Nia killed the Dark Knight and secured ne advantage. However, it didn't st for long. The Dark Knight returo terrorize the area after Nia got to do only one small push on his Turret.

  Will her gimmick work a sed time? Yuel wondered. Last time, Nia caught the Dark Knight off guard with that suicidal roll. Will the Dark Knight be dumb enough to fall for it again? This was a qualifier match, so there was a ce this Dark Knight wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

  Unfortunately, the Dark Knight cooked up a ter of sorts. After he eliminated Nia's entire minion wave, he backed away a his minions push on their own. He didn't dare to get close to Nia, which stopped him from overextending. It was overpensation but the guy clearly learned a lesson. Nia’s py successfully seeded terror in him.

  Though uncharacteristically defensive for a Dark Knight, this response made a lot of sense. Even without joining any pushes from now on, he has dealt more than enough damage to the Turret at this point. Nia's Turret was hanging by a thread and she couldn't stop the minions from invading because the Vampire cked fast AoE clear. So, even without the Dark Knight’s help, the minions delivered damage ourret with every push.

  This isn’t good. Nia sulked. The team’s Ninja didn’t go out of his way to gank Top, so nobody was there to help her stop the invaders. It was over.

  An allied Turret has beeroyed!

  In the end, the Turret crumbled. Despite all her efforts, Nia lost her important line of defense.

  Wham! A dark ssh wiped out her entire army again. And, this time, she couldn't even fall back to her Turret to defend. Her line of defense was now all the way baear the base, at the Top Golem. She had no choice but to retreat all the way back there and surrender ne trol to her oppo.

  Even in this desperate situation, there was no news from the team's Juhe guy was sleeping on this whole development.

  "We lost," Nia pouted and started a surrender vote.

  "Wha-!?" Yuel was taken aback. "cel that at o's too early to give up."

  "It’s less than 10 minutes in and they're already pushing the Golem. GG. We're ded."

  "I agree, that’s a severely disadvantageous position to py from. But, it's no reason to give up."

  "Hrm, ok," Nia celed her surrender vote. Only a few MOBAs out there allowed people to ge their surrender votes like that before the voting was over. The game allowed even Nia, the one who initiated the voting, to ge her mind.

  Truly, this feature was a godsend. With its help, Yuel vinced many of his oeammates to not give up evehe circumstances seemed dire. By ging the mind of at least one person, it ossible to avert a disaster.

  Thankfully, only oher person voted for surrehe vote remained anonymous so they couldn't tell who oeam was the quitter. Most likely, it was somebody who was currently fming Nia in chat for the situation in Top. After all, with all said and done, losing a Turret so early into the game was demoralizing. In a petitive match, it assured defeat.

  However, this was just a qualifier match with pyers of unknown caliber, so anything could happen. That Dark Knight only won the hanks to the Dark Knight's early-game advaher than that, he wasn't a particurly impressive pyer.

  On top of that, the oime he died seemed to have shaken him badly. He probably won’t be taking any risks in the near future. So, despite losing the ne, Nia was still ily stalling the Dark Knight.

  The Dark Knight was overwhelming the team right now but his power advantage won't st forever. Ohey hit mid-game, the guy will be exposed as the mediocre pyer he was. At that point, Nia's team will mount a ter-attack. Hopefully.

  "Phew, finally," Nia sighed as the Dark Knight finally decided to give her a break and stop pressuri the Golem. The guy turned around and vanished into the jungle.

  Is he recalling? Nia wondered. Well, not like I care. She turned around and ran into the base. She was so close to the base it was faster to get there by foot than via recalling.

  "I wouldn't be so happy about this," Yuel said. "There's a ce he went to steal your camps. Or, even worse, to gank Mid. You o call missing and warn Mid."

  "Oh, ok." Nia used a macro for missing enemy in Top and a ping that told their Sorcerer to watch out. As, that didn't quite help...

  An ally has been killed!

  The Dark Knight rent asuhe Sorcerer and proceeded to attack the Turret.

  An allied Turret has beeroyed!

  "See? Told you." Nia pouted. "We're ded."

  "This is indeed rough," Yuel didn't have any reassuring words to spare this time. Dark Knight was a "noob stomper" for a reason. A dysfunal team like this had a very hard time dealing with this harbinger of doom.

  A surrender vote has started for your team.

  This time, it wasn't Nia. The Sorcerer initiated the vote. Though, his reasoning robably all the same: "I lost the ne so it’s over."

  Such a weak will. Yuel shook his head. As he thought that, another pyer voted in favor of surrendering.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Yuel asked. "You're throwing again?"

  "But, we lost," Nia pouted.

  "You haven't lost until you see theDEFEAT message on your s. Stop ag like every little problem means the end of the world."

  "Hrm, ok," Nai withdrew her vote again. Another pyer pced a surrender vote but two weren't enough to decide a surrender. Yet again, the team dodged a disaster.

  "Defend Mid for now," Yuel said. "You'll have to py the patience game for a while."

  "I dunno how we gonna win with two Turrets down..."

  "It's rough but not impossible. You just have to wait until mid-game. The Dark Knight will beuch less of a threat by then and you'll be able to-"

  TheGoldenStar (Sorcerer) has left the game!

  "Wow," Yuel narrowed his eyes. "People ragequit even during qualifiers? I heard that makes the system think poorly of you."

  "Ok, now we're ded for sure, right?"

  "If he doesn’t return then, unfortunately, yes. Give him a couple of minutes. If he's not back, you’re free to surrender."

  If it were up to Yuel, he'd fight 4v5 to the bitter end. However, that’d be pying on uneven ground so it was reasoo quit. A 4v5 of this type was an "unrealistic" sario as far as petitive py was ed, so there wasn’t much practical knowledge or skill to gain from it.

  Three mier and there was still no sign of the Sorcerer returning. So, the team surrendered. It was an anticlimactid unfortunate finale.

  Thanks for nothing, ThePoopStar. Nia grumped as another red X appeared on her qualifier record. After this match, she now had one win and four defeats.

  “Gufu...” Nia sunk in her chair. At this rate, the devs gonna i a new Wood league below Bronze and throw her in there.

  "You're not queueing for aname?" Yuel asked.

  "Break time," Nia put down her troller and fished in her bag. She threw a g Yuel auro her fishing. Then, she pulled out a bunch of chocotes.

  "Hrm," She stretched a bar of chocote toward Yuel.

  "Why, thank you," Yuel accepted the offer. "I see you don't discriminate against me this time."

  "It's payment for repg Tipmancer."

  So, I'm just an app, huh. Yuel smiled wryly but accepted the payment for his hard work. Frankly, it wasn't easy dealing with Nia so a reward was he dark chocote hit the spot. Just how many different snacks this does girl carry in her bag, anyway?

  "Yo, we’re doh the match," Lars called out. "Wanna join us for the one?"

  "No, you go ahead," Yuel said. "I rather watia's matches some more. She got a lot to learn."

  "Welp, okay then," Lars shrugged. "Let's go, my dudes! Another ez victory!"

  They seem to be doing well. Yuel thought. Ben was in the clubroom for a ge so they formed a full team even without Yuel. The fact they were on a winning streak only proved how little difference Yuel made as a Top Laner. Even Ben, with his retively unpolished skill, was more than enough for the team to fare well.

  After a needlessly long half-hour break, Nia queued into her 6th qualifier match. This time, the other pyers respected her early role call a her py Jungler.

  "Guh, Tipmaill saying Rogue isn't that ght now," Nia scrolled through the Juier list.

  "It's correct," Yuel nodded. "Rogue is g some tools to be truly petitive."

  "Weird. I pyed it a bunch before disc Tipmancer and it worked. I even steamrolled sometimes."

  "I'm sure you did. Rogue is like Dark Knight, it's good at steamrolling uncoordieams. Especially, teams which don’t ward enough."

  “Sounds det.”

  “Yes, it’s a nice advao have in oches. But, in the end, it suffers from the same problems Dark Knight got, except fue the payoff is much lower. Even when Rogue gets ahead early, it’s not going to be as dominating as Dark Knight.”

  “Sad story,” Nia said. “I’ll take Ninja then, since Shadow is banned as always.”

  “That works.”

  This match proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ninja was one of Nia’s best csses, both in Duel and in MOBA. She knew how to farm camps effitly and she frequently snuck up to enemies fank. She y low during the early-game, the on a killing spree during the mid-game.

  You have killed an enemy!

  She snuck up to the unsuspeg Eleancer and smashed him into the ground with Izuna Drop. It was over in a matter of seds.

  He should’ve hugged the tower with that HP. Yuel criticized the Eleahe guy refused to fall back despite being at 60% HP. It’s as if he didn’t even sider the possibility of being ganked by Nia.

  And, this wasn’t a oime occurrence. Almost every kill Nia scored had a simir pattern. For some reason, the eeam never saw her ing. The way she blended into the background and made her enemies lower their guard was impressive. It almost felt like a real superpower. Almost.

  “Vanishing Phantom”, huh. Yuel smiled wryly. Even though he uood the theory behind it, the way it pyed out in practice took him aback every time a new. If this approach works in the petitive se as well, it’ll be huge.

  Unfortunately, despite Nia sg kills on Mid and Bot, their Top was in a difficult situation. The enemy Monk has been pressuring their Knight for a while now and Nia has been ing the ne. Her excuse was that she “won’t get any kills” there. A silly argument. Yuel will have to eventually tell her to-

  “Hm, Top is in trouble,” Nia mumbled. “Anything I do about it? I don’t think I get a kill on that Monk.”

  “Ah,” Yuel blinked. Yes! Finally! Nia saw the light! “If you ’t vert a gank into a kill, just pressure him into retreating. If you feel like experimenting and want to optimize time, you just send your e over there and scare him away, without actually going all the way over there yourself.”

  “Oh, that’s smart,” Nia nodded. She snuck up toward Top a a e in the dire of the ne. Will this work? Hehe, will be funny if it does.

  The trick worked like a charm. Even though the Monk has been fidently dominating the he ech, he ran away like a scaredy-cat the moment he saw the approag Ninja e. He had no way to tell whether this was the real Nia or not aher way, it was a big red fg.

  From his perspective, either that Ninja was the real deal and was ing to kill him, or it was a e, which implied the real Ninja was nearby ih. Either way, it was a dangerous situation so it was safer for the Monk to retreat and surrender some ne advantage.

  "Kuku, it really worked," Nia smirked. "I didn't get a kill, tho."

  "That again?" Yuel spat a sigh. "As I said, a Jungler's job isn't just to get kills. Sometimes, you have to apply pressure on nes even if you won't get kills from it."

  "Yeah, I kinda get it now," Nia said. Ganking a ne for something other than a kill or split-pushing seemed weird at first, but it was actually pretty effective sometimes. Just by spooking the Monk with her e, she stopped the guy's aggression ahe allied Knight regain some footing on the was a little hard to immediately appreciate the sequences of this py as the Jungler, but their Top Laner surely appreciated this gesture. She kinda knew how it felt because she pyed Top just the other matbsp;

  Just like this Knight, Nia ressured hard on ne during the previous game and needed some help from the Jungler. However, that Jungler had o spare. That scumbag ed Top and never helped her out. Maybe he was scared of the Dark Knight (a legit ) or maybe he didn't see any opportuo get kills. Either way, Nia got stu Top alohout any help. It wasly what one would call a fun experience.

  So, now Nia uood that any help she could give the Knight this match will be much appreciated, even if she couldn't get a kill for herself this way. Still, she had no idea how to go about making such weird unintuitive pys. So, good thing she had the Yuelmancer app with her, the successor to Tipmancer!

  Yuel was a tad harsh and liked lecturing like he was some professor, but he knew a lot. So, it was a good idea to sult him as often as possible. He had all the ao everything. Nia should definitely make it into a habit to ask him for advi every little thing. Ez high-level deaking.

  DarkestCymore