Classmancers - A MOBA Esport Story

Vol.6 Ch.10: Restricting Defensive Options

While setting up the tablet for the 2v2, Yuel shared his observations with Lars.

"Judging by their ranks," Yuel said. "It might be a good idea to focus on Vincent first."

"We gonna focus the Support?"

"Maybe," Yuel narrowed his eyes as he glanced at the enemy camp. Vincent was busy explaining something to Kai with his usual exaggerated hand motions. That clown was always speaking a lot of nonsense, but it also seemed like there was some unexpected sharpness to him.

Maybe Yuel was just imagining it, but it felt like Vincent figured that Yuel will be gunning for him. Something about their exchanges before the match just rubbed Yuel the wrong way.

"We'll have to see how it goes," Yuel said. "For now, my plan is to ban Support classes with good escapes. Let's focus on Vincent whenever we can and see where we go from there."

"Okey-dokey," Lars flashed his teeth and saluted.

The banning phase began. Yuel's side won the virtual in-game coin toss, so he got to ban first. His first target was Knight. It was a class with a solid combination of tankiness and mobility, so a Support who wanted to keep himself alive while helping his lane partner would opt for Knight.

I think I hit bullseye. Yuel gauged Vincent's reaction from afar: a dry laugh followed by a head shake. Even if Knight wasn't going to be Vincent's first pick, it was most certainly a pick he was considering.

In response, the other team banned Trickshooter.

"Yo!" Lars exclaimed. "For real? How did they know!?"

"It must be Vincent," Yuel deduced. "He saw the scrimmage, so he knows how strong your Trickshooter is."

"And here I thought I'll get to go wild on them," Lars twisted his lips. "C'mon dude, ban their best Carry too!"

"And how would I know their best Carry?"

"I believe in ya! You're smart and stuff."

Being smart doesn't magically make me know things. Yuel retorted mentally. He got an early read on Vincent, so he could estimate what classes Vincent was considering. However, as for Kai? Yuel didn't know the first thing about her as a player.

Kai was rather stoic and it was difficult to read her expressions, especially with that black cap that covered her face whenever she was lowering her head. Why was she even wearing that cap inside a basement?

Anyway, there was one Carry which Yuel definitely saw fitting to ban: Elf. Depending on how well Vincent studied Lars during the scrimmage, there was a chance Vincent realized Lars had a bad habit of overextending at times. Yuel has been working hard with that goof on fixing this weakness, but it hasn't been entirely resolved yet.

Therefore, if the enemy chooses to go with a defensive game plan, it might cause some trouble for Lars. Thus, Elf had to go.

In response, the enemy banned Paladin. Yet again, a class that showed strong performance during the StormBlitz vs. Leopards scrimmage. Yuel's Paladin even impressed the Leopards back then and posed enough of a threat to warrant their ban.

Based on these bans, it was evident Vincent didn't know much about Yuel and Lars beyond what he saw in that one scrimmage. So, all his bans were likely going to be based on that one event. So much for his amazing "Information Blackhole". He didn't know squat about Yuel and Lars's other strong options.

For the third ban, Yuel banned Lumimancer. It wasn't a tanky class but its Flash spell was a blink, so that made the class great at escaping. Now, with both Knight and Lumimancer out of the picture, there weren't that many options for Vincent to go for if he wanted an evasive Support.