Chapter 154: HLTV 2018 Top 9 Player: Nice!

Xu Beifang's joining Vitality was very smooth. Whether it was environmental integration or life state, it was very good, but he just didn't like French food very much.

Fortunately, he had lived independently very early, and still had some cooking skills. Vitality's base also provided a kitchen, allowing Xu Beifang to adjust his diet occasionally.

Not long after joining Vitality, they completed the official announcement, and Xu Beifang's prefix was also added with Vitality's name. For joining such a brand-new team, many domestic fans didn't understand, but only expressed support, looking forward to seeing Xu Beifang's figure in various major tournaments next.

After joining Vitality, Xu Beifang also felt the difference from VP.

Compared to VP, although apEX, NBK, and RpK are also in the category of older players.

But they are a few years younger, and their overall strength is still higher than that of the old men in VP.

He also gradually integrated into this team: the friendly but emotional apEX, the quiet RpK, and the thoughtful NBK.

And Xu Beifang's biggest partner now, Zywoo, who is always smiling to the outside world.

Zywoo is a very special player. Xu Beifang can see that he is still in a growth period, but he is already one of the top players. He and Zywoo can now safely hand their backs to each other.

There is also a place different from VP.

When Xu Beifang joined VP, it was a bit like cutting in line halfway, and many things were taken care of by the old brothers.

Not to mention life care, in the match, he actually ate the bonus of VP's few people—the qualifications for IEM Shanghai, Hong Kong ZOTAC Cup, London Major Qualifier, etc., they had already fought for, he just needed to participate in the major tournament with the team.

But it is different in Vitality. Everything is brand new, so the qualifications for various major tournaments have to be fought out by them slowly.

Because most of the CS: GO matches are cup matches, the overall qualification obtained is:

Qualifier - Pre-selection - Main match.

So in these few months, Vitality has been frantically participating in various qualifier projects, fighting for tickets to major tournaments for themselves.

They played 40 matches in total, 12 BO1s and 28 BO3s, but only lost 5 matches, and the overall record was quite amazing.

And under this fierce explosion, Vitality's world ranking gradually rose to 24.

For the Vitality crowd, this result is quite good. Two months are enough for them to get many major tournament qualifications, and they have gradually appeared in the audience's field of vision.

On December 31st, Xu Beifang was grabbed by the French old men of the club and kissed wildly. Everyone sang and danced to celebrate the arrival of the New Year.

With the arrival of the New Year, the entire Vitality club began to prepare to impact various major tournaments. Several major tournament qualifications that can be played have been played, and the next step is to participate in major tournaments and qualifiers alternately. It is conceivable that they will be very busy for a period of time in the future.

With the arrival of 2019, for community players, they have already started discussing this year's Top 20 players in advance.

"This year's Top should be Simple Boy."

"I don't understand, obviously Device's performance is more outstanding, how many major tournament championships did he win all year?"

"s1mple played a terrifying 1.38 rating this year, this is basically the ceiling of individual ability, is this not Top 1?"

"It must be Device who got Top 1! Honor is very important. In 2014, even if Flusha had better ratings and MVPs, but Dog-Head-Man relied on the number of trophies, he still got Top 1, so this year's Top 1 will only be Device."

"Just in my personal opinion, will it be NiKo?"

"Forget it, NiKo has no data this year, no results, what to compare with these two guys?"

"Feel like NiKo didn't play as well as Twistzz this year. How many MVP medals did Twistzz get this year?"

"Then don't touch it, NiKo's overall is much better than Twistzz."

Players' arguments about Top 1 are very intense, but there are also some domestic fans who are looking forward to:

"Will Little Xu and TyLoo become Top players this time?"

"Maybe on the edge of Top, TyLoo has little hope, their overall data can't reach the edge."

"Hope to see Little Xu's figure."

"Forget it, it's just you guys blowing it. These few months are all playing third-tier matches, what's the use?"

"Little Xu actually has a great chance to enter the list, just that he only played three major tournaments last year and got one MVP trophy, which is slightly worse in honor and gold content."

The controversy on the domestic forum about whether Xu Beifang can enter the Top list is very large.

At this time, a passerby player named "Nian Lan" gave a series of data, analyzed HLTV's algorithm, and concluded: "Nice's ranking might be around Top 10."

Because Nian Lan's words are quite many, and the data makes people's heads ache, most people only got one piece of information—Top 10.

Now they started to wait for the stars and the moon.

As the days passed, they gradually watched Top 12-Guardian, Top 11-Coldzera come out one by one, but couldn't see Xu Beifang's figure, and were a bit disappointed.

Then on January 12, 2019, they saw HLTV's push message.

【2018 Top 20 Player: Nice (9)】

The domestic forum was instantly shocked!!

"Wow, Top 9!! Is it that exaggerated?"

"The face is fully pulled!! Little Xu is too fierce."

"The 'Enlightenment Boy' doesn't act like a human."

"Where are those little haters before, stand out!! Top 9!!!"

"We Chinese also have our own Top players, Little Xu is awesome!!"

"As expected of a 200G seed player! Just exaggerated, got an MVP in half a year."

The user named Nian Lan was a bit surprised to see this result.

According to his various data algorithms, Xu Beifang should be below Top 10. He didn't expect him to rush to Top 9. He looked carefully at the push information below:

【Reason for being on the list: Nice's performance this year is very energetic. As one of the five best rookies of the year (Twistzz, Nice, Ropz, Smooya, woxic), he is the best entry fragger among them. In the 2018 major tournaments, Nice got a 1.28 rating. When he was the offensive side, his rating was 1.27, and when he was the defensive side, his rating was 1.29.

Besides that, as an entry fragger, Nice's entry proportion is 34.6% (1st), and the entry success rate is an astonishing (52.3%). An important reason for successfully being on the list is that even in the Major knockout stage where teammates were dragging, he could still play very good data.

Negative factor: Nice's annual 1.28 rating (2nd) could have allowed him to go further on the list. But the sample size of major tournaments is too small, making him stop here.

However, as a man who is always on the breakthrough, Nice's crazy performance in the second half of the year has made him one of the best entry fraggers in the world. Now he has formed a new team with French legends apEX, NBK, etc. Looking forward to his performance later.

Tomorrow's Star Prediction:

Nice chose his fellow countryman, the player from Huaxia, DanKing. This player is currently 18 years old. We haven't found any results for this player yet. Looking forward to his performance later.】

Ruthless enough!!

Nian Lan looked at the data and almost gasped.

Debuting in the first year, winning Top 9 as the best rookie, and in his own position, getting the first in various breakthroughs, this kind of praise is still quite exaggerated.

The only drawback is perhaps the few number of major tournaments, making Xu Beifang's results not go further, which is a bit regrettable.

However, this exaggerated data made this fan consider whether to do a data statistics of the London Major? Expressing the data of each player in a video graphic way.

Thinking about it this way, Nian Lan felt it seemed to have a chance.

By then, Little Xu's breakthrough attempt rate should be exploding, right?

Domestic players are quite satisfied with this Top 9 ranking, but many foreign players are different. Although they know Nice's performance in the past few months is good, they still think his performance is not enough to support the title of Top 9.

It is also the same as HLTV's evaluation, the sample size is too small. Even if he got an MVP of the Hong Kong ZOTAC Masters, it is still insufficient for the Top 9 position.

However, when facing questioning voices, VP old men and apEX and others all spoke on Twitter, praising Xu Beifang for being worthy of this honor.

While netizens were fiercely discussing Xu Beifang's Top quota, Vitality had already filled their points and got the qualification for the 2019 IEM Katowice Major European Qualifier.

The total prize money in this Katowice European Qualifier is 50,000 USD, but no team cares about this 50,000 USD.

The participating teams in this European Qualifier besides them also include: ENCE, North, Valiance, MOUZ, Windigo, Optic, ex-Space Soldiers.

A total of eight teams are fighting for two and a half spots. The top two directly get the qualification, while the third place has to play a playoff with the CIS region team, so it is half a spot.

Xu Beifang also came to Poland again with Vitality.

The opponent in the first day's match was their most familiar Optic. In the past few months, this team Optic and them often bumped into each other in various qualifiers, bumping into each other 7 times in total, and Vitality only lost once.

If Ma Xixi were here, he would definitely say those classic five words again _____!

The Vitality crowd didn't live up to the fans' expectations, and finally got a good start with a score of 16:8. Xu Beifang and Zywoo each played a rating of 1.58 and 1.49, beating the Danes to run away.

And the second day of the European Qualifier gradually started. Even the Vitality crowd began to feel some pressure, because from the second round of the match, the system changed from BO1 to BO3.

January 17, 2019, Katowice cloudy to sunny.

Everyone in the Spodek Arena had already sat in their positions and started to warm up.

Their opponent on the second day was Valiance. This team is not famous, but there are several players in the team who are very outstanding.

"Sigh, Nice, heard that the Hunter on the opposite side is NiKo's cousin?" apEX asked curiously.

He knew that Xu Beifang and NiKo had a good relationship and often played together on FPL in these few months.

"It's a cousin, but it's not much different from a biological brother. They grew up together since childhood." Xu Beifang added, "And tell you, this guy was a professional football player before, and later retired because of injury."

NBK was a bit surprised on the side: "NiKo's family talent is so strong? I took a look before the match, this Hunter's annual rating is also 1.23, it is a thigh-level player."

They have seen many "brother CS," but rarely can they see that both the older brother and the younger brother have talent.

As a result, NiKo's younger brother is a world-class gunner, and the older brother even has the possibility of impacting first-tier professional players. This is very terrifying.

"And have to pay attention to the commander named nexa on the opposite side, that guy especially likes to gamble on points, doesn't play according to common sense." Coach "Big Baldy" added in the back.

Can you play according to common sense? People's nickname is "Gambler God."

Although the team is not famous, there are two future famous players, so Xu Beifang still felt some pressure.

After a round of fast BP, the BO3 match map came to: Cache, Inferno, Dust II

Both sides sorted out their emotions and started to officially enter the BO3 match.

Map: Cache

T: Hunter, LETN1, nexa, ottoNd, Espiranto

CT: ZywOo, Nice, apEX, NBK, RpK

The match officially started.

The first map is not Vitality's strength now, but since the map has been selected, they can only consider how to win it.

apEX made a command: "Start Nice single defense at A bomb site, Zywoo hangs in the middle, NBK you two heavy defense B site, I am here at the police station, see which side has pressure and return to which side."

The countdown ended, Xu Beifang bought a half-armor and came to the A site.

He hid in the dead point and kept swaying to scout. The defense of single A plus the pistol round didn't give him much room to play.

nexa knew Nice liked to press forward, so the overall play was very careful, doing defaults in various points of the map at the beginning, just to prevent Xu Beifang.

Immediately after, at one minute, they launched a wave of bombing on the A site.

"Dead point fire! Two consecutive instant flashbangs, Nice at the dead point was blinded the whole time, the T main force pressed forward, directly grabbing Nice and killing him." Ma Xixi was explaining quickly in the live stream.

"The police station white car side is trying to draw the crossing point, but there is the cover of the A-Short crossing smoke, they can't get any information. In an instant, the A bomb site is full of people, the bomb is planted, this is a 4-on-5 clutch, can the front create a miracle? Little Fatty is still alive on the field."

"But nexa chose a tricky angle, directly killing ZywOo who was reinforcing. The reinforcing apEX was also killed by nexa with this half-armor P250! After a mess, Vitality didn't even touch the bomb site and were all killed."

Losing the pistol round, Vitality directly performed no-armor P25

But after entering the full-buy rounds, they still couldn't start picking up points.

The opponent's rhythm was excellent, and their offense was very smooth.

It wasn't until the 8th round that they finally won a round, thanks to a sudden push by Xu Beifang, who secured a double kill at the start.

But by then, the score had reached 1:7, and Vitality called their first timeout.

On Mirage, the map where the Frenchmen often give away free rounds, they desperately needed to make adjustments.

(End of chapter)