Chapter 304: Championship Reward

Xu Beifang's state in the last few days has been a bit awkward.

The IEM Sydney match has ended. According to the practice, they plan to play in Sydney for a few days before returning to the club base in Paris.

His normal state is a cycle of fitness + training every day, and he rarely comes out to relax.

But the IEM Sydney organizing committee took back the training room, so they have no computers to train. If they really want to play CSGO, they have to run to an internet cafe.

Going to an internet cafe to play CSGO is not very safe, and it will be very troublesome.

FPS games have a great demand for feel, and most players who have entered the door have their own set of peripherals.

Using other people's peripherals may make them feel that something is wrong everywhere.

So Xu Beifang was forced to temporarily withdraw from the world of CSGO.

And on the third day after the IEM Sydney station ended, he also came to a nearby cafe, as promised.

Not far away, the 'Fake Smile Boy' (Elige) in casual clothes is waving at him, and the Director's hairstyle is a bit messy, not as exquisite as on the field.

"Nice, when are you leaving?"

The Director couldn't help but cover his face. "People just came in, and you asked when they were leaving. Your social ability is really something."

"I didn't mean that..."

Xu Beifang laughed. "You're asking when our flight is, right? We're taking the flight back tonight, and then the vacation officially starts."

He naturally knew that Elige didn't mean that. After all, 'Ji Ge's' (Elige) personality is relatively introverted. If he was good at socializing, he wouldn't have caused that kind of conflict when S1mple was in the team before.

"That's great, you can have a vacation again." The Director showed an envious expression on his face. "We go back and rest for a week at most, and then we have to invest in training again... I really want to take my mother on a trip, but I have never had any time."

Liquid was in a hot state at the beginning of the year. At that time, the results were always going up, and the fighting spirit of the whole team was very strong. They all wanted to work hard to rush up, making them always rush in the complicated schedule. Even after the Major ended, Liquid only rested for a week.

And recently, the state has declined. This IEM Sydney made them see many, many problems of their own. Now that they go back and rest briefly, they have to solve the problems seen in this match.

So in the last few months, the state has been tense, and it is a bit uncomfortable.

"There are gains and losses. If you want to become stronger, you have to pay something." Xu Beifang gave the answer very plainly.

The Director continued: "Then you have to be careful. After you rest and come back, you might be able to see a brand new Liquid. At that time, we will take revenge."

"That's not possible." Xu Beifang smiled confidently.

In one year, he went from being a C+ player to a top-tier rifleman, paying too much, too much time.

If he remembers correctly, several analysts have counted the game time of professional players.

Xu Beifang ranked second.

The first is NAVI's youth training player m0nesy.

This can also be understood. Xu Beifang trains to maintain his state and strive to improve himself. He still allocates some free time to fitness.

And this kid m0nesy is purely addicted to the internet.

This guy can broadcast live, playing from morning to early morning, fully showing what a young man is.

Ranked behind are S1mple and Xantares.

Having paid huge efforts for the results, Xu Beifang is still satisfied with the current harvest.

But he won't have the complacent thought of "I'm already good enough" just because he won two championships.

Speaking of which, he has only won two major championships so far.

Even the annual gold medal matches, such as the Major, IEM Cologne, and IEM Katowice, haven't had his name engraved on them yet.

He still has a long distance from the highest peak, and he can still be full of fighting spirit in his heart!

Talking about the match that just ended, Elige is still full of praise for Xu Beifang: "Nice, to be honest, the strongest pressure I felt in my career before came from S1mple. I thought only snipers could give people such strong oppression. Now I know riflemen can do it too."

As a background board, he is quite uncomfortable, but if he changes to the identity of a rifleman, he only has praise for Xu Beifang's performance in the first map of the final.

"I'll take your words seriously." Xu Beifang hooked a smile on his face. The praise from a fellow professional player made him very useful.

S1mple was the TOP1 player in 2018. Being able to hear from other professional players that he and the player became the same level of player, he was still quite happy.

"But didn't you break up with S1mple?" Xu Beifang suddenly remembered this.

Elige smiled: "Actually, it wasn't a big deal back then. Speaking of which, it was because both of our tempers were too smelly, which led to such a stiff relationship."

The conflict he had with S1mple was mostly because of personality.

He had a relatively autistic personality in previous years, often starting to be silent when encountering an uphill battle.

And S1mple is a pressure kid. While killing crazily, he can also spray both sides in the middle.

S1mple puts on pressure, he starts to be autistic, teammates don't respond, S1mple is more uncomfortable, and the pressure is even greater.

And he himself had some autistic attributes. The more pressure S1mple gave, the more uncomfortable he played, and the more autistic he became.

Back then, a vicious cycle was completely formed, and it became a situation where it was either me or him.

Really speaking, is the conflict between the two of them big?

It's just some differences in personality.

The reason why it was so stiff in these years is more because of the temper of young people, always unwilling to admit defeat, even if they feel they are wrong many times.

However, in the IEM Sydney group stage match between Liquid and Vitality, he suddenly seemed to have an epiphany from Xu Beifang's attitude towards the match. Now he wants to change some personality defects. Today, having a small gathering with Xu Beifang, he also wants to ask about Xu Beifang's thoughts on the match, trying to learn some useful places from it.

Thinking of this, Elige was a little cramped, and it took a long time to stutter and ask: "Nice, if you are going to play a match this afternoon, and the start is not very smooth, in the case of a big uphill battle, what would be your thoughts?"

The Director also knew Elige's intention today and accompanied him. At this moment, he also added: "You know, Liquid's ability to handle uphill battles has never been particularly ideal, so we want to learn from you."

Liquid is not good at uphill battles; passers-by understand, and they, the parties involved, know it even better.

But how to solve it has become a big problem.

As a succubus in the circle, many players feel that Xu Beifang is very easygoing, and because of Elige's relationship, they don't feel too abrupt when asking Xu Beifang for experience and thoughts.

"Playing uphill battles?" Xu Beifang took a breath and fell into deep thought.

Although he was teased as a 'Danish guest', he is not a Dane after all. It doesn't make sense to hide this experience.

Besides, when he was still in the growth period, when he was not very familiar, he asked Ji Ge how to practice aim, and Ji Ge agreed directly, teaching all his box-bottom skills to Xu Beifang.

Now it's just an experience sharing, he has nothing to say.

"Just think about that match against NRG. What was your mood at that time?"

NRG = chasing back more than a dozen scores to turn the tables = Ma Liangwan

It instantly reminded Xu Beifang. That was a very important match for Vitality. They started from that match and completely built up their confidence.

"At that time, you were behind by so many scores, why did you still have the idea of chasing points and turning the tables." Elige said again, "I mean, the mentality should have collapsed at that time."

Just like the first map of the Sydney final, after the pistol round in the second half, his mentality had already exploded, and his head was a mess, just like the computer was lagging, and all kinds of thinking became slower.

If it were S1mple, maybe his cheeks had already started to turn red.

"This has something to do with my experience."

The two children heard this and sat up straight one after another, almost taking out a small notebook to start taking notes.

"You all know that I debuted relatively late, and even my initial idea was to rely on one or even two years to truly enter the first-tier circle, so my time is actually very tight." Xu Beifang started to recall the past.

When he decided to become a professional player, he had already considered the age problem for a long time. Once he determined to walk on this road, he was racing against time, wishing he could spend 24 hours a day in CSGO.

Training so hard now is also influenced by that period of time.

The two North American children nodded. Xu Beifang's experience is relatively special, and he has been relatively popular in the professional circle in the last year. Many people know this 'listen-to-advice' player.

"Then it was a coincidence that I met VP. At that time, VP was actually not a good choice. After all, they were already in a downward period and had no players who could play, but for me, it was already a very good opportunity. If I missed this opportunity, I don't know how long I would have to wait to wait for the next opportunity."

"So starting from the IEM Shanghai station, from the poor performance of VP's substitute player morelz, I knew I had to seize this opportunity. Perhaps from there, the belief of not giving up was cultivated, because I can't lose, and I can't afford to lose. Even if there is a glimmer of opportunity to turn the tables, I must try it."

Listening to Xu Beifang's quiet narration, the Director and Elige were quite moved.

They both belong to players who became famous at a young age, and their professional path was very smooth, especially Ji Ge, who was once a professional StarCraft player, and later achieved some results in CSGO, and soon joined Liquid, which was very smooth all the way.

But it was precisely because of this smoothness that he entered the profession too early, and sometimes the desire for opportunity was not strong.

He was a little enlightened for a while.

Before, he also didn't understand why S1mple could open his mouth to pressure teammates every time he was uphill.

But now it seems that although there is pressure, S1mple wants to win more.

He traveled across the ocean to North America to play professionally, cherished this opportunity very much, and really wanted to achieve results.

But at that time, Elige couldn't see it. He only saw S1mple putting pressure on him. He was very uncomfortable, and sometimes he would turn on the mute state.

Thinking about it now, these 'genius teenagers' who were already in the eyes of the public when they debuted are vastly different from those professional players who had a bumpy early career.

Seeing the expressions of Elige and the two, Xu Beifang seemed to see some of their thoughts and teased with a smile: "It seems that the North American environment has also had some problems. This group of young people didn't give you any pressure."

Elige wanted to refute, but couldn't say anything to refute.

This is indeed true. Don't look at Liquid being in the limelight in the first half of the year, but North American CSGO is just a pile of answers.

Liquid's excellence is just this group of people.

But there are really not many genius teenagers who can make them feel bright.

That 'obo' who is like a bone frame barely counts as one, and the rest are gone.

Liquid is not such an eager club, and they have considered promoting a few newcomers before.

But the results of the trial training are often not very ideal.

"Okay, don't laugh at us, as if your Chinese CSGO has any talent." The black-bellied Director soon returned the mouth.

This is like Garen coming out with a whisper, directly silent and broken.

Because of the good results achieved by Tyloo and Xu Beifang in CSGO, the popularity in China this year is very high, and it has a feeling of becoming a phenomenal game.

At least last time I went to my own internet cafe, I could see quite a few passers-by playing CSGO in the internet cafe, shouting classic CSGO statements like "A1 high flash", "Mid has a big sniper", "Let me deal with it".

But you want to say genius teenager.

There are indeed quite a few genius teenagers online, but offline genius teenagers haven't seen much.

Nowadays, CNCSGO is still played by Xu Beifang, Tyloo, and VG, this bunch of old things.

Although Tie Dan is indeed 'Tang' (silly), I have to say that he is really one of the top CN players now.

Elige said: "Still share with us, what do you think in the uphill battle."

Xu Beifang thought: "My mentality is quite good, it's hard to have someone who can collapse my mentality."

"Then the opponent's operation is played, I will feel quite excited."

Director:???

Elige:???

"Excited??"

Xu Beifang nodded: "That's right, it's excited. I like the feeling of fighting with the strong, because I think, if the opponent plays well, the match is really interesting."

Liquid two were silent for a long time before picking up the coffee and taking a sip: "You are really a freak."

"Aren't you afraid that the opponent is too strong and lose the match in the end?"

"Afraid, why not afraid." Xu Beifang shook the coffee. "But I think a powerful opponent will definitely make me stronger... Just like the London Major quarterfinals, when I played against you, although I lost to you, I was actually quite happy. That match showed me quite a few problems."

Listening to Xu Beifang's praise, the Director said it was still very useful.

"And in the game, when the score is behind by a large margin, my mind is probably thinking, no matter what, I at least have to play this round well. Even if the final result might be 14:16, I have to pay all my efforts and can't rot."

Actually, in CSGO professional matches, there is a point of view of rotting.

For example, the first map of BO3, coming up and being crushed by the opponent by a large score like 14:2 or 14:4.

Because the difficulty of chasing points is too great, some teams will directly choose a tactical surrender—that is, give all the next few rounds to the opponent, end this match early, avoid the mentality being too affected, and welcome the subsequent maps with a better state.

But in Xu Beifang's view, this idea is very unnecessary.

He seriously affected a player's desire to win. After a tactical surrender once, it is too difficult to find back the competitive mentality later.

"Then it is, if teammates play any wonderful operations, you must seize this opportunity and celebrate loudly."

Elige said: "I remember, when you played NRG, apEX had such a time... But what if you lose after shouting, won't it be very awkward?"

"If you really want to win, don't care about what happens after the match?" Xu Beifang still took himself as an example. "Before the StarSeries, I directly posted a dynamic saying I could win the championship. Have you seen me afraid of anything?"

"If you want to win, don't care about other things, put the goal of victory in the first place!"

"Actually, when apEX shouted, my thought at that time was also that the winning rate of this match was not high, but we were still encouraged by him. You understand this meaning, right? Everyone wants to win. Even if the winning rate is not high, as long as you are willing to work hard towards the goal together, this is a very good mentality."

"Just like the third map of the final, our economy was not good. Even if we lost Dust 2, we were still dominant, after all 2-1, but we still seriously handled the economy and tried to play every round well. In the end, you also saw that we entered overtime and turned the tables on you."

The Director scratched his hair: "You said this so painfully."

But they also know that under the pressure of the match, they are indeed prone to illness.

"Thank you." Elige said seriously. "I gained a lot today."

Liquid's atmosphere has always been a problem.

The Director has always been a member of the team's atmosphere group, but his weak voice cannot lead the atmosphere in adversity.

nitr0 is a player who tends to be a rational commander. He will maintain his state more and give his teammates confidence.

Stewie2K tends to be an atmosphere group in a smooth wind, the kind that directly puts on a face and puts pressure on the opposite side.

He used to be autistic when he was uphill, and NAF doesn't need to say much, usually like a sloth, motionless.

So once in an uphill state, except for the Director still trying to twist the rope, everyone is basically silent.

Elige feels that he needs to change and become the person who can stand out and become an atmosphere group in adversity!

A somewhat unfamiliar voice interrupted Elige's thoughts.

"That... can I have an autograph?"

I saw a fan holding a Liquid jersey, looking at them with expectant eyes.

When he was still stunned, Xu Beifang had already taken the fan's words with practiced ease: "Do you have a pen? If not, ask the waiter for one, and then say which position you want to sign on the jersey."

"Yes, just sign in this white area." The Liquid fan pointed to the white jersey just taken out. Xu Beifang took the pen, quickly signed his ID, and then handed the Liquid jersey and signature pen to them.

The Director and Elige completed the signature in a daze, and even took a group photo later.

The whole process didn't even take two minutes, and it was over before they reacted.

"How are you so skilled?" Elige was a bit confused.

He found that Xu Beifang is not only a succubus in the circle, but this social ability is completely at the terrorist level.

"I will go offline to cheer for you next time. If you have a chance, you must defeat Astralis!"

Listening to the fan's shouting in the distance, Xu Beifang waved with a smile: "Definitely will."

After playing with the Liquid duo outside for a while and having lunch, Xu Beifang returned to the hotel to start packing his luggage.

Due to fewer flights, the coaching staff had already booked the flight for the evening, and they had to prepare in advance.

If they missed the flight, they would have to stay in Sydney for a few days.

Although the club gave the players nearly a month of vacation this time, they didn't intend to stay in Sydney for a long time. They had turned around for a few days, and some characteristic attractions had been seen. Everyone wanted to go home.

Everything was ready. While the hotel room had not been checked out, XTQZZZ called a group of people into his room, saying he wanted to talk about something.

"Everyone is here, then let's have a small meeting before the vacation."

"On the second day back to the club, we need to cooperate with the club to shoot an advertising promo, and then officially enter the vacation state. We won't start the match until mid-June, so everyone must return to the club by June 10th at the latest, and must find the state in advance to start preparing for the match."

Xu Beifang calculated that, excluding the time to come and go, his overall vacation could still have about 20 days, which is already a long vacation. He is still quite satisfied.

"I chatted with apEX before and found that our shortcoming is still in the map pool, so after the vacation, our goal is to practice Nuke and Overpass well." XTQZZZ looked at the team members seriously. "At that time, we might specifically choose the opponent's strong map to practice. You must be mentally prepared for this."

"It's over!" JackZ held his head and wailed. "The head will be beaten to pieces after returning from vacation."

XTQZZZ's style in daily life and his teaching philosophy have always been unhurried.

He doesn't pursue quick results. As long as the team can let him see progress, he is already very satisfied.

Now those conventional maps, they play no problem, but the cold maps are too different compared to T1 teams like Liquid and Astralis.

They must also become a team proficient in 5 maps, so that they can have a battle in the confrontation with top-tier teams.

Using one's own weakness against the enemy's strength, the final result will definitely be very painful. It can be imagined that after returning from vacation, their results might decline.

So XTQZZZ has to let them be mentally prepared in advance.

The process is painful, but on the road to becoming stronger, it is impossible to be smooth sailing.

"We'll just mention this thing. Maybe after coming back, our state of running-in is good, and we might also beat the opponent." XTQZZZ said again. "Then it is, after the vacation, everyone pay attention to safety at home, and send a message in the group if there is nothing to do."

As he spoke, he looked at Xu Beifang: "Beifang, on your side, if you have any inspiration ideas, just shout at me in the group, and I will study with you then."

As one of Vitality's tactical developers, the tactical IQ shown by Xu Beifang has achieved good results in the match.

XTQZZZ has every reason to look forward to Xu Beifang developing new tactics later.

Immediately after, XTQZZZ muttered to 'Potato' (Zywoo): "Zywoo, after you go home, don't play other games every day. You only play 2 hours of CSGO a day at home, how can you sleep?"

Zywoo smiled: "It's meaningless for me to play CSGO alone. I don't want to play after playing two games. I want to play with Beifang, but his latency is too high."

Zywoo and Xu Beifang are two extremes. Zywoo doesn't like to practice CSGO in his own time.

He thinks that in his spare time, he should play some games he likes, so that he can keep his mood good, and his CSGO performance can be better.

"shox, you too, while preparing for the wedding, also take some time to train."

"Don't talk about it, I already feel tired to death." shox turned to look at Xu Beifang and Zywoo. "Two young people, don't step into the grave of love so early."

But looking at the sweet smile on his face, Xu Beifang and Zywoo said that this 'old six' (sneaky guy) can't believe a word.

"Then the major tournaments this month, you can also take time to watch. When watching the match, you can also discuss in the group. Don't really forget CSGO when you are on vacation."

"Okay, there's nothing now, everyone prepare, we will go to the airport to return to Paris soon."

When they were carrying their luggage and preparing to leave the hotel, they saw the Liquid crowd returning from outside.

The Director and Elige waved goodbye to him: "See you next match, don't be beaten by us then."

"Don't have this idea, stabilize the HLTV ranking first!" Xu Beifang replied angrily.

After saying goodbye to Liquid, Vitality got into the car to the airport.

Xu Beifang looked at the scenery along the way, and felt that the time of this month passed too fast.

It seemed like a blink of an eye, and they had already won the championship.

But this is the life of a CSGO professional player. All professional players spend countless efforts just for the half an hour standing on the stage in the end.

Is it worth it?

He thinks it is very worth it, and is even willing to pay double the effort for it.

Speaking of the championship, Xu Beifang also remembered that after winning the championship, he seemed to have a suggestion task reward that had not been claimed.

Concentrating his mind on the system, he soon saw a reward waiting to be claimed.

【Suggestion Task: Defeat Liquid in the IEM Sydney final, lift the trophy with one hand after the match, suggestion difficulty 7 stars, after completion can get an S-grade treasure chest】

For this task, Xu Beifang even specially lifted the big round plate trophy with one hand when lifting the trophy, and was teased by netizens that it had become an obsession.

【S-grade treasure chest is being issued...】

【Congratulations to the host for Listen-to-Advice Value +2024...】

【Congratulations to the host for obtaining: Instance-One Man Guards the Pass. Description: After opening, you can enter a simulated match, and you need to win after the round ends. PS: Please pay attention to adjusting your state.】

One Man Guards the Pass?

Literal meaning?

However, Xu Beifang thinks the instance of the simulated match is still very interesting.

The first few simulated match instances, such as 'Instance-Unlimited Deathmatch' and 'Instance-Dissecting the Danes', have played a big role for him now.

From 'Instance-Unlimited Deathmatch', Xu Beifang can see what level his gunplay is at, and can also have a clear understanding of himself.

And 'Instance-Dissecting the Danes' greatly enhanced Xu Beifang's sound-based positioning ability and understanding of smoke grenades.

This kind of simulated match can let Xu Beifang take fewer detours.

So for the reward opened by this S-level treasure chest, he is also quite looking forward to it.

【Whether to enter 'Instance-One Man Guards the Pass'?】

Xu Beifang's heart moved.

"Yes."

The next second, the picture in front of him shattered, and Xu Beifang entered the familiar simulated space again. He sat in front of a computer, and all kinds of peripherals were the ones he was familiar with.

"There is no system description." He complained about the system in his heart.

But he also understood the system's style, and next he had to try it actively.

The picture was still static. After Xu Beifang confirmed it started, the countdown officially began.

【5, 4, 3, 2, 1...】

Original... CSGO start!

The screen lit up, and Xu Beifang operated the character to appear in the A bomb site of Overpass. He seemed to have a flash of inspiration, understanding that this wave can only defend at the A bomb site and cannot run to other areas.

There was 1 minute left on the time above his head, and the opponent still had 2 members left.

Xu Beifang peeked to the right, looked at the situation of A Long, and soon saw a bandit at the far point of the vision, holding an M4 and positioning to control the recoil, directly killing the opponent.

After winning against the enemy of A Long, Xu Beifang controlled his position and peeked at the A Short toilet.

He didn't see anyone in the toilet at first glance, but soon heard the footsteps released in A Short.

Although the opponent's position was determined, Xu Beifang was not in a hurry, but waited for two seconds.

He had also exposed his position when fighting the bandit of A Long before. Now that the opponent exposed his position, he had to make the opponent unable to see through his thoughts—this is something he learned from Broky's demo.

Although Broky's utility is a pile, his ability to grasp timing is still worth learning for Xu Beifang.

After waiting for two seconds, Xu Beifang made a preparation action and peeked out after pre-aiming.

Sure enough, the opponent was looking at the direction of the bank. Xu Beifang turned sideways and easily took him down.

Quite easy.

In this 1V2 clutch, he felt that the level of the simulated opponent was not high, and he easily let the opponent's thinking follow him. Even the actions he worried about the opponent doing, the opponent didn't do, which showed that the consciousness was completely not at the same level.

Just then, two lines of large characters appeared on the screen:

【LV1, challenge successful, difficulty upgraded.】

【Current difficulty: LV2!】

Good guy, this is directly breaking through the level.

Xu Beifang instantly got excited. This time he faced a 1V3 clutch, and he was still on the A platform of Overpass.

Still the old playstyle. In this situation of single-person operation, unless Xu Beifang gets information in advance, he will not play blindly.

He seriously collected information at the bomb site. Soon the footsteps of A Short were exposed. He had not scouted the enemy of A Long yet.

Listening to the numerous footsteps, Xu Beifang took the initiative to peek out and kill one first.

Then he pulled around the cover. After hearing the opponent's footsteps, he took the initiative to peek out to destroy the opponent's intention. After a burst of shooting to kill the one in front, the remaining single person wanted to trade kills, but Xu Beifang's spray transfer continued to press down.

Finally, in a state of being hit by a bullet, he won this 1V3 wave.

Although Xu Beifang won the 1V3, he still couldn't help but frown, because this front-line defense was too easy to play, and it couldn't give him any pressure at all!

S-grade treasure chest reward, just this?

(10,000 words a day is my lie, only wrote 8200, can only say that there is progress compared to yesterday...) ===== CHAPTER 305 =====