The next two weeks flew by in a flurry of games and snow. Asked about the tournament in years to come, Eric still failed to recall how they managed to do well on their exams with the amount of games they were practicing each day. He and the others quite literally spent every waking hour practicing, playing ranked matches as a team when everyone was available, or grinding alone or in pairs in the solo queue when someone had work or another engagement.
Occasionally the two teams would play against each other in scrims, attempting to master new strategies and test existing ones. Unfortunately, the skill disparity between team A and team B was pretty big in some areas. All of the groups normal shotcallers were on team A, with Mark, Rob, and Eric all sharing shotcalling duties.
Mechanical skill was also in the favour of team A. While Ryan was decently matched against Eric in the mid lane, and Griffin's jungling was not much worse than Nick's, the bot lane of Jun and Rob was far better than Alfredo and Raj, the two members Ryan had managed to recruit to fill out the ranks for team B. To make matters worse, the difference between Gio and Mark was like night and day, especially without a shotcaller to direct team B to make up for the losing lanes.
Of course that wasn't to say that team B couldn't win some matches, the wealth of shotcallers often worked against team A at first, as the tactics of Eric, Mark, and Rob clashed as they each attempted to direct the team. Jun did not help matters as he often liked to ignore calls that he felt were wrong, particularly calls from Eric.
The main purpose of their practice over the two weeks leading up to the tournament were to iron out problems such as these. While they'd entered tournaments in the past, the prizes for such tournaments had been too low to warrant such effort being put forth by the group. As such they'd never needed to practice advanced tactics like this before, nor had they been so serious about the game.
This seriousness was a double edged sword, as it meant that the inevitable arguments that flared up were far more heated than usual. One particular game saw such a vehement disagreement between Eric and Ryan that Ryan ragequit midmatch and logged off for the rest of the night, leaving the rest to fight a 4v5 against the opponents. Eric himself nearly ragequit as well, leaving the call and logging off the moment their base was destroyed.
Fortunately, such incidents were rare, and after the end of the first week became almost non-existent, as the two teams became more cohesive in their teamwork. While Eric and Jun may never truly get along, Eric could at least say that their understanding of each others playstyles had vastly improved, and they could now function at the minimum level required to call themselves teammates, which made Mark relieved.
The reason that they'd practiced so hard despite the casual way in which they'd chosen to enter the tournament was actually quite simple. Initially, they'd all agreed to practice a few strategies and tactics, polishing their teamwork with a few games of Legends every night. That had all changed however, after news spread of a rumour that a scout for the professional scene was going to be present at Murphy's for the tournament. Whether or not this rumour was true was something that even now they remained unable to verify, but the mere prospect of being able to play in front of a professional scout lit a fire under them, causing motivation to soar.
Nevertheless, it was exhausting, playing so much Legends of Lore. The biting cold made it difficult for Eric to play, as his parents kept the heater as low as possible. To combat this he wore several layers, his over sized housecoat sleeves draped over his stiff hands as he rapidly flicked the mouse back and forth across the mouse pad.
Ironically, Eric's biggest obstacle for the practice wasn't related to the cold, or his ability to play over long stretches of time, but rather keeping his parents from pulling the cord on the internet. Doing his best to keep them off his back, Eric resorted to playing late at night, muting his headset to minimize the chance of him yelling at a teammate for a boneheaded mistake, which happened often in his solo queue matches.
Between studying for their first semester exams, working part time jobs, and playing Legends, Eric and the others quickly found themselves stumbling through the day like zombies, their sleep schedules thoroughly disrupted. Eric found himself thinking of a piece of advice he'd been given when he entered high school by an online friend, "Study more than you sleep, sleep more than you game, and game as much as possible."
While he may have flipped the advice a little bit, seemingly gaming more than he slept or studied combined, it was with relief that Eric logged on to Strife on Friday night for the final strategy session before the tournament.