Chapter 212: 216. Chapter 212: Nice is Everywhere!

216. Chapter 212: Nice is Everywhere!

After returning to the hotel room, they had plenty of time today, allowing them to rest for a while.

Xu Beifang was watching an interview with Apex that had popped up on Twitter. Apex had performed the best today, so he had been invited to the post-match interview segment.

"Hello Apex, your performance today was outstanding, and you led your teammates to victory in the first day of the Legends Stage. You expended a lot of energy in the match just now; was the match more difficult than expected?" the host, Banks, asked with a chuckle.

Apex swayed back and forth on screen before answering: "It had a certain level of difficulty. BIG hadn't appeared in the Challengers Stage, so we couldn't predict their upcoming playstyle. Even though they hadn't found their rhythm yet, they still caused us quite a bit of trouble."

"Fortunately, my teammates performed well, especially Nice, who made many key plays..."

Banks asked again: "It's been a long time since I've talked to you. As an IGL, what is your assessment of Nice joining the team?"

In recent months, Vitality had been lingering in qualifiers and open brackets, so there hadn't been many interview opportunities.

During the Challengers Stage, the players interviewed from Vitality were often Zywoo and Nice.

Apex was rarely interviewed.

Banks had always wanted to ask about Vitality's opinion on Nice but hadn't found the opportunity; now that he had caught Apex, he hurriedly asked.

"His joining is like plugging in a USB drive for us; we just need to shout 'Nice' in the player booth," Apex said with a straight face.

The result, naturally, was that Banks was amused.

Xu Beifang's ID—Nice—had always been a very interesting meme.

On forums, some players joked that the player Nice was always winning.

When the Terrorists won, everyone shouted "Nice."

When the Counter-Terrorists won, everyone shouted "Nice" as well.

Coupled with Xu Beifang's playstyle of pushing forward and lurking alone, they joked that you never knew where Nice was.

Xu Beifang himself was also amused by Apex. He had only chosen this ID on a whim and never expected so many interesting things to follow.

"Just kidding," Apex said, evaluating seriously in the video. "Nice is a very, very good player. At the very least, he is the kind of player I wanted. He chose to come to Vitality and form a team with me only after my earnest invitation."

Speaking of this, Apex appeared very proud.

"Nice was invited by you to join Vitality?" Banks was somewhat surprised to hear this. He had thought the Vitality boss had offered some astronomical contract that made Nice willing to go to France to form a team, but it turned out to be because of Apex.

After the transfer window closed following the London Major, news broke that Nice had joined Vitality. The xenophobic French netizens expressed skepticism, believing Vitality shouldn't have formed an international roster, and expressed great confusion on forums.

The European stage—if you have the guts, come on over.

In a few online minor tournaments, Vitality faced these quasi-tier-one teams, which let everyone see Nice's true strength.

The sentiment on French forums suddenly shifted, and everyone praised Vitality's move to invite Nice. They believed the Vitality management had the foresight to pull in a genius like Nice.

Apex usually seemed indifferent to the skepticism on the internet, but in reality, he remembered it all. At this moment, he wanted to let those netizens know: the person you see is someone I invited; I, Apex, have an eye for talent.

Apex continued to answer the question: "Regarding my impression of Nice, I initially wanted to be his teammate because of his extremely powerful entry-fragging ability, so I extended an invitation to him."

"Isn't his entry-fragging ability powerful now?" Banks laughed.

Apex pondered for a moment and explained his insight: "Entry-fragging ability is his strongest weapon, but personally, I think compared to his entry-fragging ability, his understanding of the game is what's truly powerful."

"He has proposed many new insights for Vitality's current system. His excellent tactical concepts were something we hadn't even thought of; it was a pleasant surprise."

Banks deliberated for a moment and then asked curiously: "Is there anything you can reveal?"

He was worried that asking would be too abrupt, but he was truly curious.

A rifle-wielding powerhouse like Nice being excellent in tactical concepts was quite rare in their view.

Because in the general consensus, "gunners" were often lumped together with the word "idiot"; mindless rushing wasn't just a saying.

Now, this "idiot gunner" Nice had excellent tactical concepts; this contrast was extremely attractive to people...

Apex thought for a while and picked a few things he could talk about: "For example, the spawn-point VIP smoke that everyone is trying recently was entirely explored and figured out by Nice through running the map."

【!!!】

【Holy crap, I thought the fast VIP smoke was something the old guys had tucked away; it was something Nice practiced by running the map??】

【He streams and practices aiming on the ladder for so long every day; does he still have time to explore map-running?】

【You thought Nice was just an idiot gunner relying on aim to spray-spray-spray, but it turns out he's the one using his brain?】

【Initially, he really was an idiot gunner; his clutch plays were abstract, and he only gradually improved later.】

【Xu Beifang has always been playing with his brain; he's also a well-known male college student.】

Xu Beifang watched the bullet comments drifting across the stream; the netizens' senses were still very sharp.

When he first joined VP, he relied more on this unconventional entry-fragging to score points, catching the opponent off guard.

As for clutch situations.

Because he was an entry fragger, he didn't know how to be steady after getting a kill at the time, often dying in the trade, so there were no clutch situations that required him to play.

However, in the few clutch situations, his win rate was indeed not high, and most of what he could win relied on brute force and aim.

It was rare to see him like a true clutch master, catching that very, very good timing, or silently circling behind the opponent.

After joining Vitality, his survival rate gradually increased, and the number of clutch situations also increased unconsciously.

After his awareness improved, his clutch play wasn't as rough as before.

Thinking of this, Xu Beifang looked at his system panel.

【Clutch Awareness: 78-82】

His awareness in clutch situations was still not top-tier, but combined with decent aim, he could often produce good results.

But for himself now, clutch awareness was still a shortcoming.

With a thought—

【Do you want to invest 22,000 Listen-to-Advice Value to improve the 'Awareness' attribute?】

"Yes."

【Attribute has been improved!】

【Awareness: 82-82】

22,000 Listen-to-Advice Value invested, and there wasn't much of a feeling; this thing still needed to be slowly comprehended in matches.

So, is his awareness cap now 82?

Compared to other attributes, 82 was still a bit low.

Xu Beifang raised his eyebrows; if there was an opportunity later, he might need to find a few clutch masters to ask for advice on playing clutch situations.

He dreamed of becoming a six-sided warrior without dead ends; he couldn't let clutch situations hold him back.

Now it seemed that being able to clearly feel his own state was, for him, the biggest improvement.

Checking the weak maps, then filling in the shortcomings and constantly improving—as long as he gave himself enough time, he would definitely be able to become a top player!

But before that, he still needed to go to the Vitality training room to review today's match...

"Guys, we got a good victory today, but our performance on the offensive side was not ideal."

After the Vitality members were all present, the words of the bald coach lowered the air pressure by a few degrees.

Many professional players don't like the review segment because reviews often result in negative feedback, giving people a bad impression.

But xtqzzz was still relatively kind, and his tone wasn't very heavy. He looked around at the expressions of the team members and said with a smile:

"However, the handling on the defensive side is worth praising."

"Don't have too much pressure; we'll discuss things as they are and just pick out the problems."

Actually, everyone knew some of these problems; after all, the match had just ended, and the impression was still deep.

In this match against BIG, they only scored 7 points in the second half after winning the pistol round.

This meant that the offensive rounds from the full-buy rounds onwards hadn't been played well.

Xu Beifang roughly knew the reason; it was mainly because the state of NBK and RPK wasn't that good today, at least not as good as Tabsen and Gob B.

Sure enough, he saw the coach open his mouth, and the spearhead went straight to RPK.

"RPK, your recent performance in clutch situations is somewhat unsatisfactory; do you want to move your position forward a bit?"

RPK's aiming style destined him to rarely get multi-kills in clutch situations.

Especially when the opponent had a sniper rifle, if he couldn't get a headshot kill, the sniper rifle had a high probability of killing him back.

In today's match, RPK was killed like this twice.

On the other hand, NBK's gunplay couldn't support his awareness; the problem was too big, and he couldn't adjust.

"I can try it." RPK nodded; at least on the surface, he didn't have many thoughts.

Whether it was performance ability or data, it indicated that his performance in clutch situations was dragging, so there was no need for him to keep his position back.

He was a bit disappointed inside; when he was young, he could rely on excellent gunplay and reaction to make up for the lack of damage per second.

But now that he was older, facing younger players who were getting better and better, his playstyle could no longer support him in controlling the lightning on the field.

Hearing RPK's answer, the bald coach just nodded faintly and continued to explain the problems based on tactics.

Most of it was the correction of the wrong reactions made by Vitality players on the spot when facing the opponent's counter-moves after the tactics were laid out.

But sometimes, Xu Beifang and the others would also explain their thoughts at the time; at this time, the bald coach would also fall into deep thought, thinking about whether the choices in specific situations were correct.

This point of xtqzzz made them very comfortable. Although the bald man had the highest say in Vitality, he wasn't a dictator; he would actively listen to everyone's opinions.

After more than an hour of review, the Vitality crowd felt slightly tired but also felt that they had become much stronger.

"Let's go, let's find a restaurant outside today; it's my treat!" Apex's generous words swept away everyone's fatigue.

Everyone thanked the "Big Boss" for the treat.

Then, after consulting Pasha, they arrived at a nearby Polish restaurant.

They ordered a few famous Polish stews and browsed their phones while waiting for the food.

Xu Beifang was just about to check the private messages from everyone on Bilibili when he saw a message from Byali; he clicked in to check.

Byali: Thanks for giving me strength, brother; I'm at the Spodek Arena, just crushed MIBR!

Xu Beifang:???

【Holy crap, VP beat MIBR??】

Xu Beifang was quite surprised by this result.

He still had a deep impression of the team MIBR; after all, VP's first upset was defeating MIBR, which let everyone know his name for the first time.

【VP can beat MIBR now??】

The Vitality crowd in the restaurant was also very surprised to hear this news.

You know, although MIBR hadn't been famous recently, they were still the 11th-ranked team in the world.

And where was VP's ranking?

World No. 51!

They were definitely the lowest-ranked team in the entire Major!

As a result, this 51st place actually beat the 11th place, an upset spanning 40 rankings.

NBK, sitting next to Xu Beifang, had already started looking for the recording on YouTube and soon started checking the match between VP and MIBR.

Xu Beifang asked on his phone: "What's your situation? You said you were going to throw before the match, but you played so fiercely in the first one?"

Are you wasting my expression?

Byali also replied quickly: "The map was Inferno; after talking to you yesterday, I felt inexplicably good, and we crushed them, haha!"

"But it's nothing great; it's just the world No. 11. We crushed MIBR during the ZOTAC Cup last year; I'm inexplicably familiar with dealing with them, haha~"

It was clear that Byali was very happy; obviously, being able to get a victory on the first day of the Legends Stage made him very proud.

Xu Beifang put himself in Byali's state of mind.

Originally planning to play casually and mess around for entertainment, he found that the opponent couldn't beat them at all.

What the hell is called a surprise!

Xu Beifang glanced in NBK's direction; NBK went straight to the end of the match to check the score—16:4.

Good guy, this was a big-score crushing.

If this wasn't a Major, Xu Beifang would really suspect MIBR was throwing.

But are these Brazilians too extreme?

FURIA's speed of entering the state in the Challengers Stage was so fast.

And MIBR's speed of entering the state in the Legends Stage was so slow that it was unbelievable.

Xu Beifang simply opened HLTV to check how everyone was doing today.

Fortunately, looking at it, everyone was relatively normal.

Liquid defeated AVANGAR, NaVi defeated G2, FaZe defeated HR.

The only one that was a bit lopsided was Renegades defeating ENCE, but Renegades' hot state in the Challengers Stage made their win over ENCE acceptable.

Only his former teammates had made some astonishing moves.

An upset spanning 40 rankings, a bit terrifying!

So in the upcoming matches, is it possible for Vitality to have some upsets due to a burst of state?

Judging from this match, those top-ranked teams are not invincible. ===== CHAPTER 213 =====