“Now hold on,” Quince said, skepticism obvious in his voice. “You said you’d be bringing me on for mid. Plus, don’t you need to report the roles everyone is playing to the tournament organizers?”

Jade laughed lightly, a sound that– in a less stressful situation than the game earlier– stuck in Emma’s head enough that she barely managed to pick up the sentence that followed. “You have to tell them people’s potential roles, and each person only gets three. It’s supposed to be used for a bench, but I hope it’s clear here that we won’t exactly be coloring inside the lines.”

She found herself speaking before she could trip herself up thinking again. “Um… what kind of abilities do you already have?”

“Well, you saw Nathan’s Carry set. Jessica’s Ranger set is… well, it probably needs to be seen to be believed, but it’s a single-target lockdown and burst. My support set is a little strange, partially because I needed to make up for some of the weaknesses we had and partially just because we could—it’s a sort of structure-based enabler with a touch of CC. It essentially gives allies nearby range and a movement ability.”

“Eesh. Don’t envy playing against that carry set with extra range.” Quince said. “Obvious you built it after he did though.”

Jade hit him with a look just a step away from a glare. “That isn't exactly something we'd need to hide. Unless you have a compelling reason..?”

“Nah. But it means you won't get as much use out of it if you pick up randoms.”

“True. But I’m not likely to play support for randoms anyways.”

“Just notable. It plays nicely with Emma’s and Jeremy’s sets, though. Does it hit minions?”

“Players and structures. Plus, I function as a start point for the buffs.”

“So my spires would be affected.”

Jade’s eyes closed and she took a long breath in. “It was a consideration.”

“That seems–”

Nathan cut in, a little bit louder than normal speaking. “Do you actually have anything against playing Diver in some games, or are you trying to fish out more information?”

Quince took a moment to process that, coming back with a lot less accusation in his tone. “Diver? I would have thought…”

“It was obvious you don’t like North much, and I’m tentatively hopeful Jeremy can figure something out for mid,” Jade answered. “And I’m certain Emma could work something into mid if we needed her to, but I think she’s probably better in North given that she’s the highest stat total on the whole team.”

That plain statement was enough to make her jump, though luckily nobody commented on it. She’d known that her stat line was a bit higher than normal, but it still made her uncomfortable to be recognized for that.

“It’s going to be about a month before a set opens up.” Quince said, not really responding to anything that was said.

“Not an issue, and more time to work on the two we can field currently and stats. Which… I’m going to share everyone’s. Assuming everyone agrees, but I strongly think you should.”

Mostly nods, this time. People didn’t seem to want to say it.

“Alright… Here.”

Jeremy

Emma

Quince

Jade

Jessica

Nathaniel

Strength

133

80

78

83

110

80

Agility

95

118

140

145

181

106

Endurance

196

117

88

82

92

95

Calculation

93

178

174

143

110

152

Concentration

70

119

87

171

112

188

Energy

140

125

130

93

89

98

It took a few seconds for her to process the numbers that were in front of her, but when she though about it, she was proud of Jessica and Quince for how much they’d been able to progress in such a short period of time. On the other hand–

“Holy fuck.”

Quince about summed it up for her. “I knew y’all had some crazy scores, but what the fuck. Jeremy– how.”

He just shrugged and half-smiled in response, though she thought that it was a decent question. The stat numbers didn’t make up a linear scale, with ninety as the average and Olympic athletes usually placing in the two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty range in their relevant categories, but that kind of number wasn’t looking out of touch for some of them in the next few years.

“Um. Nathaniel and Jessica… aren’t far off of that, either. Plus, you’re still capped–” a flash of anger ran across his face, and she had to force herself to continue on through it. “So that’s going to go up fast…”

“We’ve actually got two caps that are issues. Seven that we need to be concerned about, but two of them are mine, so…” Jade laughed, then shook her head. “Well, getting Quince’s Concentration and my Energy up shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Rayne was the next one to speak, and everyone else went silent the moment she made a sound. “Those are some of the most unbalanced scores I’ve seen in my life. It’s a good thing I know you guys can deal with it– you’re going to have an advantage in being stronger in your specialties for it, but you’re all seriously weak out of your primary areas.”

“We wanted to show that for a reason,” Nathaniel said. “And it’s not to show off, it’s because we seriously need to examine how we’re thinking about the stats in relation to abilities. Emma, what would you need to be an effective northlaner?”

She had to think about that one. Standard theory said that she’d be totally okay with one of the standard builds, though she was a little bit high on Agility and lower on Energy than was considered ideal. Still, that seemed wrong to her, and it took a minute to put her finger on why.

When she found it, she almost groaned.

“I… don’t actually know. I think, probably, CC and something to farm with? I’d also need something pretty strong on movement and engage, so I think that will actually be basically my whole set.”

Quince nodded. “Yeah, because we need to be able to play either set with either set, right. We have time on this one?”

“To a degree,” Jade answered. “I do want to have some idea of it in advance, and if the other two can start practicing their side of it before we can really implement it that’s ideal.”

Jessica stood up, walking to the board. “It won’t be that hard, really.” She waved her hand over it, and what must have been a preprepared diagram showed up on it, showing an effective range comparison between the two setups that they’d have in the south lane. “I can help with set creation somewhat, but as long as we don’t totally ignore what the team needs to have we should be fine.”

Jeremy raised an eyebrow, finally speaking. “You’re the set person? Thought it’d be one of our co-captains.”

Jade shook her head. “We can help you tune it, but she’s in charge with the concept. That said– we should probably call it for today. Tomorrow is going to be mostly practice, so block out four, four and a half hours. See you then.”