Chapter 6 — The Bracket
And thus begins Chapter Six.
Now, children.
The brackets were set.
Not casually.
Not randomly.
No.
There was structure.
Intent.
Entertainment value.
Because this tournament had a problem.
Or rather
an opportunity.
The council leans forward.
Context.
My team had a name.
Optic Myst Gaming.
The council pauses.
Why?
Because
OMG.
Children.
That was the joke.
Optic.
Myst.
Gaming.
OMG.
The council stares.
You named a competitive Dota team because the acronym was funny?
Yes.
And I stand by it.
The council reluctantly records:
OPTIC MYST GAMING.
Also known as
OMG.
Now.
This was not some newly assembled stack of five idiots entering their first tournament and hoping nobody noticed we had no idea what we were doing.
Children.
We were known.
Across Kerala.
We had played enough.
Competed enough.
Won enough.
Appeared often enough that when Optic Myst Gaming entered a tournament,
people knew the name.
The council perks up.
Powerhouse?
Powerhouse.
Among the top teams in Kerala.
More specifically
top two.
The council grows interested.
And children,
you know what the phrase “top two” means.
There cannot be a top two without
another one.
The council turns slowly.
Demigodz.
Silence.
Children.
Demigodz.
Our rivals.
And yes
before anyone says it
significantly cooler name.
The council nods immediately.
No contest.
Optic Myst Gaming:
haha OMG.
Demigodz:
sounds like they arrived to conquer nations.
The council laughs.
Still.
Names do not win matches.
And between us,
there had developed a pattern.
OMG wins.
OMG top Kerala.
Then Demigodz wins.
Demigodz top Kerala.
Then us again.
Then them.
Back and forth.
Two teams constantly replacing each other at the top.
The council draws two little crowns being passed violently between groups of gamers.
Exactly.
Children.
Rivalry.
Not imagined rivalry either.
Not:
We hated these people because sports narratives demand villains.
No.
They were simply the other team.
The one you measured yourself against.
Beat everyone else?
Good.
Beat Demigodz?
Now we’re talking.
Lose to anyone else?
Annoying.
Lose to Demigodz?
Children.
Personal.
The council laughs.
Competitive gaming has a beautiful ability to turn five strangers sitting behind monitors into sworn enemies for approximately forty five minutes.
And then perhaps cigarettes afterward.
Civilization.
So when the tournament organizers looked at the field
they saw the obvious setup.
OMG.
Demigodz.
The two favourites.
The two Kerala powerhouses.
And if you want maximum entertainment value
do not place them against each other immediately.
No.
You separate them.
One side of the bracket
Optic Myst Gaming.
The other
Demigodz.
The council nods.
Let them climb.
If one fails?
Upset.
Drama.
If both survive?
Finals.
Exactly.
The kind of bracket where everybody sees the possibility from the beginning.
OMG on one side.
Demigodz on the other.
And somewhere at the top
one final meeting.
Children.
Of course,
possibility is not certainty.
Dota does not care about reputation.
One bad draft.
One bad fight.
One stupid decision.
One player having the mechanical coordination of cooked pasta for five minutes
and goodbye.
The council nods.
So we still had to earn it.
And earn it
we did.
First match.
Children.
Destroyed.
The council blinks.
Second.
Destroyed.
Next.
Destroyed.
Optic Myst Gaming climbed the bracket.
No loss.
No stumble.
No dramatic last second survival.
We simply
won.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The council watches Gamer Nuo settle into his element.
This was the version of me who knew exactly what he was doing.
An unusual sight in the Archive.
No wrong train.
No missing group.
No forgotten geography.
No wondering whether a butterfly had destroyed America.
Children.
Keyboard.
Mouse.
Dota.
Competence installed.
The council applauds.
I knew the game.
Hex knew the game.
The three background characters
children,
for all my narrative disrespect,
they knew the fucking game.
They had to.
You do not become a top team by dragging decorative humans through brackets.
The five of us worked.
Draft.
Lane.
Move.
Fight.
Push.
Win.
Repeat.
And every victory moved us farther upward.
The council glances to the opposite side.
Demigodz?
Same.
Of course.
Children.
Those bastards were doing exactly what we were doing.
Team appears before Demigodz.
Team disappears.
Next.
Gone.
Next.
Gone.
The two favourites climbing toward each other from opposite sides of the bracket
like monkeys ascending two trees while maintaining aggressive eye contact.
The council laughs.
Effortless.
Or at least
it looked effortless.
That is an important distinction.
Children.
When a strong team is functioning properly,
the work disappears from the outside.
Hours of practice become:
Oh, they just won again.
Coordination becomes natural.
Calls become quick.
Everyone already knows what the others are likely to do.
The game looks simple.
It is not.
But that day?
We made it look simple.
The council nods.
And throughout all of this
Stalker.
The council turns.
Still there.
Beside me.
Watching.
Children.
This woman had allegedly first noticed me because of Dota.
Now she had premium seating.
The actual creature in habitat.
Sometimes her hand rested on my leg.
The council pauses.
Gamer Nuo remained functional?
Barely.
Children.
Do you understand the cognitive load?
Tournament match.
Rivalry.
Crowd.
And attractive woman touching leg.
Story Nuo’s processor was being stress tested.
Sometimes her hand moved to my shoulder.
Sometimes she simply watched.
And sometimes
I made a play.
A good one.
A very good one.
The council leans forward.
Stalker’s reaction?
Hands to head.
That universal expression of:
WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST SEE?
Children.
Beautiful.
There are compliments.
Then there is somebody who actually understands the game
watching you do something difficult
and reacting before language can arrive.
That?
That lands differently.
Because she knew.
She understood why the play mattered.
She knew what had just happened.
The council smiles.
And I?
Children.
Of course I noticed.
Do not imagine Gamer Nuo sitting there like some stoic warrior immune to attention.
Internally?
Peacock.
Full feathers.
The council erupts.
Every good play gained approximately seventeen percent more satisfaction because Stalker was beside me witnessing it.
Was I playing for the tournament?
Yes.
For the team?
Yes.
For victory?
Obviously.
For the hot Dota girl sitting beside me?
Children.
Maybe a little.
The council laughs.
Humanity has achieved extraordinary things because somebody attractive was watching.
Gaming is no exception.
Between matches,
perhaps we talked.
Perhaps she commented on plays.
Perhaps I explained something she already understood.
The details blur.
What survives is presence.
She stayed.
Beside me.
Through the bracket.
And somewhere across the room
Demigodz continued advancing.
The council marks both lines.
OMG.
Up.
Demigodz.
Up.
OMG.
Up.
Demigodz.
Up.
No losses.
No interruptions.
No upset.
Exactly the tournament everyone expected.
And perhaps wanted.
The council grows quiet.
By the end of Day One
the field was gone.
Teams eliminated.
Bracket cleared.
Only two remained.
Children.
You already know the names.
Optic Myst Gaming.
Demigodz.
The council announces dramatically:
FINALS.
Day Two.
The inevitable match.
The rivalry.
The two teams that kept trading Kerala’s crown.
The tournament organizers had arranged the bracket hoping for exactly this.
And both sides had cooperated beautifully.
Zero losses.
Complete victory.
No excuses left.
No other team between us.
The council nods.
Just OMG.
And Demigodz.
Tomorrow.
Now.
This should perhaps have been the entire thing occupying my mind.
Finals.
Strategy.
Opponents.
What do they draft?
What do we draft?
What had they shown today?
What had we shown?
Children.
Gaming religion.
This was church before the holy war.
But Story Nuo’s day had contained
other developments.
The council counts.
Police.
Dog.
Stalker.
First kiss.
More kissing.
Holding hands.
Walking into the Virgin Empire like a mythological hero.
Then casually steamrolling a Dota bracket while the woman who had hunted me across tournaments sat beside me.
The council pauses.
Good day?
Children.
Very good day.
The Fun Meter would have approved.
Different Wandering.
Right.
Still.
By evening,
NIT Calicut had become more than:
Tournament venue.
It had texture now.
Classroom accommodation.
Fest stalls.
Computer lab.
Dog.
Trees.
Upside down plant pots of romance.
Stalker beside me.
And tomorrow
Demigodz.
The council looks toward Hex.
Hex knew what that meant.
I knew what it meant.
The other three certainly knew.
This was the match.
Not because winning any tournament was guaranteed.
Never.
But because this was the opponent whose name beside ours made the room pay attention.
OMG versus Demigodz.
Children.
If you wanted Kerala Dota theatre
there it was.
And so Day One ended.
Every opponent behind us.
Every opponent behind them.
Two perfect runs colliding at one point.
The council closes the bracket until morning.
FINAL:
OPTIC MYST GAMING
VS
DEMIGODZ.
Day Two.
No more monkeys climbing trees.
They had reached the top.
Now one had to kick the other off.
The council laughs.
Thus concludes Chapter Six.
Optic Myst Gaming.
The Superior Demigodz Branding Department.
The Two Kerala Powerhouses.
The Carefully Separated Bracket.
The Steamroll.
The Opposite Steamroll.
Stalker’s Premium Spectator Seat.
The Peacock Buff.
And The Inevitable Finals.
Children.
We came to NIT Calicut for a Dota tournament.
Day One ended exactly the way everyone had hoped.
OMG undefeated.
Demigodz undefeated.
Every other team gone.
And tomorrow
the crown would stop moving long enough
for one of us to wear it.
