So, they banned Shadow Walker, after all. Yuel nodded. Then, was there any point in dragging this out for so long? Normally, you'd ban it first. Was it just for the suspense? It sounds silly, but considering who the enemy captain is...

It was almost certainly done for the suspense. Specifically, to distract Yuel from other things. That was definitely a very Cato-like thing to do. He seemed to enjoy drawing things out needlessly in order to irritate his opponents.

I should keep this in mind. Yuel thought. He’s the type who’d take a less optimal route just for the sake of playing some petty mind games with his opponent. I can’t let him get to me.

With the banning phase over, the game moved into the first drafting phase. Stratus had the privilege to make the first pick.

“Since Kai wants to pick Bomber,” Yuel said. “Then it’s better for Top or Jungler to be magical. But, Nia doesn’t have any magical classes she can play, so...”

“No problemo, my good sir!” Vincent proclaimed. “I shall satisfy the demand and unleash my Spellblade upon the Leopards! Would that be acceptable?”

“Yes, Spellblade works fine. But, how confident are you with it?”

“As confident as I am with any other class, I would say.”

“That’s good, then.”

Spellblade was a decent class but it wasn’t picked up all too often. It was a magical damage-dealer, which was already unusual for a Top pick, and it also wasn’t very tanky compared to other common Top picks.

Therefore, Spellblade certainly couldn’t be played as a tank, and it barely even passed as a bruiser. That put the class in an awkward spot for Top’s meta, despite being fundamentally a solid class.

As such, Spellblade usually only showed up in some specific team comps. For example, in a comp where the Mid Laner was a physical damager dealer, like Bomber.

With Vincent taking on the role of a magical damage dealer, it allowed the team to have access to both physical and magical damage as usual. That was of utmost importance, as it’ll force the enemy to build both Physical Defense and Magical Defense.

Otherwise, the Leopards would have gladly focused on building only Physical Defense. As a result, they would have become so tanky that killing them would be a nightmare.

In conclusion, a mixture of magical damage and physical damage was absolutely necessary. However, just picking Spellblade wasn’t quite enough.

“So, Vincent will be our main magical damage dealer,” Yuel explained. “This means your build has to lean toward offense.”

“Indeed, it implies as much.” Vincent nodded. “It’s of utmost importance for me to output enough magical damage to warrant building Magical Defense, after all.”

“Exactly. So, in the long run, this means you’re going to be far squishier than even a bruiser. In other words, I’ll have to be the tank.”

“Indeed, indeed. You have figured it all out in a flash! As expected from Chessmaster!”

“This is just basic logic...” Yuel made a face. “Anyway, I’ll start by picking Druid for myself. Since it can be played in Top too, this hides our intentions well.”

“No objections,” Kai said.

And so, Stratus’ first pick became Druid. Next, it was the enemy's turn to pick.

"Druid, huh." Cato smiled. "A cute first pick since we can't tell whether it's for Top or Support."

"According to data..." Sonya searched the database in her head. "Chess played Druid last year. On the other hand, Blackhole hasn't played it even once so far. With that said, it's not like we have nearly enough statistics to draw a conclusion."

"True. So, it's best to assume that this Druid can be either Top or Support."

"Agreed. I'll take Monk, then."

"Alrighty, a solid choice. Nobody got any objections, right?" Cato confirmed with the rest before locking the pick.

It was a first pick that revealed quite a lot of information. It implied what kind of pace the Leopards were looking for in the upcoming game, which was very valuable information.

With that said, everybody and their moms must have researched the Leopards’ previous scrims to death. Therefore, everybody knew the Leopards were a defensive team. So, there was really no point in hiding such basic information at this point.

And naturally, the Monk pick didn’t surprise the enemy team at all.

As expected, they’ll be playing the long game. Yuel nodded.

As far as Top Laners were concerned, Monk was an extreme example of a late-game class. It started off with a handicapped kit due to having access to very little chakra, but in the late-game it turned into a monster that was capable of one-shotting enemies with its ult.

Hmm. Monk has both defensive and offensive tools. Yuel thought. So, I can’t tell who’ll be playing Top in this game.

It might be TheTheorist, who was an all-rounder strongly leaning toward defense. Or alternatively, it might be AbsoluteChallenger, an aggressive beast who challenged opponents at every opportunity in order to score kills.

Either way, Spellblade is a good pick against Monk, so we’re good. On the other hand, this second pick is not so good for us...

『The enemy team selected Lumimancer.』

A counter against Nia, no doubt. Lumimancer excelled at exposing stealthed opponents, and Nia could only play the classes that had stealth.

I figured enemy teams will pick up on this eventually, but I didn’t think it’d happen so soon. Yuel frowned. Still, all her classes have stealth, so that’s what I have to pick for her.

Since it was clear that the enemy figured Nia out, it was very likely that they’ll also target her with bans during the second banning phase. As such, Yuel had to pick Ninja now.

“Gooooo… d.” Nia nodded weakly in response to the pick, almost falling asleep again

Despite the many efforts to wake her up, she still looked as if she’ll doze off at any moment. Hopefully, the adrenaline rush of being in an actual game will wake her up…

As for the second pick of this round, Yuel chose Pirate for Lars. It was a high-tier class, so it was best to seize it before the enemy got the chance.

“Aight, mates!” Lars grinned. “Let’s plunder dis game, yo!”

For this game, he wasn’t going to play the Elf class he worked so hard on, but that was going to be exciting in its own right. Pirate was one of the cooler classes out there, so Lars felt right at home with it. In fact, Yuel really wanted Pirate to become the next class Lars will master after Elf.

Pirate was a strong meta pick that didn’t have any glaring weaknesses. As such, there weren’t any real counter-picks against it.

The only real way to counter Pirate is to kill him early, which would hurt his progression quite severely. Yuel thought. But, the Leopards will have to play aggressively to score any early kills, and I don’t see them do that. They’re a defensive team and they’ve already committed to playing the long game with that Monk pick. So, Pirate is a safe pick here.

After Stratus’ Pirate pick, the enemy picked Lionfolk. And, after the second banning phase, they went for Aeromancer.

Per protocol, the Leopards first banned Electromancer before they picked Aeromancer. So, they pretty much telegraphed the Aeromancer pick ahead of time.

I wonder if I should’ve banned Aeromancer after seeing the Electromancer ban. Yuel thought. But, I haven’t seen any of them use Aeromancer yet, so I don’t really have any strong objections to it. And, Bomber can deal with Aero just fine.

After mulling over it for a few good seconds, Yuel ultimately concluded that it was probably fine. In the worst-case scenario, if this Aeromancer proves to be a powerful adversary, then that’ll be good to know for the future.

All in all, the enemy didn’t pick anything that was particularly troublesome. But, at the same time, all their picks were safe and couldn’t be counter-picked.

As such, the rest of Stratus’ picks followed the agreed plan: Bomber for Kai and Spellblade for Vincent.

For the Leopards’ last pick, they went with Droid. It was an interesting choice. The class was considered high-tier, yet in practice, it was a rather niche pick.

Droid’s main appeal was its impressive self-sufficiency. The class had the ability to defend itself from incoming shots with a shield, as well as to place pseudo-wards via a skill.

However, these very same advantages were also the reason the class was a niche pick. Instead of having access to more straightforward abilities that could help with clearing waves or pushing lanes, the Droid had two utility skills that had to be utilized smartly.

Naturally, to justify its existence, the Droid also had a third skill that helped with both wave clearing and lane pushing. However, that was just one ability out of an entire kit, and the three abilities also shared a resource and couldn’t be utilized simultaneously.

In other words, the Droid player had to smartly decide when to utilize which utility. So, the required level of decision-making was far above what was expected from the average Carry, a role that was better known for mechanical skill than for tactical finesse.

For one, I know that the great goof can’t handle it at all. Yuel thought. The few times I had him play Droid, he pretty much only used one ability out of the entire kit.

Lars definitely didn’t have the right mindset for wheeling a class like Droid, not at present and maybe not ever. On the other hand, somebody from the Leopards was confident he could put this class to good use.

“Cool!” Ronald exclaimed. “Since you’re going Droid, it means I can build more power than usual, right? Right?”

“You can build whatever you want,” William said. “Just don’t forget to ward during the early-game.”

“Sure thing, bro!”

“And,” Cato added. “Make sure you build at least some supporting items. You’re still the Support this game, as much as I don’t want to rely on your supporting.”

“Hey, rude,” Ronald objected. “Don’t you know? Offense is the best defense! I can support that much better with a power build!”

“That’s because you’re a blockhead who’s only good at fighting.”

“Hey, hey! Don’t slander, man. I do my job properly when I play Support.”

“You do a passable job, at best.”

“Grrrr.” Ronald growled. “Well, whatever. You can stay wrong for all I care.”

“My, the denial is strong with this one.”

“Lalala! I can’t hear you over the sound of how wrong you are.”

“Am I really wrong, though?” Cato asked. “Deep down, you know the truth, don’t you? That your supporting is just barely passable.”

“I say bro should be the one to settle this. Bro, you agree that my supporting is totally awesome, right? You trust me to do well, right?”

“I only trust myself,” William said. “As long as you don’t drag me down, then I don’t care how you perform.”

“Whoa, so cool!” Ronald grinned. “You see?” He turned to Cato. “That’s a real pro for you. Bro doesn’t sweat the small stuff. He focuses on kicking ass because that’s all that matters.”

“I have absolutely no idea how you made this absurd leap of logic, and I don’t even want to understand it.” Cato sighed. “Just make sure you don’t forget you’re a Support, regardless of how you build your Lumi.”

“Gotcha, gotcha.”

I really hope he understands. Cato narrowed his eyes. I swear, this troublemaker never stops making my life difficult. The only reason I tolerate this “Selfish Support” playstyle of his is that Will is somehow fine with it and because it sort of works. I’m definitely not a fan of it, though.

The Support player was supposed to be exactly what it said on the tin: a selfless player whose job was to support the rest of the team. So, this was one role that had no business selfishly seeking power. Alas, players like Ronald disagreed with that simple logic.

I rather not lose any of the games today. Cato thought. But at the same time, I also really want Stratus to school this brainless tool. C’mon Yuel, teach this brat a lesson. Make this world a better place to live in, pretty please~

And so, the drafting phase came to an end.

=== Stratus ===

Yuel (Chessmaster): Druid

Lars (Gunz): Pirate

Vincent (InformationBlackhole): Spellblade

Kai (Beat): Bomber

Nia (VanishingFlower): Ninja

=== Leopards ===

Ronald (AbsoluteChallenger): Lumimancer

William (AbosluteWinner): Droid

Sonya (TheTheorist): Monk

Cato (Rook): Lionfolk

Matthew (Merlin): Aeromancer