Chapter 141: Ships always have to dock

2018 London Major Group Stage Day 4.

After the dinner celebration yesterday, Xu Beifang drank a little wine, putting himself in a slightly tipsy state, which also led to him feeling extremely comfortable after waking up naturally.

Xu Beifang picked up his phone from the bedside and found that it was still 6 o'clock in the morning in London.

Counting it up, he had only slept for a little over 6 hours, his body was still a bit tired, but after waking up naturally, he was already completely awake.

It was still early, and they had discussed resting and relaxing in the morning yesterday, with no specific tasks arranged, so Xu Beifang wasn't in a hurry to get up.

He was completely awake, but didn't want to get up to exercise or train, so Xu Beifang changed his posture in bed, planning to scroll through his phone first.

After a night of fermentation, the CSGO section was now full of information about the advancement and elimination of the fourth day of the group stage.

【What is the situation with VP? How can they crush NaVi?】

【Didn't MIBR also crush G2 here?】

【BIG also advanced by an upset, why is this year's Major full of upsets!】

Everyone's discussion in the forum was quite heated. In their view, teams like VP, BIG, and MIBR didn't perform well in the early stages and were originally teams that were going to be eliminated.

Everyone didn't hold high expectations for them, thinking their strength was just average.

This sudden upset of several teams advancing instantly triggered discussions in the forum, among which the most intense was the match between VP and NaVi.

NaVi itself was one of the biggest favorites to win the championship, and possessed top star players like s1mple, so the traffic was naturally high.

And Xu Beifang, as one of the strongest rookies of this Major, also attracted many fans with his life-risking playstyle. VP's dark horse posture of counter-attacking all the way also made many people pay attention to them.

The number of viewers for this match actually wasn't that high, but after knowing that NaVi was defeated by an upset, netizens were very curious—how did VP defeat NaVi?

In their eyes, this was almost an impossible task.

With this group of trash in VP now, why would they defeat the rising NaVi?

Xu Beifang was quite curious and clicked on the recording of the English stream commentary on YouTube.

They hadn't reviewed the match yet, so Xu Beifang just clicked to play the sound, while his fingers slid down to the comment section. Compared to the match, he wanted to see the netizens' evaluations more.

【This is really enjoyable to watch, Nice and s1mple are constantly looking for opportunities, the two are very outrageous】

【s1mple is really a pity, two more kills than Nice and still lost】

【The current Nice really has the strength of the world's number one entry fragger】

【Don't hype it up, Nice played really well, but there is a gap compared to NiKo, Electronic, Magisk and this group of people, his technical level is rougher】

【That five-kill last night really made me wet!】

【Nice is so crazy, I love his playstyle! Simply too cool!】

Xu Beifang laughed when he saw the bullet screen saying he was the "world's number one entry fragger". Perhaps this is what it means to have one fan equal to ten haters.

In this Major, Xu Beifang rushed into the first-tier arena with a wild posture, bumping major teams until they were dizzy. A large part of the reason was that he appeared in the professional arena for the first time, and other teams didn't have samples even if they wanted to study him.

This led to his playstyle being unscrupulous.

Under the condition of eating full team resources, the overall data was also quite good.

But Xu Beifang never thought that he could compare to guys like NiKo now.

Those people, whether it was match experience or technical and tactical level, were much higher than himself.

He was at most a world-number-two entry fragger level now, and there was still a lot to learn.

In the case of insufficient strength, these fans directly put the "world's number one entry fragger" crown on him. Isn't this letting fans of NiKo and Electronic come to attack him?

He could calmly accept being called the world's number one pressure-er. Yesterday, fans abroad counted that Xu Beifang's forward pressure frequency in the defensive end ranked first among all players.

It was the sum of the second, third, and fourth combined, which showed how high his forward pressure frequency was.

Under this recording, many fans had expectations for the future of VP and Xu Beifang.

As the strongest dark horse of this Major, the road they walked all the way was too amazing.

Everyone now wanted to see how far this dark horse could go.

At the same time, Xu Beifang also scrolled through many players in the forum showing off their Major guesses. The competition in the Legend Stage was fierce, and VP's upset yesterday killed the homework of many players in the Legend Stage.

Now a group of players were stubborn in the forum—Golden coins are more valuable than diamond coins!

Xu Beifang was very happy. Judging from the current battle situation, his Major golden coin was already in the bag. Next, it depends on the Legend Stage match, whether he can guess correctly and get the diamond coin.

Xu Beifang had a sudden inspiration, opened Bilibili, edited the text, and sent a dynamic:

"The plan has changed, preparing to increase the intensity for the gunners in the Champion Stage."

Xu Beifang's dynamic was just sent out, and he just subconsciously refreshed, and found that someone had already replied below.

【Caught a live Nice!】

【Little Xu's performance yesterday was too fierce, I couldn't sleep all night】

【Lu Bu is posting this now, I dare not imagine how he will be sprayed if the Top 8 doesn't play well】

【It's a pity that Tyloo still fell, couldn't continue to move forward】

【Having reached this point, what is there to spray? Domestic CSGO was originally in the starting stage. There are players who can actively go out to play matches. These are already dream chasers. Are the ones above newbies? Do you understand CSGO!!】

【You've already played very well. Before this tournament, no one dared to imagine that an 'electronic pet' could charge into the Legends Stage, or even into the Major top eight. Xiao Xu really is the 'Enlightenment Brother', isn't he?】

【This really needs to roll a big red envelope for Yang Zhiqiang. That time being scolded was really 'Dragon Field Enlightenment' haha】

Xu Beifang looked at the netizens' flattery, and his vanity was greatly satisfied.

Why play matches, isn't it for the cheers and shouts of the audience? Although he couldn't hear the sound, netizens typing was quite interesting.

He opened WeChat and replied to all the congratulations from relatives and friends that he forgot to reply to because of being tipsy last night.

He soon saw a message sent to him by Xiaogui at 3 am.

Xiaogui: BO3 still couldn't win, tried my best, can only come again next year. You play well in the Champion Stage, we are cheering for you under the stands.

Xu Beifang actually knew the result of Tyloo's failure. Yesterday at dinner, the VP group had already watched the whole match.

Yesterday, Tyloo's opponent was FaZe, this powerful team composed entirely of star players.

Guardian and NiKo exerted force together, and Tyloo still couldn't withstand the pressure.

This was also a normal thing. The further they played, the lower the depth of the map pool exposed by Tyloo, and their preparation was clearly insufficient—Xu Beifang also understood that this was actually a pain point for VP.

And in this match, NiKo and Guardian's state was much better than theirs. In this level of competition, FaZe's experience was seasoned, clearly more at ease.

In the end, Tyloo also ended the Legend Stage match with a 1-3 score.

Looking at Xiaogui's message, Xu Beifang wanted to reply 'must work hard', but after pondering for a long time, he only typed a "Good".

Because even though he was controlling lightning in the group stage, he now felt a lot of pressure for the upcoming Top 8.

The further the Major is played, the stronger the strength of the teams that can remain.

And compared to the inhuman guys like Astralis and Liquid who have already advanced, VP has relatively obvious shortcomings, and it is hard to see a chance of winning.

After VP got the Champion Stage qualification, the group stage was not over yet.

While most teams were resting, three teams were fighting hard. They were G2 vs C9, Astralis vs MIBR, and the difficult competition between the two CIS teams, NaVi and HR.

Led by the two French 'South-Tong' players shox and kennyS, although they entered the choke and were pushed into overtime, they ultimately defeated C9 without any major mishaps and secured their ticket to the Champion Stage.

The previous Major champion finally lost the qualification to defend the title, but G2 didn't advance directly, and still had to decide the final quota in the last day's game.

The second match was the duel between Astralis and MIBR, still a BO1 confrontation. This match had no suspense. Astralis won MIBR with a crushing posture. As the human limit, Device even played a 2.19 superhuman rating, getting the highest single-match rating of this Major.

The third match was a BO3 from the 2-2 group, the CIS civil war between NaVi and HR.

As the CIS Military Academy, HR's strength in this Major was much stronger than IEM Shanghai. Speaking of which, VP was also very familiar with this change, just replacing it with a player named Woxic, nicknamed the Left-Handed Sniper God.

But even if the nickname is Sniper God, left-handed sniping is still not as powerful as s1mple's frame-sniping.

In the entire BO3 duel, s1mple slashed 89 kills, leading the team to strongly take the Top 8 quota.

Then on the last day of the group stage, G2 was directly beaten by the hot FaZe in the BO3 duel. NiKo led the team to get the Top 8 ticket with a 1.47 rating.

The last quota will be decided between NiP and MIBR.

NiP, which was relatively strong in the entire Legend Stage, couldn't win against MIBR.

Old F and Dog-head both played a 1.2 rating, but couldn't lead the 0.9 Rez to win the match.

At this point, all eight teams in the Champion Stage were produced.

They are:

The Born Winner NaVi led by Zeus.

The Danish Dynasty Astralis led by the human limit.

The North American aim-bot light Liquid led by Ji Ge and Zong Jian.

North American second brother COL.

MIBR led by the Brazilian Godfather.

Xu Beifang and his four Polish old men VP.

The Galaxy Battleship driven by the Big Table Brother using Ni, Gua, Ao, Yu.

BIG, which is half a home team with the British sniper Smooya.

September 22, 2018, London weather sunny to cloudy.

The second day of the playoffs also officially arrived.

The first day of fighting made all teams see the bloody smell possessed in the Champion Stage.

After the audience truly entered, the true performance of many teams was revealed, such as NaVi directly 2-0 on the first day, defeating BIG with an exaggerated score.

After entering the offline stage, s1mple and Electronic entered a fanatical state of 'people-to-crazy', beating BIG until they couldn't even breathe.

And on the second day of the playoffs, the B group match also announced the official start.

Xu Beifang led VP and stepped into this Wembley Stadium that can accommodate more than 10,000 people.

After entering and saying hello to the audience, Xu Beifang heard the unison shouting:

"Let's go VP!!"

"Let's go VP!!"

"Let's go VP!!"

He finally enjoyed the feeling he had dreamed of, tens of thousands of audience members cheering and shouting for them.

There were even many people holding signs of 'Little Xu Come On'. Just at that moment, goosebumps rose all over his body.

An invisible force occupied the bottom of his heart. Looking at the shining stadium, Xu Beifang had a different feeling.

Everything was telling him that this is the big stage of the Major, and he will conduct this match under the gaze of CSGO enthusiasts all over the world!

He is competing under the expectations of the fans.

But compared to his excitement, Pasha and the others looked like fish in water, very adapted to everything offline.

Only Xu Beifang, who lived together day and night, understood that they were under great pressure!

Because today's match, their opponent is Liquid, who didn't lose a single match in the group stage!

The first map is Mirage chosen by Liquid.

Even knowing that VP defeated NaVi on Mirage in the last match, they didn't flinch at all. This is the confidence of Liquid's group of gunners.

In the first half pistol round, facing Liquid's standard A Site explosive bomb attack, Xu Beifang used three bullets and three heads to ignite the audience's passion.

After successfully winning the pistol round, Liquid chose a wave of speed-up to B Site. Zong Jian used a Desert Eagle to headshot Neo and Michu in succession, making this match full of anger from the very beginning.

The loss of people at B Site was too fast. Xu Beifang and others still tried hard, but in the end, they lost in the hands of the Captain.

The pistol round was turned over, the rhythm was lost directly, and Liquid began to drag the match into their rhythm, starting to score crazily.

In the 7th round of this match, Xu Beifang also began to actively push forward.

Liquid clearly did a lot of research on Xu Beifang during these few days of rest, and sent people to watch him in every long gun round.

But even so, he could still play a good effect. The members who came to watch knew he was pushing forward, but they still couldn't beat him. Xu Beifang's hard review finally had results.

But even so, VP only got 4 points in the first half.

Because even if he was at an advantage here, he was restricted to a certain extent.

The members in other positions couldn't withstand Liquid's gunplay, which was like aim-bot.

How to describe Liquid's gunplay state now?

You catch Liquid's back, and if you don't kill him with the first two shots, he can turn his head and kill you instantly!

Liquid's exaggerated gunplay state made the old men of VP tired of responding and completely unable to handle it.

After losing the pistol round in the second half, they struggled for a while, but still lost this Mirage with a high winning rate.

During the halftime break, the VP group tried hard to adjust their emotions, and Xu Beifang was also thinking about the breakthrough of Map 2.

Entering Map 2 Inferno, Xu Beifang's playstyle became even crazier. This was something he did intentionally.

On the offensive end, the audience watched him play many times of silent touch, big step touch, and stepping on fire to rush forward.

This playstyle directly increased his death rate, but at the same time, it also increased his breakthrough rate.

In the end, on Map 2 Inferno, it was VP who got the match point first.

But after getting the match point, Zong Jian suddenly had a four-kill on A Site, disrupting their rhythm.

Then Xu Beifang watched their score change constantly:

15:11

15:13

15:15

16:19

Xu Beifang's record on Map 2 was fixed at 37/26.

This small boat of new and old inheritance finally docked. ===== CHAPTER 142 =====