Chapter 34

In a 1V2 clutch, if the opponent starts defusing with less than ten seconds left, what would you do?

A. Count the seconds, then wide-peek out and kill the defusing CT.

B. Believe the opponent is fake-defusing, keep waiting until you think it's appropriate to wide-peek.

C. Risk being cleared and throw a fire to stall for time.

The countdown music started, and the atmosphere of the game became somewhat tense.

Everyone on VG who had died had made the choice they thought was right, but out of respect, they wouldn't say it to the only person alive on the field.

Watching Jiao Yang switch to his utility, advent frowned slightly.

It was a smoke grenade.

As everyone knows, a smoke grenade has no damage unless it hits someone.

For a clutch like this, the effect of a smoke grenade should be far inferior to an incendiary grenade.

Jiao Yang threw the smoke at his own feet the moment the opponent started the defuse beep.

The smoke exploded, covering the Oil Drum.

But immediately following, muzzle flashes lit up in the smoke, and the direction the bullets flew was exactly the bomb site.

Almost instantly, Jiao Yang was located by the person holding the smoke and killed through it.

Not long after, the C4 exploded, and no one survived.

The LVG training room was silent; they had already made all the preparations—

Simply turning this clutch into a 1V1 duel.

Yes, they decided to trust their teammate, believing their teammate could kill the defusing CT before the heavily damaged Terrorist could.

Even if the opponent chose to throw a fire, they could extinguish it with a smoke after getting the kill.

They just didn't expect the opponent to choose to blind-fire through the smoke after throwing it, and to do it so quickly and accurately.

If this weren't a practice match, in ladder play, they might have questioned the opponent's clutch logic.

This kind of playstyle is very similar to some cheating noobs.

After all, sealing yourself with smoke and then shooting through it inevitably makes people wonder: Are you a wallhacker? Can you see through walls?

But if this kind of operation appears on the competitive stage and succeeds, the audience will only exclaim—

"You can play like that?"

"It's fine, it was just luck, this is a practice match." Xg comforted his teammates.

The results of practice matches are the least important; as long as you show a certain level of strength and don't make the opponent feel you're too bad to practice with in the future, it's fine.

In this round, under normal circumstances, in a 4V2 clutch, the opponent had no health, and as long as the details were handled a bit better, LVG would have already won steadily.

And the key to the problem was that the situation had become a 4V2 clutch because of the opponent's tactics.

Which meant their tactics had lost to the opponent's.

Tactical pause time—

"Do you think this round was a tactical problem or a performance error?" On VG's side, advent began to ask for tactical feedback.

"That flashbang wasn't great; if the opponent holds and hides, and gives a flash from the back, it's very easy to get wiped." zhokiNg replied.

"Then maybe when A Team played Tyloo, it was simply that Tyloo didn't know how to use utility to counter..." advent nodded, recalling the demo from when they decided to imitate this routine, where Tyloo's people were killed by continuous re-frags.

"Then LVG studied this match and thought of a solution." aumaN gave a reasonable guess.

Combined with the fact that if LVG passed the 5Power hurdle, they would have to face Tyloo, this guess indeed made some sense.

"This tactic is a fast push after harassment; if too much utility is used beforehand, the harassment loses its meaning." advent began to think about improvement plans.

"I have an idea!"

"Oh?"

Seeing that Jiao Yang, this genius, had an idea, advent was very interested and raised his head to signal him to continue.

"A Team putting 3 people in the Long Pipe is nothing more than worrying that the follow-up re-frags won't be enough to limit multiple positions without other utility."

As he spoke, he opened the map and drew circles on it.

"If we reduce the number of people in the Long Pipe, we can also use utility to solve these positions."

As he spoke, he put an 'X' on positions like the Oil Drum and B Second Floor.

"This way, it becomes difficult for the opponent to crossfire, and even if someone dodges the flash, our follow-up people won't be blinded."

advent thought for a while and pointed out the key to the problem: "So, abandon A Team's rigorous re-frag rhythm and choose to explode bombs to let the entry fragger open up the situation?"

"After all that, isn't this just ladder play?" aumaN finally understood and hit the nail on the head.

Just as Jiao Yang wanted to say something, advent directly responded to aumaN: "What Jiao Yang said actually makes sense. A Team's style is very balanced; everyone has a role."

"But the situation for the vast majority of teams is completely different; if you only learn their established tactics, you will only make the team's strengths unable to be exerted and become mediocre."

"Let's try another round according to Jiao Yang's idea."

After speaking, the match continued...

The format of the practice match was different from usual; it didn't end when someone won, but required playing through 30 rounds in a standardized way, practicing both halves completely.

In the end, the total score between VG and LVG was 21:9.

The T-side score was 11:4, and the CT-side score was 10:5.

On the T-side, the few rounds they lost were either because the tactics VG tested had problems, or LVG brought out their trump card tactics.

And on the CT-side, because the advent and aumaN combo's aim was too soft, they lost many points after losing the bomb site, which made the teammates' retakes very disadvantageous.

Overall, this was a result that both sides were satisfied with.

In LVG's view, if you exclude the few lucky clutches played by VG's newcomer Ori, their level on Overpass was about the same as VG's, which meant they could wrestle with other domestic second-tier teams.

And in VG's view, they found quite a few problems in their coordination and had a better understanding of the team's style.

Subsequently, the two teams practiced on LVG's map pick, Dust II; this time LVG ended in a crushing defeat, and it was a crushing defeat with almost no ability to fight back, with a total score of 24:6.

VG let the opponent know the weight of the old men on this classic aim-heavy map.

It wasn't just Jiao Yang who played well; even the Qiyou Trio slaughtered the opponent just the same.

It's just that I don't know if, after such a battle, the opponent will still bring out the "Old Three" when facing old-school clubs like Tyloo.

"So, to play domestic matches, you still have to practice new maps. Once the map pool is wide, the opponent can't beat you no matter what."

advent looked at the final stats, not feeling smug about his rating, but telling Jiao Yang this truth.

He had already noticed that Jiao Yang, as a newcomer, still had a very inadequate understanding of these maps, especially how to use some utility, and was accustomed to just aim-dueling with opponents.

This is a common problem for ladder players and the reason that stops them from going further.

Just as he was thinking about how to start teaching these maps, the phone on Jiao Yang's desk suddenly rang, and two words were clearly written on it—"Qing Zong".