The Valkyries suffered a crushing defeat against the Leopards, but they had every intention of making up for it by defeating StormBlitz. Or, at least Fiona had such intentions. Some members were on the same page as her, while others were skeptical.
Regardless, the entire team came together as one to practice for the upcoming event. Each of them was burning with the desire to make up for the terrible result of the previous scrim.
Everybody has been training hard ever since that defeat. Fiona thought. Surely, they will be able to put on a much better performance this time around. And, it is up to me to lead them toward that result.
Fiona could not control the individual skill level of every club member. But, as the shot-caller, she was in the position to direct the entire team in the right direction during battle. And, in order to be able to achieve that, she had to know her opponents from inside out.
That was why Fiona started researching StormBlitz in advance, long before announcing the planned scrim. On top of holding review sessions with her teammates, Fiona also spent much of her free time crafting strategies for the upcoming match.
To dominate the competition, Fiona had to understand her opponents better than they understood themselves. Only then, she would be able to come up with the most efficient strategy for defeating them.
With that said, the same idea applied to every member of the Valkyries. Each of them had to know everything about their lane opponent in order to prepare accordingly.
And so, the team held multiple in-depth review sessions about StormBlitz. They went over every single player from Storm and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses, as well as formed detailed game plans for dealing with them.
In Top, there was CleanupHitter. He was a mechanically skilled fighter who leaned toward aggression, a sharp contrast to the majority in StormBlitz. On top of that, his parrying ability was top-notch. It looked like a gimmick that could be easily outplayed, but time and again he proved his ability during competitive games.
In the jungle, there was Average. Staying true to his name, he did not leave much of an impression. The only thing that stood out about him was the fact he changed his class in almost every game. It showed he knew how to play a large roster of characters, but his performance was never impressive with any of them. Essentially, he was a jack of all trades and master of none.
For Mid, StormBlitz had two very different players: Adapting and Venus. It seemed both of them were part of the first-string, and StormBlitz chose which one to use depending on the match-up.
Adapting was an all-rounder who knew how to switch back and forth between offense and defense on demand. The speed of his adaptation was quite impressive, but overall, his skill came across as fairly mediocre, at least when compared to the top players of the region. Surely, Andria would be able to handle him in the lane, so long as she remains motivated.
On the other hand, Venus could potentially pose a problem. Her execution was quite impressive, both on defense and on offense.
On the flip side, Venus was a very unstable player compared to Adapting. She periodically went back and forth between extreme phases of turtling and overextension. At any given time, she was either overly committed to defense or pushing too hard on the offense, unable to smoothly transition between the two extremes on the fly.
Essentially, while Adapting maintained a fine balance between his offense and defense, Venus allowed each of them to consume her wholly. When it was time to defend she was overly cautious, and when it was time to attack she went all-in.
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“If she shows up on the stage against us, we should be able to take advantage of her instability,” Fiona explained during the meeting, to make sure everybody knew how to exploit Venus' glaring adaptation issue. Currently, this girl was the biggest hole in StormBlitz’s bulletproof defense, so it was crucial to capitalize on this opening.
After Venus, next on the list were Aegis and Athena in Bot. These two were undoubtedly the most troublesome foes StormBlitz boasted.
Athena was a defensive Carry, an irregularity in the current meta. Instead of boasting impressive mechanical skill like most Carries, she instead relied on hit-and-run tactics to frustrate her opponents and bait them into traps.
Frankly, it was worrisome that Karen would be the one to face such a crafty opponent. With how easy it was to provoke the girl, she will surely step on a landmine sooner than later.
To make this Bot matchup even harder, Athena was accompanied by Aegis, the captain and shot-caller of StormBlitz. He possessed the superb ability to cover all the weak spots of his teammates, making it virtually impossible to exploit any openings. Surely, an aggressive strategist like Yuel would hate playing against Aegis.
And, this matchup is bound to be rather irksome for me as well. Fiona thought. His tight defense would make it that much harder for me to gain momentum.
Oftentimes, momentum was born from one successful and overwhelming play. From that one spark, the advantage had the potential to snowball into something unstoppable.
However, against Aegis’ robust defense, it was going to prove difficult to get any such opportunities. The man analyzed his teammates’ weak spots and made sure to cover them all, leaving attackers no openings to exploit.
Needless to say, breaking through this absolute defense was going to be Fiona's biggest challenge in this scrimmage. She had to find a way to penetrate through the shield of gods, or else the team would never be able to get anything started.
Of course, she was not the only one who had lots of work cut out for her. Everybody in the Valkyries had a lot to learn and practice in order to perform well in that challenging scrim.
And so, the team spent the next two weeks focused fully on StormBlitz. They deconstructed every possible facet of their opponents, ran many simulations of what-if scenarios, and so forth.
Fortunately, they also had Nakajima help out with the whole process. She used to be a pro player, so she was well-versed in how professional teams prepared for matches.
"It's important to focus on the enemies you are going to face," Nakajima instructed. "However, being too tunnel-visioned isn’t good either. You don’t want to overly adapt to the opponent to the point of ruining your own playstyle in the process."
This was the voice of reason that killed Fiona's intense urge to study the enemy 24/7. Before she realized it, she was focusing all her training on finding countermeasures to StormBlitz and nothing else. There was still so much she had to polish about her own playstyle, yet she had been neglecting that part for weeks.
That piece of advice was a lifesaver. Fiona admitted. If not for it, I may have led the team down the wrong path.
Fiona was focused solely on winning against StormBlitz, therefore the most logical approach was to study the opponents extensively and expose all their weak spots. Only with sufficient information and preparation a weaker team had a chance of toppling the 2nd strongest team in the region.
However, it was important to remember that Fiona and the team had many weak spots of their own to iron out. So, while the Valykries were busy studying the opponents, said opponents were likely studying the Valkyries. Information warfare went both ways in this fashion.
As such, every single member of the Valkyries also had to be in top condition in order to prevail in this harsh scrim. And so, the training regime was split into two key parts: preparation for the opponent and working on the Valkyries’ own weaknesses. With both categories aced, the Valkyries will have a real shot at besting the region’s 2nd strongest.
And so, after two weeks of specialized training, it was finally time for the Valkyries to play on the competitive stage for the second time. They were about to face a powerhouse yet again, but they were far better prepared for battle this time around.
Will they successfully cause an upset? Or, will they be fighting through impossible odds once again…?