“If you fail here, I want you to start transitioning to a defensive build.” That's the lame threat Yuel used to scare Luke.

Switching to a defensive build was the ultimate disgrace for any Dark Knight, it basically signaled the DK’s retirement. No, thank you.

I ain't gonna let that happen! Luke asserted as he approached his foe. This meme gonna live on! I made it work last time, and I gonna make it work again!

This fight was the ultimate test of his memeing ability. Haters might call his first success a fluke, but they'll shut up if Luke wins again! And again, and again! As many times as it was necessary to convince these mofos that off-meta picks worked like a charm!

Besides, I don't wanna feel like the weakest link here. Luke thought. I mean, a few months ago I wasn't even expecting to get this far in the competition by memeing, but now I’m here, so I better win this shit!

Originally, Luke joined the Classmancers club in order to chill. He was fed up with the toxic competitiveness back at the soccer club, so he decided to join a "video gaming club" to have an easy life.

By a stroke of luck, it just so happened that his online rank was high enough to get accepted into the club. It was all because he memed a ton in Ranked, kek.

At lower ranks, memeing worked perfectly fine. Half of the players there were clowns who didn’t know how to play for shit. Even the "meta slaves" at these ranks were just braindead copycats who followed trends without thinking for themselves. They were the most literal example of "Monkey see, monkey do."

So, Luke dunked hard on all these scrubs back then. It was the good times. It was thanks to all these noobs that Luke made it into the club.

During the first year, the club was as chill as Luke expected. Nobody there was taking the game seriously. The team only participated at the regionals for the lulz. They didn't really expect to win or anything.

In fact, these guys even memed at the regionals. They picked wild stuff like Dark Knight and Orc, then tried a five-man invade right at the game's start!

Absolute mad lads! Luke couldn't help but grin when he remembered that epic scene. It was the epitome of coolness!

But still, as cool as it was, he couldn't help but ask himself from time to time: was it really alright? Stratus had the privilege to compete at the regionals, so shouldn't they be taking things a little more seriously?

Like, I never had that option in the soccer club. Luke thought. I wanted to compete but the coach was the embodiment of meta-slavery cancer. And, there was also so much dang competition for the first-string. Sigh.

However, all these issues disappeared once Luke joined Stratus. There was no coach who preached about "meta" and there were barely any members, so getting a chance to play at the regionals was super easy, barely an inconvenience. It was a weird situation, all in all.

On one hand, I could continue memeing as I pleased and nobody could really kick me out for it. On the other hand, I knew I'll eventually be playing on the stage against some srs bsns dudes. That's one heck of a contradiction, innit?

Luke mulled over that problem for quite some time during his first year. And, his answer?

I said "screw it" and continued memeing, lel. Luke chuckled. Though, I also did extra research to make sure my memes could actually compete against them meta slave bois.

In the end, Luke found himself stuck somewhere in the middle between meme and meta. He continued playing memes, but he also did tons of research about the meta and stuff.

Not to mention, he practiced his memes so much that it almost made him look like a sweaty tryhard. But, he was working this hard on memes and not on meta classes, so it was fine, at least in his book.

For the entire first year, that's the mentality he went with. During all that time, he was anxiously anticipating the competitive scene, wondering how his memes would work there.

The first time he got to play in a scrim was last year, actually. There were only five seniors in the club at the time, which was actually a lot by today's standards.

Anyway, one of the guys called in sick right before a scrim, so somebody had to sub in. Logically, Kai was the most fitting choice, seeing as she was actually better than the seniors in the first place. But, these rascals disregarded her because she was a girl, so they opted for somebody else.

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Next on that list was Vincent, but the delinquents in charge of the club weren't too fond of that "nerd". As such, despite being the two oldest options to pick from, neither Kai nor Vincent was subbed in for that game.

Next in line was Luke, who was actually on great terms with these dudes. It also just so happened that the sub they needed was a Jungler, so Luke fit like a glove. And so, that became his first opportunity to test his memes against srs bsns opponents.

Unlike the RNG matchmaking of Ranked, here Luke was going to play against players who actually knew how to Classmancers. They weren't just some braindead meta slaves who thought that using meta classes will help them climb the Ranked ladder faster. No, these guys were all about winning real games!

That match was so wack tho, haha. Remembering that shitshow had always brought a smile on Luke’s face. Like, the Stratus of that year was SO bad. Misplays happened left and right, with Luke’s teammates dying to the most obvious tricks in the book.

It was a sad story. That was the only way to describe that clown fiesta. The entire team practically looked like one giant walking meme due to how inadequate everybody was.

Like, these guys goofed a lot in Ranked too, but that scrim was especially brutal. We could usually get away with some mistakes in Ranked, but in that scrim, we got mobbed HARD for the smallest slip-up. It was rough.

All in all, they crashed and burned in that scrim. It got so bad that some of the seniors became salty and had the audacity to blame the losses on Luke's memeing.

Like, bruh. My KDA was the best in most games. It’s them who were messing everything up, not me.

Anyway, that was a story for another day. The bottom line was that Luke got to experience some brutal competitive games. On that day, he achieved his old dream of participating in official matches as part of the first-string!

And honestly? It was lame. That was the unexpected conclusion. Like, the stage and the opponents were cool and all. But, the actual games were a disaster. That team was no good, and I say that as a memer.

The mopping was too much. Stratus lost that scrim so hard it was impossible to enjoy the experience in any way imaginable. Not to mention, there was an audience that came to watch that shitshow, which further shamed the losing players.

I remember I had trouble sleeping that night, haha. Had nightmares about how the audience was cackling at us. That was one heck of a traumatic experience, for real.

It was a hella embarrassing experience all in all. That wasn't how Luke imagined the competitive stage at all.

I guess that's when I started thinking about all these weird things. Luke recalled. It made me wonder whether I should keep memeing, and whether the level of our team was actually acceptable.

As a memer, that was the last thing he expected to worry about. After all, back in the soccer club, the first-string was so obviously strong that this was never a real concern.

But in Stratus, getting into the first-string was the easy part. Luke literally didn't have to do anything; it was just a matter of time.

But in exchange, there was a new problem: that team was too damn weak. Playing competitive games with this team was hella embarrassing, even for a memer like him. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted anything to do with that shitshow.

That scrim really disillusioned me about a lotta things. I started doubting whether I even want to keep doing any of this.

A part of him wanted the team to improve and become a viable competitor at the regionals, but another part just wanted to kick back and continue memeing. He was quite the dilemma queen like that.

When he discussed some of these concerns with Vincent, he received an interesting response. "Once Kai becomes the captain, she shall restore Stratus to its former glory! Even the nationals won't be a dream anymore!"

First of all, Stratus had no "former glory" to speak of, so WTF was that dude smoking? Secondly, could a moody girl like Kai actually do anything about this lazy-ass team? She seemed like too much of a loner to lead a difficult team like this, TBH.

Nonetheless, Vincent's words kindled a small flame inside Luke. He realized that once all the seniors graduated, there was some hope that the club would get more serious about competing at the regionals.

Of course, there was no way in hell they'd be able to take the regionals or anything fancy like that, but maybe they could at least win a game or two. Because frankly, this region's level wasn't even that high in the first place. There were some weak teams here that even the old Stratus could’ve beaten if they worked a little harder.

And so, with that optimism in mind, Luke resolved the dilemma he was wrestling with. Well, sorta.

Assuming the team was really gonna git gud, then it was fine for Luke to continue memeing as he pleased. He just had to make sure his memes were up to par and could compete on stage, to not drag the rest of the team down.

I mean, I also considered ditching memes and going tryhard mode, but I just couldn't do it, man. I had enough of that shit back in the soccer club. Never gonna force myself to follow the meta again. Never.

Trying to both meme and compete at the same time was a contradiction of sorts, but Luke has been carrying on that contradiction for a long time now, to the point he stopped seeing it as one. He was memeing to avoid the burden of being a tryhard, yet he was sorta tryharding in his memeing. The duality of man.

Sometimes, I really ask myself WTF I'm even doing. But then, I just continue doing it anyway, kek.

He had come too far to turn back. The time and sweat he spent on improving his memes couldn't go to waste. So, he only had one choice: to bring his memes to the competitive scene and take the regionals by storm! Or something.

At the time, little did he know that mad lads like Yuel and Lars would join the club. These two dudes were on a whole different level. They transformed the club into a mega tryhard team.

Thinking of it, that’s probably when things started getting complicated for Luke again...