the juicy camps on the bottom half, crossed the river, and slipped into the enemy Red quadrant once more. I planted the Control Ward in the bush above Raptors and waited—for an innocent Nocturne to walk in, knowing nothing.
"I-is this really Hani? I can't believe it!"
"Honestly, I wasn't expecting this. We were sent the team's practice-game footage from the last two weeks ahead of time, and Hani's average KDA was barely touching two."
"Right. And her role was mostly propping the team up alongside the support in teamfights... or fishing for AoE crowd control on someone like Lillia. She never drew much attention. So what on earth is this?"
"She's completely demolishing them. It started with the Gromp counter-jungle, then First Blood on the Krugs, then another kill at Raptors! It looks like Yumi's the only one eating the loss, but that's not actually true."
"Exactly. First the collapse toward bot, then top, then mid. They gave up lane pressure to come help, and in that short window she still cashed in big and slipped away clean. At that point you don't even need a successful gank. Every lane is ahead enough on its own."
"And that's not all. Level six is everything for Nocturne, and Hani delayed that timing hard while gutting her farm, so every lane gets to play the lane phase in peace. She's playing this game by herself!"
At a gesture from the casters, the broadcast cut to a close-up of Yumi's stunned, hollow face. Each streamer had been given a choice—actually turn a camera on, or use a character still—and Yumi had picked the former. It was the worst choice she could have made. Every time she got counter-jungled, the feed caught her face twisted out of shape and her eyes looking ready to eat someone alive, plus a mouth that was clearly forming something vicious even if the words themselves couldn't be made out. More than thirty thousand viewers were watching it, clear as day.
Life and Summer realized and jumped to another streamer's screen, but it already felt a step too late. Chat roared with condemnation of Yumi. The casters looked stranded—and then, for one instant, peace arrived.
"Oh? Oh—ohh!"
"Th-that's Hani. She's wearing a mask... um, ahaha. Wow. I don't even know what to say."
Their reaction was the audience's, exactly. Eyes glittering like starlight above the mask. A figure so unreal it called models and idols to mind. And, last of all, a mid-game carry. Life had been handed only a rough briefing on Hani; seeing her for the first time, he stumbled over his words.
"Sh-she's really beautiful. Do you mostly do cam streams?"
"Hm? I'm seeing a little personal interest right now."
"What—no! Ah, don't pile on. It's not like that."
Life flustered, Summer wearing a wicked little smile... and the viewers had already shoved Yumi to the back of their minds, hammering out keysmash after frantic keysmash. The game, meanwhile, was grinding toward its end.
The mythic was finished. Level seven on top of it. I picked up the pace—through our jungle, and whenever I got bored, through theirs. No. Through the jungle that was mine now, firing the shotgun wherever I pleased.
Two kills on Nocturne, the jungle all to myself, and one successful bot gank already behind me. I was the Outlaw. The outlaw of the jungle. I took Dragon at my leisure, alone, and finished the Rift Herald too. Before fourteen minutes I walked top, dropped the Herald, and let Wagyu savor a fat stack of tower gold.
If a ruined Nocturne still had one place she might matter, it was probably top. So, as insurance, I grew Wagyu a little further.
"I don't see Zyra."
"It's fine. We can take the two-versus-one."
"Kyaa! Unnie, you're so cool today."
I secured the second Dragon and walked straight back into the enemy Blue without slowing down. Their mid laner had to be bitter—a Blue buff he hadn't laid eyes on once since the game began. Zyra and Nocturne were waiting and tried to fight, but the gap in items and levels was overwhelming.
A Grandmaster support? And what was I supposed to do with that? Two levels down, a whole core item behind. Nocturne was no better. I took Blue at my ease and rode the momentum straight through bot's outer tower.
Mid, though—mid still isn't easy.
When it comes to holding a siege, few champions are spoken of in the same breath as Azir. Sand soldiers summoned by the emperor of Shurima thrust their spears and swept the wave clean. Even with both outer towers, top and bot, already gone, he held stubborn and upright.
No matter how big I've gotten, diving Azir is asking for it. Nocturne will be on us with her ultimate in a heartbeat, too.
If a ruined Nocturne could still do anything, it was punish a reckless dive. So I set the play up instead. The target wasn't mid.
I'm carving bot open one more time!
Leona's ultimate dropped on Jhin's head. A quick Flash—but Leona answered with her own, closed the distance, and chained E into Q. Pinned under the crowd control, Jhin disappeared beneath Miss Fortune's ultimate, a waterfall of bullets pouring down on him.
"Slip out, just a little!"
In that same instant, two figures stepped into the open nearby: me, and Zyra. It didn't stop there. The screen went dark. Vision cut away. From somewhere came a low, morbid voice, hunting the dark.
But I had already marked where Jhin was. I fired Graves's ultimate, Collateral Damage, and a brutal line of explosion tore forward and finished him. At the same moment Leona, health hanging by a thread under tower shots, popped her Stopwatch. The instant it ended, Nocturne dove in and tore into her, while Zyra threw her ultimate to wall off me and Miss Fortune.
A fierce determination to finish at least Leona. I had no intention of giving Mia up.
"Just keep backing straight out. I'll draw the aggro."
"Got it!"
"Okay!"
"Good, good. Nice and calm."
An underfarmed Nocturne hit even softer than I'd expected. Tower damage, though, was nothing to shrug off, so I dashed in with E and shot her anyway, knowing full well Zyra's ultimate might knock me airborne. The tower's target swapped to me. At the same time Zyra Flashed forward and bound me tight in her root.
"I'm fine. I'm not dying. Save Leona first, then we go again."
"Okay!"
"Good, good. Stay calm. I like it."
Three tower shots landed. At the same time Immortal Shieldbow granted its Lifeline—drop below thirty percent health and gain a shield for three seconds. A perfect fit for a tough Graves. The moment the root ended I stepped out of tower range and lifestealed off a nearby minion.
Then danger pings started chaining from top.
"Teleport! Watch your back!"
"Where? Don't tell me they're coming back from far off."
No trace of a Teleport anywhere nearby. I told the two of them to keep backing straight out, then hopped the wall toward Gromp to secure a different way out. Sett stepped into view as if he'd been waiting.
"There! I'll come join you!"
"Don't! Just keep shoving. Bot, back off too. I'll handle this."
I shut down every teammate trying to rotate and insisted. The enemy's resistance, anchored on mid, was stronger than I'd expected. To break it, I had to drag the ones huddled inside out into the open. So this, right here, was the pressure point. A little over thirty percent health left, Lifeline already ticking through its cooldown, and a fat shutdown bounty riding on my head.
They couldn't resist the bait. They swarmed me. This was where I broke the game completely. And right now, it was a one-on-one with Sett.
Guillotine Match IV
The effect coils around my entire body.
The shotgun spat fire.