61 Everybody Help to Grind (1/2)
Yuel spread the word about practicing at the club and invited others to join in. Roi, Dan, Gilbert, Taison, and Gregory all dropped by from time to time to help with the grind. It was a huge boost, since playing with a five-man premade was a world apart from playing as a three-man premade. No more praying about being matched with decent teammates. Everybody in the club were skilled players and they all cooperated with Yuel's shit-calling, so the team was consistently strong in every game.
In particular, Roi and Dan were the most welcome visitors. They filled in the need for a Top Laner and a Jungler, and they were the best in the club at these roles.
Though, Dan was a little problematic sometimes. He was a good player, but his desire to master every Jungler class in existence made him pick an unconventional Jungler from time to time. Bottom tier classes like Rogue, complex classes like Chronomaster and even outright memes like Cryomancer.
Needless to say, these experiments didn't always go well. No matter how well Dan played, classes like Rogue were bottom tier for a reason and the Challenger division wasn't one to mess around in. Everybody who played at this level came a long way from the bottom, so they knew how to deal with memes and gimmicks. Still, Dan-of-all-Trades insisted.
”Can't you experiment in Casual?” Yuel asked after they suffered another defeat, in part because Dan played Druid Jungler. Why would anybody even do that...
”I experiment in Casual too,” Dan said. ”But, there ain't anywhere better than Ranked to test stuff for real. You know the matchmaking in Casual is clown fiesta.”
”I suppose that's true.” Yuel didn't like it, but he didn't have any good retorts. The matchmaking of Casual indeed worked in mysterious ways unbeknown to humankind. It supposedly matched players based on level, playtime and estimated skill. But in practice, there were huge skill gaps and games often snowballed. It may be because people used Casual to try new things, but bottom line it made Casual very unreliable and uncompetitive.
There's no choice, Yuel had accepted Dan's dedication to playing a billion different classes in Ranked. It surely slowed the team's progress on the ladder, but it was still leaps and bounds beyond playing in a three-man premade.
All in all, Roi and Dan greatly helped. Thanks to that, Yuel and Lars climbed to Challenger V by the end of the first month. Just one more rank and they'll catch up to Howard and Ellen!
Unfortunately, there were also some slowdowns the way. Unlike Roi and Dan, Taison and Gregory weren't as helpful. They insisted they were ”da best” Bot duo and demanded to play Support and Carry. As a result, Yuel and Lars had to take turns playing their main classes.
”Saw this shit?” Taison pumped a fist after scoring a kill. ”We're da best duo, yo!”
Admittedly, Taison and Gregory weren't terrible. They lagged behind on ranks because they didn't play Ranked as often, but they were definitely around Challenger level in term of skill.
Still, Taison wasn't Lars. He lacked the explosiveness and snowballing threat. The best thing about Lars in Ranked was how difficult it's to stop him once he starts rolling. At least 20% of the time, matches were single-handedly decided by Lars snowballing to victory. It crushed the spirit of the enemy team and led to an early surrender. Easy rank grinding. Everybody wanted Lars to carry for that reason.
But, Yuel agreed to entertain Taison and Gregory because a five-man premade was that valuable. Having Taison and Gregory in Bot was still better than not having them at all. So, Yuel and Lars altered between playing their main roles and playing Top and Jungler. It was an alright arrangement for Yuel, but not so much for Lars.
『An ally has been killed!』
”Gah!” Lars exclaimed. ”I almost got him! Sneaky dude.”
”That gank was a terrible idea.” Yuel shook his head.
”But he was about to get away with no HP! I had it, yo!”
”The result begs to differ,” Yuel pointed at the defeat message. ”You have to keep in mind whether your target has its ult ready. You can't just attack everybody who has low health.”
”But, how was I supposed to know whether his ult is up? I can't keep track of that stuff when I'm not even on lane.”
”You can ask others.”
”Oh, didn't think of that. Smart!”
”Literally basic logic.” Yuel sighed. In term of mechanical skill, Lars's ganks were amazing as expected. However, his lackluster map awareness and subpar decision-making were fatal for playing Jungler. Therefore, as far as playing Jungler was convened, his skill was stuck somewhere in Gold rank. Yuel ended up played Jungler instead most of the time, leaving Top to Lars.
There was also the option of letting Julia play Jungler, but that was an even bigger disaster. She was already struggling to balance her offensive and defensive sides, so adding the complexity of jungling on top of that didn't do her any favors.
However, Julia was decent as Top so Lars sometimes got to play Mid, his second best role. With access to burst damage, he managed to snowball and carry the team to victory from time to time. Still, he wasn't nearly as effective as when he played Carry. Ugh, such a waste...
Fortunately, they only had to deal with this whole headache once in a while, because Taison and Gregory didn't visit the club that frequently. These troublemakers were also fine with playing Jungler and Top at least half the time, and they were actually decent at these roles. In particular, Taison's aggressive jungling dominated in some games. Even though it wasn't his main role, he was likely among the top three Junglers in the club, second only to Dan and Ellen.
The seniors who graduated also caught wind of this summer camp and paid a few visits.
”Hey there!” Trever invaded the clubroom and smacked Yuel on the back. ”Heard you're throwing a party! Lemme in.”
”Ugh,” Yuel massaged his KO'd back. ”Who called you?”
”Roi said you were having fun here, so I decided to check on ya. You're throwing a party and don't even invite your dear seniors. So cold, man.”
[Okay, so it's Roi.] Yuel nodded to himself. Now he knew to whom to send a medical bill in case his back breaks from repeated smacks over the summer.
”Yo, dude,” Lars greeted his older self with some fake gangsta moves. ”The Carry role is already taken.”
”Seniors get priority, kid.” Trever puffed his chest. Gangsta negotiations began. ”I came here to help ya grind, so you better be thankful.”
”Yeah, it's awesome,” Lars nodded. ”We're missing a Jungler today, so you came at the best time, dude.”
”Heh, you think you can carry better than me? Don't forget I'm already Challenger IV.”
”It's because you're a geezer, so you grinded for a billion years.”
”Wha-!? I'm only two years older!”
[And yet you call us ”kids” all the time.] Yuel retorted mentally.
”Okay then!” Trever thrust a finger at Lars. ”Let's settle who gets Carry with a 1v1!”
”You're on!”
Aaaaand they went to fight each other for the next two hours. Sigh. This summer sure was going to be noisy...
In the end, every time there was competition for the Carry role, it was decided with a 1v1 between the two goofs. On some days, it was a 1v1v1 with Taison in the mix. Fortunately, Taison never came on top in 1v1v1, so it was always between Lars and Trever. On the other hand, in 1v1 Taison won a lot. Sigh The team was supposed to spend this summer grinding, but somehow these blockheads turned it into a 1v1 tournament...
The good news: Trever's performance as Carry was more than satisfactory. In fact, as long as he maintained his cool, Trever was even better than Lars thanks to his robust experience and superior decision-making. Trever even sometimes displayed the same snowballing potential as Lars, but only when he was ”on a roll”, as he called it.
Based on statistics, on average it took longer to win a match with Trever as Carry than it took with Lars as Carry. The difference was about five minutes, nothing to sneeze at. On the other hand, the win ratio with Trever was higher by almost four percent, so hard to say which of the two was a better Carry for grinding ranks.
One thing for sure, Trever was a better Carry than Taison and Yuel always played Support for him, so it worked out fine. When Trever wasn't Carry, he was usually a very competent Jungler, so all in all, they steadily grinded rank points with his help. Eventually, they hit Challenger V.
”This is where the grind begins for real,” Trever said. ”I've been stuck at Challenger V for like a year.”
”A year is too long.” Yuel clenched his fists. Challenger IV was the goal. Once there, he can rightfully challenge Howard for the Support spot. It was just one rank away! [It can't take a year. No, I won't let it.]
The first half of summer break ended, but there was another half to go. By the end of it, they'll reach Challenger IV. They had to. To accomplish in a month what took Trever a year... Ambitious, to say the least. At their current level, it was borderline impossible.
The promotion from Diamond to Challenger wasn't reflected only in the amount of grinding, there was also a noticeable difficulty spike. They came across more and more opponents with golden names, either pros or fellow competitive teenagers. Especially, when playing a five-man premade, almost every game was against a premade team of golden names.