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Alex
I wokeup to another day of torture.
I still couldn’t believe I was benched from playing NLA again.
It was the off-season which was arguably the most important prep-time for us pro-players. Many organizations were trading players at this time and new teams were bonding. Team Solid were scrambling to replace me for the upcoming season. I understood their decision, I would do the same. I wasn’t a reliable player anymore, not with my injuries. But it hurt knowing that my best friends were holding tryouts for my replacement this week.
I already missed waking up, driving over to the compound and playing practice games with the guys. I missed doing my favorite thing in the world—playing NLA.
And every evening I had to do the most boring thing in the world, at least for me—watch other people play. And worst of all I was contractually obligated to continue doing so; four hours a day, five days a week. I know, first world problems over here. But to someone like me who was used to the esports side of things, streaming felt like a slow, agonizing death.
I eventually got out of bed, grabbed my phone and startedscrolling through my notifications as I walked into the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine. My notifications were just the usual string of messages from fans and other randos.
Ninnim123
Hey MnstrX, huge fan! What are your best tips for climbing?
Sl4er
Yo, Alex, any chance you could review my gameplay?
Oh, I really hated it when fans used my real name as if they knew me in real life. That line was often blurred by fans but I personally needed that line of separation. They knew me but I didn’t know them.
It went on and on. So many messages. I was about to put my phone down when the message I was looking for caught my eye.
Emma
Hey, I’m the mystery girl from the café. My name is Emma BTW?—
My heart skipped a beat as my eyes raced to finish reading the text. I quickly checked her profile to confirm it was really her. I scrolled back through her pictures and saw ones of her face up close and—it was her. Everything seemed to match up and I even saw a picture of her at the gaming café from a year ago. I smiled to myself and texted her back.
Hey, Emma! Great to hear from you. Are you free tonight? We could meet up at the café to talk face to face.
Also, I was not playing it up for stream.
Also, also, sorry for being weird last night.
I slipped my phone into my pocket and decided to do my best to spend my day productively. Namely, I had to clean my apartment which would take me who knows how much time now that I had to use just my left hand. There was now a not zero chance my mystery girl would be coming home with me—to stream and be coached by me; get your mind out of the gutter.
By the time I finished cleaning my stream room a couple of hours later, there was still no response from Emma. As I moved on to cleaning the living room, I put up Ryan’s stream on the TV. He was my best friend and we had been playing together for the better part of the past seven years. There was a new update to the game last week and most of the pro-players were still figuring out what worked well and what didn’t. Ryan, on the other hand, was climbing the ranked ladder faster than the rest of the players I followed.
An hour later my phone finally buzzed.
Emma
Hey, sorry for leaving you hanging. My shift at work started. I’m free tonight though. I can meet you at the café after 6:30 P.M. Also here’s my in-game handle: [OracleMyth].
I quickly replied.
Awesome! I’ll see you tonight at 6:30. Looking forward to it.
I smiled to myself as I typed her in-game handle into the search bar of the NLA game tracker. Every game ever played was archived and now that I knew her username I could pull up her recentgames. I switched off the stream and played her the games on the TV while tidying up.
As I watched her games I took mental notes. I was surprised to find that she was a very flexible player. She could play any of the player roles which would make her easily coachable. Versatility like that was rare, especially at high ranks. I had to pause and admit to myself after a few games that I was doing all of this for a very selfish reason—I was injured. I couldn’t play and I was bored out of my mind during my contractually obligated four hours of streaming. I needed someone there to entertain me and my stream. And I would make it worth her while, I was determined to.
She played the Support role particularly well, which was terribly stereotypical with her being a woman and that role being the one toxic players usually disregarded as ‘for the girls’. But if she played it well and enjoyed it, I would have no problem with that. I could coach her on Support pretty well too. Ryan plays Support and I play Carry, but we have switched roles plenty over the years and I have more than enough experience as a Support player to coach her to the highest rank in the game—Challenger. The other four roles in the game were Carry, Mid, Jungle, and Top. She played all four of them fine, almost forgettably so.
As I watched her games I also noticed some other things; like how most of her games fell apart after the laning stage, meaning she knew what to do early on in the game but not how to close out the winning games. She was still missing that piece of the puzzle. She rarely went for solo kills and only followed her team, sometimes getting ambushed. And then there were the odd games where she played like a completely different person. My best guess was that she was prone to tilting—playing while upset. That was something we could work on for sure. Ryan was a lot like thatwhen we first started playing together so I’ve become a master at putting out rage fires.
