Classmancers - A MOBA Esport Story - Part 3

Vol.16 Ch.35: The Memer's Inner Turmoil

"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.