Chapter 1140: First Round
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Happy may have been swept by Samsara, but they won versus the press conference reporters. After routing the reporters, the four left the stage in high spirits. When they left through the passageway for the players, they just happened to bump into Samsara, who would be participating in the next part of the press conference.
Zhou Zekai, Jiang Botao, Sun Xiang.
For the opening round and a good beginning, Samsara hadn't held back and had sent out their three All-Stars. Even though Sun Xiang's year at Excellent Era had been a devastating failure, he was still young and people still looked highly upon his future. From this match, it could be seen that Sun Xiang was meshing well with Samsara. There was no point talking about the individual competition, but in the team competition, he had done a great job assuming the responsibilities of an attacker. One Autumn Leaf in the front. Cloud Piercer in the back. The duo tore apart Happy's formation as if everyone in Happy was a dead branch. It was easy to foresee that this wouldn't be the only time the duo would go on a rampage. This duo would certainly become a nightmare in the entire Alliance for a long time. Many reporters were already describing them in this way.
"Senior!" After bumping into Happy in the passageway, Samsara's Jiang Botao gave a polite greeting to Ye Xiu. The winners would often console the losers. It seemed like Jiang Botao wanted to do the same.
"Mm, I'm glad to see how outstanding the younger generation is!" Ye Xiu sighed.
Sun Xiang rolled his eyes. Because of this person, he had been put into a difficult situation. However, he had gained a lot of experience from these failures. But if it had to be said that he felt gratitude for Ye Xiu beating him, Sun Xiang wasn't so sweet. He still wanted to ruthlessly crush him. In today's match, he had gone all out, and Samsara had achieved a perfect victory. However, in his heart, he didn't feel like he had beaten Ye Xiu. Was it because it wasn't a direct confrontation? Sun Xiang was somewhat puzzled.
Before anyone in Samsara could reply, Fang Rui nodded his head: "Yes, I'm glad too."
Zhou Zekai stared at Fang Rui but didn't say anything.
"Haha, aren't you and Little Zhou both from the same generation?" Jiang Botao laughed.
"Really? Who told him to always be so quiet. I forgot." Fang Rui said.
"Pro players should speak with their play!" Jiang Botao said.
"Okay, I'll give a good talk with you guys next time." Fang Rui said.
"See you next time."
"See you next time."
The two sides departed after a brief exchange. Samsara's press conference went more like how an opening round press conference should go. Most of the discussion was focused on their goals for the new season. Their new player Sun Xiang was given a lot of attention and was asked about his thoughts on Samsara and how he was fitting in with the team.
The four passed through the player passageway and returned to the guest team's lounge at Samsara's stadium. They didn't take a moment to sit down and take a break. They pushed open the door and called out to the others inside: "Let's go!"
Happy left Samsara's stadium and returned to City H with their zero points. Saying that they didn't care at all about their zero points obviously wasn't possible. On the plane, Chen Guo was just sitting and she wasn't feeling comfortable. She looked at Su Mucheng, who was seated next to her, and wanted to chat, but then she saw that Su Mucheng was looking at the tablet in Ye Xiu's hands.
"What's he watching?" Chen Guo asked curiously.
"The VOD for the match that just ended." Su Mucheng said.
"Oh…" Chen Guo didn't say anything more.
Happy wasn't the only one playing their first match. Happy was already on their way back home; the matches going on in the other stadiums had already ended as well.
Team Miracle, the other new team alongside Team Happy, hadn't received the champion sweep. Instead, they had been swept by Team Tyranny. Truthfully speaking, Team Miracle wasn't that bad. They had joined when Team Excellent Era disbanded. Seizing this opportunity, they had fished up quite a few things including three of Team Excellent Era's players. In terms of their players, Team Miracle was actually superior to last season's Team Heavenly Swords. Unfortunately, apart from some leftovers from Team Excellent Era, Team Miracle didn't bring anything fresh to the Alliance, so the attention received was less than that of last year's Team Heavenly Swords.
Speaking of Team Heavenly Swords, their announcement that Sun Zheping would be returning and joining their team had led to a heated discussion. After all, the last time they checked, Sun Zheping had been with Happy in the Challenger League. Everyone thought that he would return along with Happy. Who would have thought that he would turn around and run to Team Heavenly Swords?
For Heavenly Sword's opening match, they happened to be matched with Hundred Blossoms.
First, it was Zhang Jiale. Then, it was Sun Zheping. Hundred Blossom's two kings had retired then returned, but neither of them chose to go back to their team.
When Zhang Jiale returned, the fans cried and cursed, unable to understand and accept it. As for Sun Zheping? When he had fought with Happy in the Challenger League, people had foreseen this development. However, Sun Zheping had been away from the scene for a long time now. The sentiment towards him had lessened drastically. What's more, when he returned, he had been in the Challenger League, so everyone felt like he wasn't being too serious about it and was just having some fun. On the other hand, Zhang Jiale had returned and joined Tyranny. It was obvious that he had gone over because of their fame. In comparison, Sun Zheping's return truly didn't set off any big waves. There was still some noise though. The reporters also knew that this could be considered a noteworthy topic. As a result, in the press conference, someone tossed out this question.
Sun Zheping's return didn't unfold as magnificently as Zhang Jiale's, but Sun Zheping himself was a lot fiercer than Zhang Jiale. When he was asked "Why did you choose Heavenly Swords and not Hundred Blossoms," his reply was just three words: I wanted to.
Everything there was to know about Sun Zheping's situation had pretty much been uncovered when he had been with Happy. Everyone already knew that his hand injury wasn't fully healed. He could play, but he couldn't play for long. He was incapable of becoming a pro team's main force.
Thus, many smart people had already guessed why Sun Zheping chose to go to Heavenly Swords.
He clearly had an appropriate reason that everyone could understand, but instead, he gave this three-word reply.
"I wanted to" indicated that he wasn't going to give an explanation.
This was just how Sun Zheping was. His hand injury meant that he could never become a true pro player again, but he himself hadn't changed.
In the match between Hundred Blossoms and Heavenly Swords, Hundred Blossoms won 8 to 2. Heavenly Swords had won two points in the individual competition, one of which had been gotten by Sun Zheping. Many people felt it was regrettable. It had been many years since he had left the pro scene, yet even with an injury, he could still perform to such a level. If he hadn't gotten his injury, what status would Sun Zheping have in the current pro scene?
Unfortunately, there were no ifs in this world....
Apart from that, the opening round had seven other matches. There weren't too many particularly noteworthy confrontations. This was also how the Pro Alliance always arranged the league schedule. It was the opening round! Satisfying the fans' curiosity towards the teams' adjustments during the summer was enough. They didn't need to set up anything special.
Seven matches.
Team Blue Rain beat Team Bright Green 9 to 1.
Team Tiny Herb swept Team Lightly 10 to 1.
Team Wind Howl beat Team Conquering Clouds 9 to 1.
Team Misty Rain beat Team Seaside 8 to 2.
Team Void barely beat Team 301 6 to 4.
Team Thunderclap beat Team Parade 7 to 3.
Team Royal Style beat Team Radiant 7 to 3.
There were no surprises. The teams that should have won won. The teams that should have lost lost. Although, in regards to the competitive format, with everyone vying for points, there wasn't technically a win or lose. However, out of habit, everyone still considered the team with more points as the winner and the other team as the loser for every match.
From this first round, the placings were currently Tyranny, Samsara, and Tiny Herb tied for first with 10 points. Wind Howl and Blue Rain tied for fourth with 9 points. Misty Rain at sixth with 8 points. Royal Style and Thunderclap tied for seventh with 7 points… in last were obviously the three teams that hadn't won a single point: Happy, Miracle, and Lightly.
Team Lightly was a mid-tier team in the Alliance, neither good nor bad and rather invisible. (Author's Note: Yes, very invisible. It wasn't until I officially started writing about the Pro League did I realize that there was still 1 team missing out of 20. And thus, Team Lightly was born!) If they matched against a powerhouse, losing badly was nothing surprising.
As for Happy and Miracle, the Alliance's tradition continued. Who had these two face against the finalists last season?
These three teams all had 0 points, but Happy was thrown to the bottom. Unfortunately, placings were done by points and then by reverse alphabetical order. Happy started with the letter H, which came before Miracle's M and Lightly's L*.
Season ten's opening round ended with these results. It was hard to predict how this season would go based on these results though. It was just that Happy, the team that had been hyped, was swept by Samsara, so Happy was once again an unfathomable mystery.
Was Happy a good team or a bad team?
The media was discussing this question. The players were discussing this question. But all of them were simply outsiders in the scene. The ones with the headache were the Alliance's teams. They were the ones who needed to rack their brains to figure out how they should be looking at Happy.
Each team found something from the VOD of Happy versus Samsara. This information was too precious. In general, there were practically no recordings of Happy against high-skill level. Only last year's match versus Happy could be considered as one.
As soon as they started studying Happy, all of the teams realized that there were many things needed to be studied.
Not only did Happy have a bunch of rookies, even among the three old veterans, they were only sort of familiar with Su Mucheng. The other two had switched classes! Since they had started again from scratch, it meant that the teams needed to start up their research on them from scratch too. It was a bit better for Fang Rui. There were footsteps to follow. However, Ye xiu made them feel nauseated.
Unspecialized? Everyone knew what an unspecialized was. They knew the theory behind one and could train one too. But the problem was that they didn't have a Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. An unspecialized without the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was completely different from an unspecialized with one. They had no way of testing an unspecialized themselves nor could they imitate one. Their only source of information was from match VODs. There were really only two matches significant enough to watch though, so they could only watch these over and over again.
Ye Xiu was clearly someone that everyone was incomparably familiar with, but he was a completely mystery right now. This sort of feeling didn't feel good at all.
You bastard! You've already retired, so why'd you have to return? If you're going to return, why'd you switch classes? If you're going to switch classes, why'd you have to choose an unspecialized? If you're going to choose an unspecialized, why'd you have to have an exclusive weapon?