Classmancers - A MOBA Esport Story

Vol.2 Ch.15: Tactical Sacrifice

After ComboBreaker scored two kills in succession, the Leopards gained a huge momentum. Worse still, said kills were on Trever and Gilbert, who were considered the team's key players. Even though everybody in StormBlitz managed to keep themselves together and focus on winning the match, it was quite the mental blow.

Both teams were fairly even until now, but this incident tilted the odds in the Leopards' favor. During the mid game, Breaker became way more active than in the early game. She rotated across the map to gank Yuel's teammates, almost as if she's a second Jungler. The absurd burst of her combo build allow her to eliminate enemies in a flash, so she was even scarier than the actual Jungler. She was like an unstoppable Queen piece, who zigzagged across the board to snatch pawns and pieces.

In these situations, everybody hoped to borrow the help of the Jungler. It was the role with the best global presence, so it was most fitting for countering the enemy's global presence. Alas, Dan couldn't do much when his own turf became a danger zone.

He ran into Breaker once in the Jungle. That ended in an instant, he was torched in a blink of an eye. Not only he failed to stop her incoming gank, but he also fed her further.

After finishing Dan, Breaker continued her rotation as planned. She went after Roi in Top, but thankfully he wiggled his way out of her dangerous gank. He had no HP left and was forced to retreat, but at least he survived.

"Great job making it out alive, bro!" Trever gave a thumb up.

"Easy." Roi grinned and lightly punched Dan's shoulder. "Your sacrifice wasn't in vain, lol."

"You're always welcome." Dan made a face. Thanks to Dan getting eliminated in the jungle, Roi was alerted early about the incoming gank. On top of that, Breaker had to use her combo to kill Dan quickly, so it was still on cooldown by the time she arrived in Top. Thus, most of the gank came down to being barraged by the Pyromancer's fast basic attacks, which Roi's sturdy Knight managed to survive.

"You didn't even swing at her shots." Dan pointed out. "What's wrong? Scared to take her on?"

"No way I gonna swing against her on the first try. She's like a pitcher who gets strikeouts by strength. That's not something you can deal with in your first at-bat."

"How the mighty cleanup fell."

"Shut up, lol. I'll hit her shots all the way to the back screen next time."

Despite the dire circumstances, the team maintained a positive atmosphere. Joking around distracted them from the gravity of the situation. It was a simple, but impressive, technique.

Nevertheless, despite the positive attitude, the team couldn't recover from heavy blows it received during mid game. Breaker's ganks followed by swift kills, which followed by big pushes. StormBlitz members fell behind, in both exp and map control.

Even when a gank didn't result in a kill, it had devastating implications. After chasing Roi away, Breaker pushed the Top Turret together with the Viking. They took the Turret down uncontested. Despite being a mage, Breaker was the enemy's Carry in this composition, so leaving her alone with a tower resulted in losing the tower.

The Turrets in other lanes were in terrible shape too, due to Breaker's earlier ganks. Mid Turret fell down to 20% and Bot Turret was at 50%. With how much Breaker traveled across the map, one would think it'd be easy to push the lanes she was absent from. Alas, that approach was shot down by Freezer, of all people.

Just like Breaker, Freezer's playstyle undergone a drastic change during the mid game. He still maintained a defensive playstyle like before, but he extended his defense to all three lanes. Whenever StormBlitz planned to push an undefended lane, he always showed up to stop that idea. His style was similar to Howard's, except he always handled the defense himself, rather than instructing teammates how to defend better. So, he was like a dumbed down version of Howard. A Mini-Howard, if you will.