[TS] Malicious Sniper

What are the most essential skills for a mid laner?

If someone were to ask this question, I would confidently reply, “Everything.”

The typical basics like brain skills and physical skills are just the start, along with the ability to read the map and grasp the overall game flow.

Besides these, understanding champions and situational judgment are also important factors.

Of course, these elements are skills that other lanes also require, but the mid lane wields influence over all other lanes.

Thus, it is naturally more affected by these skill elements than others.

Before going live, the Wandering Swordsman was a typical physical user.

With remarkable understanding of his champion and physical prowess, he maintained the Challenger rank.

Now he has evolved into a monster with excellent brain skills, but it didn’t burden him.

Those who specialize in a single champion, known as “one-trick ponies,” usually experience a drop in their overall skill when playing anything other than their main champion.

This was true for the Wandering Swordsman too, as well as for other famous challenger one-trick ponies.

Of course, this didn’t apply to me.

Scrims progressed in a tournament draft format, identical to that of typical matches.

To simplify the tournament draft format:

Both sides alternately ban three champions and pick three times, then proceed in the same manner with two bans and two picks.

This draft process is commonly referred to as 3 bans 3 picks and 2 bans 2 picks.

Anyway, during the 3 ban phase, the opponent banned Yone while we banned Yasuo.

With the 3 ban phase over, it was now our turn to pick.

“Are you taking Ornn first pick?”

“Since Samara was banned, go ahead.”

The first pick, Latte, picked Ornn.

Since we had already banned two of Ornn’s main counters, Yasuo and Samara, the first pick reasoning was solid, and Ornn was a sturdy champion that paired well with the current OP item, ‘Tabeulbang’.

With our first pick over, it was now the opposing team’s turn.

They picked Braum, the last of Ornn’s three counters.

Following that, Shin-ki-roo brought out Nidalee, a jungle champion well-handled by him.

“I think I should pick Kain.”

The opponents had already banned Eles and Rek’Sai.

If we didn’t pick a jungler here, Jericho was likely to be targeted heavily.

“With Gins and Leona, we can make a combo.”

“Then let’s go for Gins and Kain.”

Jericho confidently picked Kain, and I chose Gins, a rising 1-tier AD champion.

We had now finished the 3 picks, and only the opposing team’s third pick remained.

The pick count was dropping, and around the 5-second mark, they chose Zard.

Zard, a representative assassin typically known as the baseline, was a viable pick in this situation.

However, that Zard was none other than the Wandering Swordsman, and there was no record of him playing Zard in his past matches.

This was an unexpectedly shocking pick, and could be seen as the Wandering Swordsman’s hidden trump card.

With this unforeseen pick, the 3 pick phase ended, and the 2 ban phase began.

We banned Kai’Sa and Jinx to counter Ras, who was the team’s AD carry.

The opponents banned Twisted Fate as a mid champion and Leona as a support champion.

Twisted Fate was a champion I often brought out in scrims.

They likely figured that the Wandering Swordsman’s Zard couldn’t get through my Twisted Fate.

They seemed to know well what would happen if they gave me lane dominance.

With the 2 ban phase completed, it was now the 2 pick phase.

The opponent chose Ornn along with Maokai, one of the sturdy champions, for their AD carry.

By not selecting their AD carry until the end, they planned to choose one depending on our support.

“Leona is banned. I’ll pick Thresh.”

Antenna picked Thresh first.

Now only one mid pick remained.

Considering the champion match-ups and synergy with my allies, I thought deeply.

With about 10 seconds left, after a long deliberation, I made my decision.

“Pick Akili for me.”

“Okay~”

Coldog cheekily replied and picked Akili.

Our picks were completely done, and only the opposing team’s AD carry pick remained.

I chose Akili without knowing what the opposing AD carry would be, and the reason was simple.

Usually, when an assassin aims for the opposing AD carry, their support is always nearby.

In reality, the assassin can only effectively damage the enemy AD carry after dealing with their support’s interference.

Returning back to the starting point, I was confident that picking Akili in this situation would allow me to eliminate any enemy AD carry, no matter which champion they chose.

Couldn’t I have picked Talon instead of Akili? You might wonder.

But if I picked Talon, it would create an all AD composition, and that wouldn’t be enough to breach a pure tank like Maokai.

More importantly, Zard, who was almost a counter, had already been picked first—why would I pick Talon as my last choice?

That would be like picking Kassadin after seeing Talon picked.

In addition, Braum, the opposing support, had no means to protect the AD carry from Akili.

Typical supports rely on crowd control to let the AD carry attack.

However, Braum’s passive stun and ultimate knock-up posed no threat to Akili at all.

He needed to hit four basic attacks to stun, and if Akili was in a smoke screen, that wouldn’t matter.

Braum’s ultimate was so slow it could be dodged with the naked eye.

As I pondered over various thoughts, suddenly, the ban-pick phase was over.

The opposing team’s final AD carry pick was Aphelios.

A classic immobile AD carry with no survival abilities.

“Everyone, don’t be nervous; let’s have a relaxed game.”

“It seems like Rico is the most nervous here.”

“Shut up.”

Listening to Jericho and Coldog’s banter, the atmosphere lightened naturally.

Coldod, truly the mood maker of the team, was doing his job perfectly.

And thus, the scrim against Ohapjijon began.

*

The Wandering Swordsman gazed at the loading screen and recalled a not-so-distant past.

On an ordinary day of streaming, he received a team offer from a major streamer named Curry.

At that moment, the Wandering Swordsman had actually tried to reject Curry’s offer. No, he had rejected it.

“Don’t you want to compete against Barcode in a tournament?”

Although he declined the recruitment offer, Curry lured the Wandering Swordsman with ambiguous words.

Of course, the Wandering Swordsman wasn’t going to fall for baseless temptations.

Barcode hadn’t even officially stated that she’d be part of the tournament.

Given her nature, he thought she wouldn’t be interested in something like a tournament.

“Barcode is guaranteed to participate as long as you become our mid.”

However, the Wandering Swordsman had no choice but to rethink after hearing Curry’s following words.

What grounds does she have to believe Barcode would participate in a tournament?

What does it even matter that he becomes Curry’s mid?

“Considering Barcode’s nature, if I recruit you, she’ll definitely participate in the tournament.”

It was as if Curry knew Barcode well.

So, the Wandering Swordsman decided to take a gamble and accepted Curry’s recruitment offer.

Soon after joining Curry’s team, news arrived.

Barcode had joined Jericho’s team and would participate in the tournament.

From that moment on, the Wandering Swordsman laid down Yasuo.

Once he participated in the tournament, Yasuo would undoubtedly be banned.

He desperately practiced with other champions.

While casually playing ranked with an alternate account, he explored various champions and built up his understanding by watching strategy videos.

Eventually, this led to a scrim schedule with the Curry Breaker team.

In the scrim against Curry Breaker, the Wandering Swordsman unleashed his honed ‘Zard’.

Meanwhile, Barcode picked Akili.

Though the overall statistics weren’t great, the champion’s performance varied widely depending on the user.

It was a new pick from Barcode that the Wandering Swordsman had never seen in any previous scrims against the Curry Breaker team.

The Wandering Swordsman forcibly swallowed down the tension born from ignorance.

The loading bar indication percentage in the loading screen was full, and the game began.

[Minions have spawned.]

During the invade phase, nothing happened.

The minions reached the lane, and the laning phase began.

In the past, the Wandering Swordsman would have played defensively.

However, Akili, beaten down time and time again by nerfs, could no longer poke with the Q passive basic attack combo early on.

Engaging in typical auto-attack trades, he would have the advantage, so the Wandering Swordsman actively engaged.

Zard’s shurikens and auto attacks hit Akili.

Akili’s shurikens and empowered auto attacks hit Zard in return.

An intense battle with no room for concession.

The Wandering Swordsman aimed to seize the 2-level timing advantage.

Unfortunately, both Akili and Zard hit level 2 simultaneously.

The Wandering Swordsman promptly learned W skill and executed the W-Q combo.

He believed he hit both shurikens and pressed W again to swap places with his shadow.

With the passive auto attack and Electrocute activated, he aimed to gain significant advantage, but at that moment when Zard used the W-Q combo.

Barcode’s Akili used E to reposition to the spot Zard’s shadow occupied.

As a result, the two shurikens Zard launched missed completely, and Zard’s shadow was hit by Akili’s E.

Akili instantly used E once more to dash towards Zard.

As the passive auto attack, Q, and Electrocute triggered, massive damage hit Zard.

A single poor decision left the Wandering Swordsman’s Zard in a precarious state.

“…”

The Wandering Swordsman was caught in a suffocating experience.

He couldn’t tell if he was breathing properly or not.

His mind clouded, and he pondered how to make amends for his critical mistake.

[First Blood!]

His meaningless struggles were futile.

The Wandering Swordsman, who was sprinting through the white mist, collapsed.

He had thought if he could escape this dense fog, he could redeem himself.

But in reality, an even larger and sturdier fortress than the wall he felt back then obstructed his path.

*

Having set up a perfect trade to catch a kill, I boldly moved forward and used Flash.

With Zard right next to me, I cast Q and landed a hit, causing Zard to panic and use Flash to escape.

Predicting that flash as well, I landed E and secured the kill.

Zard’s level 1 W cooldown is 20 seconds.

In contrast, Akili’s level 1 E cooldown is 16 seconds.

This was a kill catch using the difference in cooldowns.

[First Blood]

“Nice!”

“Heeung… Nuna, I’m dying…”

Jericho reacted more intensely than ever.

Coldog shot a snarky remark at me, who had raised the victory flag.

Not long ago, Coldog had visited my stream.

At the time, I was absolutely carrying, and he arrived right then.

Most of the chat at that moment consisted of things like “Heeung…” or “Nuna, I’m dying.”

After that, whenever I secured solo kills or carried in scrims, he would drop those gems of comments.

I warned him multiple times to stop, but every time, he ignored my warnings as if it were the most natural thing.

Having heard it so many times that it stuck to my ears, I had now adjusted and stopped caring.

I checked the time and saw about three minutes had passed since I took down the Wandering Swordsman, and turned my gaze toward the chat.

[Heeung… Heeung…]

[Wandering Swordsman cut!]

[These days, the swordsman actually losing their core!]

[Nuna, I’m dying… I feel like I’m going crazy…]

[Coldog seems to be miserable for real ㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[Only Coldog could be a lunatic that mutters Heeung out loud]

[Barcode Nuna vs. Akili Nuna]

[Wha…]

[Wha…]

[Balance, what?]

[It’s definitely a stomp.]

[Is balance real? ㅋㅋ]

[Wha…]

[The mid lane alone shows Barcode Nuna winning hard ㅇㅇ]

[Oh ho]

[Bring a protractor, friend]

[Act like a gentleman]

[Heeung… Nuna…]

Well, even if it weren’t for Coldog, I would have adapted sooner or later.

Seeing this kind of Heeung-filled chat over and over, how could I not get used to it?

Since it was a hand cam and not a face cam, I smiled freely, savoring the moment.

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