Classmancers - A MOBA Esport Story - Part 3

Vol.17 Ch.22: The Mid-Game Plan

Therefore, instead of waiting for an opportunity to present itself, Yuel had to actively create one. And, he already had a couple of ideas on that matter. As usual, the plan revolved around exploiting the enemy's most glaring weaknesses.

Challenger is their most vulnerable link. He's mechanically strong and can be overwhelming on the offense, but his defense seems lacking compared to the rest of their team.

As such, out of the Leopards' roster, Challenger was the most attractive target. In fact, Nia even almost scored a kill on him already. The gank in Top could have easily converted into a kill if Ben was close enough to aid her.

Unfortunately, that was the first and only opportunity Nia has gotten so far. Ever since, Challenger has been playing more carefully. He retreated more frequently than before, making it impossible to catch him off-guard.

It feels like their entire team plays that way in this game. Yuel analyzed. This must be an organized defense plan against Nia. I'm surprised they realized the threat she poses so quickly. They didn't seem to pay nearly as much attention to her in the first game.

Perhaps, back then, Nia did a poor job avoiding enemy wards. That made it clear to the Leopards when it was truly necessary to retreat.

Not to mention, in that game, the Leopards held the upper hand the entire time. So, they had no reason to be concerned about some stumbling Jungler.

But, things have changed since then. Stratus managed to score a win against the champions, and Nia must've been doing a great job playing around enemy wards this time around. Combined, these two factors kept the Leopards on their toes.

As usual, Cato didn't cut any corners with his defense. If he spotted even the smallest hint of a potential threat, he reinforced his defenses in advance to make sure this threat won't get any opportunities to work with.

This was a different approach from Howard's defense, which dynamically adjusted to the threat depending on the situation. Instead of putting the entire team on the defensive for the whole game, Howard handled the threats as they came.

This approach made it that much harder to tell which threats Howard was actually aware of, so there was always a sense of paranoia in the air. And, whenever Yuel made the wrong guess - he walked right into a counter.

In that sense, fighting Cato's defense is more straightforward. Yule thought. He's very upfront about his hyper-defensive playstyle, to a fault. Though, that also makes it far more annoying to actually deal with...

The Leopards' defense was uptight at all times, that's why even Challenger was a hard target to gank. He had all the makings of an excellent target for Nia, but Cato must've been enforcing his defensive methodology on the poor guy.

Honestly, that obnoxious defense almost equalizes all the potential targets. Yuel summarized. It barely matters which target is "easier" to gank when the entire team is being so defensive across the board. Essentially, all of them are difficult to gank without a proper plan. So, perhaps focusing on Challenger is narrow-minded.

Overall, delivering a gank on Challenger still had the highest chance of success. However, it seemed like a small chance increase compared to ganking anybody else, so it probably wasn't worth getting fixated on.

Besides, Challenger is on the other side of the map, so I can't reach him that easily. Yuel reasoned. On the other hand, I can rotate to Mid, so maybe I can make something happen over there.

Time was of the essence. Yuel wanted to execute a strong, decisive play as soon as mid-game strikes. It was absolutely necessary for Stratus to establish early momentum in order to drive this game to victory.