Then Lorne realized that the players all seemed to have gone astray...
Was the pressure in the Wizarding World too much? Why were all these wizards trying to follow Sains's stall build?
Hufflepuff was the first casualty.
One of Hogwarts's founders, a female witch at the pinnacle of earth and wood magic, was actually being used as a cultivator by these players.
Faced with a stall build that Lorne had casually dismantled, they had not chosen to find another way. Instead, they felt they simply had not stalled hard enough.
Incendio could clear plants over a wide area, so would applying Aguamenti to the plants first let them hold out a little longer?
Some competitors had even started trading health for mana to cast Thunderstorm, because that spell could summon rain to ensure the plants flourished without burning to death!
It was not just Hufflepuff. Slytherin had also become a favorite for stall builds because of his unique spell, Serpensortia.
He even saw Draco using this trick!
Lorne was numb.
Quirrell comforted him. "Maybe it's because battles in the Wizarding World are decided by a single move. Everyone has a strong desire to stay alive."
So they just did not want to be glass cannons and wanted to cultivate both offense and survival?
Fortunately, although there were plenty of these stall builds, few actually won. The mana bar mechanic Lorne had built into the game was enough to make these stall players balk.
After all, not everyone could summon a Niffler within their first few summoning spells.
When the morning's matches ended, everyone was left wanting more. Only after repeatedly confirming the starting time with Lorne did they reluctantly leave.
Lorne hurriedly put together the match bracket.
What he had not expected was that Draco had actually made the top sixty-four too.
He glanced at the system quest's progress bar. His power of emotion had increased by less than two hundred.
No, this would not do. Surely he could not hold another tournament in a few days? He could not take that kind of torment again. Just making rounds through the sea of people and calling out numbers had left him feeling as though his legs were about to break.
Lorne carefully searched for a method, something from later years that could boost a tournament's popularity or stir the spectators' emotions...
Lorne's eyes suddenly lit up. He felt as though he had drunk a bottle of Felix Felicis, and his mind had suddenly opened up.
Betting!
It might not be very ethical, but unethical people were the one thing the Wizarding World never lacked. Besides, unethical behavior practically counted as a local specialty in Knockturn Alley. He was simply doing as the locals did.
Lorne called Quirrell over.
"Just stay at the front desk this afternoon," Lorne said, rapidly using the Levitation Charm to write a few large words on a banner before hanging it at the front desk. "When they give you money, just take it. We'll do it like this..."
Draco arrived late that afternoon. He had seen that his match was scheduled relatively late, so he had spent a little longer talking with Sains at the dining table.
When he entered, he saw a huge tournament bracket hanging from the ceiling. Everything was clearly laid out, from the round of sixty-four to the round of thirty-two, then the round of sixteen, all the way to the championship showdown.
And on the formerly plain white front desk behind the tournament bracket, three large words were clearly written.
Place your bets.
This wording was not particularly common, but Draco, who went with his father to watch the Quidditch World Cup every time, knew it meant exactly what he thought it did.
Good heavens, Father, you really should see the commercial value of the Magic Mobile Phone.
Whenever Draco thought about what his family had missed out on, he wanted to cry but had no tears. He knew how appealing this sort of thing was. Even his mother, who did not normally watch Quidditch, would place a few bets on those occasions. Who would not love the feeling of winning big with a small stake?
The problem was that the Wizarding World only had so many famous competitions, and few wizards with both credibility and resources were willing to take bets. He really had not expected Director Lorne to understand this business too.
Draco walked up, took out the spending money his father had given him, and, after some consideration, placed one Galleon on the desk.
"One Galleon on Draco to win."
Draco did win, and not just once. He won his way from the round of sixty-four to the quarterfinals, where he finally lost to Sains and had to settle for a top-eight finish.
The spectators sighed, and some of the wizards who had bet on Draco even protested on his behalf.
After all, Sains was a favorite to win the championship. Draco had simply been unlucky enough to meet the champion early.
Lorne served as commentator.
Thankfully, all eight quarterfinalists used normal playstyles. In Lorne's eyes, their skills had reached expert level too, which gave the commentary a flavor of its own.
"After a day of competition, the two contestants who have finally earned their places in the championship showdown are-"
"Sains, whose character is Hufflepuff, who enhances summoning and wood spells! And his opponent, Lucille! This female general uses the unpopular character, Werewolf. With superb skill and an information advantage, she defeated her semifinal opponent with a huge amount of health remaining."
"The betting odds on Sains are one to two. It looks like our spectators still think Sains is more likely to win."
Back during the game's design phase, Lorne had worried that trading spell blasts would make the game boring, so he had added magical creatures such as Merpeople and Werewolves. Without exception, these characters had high stats, but fell somewhat short in combos and spells.
He had not expected any wizard to actually give up the four elegant founders and choose these rather primitive magical creatures, let alone a girl.
"As we all know, in his previous matches, Sains has used plants to harass his opponents, steadily widening his health advantage with minor spells and recovery spells. Lucille, meanwhile, is synonymous with all-out offense. Her play is spectacular to watch, and every battle has ended with her opponent's health running out. She has never gone into overtime."
"The match begins! Sains opens with his classic Incendio probe. Will Lucille counter with a water spell like everyone else? No! Lucille knows her Werewolf character suffers a spellcasting penalty, so she chooses to tank the damage and close the distance."
"Sains chooses Aguamenti to try to disrupt Lucille's approach, setting up his next Incarcerous. Sure enough, when Aguamenti fails, he starts planting flowers and grass. This is Sains's usual style."
"Good heavens! The Werewolf clawed straight through the thorns! Although she lost some health, this undoubtedly offers us a new approach. Physical attacks can clear the plants too."
"She's reached Hufflepuff! Sains wants to use Stupefy-oh, no, that's just a feint. He wants to bait Lucille into using a counterspell, then use Apparition to escape during the Werewolf's casting recovery!"
"But Lucille doesn't buckle under the pressure at all. An interrupt! Beautiful! The Werewolf's sharp claws slam into Hufflepuff. His health isn't dropping slowly like it would under Fiendfyre. Sains is completely suppressed, and his health has already fallen to half."
"How will Sains handle this? Taking hits, building mana, trying to separate the Werewolf from himself with his familiar wooden wall-no, Sains chooses a Binding Charm to control Lucille."
"Wait, this combo looks so familiar!"
On the screen, Sains opened with a Binding Charm for the first time, then followed it with the Stupefy and Reducto combination everyone had to memorize.
"This is Draco's Slytherin combo!"
No one had expected Sains, who had won his way this far through his macro play and micro-control, to have privately sought Draco's advice and learned his standard combo too.
Offstage, the corners of Draco's mouth rose involuntarily. This was precisely what Sains had asked him about over lunch: how to execute Slytherin's combo with Hufflepuff, and whether other spells could replace certain Slytherin-exclusive spells.
As luck would have it, Draco had studied exactly that.