Welcome to Day 7 of Deadman Mode Allstars with Team SMOrc, where every minute matters and every death can literally swing the whole tournament. I’m coming off the high of yesterday’s Vesta takedown, but the game instantly reminds me DMM doesn’t care about your feelings. I’m just trying to train and do some boring prep (even a cheeky toadflax run), and I’ve got people appearing on my screen like horror movie jump scares. Everywhere I go, the bald man is there. It’s hell. Then we hit the second-to-last breach and we go in aggressive—looking for clumps, looking for picks, trying to leave with trinkets and loot. Reality check: I get focused like I always do, we get outnumbered, comms get messy, and the vibes take a hit. I make a bad call trying to keep Tim alive, and it turns into one of those moments where you’re tired, you’re captain-ing, and you snap. I owned it, apologized off stream, and we moved on like men. To top it off, I do the most Skill Specs thing imaginable: I’m on the wrong spellbook (standards), get caught, and my Hardcore is done. After that, it’s damage control—escorts, paranoia-checking my spellbook every time I log in, and grinding demons while praying Dino doesn’t show up for the fifth time. We do snag a Fang though, which is genuinely huge for the boys.