Classmancers - A MOBA Esport Story - Part 2

Vol.14 Ch.5: Cato, a Blast From the Past

Stratus arrived early for the scrimmage, so they had some time to kill in the waiting room. Some of them used their free time to review the material on the Leopards, while others chose to relax or mess around.

Meanwhile, Yuel dug deep into the history of his chess matches. All his official matches were recorded on his account, so it was easy enough to find matches from two years ago.

"You competed in chess at the regionals, almost two years ago now." That's the hint Fiona gave Yuel regarding the identity of "Cato", whoever that might be. Apparently, the guy was somebody from the Leopards and he played chess against Yuel before.

I'm not sure if any of this is important at all, but I might as well look it up. Maybe I'll learn something new about one of their players.

And so, Yuel went over the few matches he had in the last regionals he participated in, almost 2 years ago now. His game history was uncharacteristically short for that particular tournament, for he was eliminated in the early rounds.

In retrospect, that was very unbecoming of him. He won the regionals a year before that, so people probably expected a strong performance from him that year as well. And yet, he dropped out very early after losing to a minor opponent whose name he couldn't even remember.

Maybe I should've prepared a little harder. Yuel thought. But, it couldn't be helped. I was already busy with Classmancers back then. There was no time to spare for chess.

To Fiona, words like that might sound like a lame excuse. After all, she was a madwoman who threw herself at a plethora of different sports, expecting to excel in each and every one of them.

Sorry, but I'm not as good at multitasking. Yuel excused himself. I believe it's far better for me to focus on one main sport and train to become a pro at it. Everything else is secondary.

He held onto this exact mentality two years ago as well, therefore he neglected his chess practice. He only did the bare minimum to keep himself in shape and improve on some of his smaller faults, but he didn't intensely research any new positions or such.

To be fair, I still expected to go further than this. Yuel thought as he scrolled through the three matches he played that day.

The tournament had a single-elimination format, so a single defeat spelled his doom. And, said defeat happened to come as early as the third round. Truly, it wasn't a befitting performance for a former regional champion.

So, who did I lose to, again? Yuel checked his last game. I'm surprised I don't even remember who defeated me. I'm usually way more attentive to my own defeats, but I guess I was too obsessed with Mancers at the time to really care.

Yuel opened the overview of the third game. Before anything else, he checked the name of his opponent. The name displayed there was... Cato Francis.

Just great. Yuel frowned. I have a bad feeling about this... He loaded the game and examined it move by move.

The early-game was according to standard theory for the most part. The enemy's development was on the slower side, but the guy smoothly deflected every attack Yuel launched at that point.

Nonetheless, nothing in particular seemed too impressive about this opponent. As far as Yuel could tell, he had an obvious board advantage from early on.

Did I really lose this? Yuel wondered as the early-game went on. With how slow his development is, it should've been easy enough to take control of the board. I know I was less invested in chess at the time, but this looks like an open-and-shut case... or not.