Chapter 1169: Third Round
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
They finished discussing positioning. Next was the judge giving a yellow card to the calmly waiting Mo Fan, forcing Mo Fan to make adjustments, but the judge felt his actions were unacceptable, so he gave him another yellow card, and Mo Fan was disqualified.
"Mucheng, you talked to him about the rules already, right?" Ye Xiu asked.
"I did," Su Mucheng said with a smile.
"Alright, then that's that." Ye Xiu nodded. He didn't ask Mo Fan to report anything, and simply ended the discussion of this battle. "Let's look at the next battle."
The next battle was Tang Rou's thrilling 1v2. Because it was her own battle, this time Tang Rou participated in the discussion more. She wasn't like Steamed Bun, who couldn't figure out the situation. Her clarity of thought allowed her to gain the most from reviewing her own match.
After the group arena was the team competition. Every confrontation, every player's performance, from both Happy and Hundred Blossoms, was taken apart and evaluated in detail.
They spent the entire morning in review, which was already a relatively short amount of time. In this competition, there really wasn't much they could analyze. Ye Xiu's defeat of Zeng Xinran, Fang Rui's two battles, Mo Fan's battle, there wasn't much content to look at. Furthermore, this was Happy's big victory. A victory generally meant that there were fewer problems to study. Even though the opponent's mistakes could also be analyzed, the priority was generally figuring out one's own problems so that they could be fixed. For example, Hundred Blossoms' Zeng Xinran revealed the problem of nerves, but this wasn't something that Happy needed to focus on.
On the other hand, their complete defeat in last week's match against Samsara revealed many of their problems. The review that Happy did last Monday after that match lasted from morning all the way until night.
They finished review in the morning, so the afternoon was spent training as usual. The life of a pro player was this sort of dull repetition. Every day, they basically did the same thing. The burning passion was left to Saturday night to be released.
On days without matches, ordinary gamers could only wait around, looking back on previous matches and anticipating the next ones. In the second round, Happy vs Hundred Blossoms garnered a lot of attention, but to the viewers, the live television broadcast of Thunderclap vs Void was also a very high-level match.
In this match, Thunderclap took an early lead with Dai Yanqi in the individual round, but then they cleanly lost the next two individual battles as well as the group arena.
Losing 1 to 4, with so many consecutive defeats, it seemed as though Thunderclap was on the brink of collapse and Void would earn a big victory. But to everyone's shock, Thunderclap pulled off a huge comeback in the team competition. They defeated Void and won the 5 points of the team round, and in the end won the match 6 to 4.
Such an exciting plot was definitely worth live broadcast, but in the end, the live commentator was distracted during the whole thing, occasionally turning the subject to discuss Happy vs Hundred Blossoms. There were indeed some viewers that objected to this.
There was much commentary on the Happy vs Hundred Blossoms match, but the specialized media outlets needed to present comprehensive reports. Esports Weekly, for example, didn't neglect their analysis and discussion of Thunderclap vs Void.
All of the reporters and special commentators unanimously pointed out Thunderclap's biggest change this season: they had become more confident.
They won 7 points in the first round and 6 points this round. With 13 points, they were currently in 7th place, not a bad start. If they maintained this stable performance, then it wouldn't be a problem for them to earn a spot in the playoffs.
Their performance in the team competition received particular attention. Before, Thunderclap relied on their Master Tactician Xiao Shiqin, who had more of a chance to shine in the team competition. Now that he returned this season, he joined with his former teammates who had grown on their own, as well as new arrivals, to smoothly create a solid, unified team. Team Parade and Team Void, who had fought with Thunderclap this season, both expressed how difficult it was to face Team Thunderclap in the team competition.
Of course, some people said this was because Thunderclap didn't have Xiao Shiqin last season, so their skill in the team competition had gone down. This season, with Xiao Shiqin's return, Thunderclap was merely regaining its former ability. This view compared the current Thunderclap with the Thunderclap of last season, and said that if they compared the current Thunderclap to previous years where Xiao Shiqin was present, then it'd be more difficult to say which was better.
The pro scene was filled with such endless debates. After Happy's huge victory, there were people who looked back at their earlier performance, when they were swept in the first round, to find problems.
One match they were swept, one match they won big. These sort of up and down results were the best evidence of an unstable condition!
Regarding this kind of debate, they needed the third round to give them an answer.
One week passed, and the third round of matches were upon them. With the first two rounds to pave the way, the third round seemed much more exciting. Happy had a big loss and then a big win, so how would they perform in this round? Thunderclap was doing well as a team, could they maintain their win streak in the team competition?
The attention that these two teams received was a result of their performance in the first two rounds. But in the third round, neither of them would be in the spotlight. Because in this third round, there finally appeared a match that was an unquestionable pinnacle of showdowns. As much as people discussed Happy and Thunderclap, nothing could steal away their attention from this match.
Glory Professional Alliance Season 10 Round 3, Team Samsara vs Team Tyranny.
The champion and runner-up of last season, a collision like Mars crashing into Earth appeared in the very third round of matches. What match could rival this? None, none at all!
Even the pro players themselves were paying close attention to this match. After all, they were group of people that loved Glory the most, of course they loved to see exciting matches.
Right before the third round of matches began, in the Tiny Herb prep room, Liu Xiaobie was fiddling with his phone. This caught the notice of Captain Wang Jiexi.
In an instant, Liu Xiaobie's expression became strained. He attempted to hide his phone away, carefully and stealthily.
"What are you doing?" But in the end, Wang Jiexi still asked.
The prep room instantly fell silent, and quite a few looked over at them. Everyone knew what Liu Xiaobie was trying to do. This guy just wanted to check on Samsara vs Tyranny in the breaks between their battles. Everyone was curious about how that match would play out.
But even if the captain were curious, he would certainly restabilize his mindset. He wouldn't let himself be distracted during a competition, and of course, he wouldn't want his Tiny Herb teammates to be distracted, either.
"Turn off your phone." Wang Jiexi didn't ask further, and merely spoke in an ordinary tone.
Liu Xiaobie, dejected, took out his phone and turned it off.
Wang Jiexi's gaze swept over everyone, and the players couldn't help but stand up when he looked at them. "This match, our opponent is Bright Green. Although they aren't a very strong team, we can't drop our guard."
"Right," everyone answered.
"Good, let's go!" With that, the Tiny Herb players walked out of the prep room. Liu Xiaobie felt at the phone in his pocket, but in the end, he left it in the room.
Focus on the match!
This is what he told himself. He lifted his head, straightened his shoulders, and followed the pace of his teammates.
All of the matches going on at the same time were affected by this pinnacle match. Even at the pre-match press conferences, many reporters went on a tangent to ask about players' views toward this match.
In Happy's pre-match press conference, one reporter hoped that Ye Xiu would make a prediction. After all, Ye Xiu was very familiar with the old veterans of Tyranny. And as for Samsara? The account One Autumn Leaf, did those ties even need to be discussed?
"Tell us! Just give us a prediction of points?" The reporter hounded Ye Xiu for an answer.
"10 to 0," Ye Xiu said.
"What!" All of the reporters were in shock. Such a big point difference! Which team did Ye Xiu favor so much?
"Who's 10 and who's 0?" someone immediately asked, sensing that there would be a story in this.
"Doesn't matter," Ye Xiu said with a laugh.
"Doesn't… doesn't matter?" Everyone was stunned. What did that mean?
"How… how can you just say this doesn't matter?" said the reporter who had hounded for an answer.
"You were the one who said to just give a prediction," Ye Xiu laughed.
"I…" The reporter was speechless, and could only stare blankly as the Happy players left the conference.
Happy's opponent this round was Radiant. After two rounds, they finally met an opponent that wasn't that strong. Some people were already saying that real gold was revealed under fire, this match wouldn't say much. They needed a strong team to test Happy's true colors.
"Who does he think he is!" The Friday issue of Esports Weekly had lots of predictive discussions, and this one in particular made Chen Guo rather unhappy. As she waved the newspaper around, she fiercely wrote the reporter's name into her memory: Cheng Jianbo.
"This is nothing!" Ye Xiu couldn't help but laugh at Chen Guo's indignation. "This just says that, to some people, we as a team are already stronger than Radiant, and so we shouldn't be compared to them."
"How childish!" Chen Guo said.
"Yes, it's extremely childish," Ye Xiu agreed. He looked around at everyone gathered in the prep room.
"I'm sure that everyone's already aware of this week's analyses of Radiant. They're never a team that places very highly on the Alliance leaderboard," said Ye Xiu. "However, they definitely aren't a team that can be defeated easily. Focus on the match, and don't think about anything else."
In the first round, Happy was swept, and they suffered a lot of discussion. In the second round, they won by a large margin, and once again were subject to a lot of discussion. All of this discussion tended to pile up and add pressure on players, and sometimes this would negatively impact a player's condition. This was especially true for rookies, who didn't have much experience in dealing with this.
"Understood!" But for now, everyone gave Ye Xiu a spirited reply.
In the third round, Team Happy fought against Team Radiant. And after 1 hour and 23 minutes of fierce fighting, the final score hung in Radiant's stadium: 3 to 7, Radiant's victory.
In the prep room before the press conference, Tang Rou said to her teammates, "I'm sorry…"