Classmancers - A MOBA Esport Story

Vol.5 Ch.24: Bait Twist

"Yo!" Lars shouted. "Athena is here!"

"Ah," Julia exclaimed. "And Howard came over here."

What? Yuel looked back and forth between the two sides of the map. Ellen cut through the jungle to intercept Lars near the beginning of Bot Lane, whereas Howard abandoned the Golem's area to engage Julia at the end of Bot Jungle.

Is that supposed to be a defensive tactic? Yuel couldn't wrap his head around it. This looked nothing like Howard's typical plays. The intention here was clearly to stop Lars and Julia from regrouping, which made some sense from the defenders' perspective. Dealing with two aggressive DPS enemies in one place was often harder than stalling each of them separately.

But, was the goal behind this play just to stall Lars and Julia? Or, could it be enemy were aiming for a kill here?

If this play was Howard's idea, then it's unlikely this play was intended for scoring kills. However, if Ellen came up with this play, it could have twenty ulterior motives packed into it.

Okay, what do I do here? Yuel frowned. Should he let Lars and Julia engage in 1v1s? Or, should they regroup and then fight in a 2v2? No, that'd be suicide. The team play between Howard and Ellen was frightening. Making Lars and Julia 2v2 the enemy's aces was risky beyond measure. However, at the same time, holding two 1v1s wasn't exactly appealing either...

"Okay!" Lars shouted. "This time, I'mma finish this!" He charged at Ellen without thinking twice, as expected from that goof. Where there was a battle to fight, Lars would fight it no matter what.

"Wait, don't be reckless," Yuel warned. "Something is afoot."

"Hmph," Julia scoffed. "No shit, Sherlock. They totally timed this stuff." Unlike Lars, Julia understood this wasn't a normal situation. And yet, just like Lars, she attacked her opponent without wasting any time.

They're both like hungry beasts. Yuel smiled meaningfully. When Julia entered her Attack Mode, it's she channeled Lars's playstyle. She wasn't quite as strong and overwhelming as Lars, but she had unexpected explosive strength which has been proving effective so far.

Therefore, with Julia joining the offense, Yuel felt like he was carrying two shotguns this game instead of just one. If he just fires them at the right targets, he'll completely destroy what little remained from Howard's flimsy defense!

However, he couldn't handle the shotguns careless. To make the right call, he first had to understand the enemy's intentions for this peculiar play. Even though separating Lars and Julia made some sense from the defenders' perspective, the Yuel wasn't convinced this was just a defensive stunt.

If the enemy's goal was to defend, a 2v2 should work in Howard and Ellen's favor because they had a high level of team-play which they've been polishing for years. Compared to them, this was Lars's first time playing alongside Julia's Attack Mode, so their synergy won't be nearly as effective. Therefore, the enemy's play didn't make much sense for defense.

So, was it an offensive play? Was the goal to kill Lars or Julia? That didn't seem likely either. Howard didn't have the damage to take Julia down. In fact, given Julia's performance so far, she might even kill Howard instead in a 1v1.

Similarly, Ellen won't be able to kill Lars under fair conditions. They've both just returned from their bases and had full HP, so Ellen didn't have any advantages over Lars. In fact, Lars had a big advantage because he was Seraph, the notorious late-game Hyper Carry. Ranger was more of a mid-game class, so its strength didn't peak nearly as high as Seraph during the late-game.

On top of that, there was no threat of Taison teleporting to aid in any of these fights. Based on the last time he used Teleport, it should still be on cooldown for about a minute. Therefore, Ellen couldn't even bait Lars into fighting Taison like she has been doing the entire day.