Chapter 314: Just Say Thanks, Nice!

20:10

Inside the Tyloo training room, the light from the screens late at night stung the eyes. In the headphones, only the sound of the match conclusion remained. Although they had anticipated before the match that the result of this practice session would not be great, the final outcome was so brutal that it still caused their expressions to change.

They were not simulating a real match against Vitality today, so the two maps were played out to the full thirty rounds.

The second map, which was Nuke chosen by Vitality, had just finished. Out of 30 rounds, they had only managed to secure 10, which was a rather unfavorable scoreline.

Tyloo knew before the match that Vitality's strength was immense, and they were more inclined to believe they would lose this practice session to Vitality. After several encounters, they already had some understanding of Xu Beifang's strength, but they still couldn't help but harbor thoughts of an explosive performance to win a map.

Yet, these thoughts completely vanished once they entered the practice session.

This Map 2 was actually not too bad; BnTeT and Danking were in good form, and Vitality was also trying new things, with quite a few mistakes. They seized a few opportunities to take control of the pace and even reached a double-digit score.

But the confrontation on Map 1 was quite brutal.

Tyloo once branded Inferno with their own name; on this map, they could go toe-to-toe with world-class teams.

Yet, when facing the current World No. 1 on this map, they were completely powerless to fight back.

The strategies, fundamentals, pace, timing, and every other aspect of the match were completely crushed by Vitality.

Danking let out a long, heavy sigh; this practice session had dealt him quite a blow.

In the past, he always believed that the gap between himself and Xu Beifang wasn't actually that large, and that what he lacked was mostly some tournament experience. He felt that as long as he grinded through a few major tournaments, he would be able to keep up with Xu Beifang's pace.

But this match truly let him witness Xu Beifang's level.

Their early-game offense had been played in a daze.

But later, when their A-site attacks were blocked, they realized that Vitality was simply leaving Xu Beifang to play Single B Defense all by himself.

They quickly adjusted their playstyle, preparing to target Xu Beifang to score.

But what was the result?

They might try to catch him three times, but only once would they manage to gain an advantage over Xu Beifang.

He was truly impressed; during these few offensive waves, Xu Beifang was always able to scurry around like a fox, disrupting their offensive rhythm.

"The gap is too big."

Danking took a small sip of water and sighed, understanding clearly in his heart.

After this confrontation, they also understood just how large the gap was between them and the strongest teams in the world.

……

After the confrontation ended, Xu Beifang and the Tyloo members chatted briefly on the TS voice channel before officially announcing the end of this practice session.

"Overall, you played quite well," Coach XTQZZZ commented with a smile. "To be able to win steadily in the first practice session after a vacation is already quite good."

On the two maps of the practice session, they had taken down their opponents by large margins, and there were no major issues overall.

shox looked at the Analyst swani in the back and gave a thumbs up to the newcomer of the team:

"Your idea is really good; this tactic is indeed easy to execute."

Xu Beifang retorted: "Can it not be easy for you? The pressure is all on me, you stinky lurker."

Analyst swani also laughed: "My tactical approach isn't actually anything special; it mainly relies on the individual ability of Nice and Zywoo. If their individual ability wasn't enough, we wouldn't be able to achieve this effect."

Xu Beifang smiled, but his mind began to ponder this tactical approach.

"This 41 Opening tactic is a very good one, but it can't be used too frequently."

swani raised an eyebrow: "How so?"

"Take Inferno just now, for example. Me being alone at B actually relies heavily on the information you guys get at A. I can indeed put on a show of a double-B setup for the opponent, but after a few rounds of trading, the opponents should be able to figure out our opening positioning... I am, after all, defending alone, and I can't complete those man-advantage trades every single time."

Even for this kind of playstyle that relies on individual ability, one must consider the tactical side more in the design; individual ability must be slightly downplayed to re-examine the tactics.

The uncertainty of this playstyle is still too high.

If Xu Beifang doesn't trade even one person in the B area and gets pushed over directly by the opponent, the difficulty of the subsequent Retake is extremely high.

Because there is neither information nor favorable gun positions.

Even if the few people at A still have utility in hand that can be used for the Retake.

But in such a situation, the Terrorists will definitely have plenty of utility left.

So the difficulty will still be very high.

apEX pondered for a few seconds and also voiced his own thoughts: "This doesn't necessarily have to be something we don't make our norm."

Feeling the confused gazes of his teammates, he explained:

"We can intersperse standard defense with this 41 Opening defense. For example, if we play Fnatic today, we just go with a 41 Opening all the way, and only switch to a normal defense once Fnatic finds a way to solve it."

"By that time, the next opponent will definitely be studying our demos, so we just come out with a standard defense, and once we've established enough deterrence at B, we switch back to the 41 defense."

"swani's tactic is very good, and we tested it today; even if we leave Beifang or Zywoo alone in an area, they are still able to produce results."

"So, when it actually comes to the match, it will depend on my performance," apEX raised an eyebrow.

The Vitality members all gasped.

"Those who play tactics have such dirty hearts."

"What a mind-game dog."

"Is this something a human can say?"

Watching the team members joking around again, XTQZZZ patted the analyst on the shoulder: "Very good today. In Vitality, it's just like this; if you have something, just say it directly, no need to hide it in your heart."

Immediately after, he looked at the players in the room: "Although I just praised you, there are still quite a few problems with the details in today's practice session. I will be scheduling practice sessions very frequently recently, so you all need to be prepared for that."

"No problem!"

"My hands are itching for more!"

"Full of motivation!"

Returning from a vacation state, for them at this stage, matches actually provide them with quite a bit of freshness, making them extra interesting.

XTQZZZ began to watch the DEMO to conduct a simple review.

As the Coach, he usually watches the whole thing, then picks out some of the more important content from the recording to pull out and explain to everyone.

Otherwise, watching a match recording together with the players for the whole duration would take two or three hours.

As for the group of players, they began their own individual training.

Xu Beifang started playing Deathmatch to practice his aim.

Shushu started smurfing in FPL.

apEX opened up a recent match of Mouz and started watching it.

JackZ and shox both entered an Aimbot map to practice their Positioning by hitting bots.

Everything in the room became quiet once again.

Analyst swani saw this, and his restless heart also calmed down.

Everyone was doing their own job; the players were training hard, and the Coach was finishing up some post-match work.

This was the kind of scene that should appear in an excellent team.

He had come to Vitality with a feeling of trepidation.

Now, he finally felt that he hadn't come to the wrong place.

He wasn't idle either; he quickly communicated with the other two Analysts and began building a sufficiently rigorous database for the team.

As an Analyst, he was mostly responsible for some pre-match preparation work.

They trained until around 6:00 PM, when everyone stopped what they were doing one after another and began heading to a nice French restaurant near the base to eat.

Walking out of the base's main gate, Zywoo leaned over to Xu Beifang's side and winked, "Speaking of which, Beifang, did you bring me any local specialties?"

He wasn't greedy; he just wanted to enjoy different kinds of food.

He had basically grown tired of eating all the various things here in France.

Since his teammate happened to be from Huaxia, and that was a country of great food, it was very much worth looking forward to.

This feeling was just like opening a blind box.

There was an unknown excitement that made people fascinated.

"I brought some, so I'll let you try them when we get back later," Xu Beifang answered truthfully.

When he was livestreaming before, he had specifically asked netizens which local specialties were delicious and bought quite a lot of things online.

Huaxia was too big, and he hadn't been to many places himself.

If he were to let him bring local specialties, he estimated that Shushu would be crying from the spiciness.

"That makes me want to go back right now," Zywoo said, very happy to hear this.

XTQZZZ called out from the side, "By the way, operations wants us to film a short video over these two days to interact with the audience after the break. How about you film those foods tomorrow, Beifang? Everyone really likes things like cultural and food differences."

"If you don't like it, Beifang, we can just film a promotional video to say hello to everyone."

"That's not impossible."

Xu Beifang didn't refuse, but instead fell into deep thought.

If he remembered correctly, among the pile of specialties he brought, there really seemed to be something that could be filmed for good comedic effect.

Looking at the strange smile on Xu Beifang's face, Zywoo inexplicably had a feeling that he was going to suffer tomorrow.

He hurriedly asked, "Is there a script for tomorrow's filming?"

Xu Beifang wore what he thought was a warm smile: "You just enjoy the food tomorrow; we'll focus on improvising, alright?"

Thursday, June 13, 2019.

Having just finished a practice match against Liquid, Xu Beifang stretched, and then heard Shushu shout, "Our video has been posted."

As he spoke, he couldn't help but turn his head to look at Xu Beifang, his eyes full of resentment.

Xu Beifang gave an awkward smile: "Who told you not to listen to advice? I warned you that day that you had to be moderate."

"Who knew you guys in Huaxia had such outrageous things? I feel like if we left it out a bit longer, our entire club wouldn't need to eat dinner."

Saying that, Xu Beifang clicked on the video.

At the same time, the person who received the notification and clicked on the video was the current Faze in-game leader, the God of War NEO.

As the one and only God of War, although NEO shared the same name as the boss of Vitality, he wasn't very familiar with Vitality.

Back when he was a professional, he only had a good relationship with apEX and shox, and that was it.

He received this notification mostly because he followed Xu Beifang and saw the news.

Just then, he noticed NIKO sighing beside him.

"What's wrong? Why are you sighing all of a sudden?" NEO asked with concern; as an in-game leader, he had to pay attention to the players' mental states at all times.

He had also discovered that the claims on the internet about NIKO being a team tyrant or having a toxic playstyle were all just rumors and gossip.

NIKO was actually a Gunner with a very good personality.

It was just that he sometimes played a bit too anxiously.

Anyway, he had been at Faze for over half a month and hadn't felt any of those rumored flaws of NIKO.

NIKO deliberated for a good while before answering: "I just feel that this lineup, which we finally managed to get some chemistry with, GuardiaN suddenly wants to leave again, and the lineup has to be rebuilt. I don't even know when we'll be able to truly achieve results."

Although they had won a championship at Blast Miami over a month ago.

But that championship didn't have much weight; after all, it was an invitational format, and only eight teams participated in total.

Now he had finally admitted defeat and chosen to step down from the in-game leader position.

And just when the lineup had finally meshed well and showed some signs of improvement, GuardiaN said he wanted to leave and go to NAVI.

NIKO really didn't know what to do.

NEO was silent for a good while, then said: "His desire to leave definitely didn't just start now... We can't persuade him, but he didn't just walk away and leave us hanging, which gave us time to find a substitute. That can be considered a silver lining in a bad situation."

"It's just that good Snipers on the market... are hard to find."

Speaking of this, NEO also had a headache.

As an international squad, although Faze has a very wide range for selecting players, the team-building philosophy of this team makes it impossible for them to find some lower-level Snipers to transition.

NIKO considered for a moment and said: "Recently I've encountered a few players on Faceit who are quite good; one ID is called Bymas, one is called Broky. If there's no other way later, we can start with these newcomers."

NEO nodded: "If there's no other way, we can give it a try."

Perhaps because he unearthed the golden legend Xu Beifang from Faceit, NEO was not too resistant to using newcomers.

Thinking of these problems within the team, NIKO remained confused about the future.

"Enough of that, what were you watching just now? How did I hear Nice's voice?"

NEO picked up his phone and shrugged: "Just watching the latest video released by Vitality, it seems like Nice and apEX are exchanging specialty foods."

"Let me see..."

NEO also directly dragged the video to the very beginning and watched from the start.

The twin stars of Vitality appeared in the video frame wearing their Jersey.

The lighting inside the shot was very good; it was clearly a bright morning.

Xu Beifang greeted the camera: "Hello everyone, I am Vitality's Nice himself. In today's episode, we are mainly inviting Shushu to taste our Huaxia specialty foods."

Zywoo also gave a silly smile on the side and waved at the camera.

At this moment, Xu Beifang took out a small bag of snacks from the side and handed it to Zywoo.

"What kind of snack is this?" Zywoo asked curiously.

"A very interesting candy."

Zywoo was half-believing and half-doubting, then tore open the package and saw a pile of things like sugar powder.

He poured it directly into his hand and then tossed it into his mouth.

After tossing the candy into his mouth, Zywoo's expression instantly became alert: "Whoa! What is this!!"

After two seconds, he gradually recovered.

"How does it feel?"

Zywoo began to describe it: "This thing is super stimulating, I feel like something is constantly tickling my mouth, I like this!"

apEX on the side also got excited watching; the slave owner directly snatched the snack from the slave and tossed it into his mouth.

"Whoa!!! What is this? I feel those candies jumping in my mouth, I feel like those candies are having a battle in my mouth!"

Hearing this description, many viewers in the video laughed.

【Hahahaha】

【apEX is so stressful in matches, how is he such a funny guy outside of matches】

【Have they never eaten popping candy before?】

【It seems popping candy is relatively expensive abroad】

【I cried the First Time I ate it when I was a kid】

NEO looked at these bullet comments and found that there were quite a lot of Huaxia people.

However, after the taste slowly faded, apEX added: "I quite like this too, Nice, bring more back next time."

NIKO watched the video and fell into deep thought.

NEO asked: "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking about whether to blackmail Nice later and have him get me some too."

NEO smiled and shook his head.

After the popping candy segment ended, Xu Beifang gave them the most classic White Rabbit Creamy Candy.

Perhaps because they had just eaten a candy, their evaluation of the White Rabbit Creamy Candy was not very high.

Xu Beifang took out other delicacies such as Zhangfei Beef, Dongting Fish Tails, etc., for his teammates to taste.

The Zhangfei Beef was fine, but the Dongting Fish Tails directly made all the members of Vitality look for milk to drink because of the spice.

Xu Beifang in the shot looked at his phone and then said to the camera: "It's getting late, let's solve lunch next."

Then he took out a pack of phone-sized thin noodles and asked: "Let's just boil these noodles for lunch. Are you eating one pack or two packs?"

Zywoo took the thin noodles from Xu Beifang and said with a frown: "One pack is only this much, I feel like I definitely won't be full, boil five packs for me."

A strange smile hung on Xu Beifang's face as he asked back: "Are you sure you can really eat that much?"

Zywoo didn't understand why Xu Beifang said that; the noodles were only the size of a palm, he estimated he would finish them in two bites, and it would be so troublesome to boil more later.

"That's for sure."

"Then give me three too!" apEX said with great interest.

JackZ and shox were more cautious and asked Xu Beifang: "Beifang, how many are you eating?"

"Me? I'll just eat two."

"Then we'll eat two as well."

The two of them knew that although Xu Beifang was a sunny boy on the surface, he was very black-bellied behind the scenes.

That smile just now really gave them the creeps.

NIKO said uncomprehendingly: "Looking at the one in Zywoo's hand, it really is quite small. I feel like I could eat 8 bags, what kind of trick is Nice playing?"

Not only him, but the netizens in the video also didn't understand:

【Doesn't feel like there's much in that bag either】

【Isn't Nice into fitness? His appetite should be quite large】

【Can't understand what trick Nice is playing】

But there were also Huaxia netizens who posted some bullet comments that left them confused:

【It's over, Shushu is going to be finished this time】

【Bean is about the same, you know】

【They are true warriors!】

Xu Beifang in the video said: "Order your food, you can't waste it later."

apEX confidently waved his hand: "Impossible, absolutely impossible, I can definitely finish everything!"

Although Zywoo didn't speak, his face was full of confidence.

Although NEO didn't quite understand either, following this plot, there would definitely be a twist.

Xu Beifang, in front of the camera, also separated the noodles and boiled them.

He himself, JackZ, and shox each had two packs.

Then apEX had three packs.

Finally, Zywoo had five packs.

They originally thought that two small packs of noodles would result in a very small amount after boiling.

But the result surprised them, because the noodles served in the bowls were actually a normal portion.

【This is two packs??】

【How can two packs be this much?】

【Then how much will apEX's three packs, or even Zywoo's five packs be?】

【Shushu is done for now】

【Shushu says he has never eaten this many noodles in his life】

On camera, Zywoo and apEX looked at the portion size of Xu Beifang and the others, and already felt something was wrong.

Then, Xu Beifang served their noodles.

For apEX's noodles, Xu Beifang brought them over in a bowl as big as a face.

Then for Zywoo's noodles, Xu Beifang brought the pot over directly.

Seeing Xu Beifang bring out the pot directly, NEO couldn't hold it in.

"This Nice must have known it all along."

NIKO nodded: "He probably already thought about how to pit his teammates; Zywoo and apEX are going to be stuffed."

On camera, Zywoo looked a bit sluggish, staring at the pot in front of him, and couldn't help but swallow his saliva.

Xu Beifang even leaned in and said: "Can't waste it~"

Zywoo carried the bowl toward shox and JackZ: "Help me share some."

After receiving a refusal, Zywoo had no choice but to carry the noodles back to his seat.

The voiceover reminded: "At this moment, Zywoo still hadn't realized the severity of the problem."

Immediately after, the camera focused on the Vitality dining table, and the video began to speed up.

The clock in the top right corner of the restaurant also allowed them to clearly feel the passage of time.

The trio of Xu Beifang spent nearly half an hour finishing their two bags of noodles, sitting in their seats and unable to help but let out a long breath.

While apEX and Zywoo were still struggling to fight on.

At this time, the speed was adjusted to 1x, and apEX asked somewhat confusedly: "Why have I been eating for half an hour, and it feels like it hasn't moved at all? Did I enter a time loop?"

【These noodles are too absorbent, haha】

【If you don't finish eating right after boiling, you won't be able to keep up with their reproduction speed】

【The soup is visibly decreasing】

【apEX, stop talking, if you keep talking you really won't finish】

Zywoo was already a bit delirious.

He clearly felt that he was already eating the noodles in big mouthfuls, and even his stomach was already a bit full now.

But why is there still a pot of noodles left!

Zywoo got up from his seat and moved around a little, wanting to speed up his digestion.

He even got a bit stubborn today; he insisted on finishing this pot of noodles by himself.

Immediately after, he continued to eat.

He would eat for a while and then zone out for a while, and the time on the right was also crazily passing by.

At the end of the video, the scenery outside was already afternoon.

apEX said to the camera: "Thanks to my teammate for bringing us so many specialty delicacies; except for those terrifying noodles, everything else is actually quite good."

apEX, at any rate, felt that he didn't want to touch noodles for a month.

Zywoo, on the other hand, was already a bit delirious on the side.

【Good heavens, three hours!!】

【These noodles are too terrifying】

【I finally understand Nice's opening smile; these noodles really have something to them】

【Why do I suddenly want to try what the hell this is?】

【...】

NEO finished watching the whole video and turned to look at NIKO: "How about I ask Nice for some noodles and let you try to see if you can eat 8 packs?"

NIKO's face turned black instantly.

Isn't this making things difficult for him?

Zywoo's painful experience was right before his eyes; he didn't want to end up like that.

"Where did Nice get so many strange things?" NIKO complained.

Xiaoxiao said: "He is from Huaxia; there are too many delicious things in that place."

He inexplicably remembered that beautiful time from last year.

"Speaking of which, it's been a long time since we last met. I hope we have a chance to clash soon," NEO said, watching Xu Beifang laughing and chatting on the screen.

Although he had always kept up with the situation of his little brother.

He still really wanted to experience it for real, with cold steel and hot lead, in a match.

My brother, let me see what level you've reached now!

……

Inside the Vitality base.

The players also finished watching this video together.

After watching it, apEX still couldn't help but complain in his heart: "If someone were to cut you open and look inside, it would definitely be black."

"I gave a very kind reminder, but you didn't listen to the advice, so what can I do?" Xu Beifang spread his small hands, indicating that he was completely innocent.

Hunden shouted: "Was that a reminder? You were clearly using reverse psychology!"

"That's called tactics!!"

Hearing his teammates arguing like children again, XTQZZZ quickly stepped in to break it up: "That's enough, everyone get ready. We still have to play the ESEA weekly tournament later. Although it's just a practice tournament, you all better play seriously."

"No problem!"

"Don't worry about it."

Everyone responded to the Coach in a clamor.

They might bicker in their daily lives, but when they actually entered a match, they were still very serious.

With more than an hour left before the match started, Xu Beifang avoided over-training to conserve his energy.

He simply picked up his phone to check some news on the forums.

As the semi-vacation state slowly faded, major tournaments began to warm up, and the various discussions on the forums were very lively.

First was the biggest tournament of the last half-month—ESL Pro League Season 7 had officially kicked off.

The prize pool for this tournament was 600,000 USD, and with the participation of teams like Astralis, Liquid, G2, NRG, Faze, Mouz, and others, the quality was actually very high.

And the point that had sparked intense discussion on the forums recently was the clash between Liquid and Astralis in the Playoffs.

As a top-tier team, Liquid's status had actually always been criticized.

Their overall strength was indeed strong, but every time Liquid met Astralis, they would become Astralis's tonic, losing the confrontation completely crushed.

Famous commentator Ma Xixi once said: "Astralis playing Liquid is like a father beating his son."

But in this ESL Pro League Season 7 tournament, Liquid defeated the Danes 2-1 in the first round of the Playoffs, successfully advancing to the next round.

Elige blasted out a superb 1.46 rating in this BO3.

【I saw the initial result and thought it was Astralis 2-1 Liquid, I didn't expect】

【Who could have thought of this? Liquid fans' hearts went cold when they saw the matchup, but in the end, Ji Ge gave us a big surprise!!】

【Ji Ge was truly a god descending to earth last night!】

【EZ4Astralis!】

【Liquid finally stood up for once, keep it up, I don't want to see the Danes dominating the matches anymore】

【I feel like Liquid is going to win the championship, this championship aura is already here】

Immediately after, another netizen posted a comment:

【Still have to thank Nice……】

【Quick, say thank you to Nice……】

【Thank you Nice!!】

A flood of comments followed below.

Xu Beifang couldn't understand it; Liquid defeated Astralis, so praising the player who performed best is one thing, but why praise him?

Confused, he continued to scroll through the comments below for a while.

Before long, he found the answer in his background messages.

This was a post-match interview after Liquid defeated Astralis, and the protagonist was still Fake Smile Boy.

Elige stood in front of the camera, and whether it was Xu Beifang's illusion or not, he didn't seem as reserved as before.

The host held the microphone and said: "Elige, you just went through a good battle. You successfully defeated Astralis. You know, you lost to them in the previous four encounters. How are you feeling right now?"

The smile on Elige's face couldn't be stopped: "I feel very good right now. Astralis has always been the opponent we wanted to defeat. Now that we have successfully defeated them, the stone in our hearts feels like it has finally landed."

"Did you expect the match to go so smoothly?"

Except for the one game they lost, Astralis couldn't even get a double-digit score against them in the other two battles.

Elige deliberated for a moment and then said: "We played a lot of practice matches, and the overall results were quite good. I think as long as we give it our all, we can gain the upper hand in this match."

"And I also want to thank Nice and Vitality," Elige said, "It was them who prompted us to make some changes."

Hearing this, the host felt there was something to dig into: "What do you mean?"

Ji Ge began to explain: "At IEM Sydney, we lost to Vitality by a rather miserable score, which made us realize a problem with the team's map pool. So we spent a lot of time expanding our map pool, and it seems the effect is very good now."

It was precisely because they were brutally beaten by Vitality in the IEM Sydney finals.

The painful defeat made them shed their inner restlessness and arrogance, and they began to think positively about the team's current problems.

So after returning, they learned from their mistakes and worked hard to practice the map Vertigo.

Map 3 of today's BO3 was Vertigo, and Astralis only managed to get 9 points against them.

This was already a quite good result.

Their idea of expanding the map pool had already begun to show results.

"Then why thank Nice?" the host continued to ask.

Elige smiled and said: "That's because when we exchanged experiences after the match, Nice took the initiative to share some insights. From that point on, I took the initiative to adjust my Mindset and my thinking in disadvantageous situations."

"Even under great pressure, I will maintain a positive attitude and leave the negative emotions for after the match."

"Just like today's match, if it were with my previous Mindset, I feel like I might not have performed as calmly during many of the segments."

Seeing this, Xu Beifang also realized the reason for the flood of comments from netizens.

However, regarding what Elige said, he did not think he deserved any credit.

Perhaps it was just like back then, when Elige shared his Recoil Control experience with him; it was very selfless, and he didn't think much of it.

This time was the same; he had indeed told Elige about his attitude while in adversity.

Xu Beifang didn't think it was a big deal that Elige could learn something from his words.

On the contrary, he felt happy for Elige; after all, Ji Ge had helped him before, and now he had helped Ji Ge, which was a very good thing.

Scrolling down further, Xu Beifang also discovered that some people were discussing the video they released today, roasting Xu Beifang for not acting like a human.

Xu Beifang was furious on the spot; he was clearly a sunny, big boy, and he highly suspected that this account was apEX's alt account.

But soon the topic of the post went off-track; Liquid suddenly showed signs of rising, making people start discussing whether Vitality would be avenged if they faced Liquid next time.

After all, the recognized World No. 1, Astralis, had already been cut down by Liquid.

So, would the current World No. 1 in the rankings be far behind?

However, Xu Beifang was not worried.

Liquid was working hard to expand their map pool, and Vitality had not stood still either.

Although their vacation was relatively long, they had also discussed some tactics during the break.

Xu Beifang researched that double-runboost fire, and apEX and the others quickly set up tactics to go with it for him.

apEX also researched a few sets of utility for Overpass.

Furthermore, the new Analyst was indeed a professional talent.

In the past, Vitality would research a tactic and then have to go through various training tests to confirm the feasibility of the tactic.

Confirming the tactic was feasible wasn't the end; they still had to continue playing it in scrims for a while to determine if it fit their playstyle, and only then could they filter out what belonged to Vitality.

But after swani joined the team, he was able to use data analysis methods to analyze whether a set of tactics was easy for them to use and how effective it was.

The cost of trial and error was greatly reduced.

Moreover, after swani established the database, he directly adjusted Vitality's defensive positions based on the data.

At the very beginning, several people did feel a bit uncomfortable.

For example, in Inferno defense, JackZ was placed in B2 to defend, apEX was pulled back to guard B, and shox went from being a Pit player to an A1 player.

The overall changes were still quite large, but after a period of integration, their overall win rate had truly increased.

This made them truly feel how much help a professional Analyst could provide during this pre-match stage.

He could provide the team with the best advice from the most rational perspective.

He could even use a large amount of data to create professional engagement Heat Maps to see the general playstyle of every player.

His existence allowed Vitality to just focus more on training.

So, although they had been on vacation for nearly a month, the efficiency of their training after returning was not low at all.

A few hours later, Vitality quickly threw themselves into a very small cup tournament.

The opponents were just some tier-two teams, and they didn't encounter any surprises, defeating their opponents with very lopsided scores.

In these kinds of matches, Vitality was actually still holding back quite a bit.

Because the opponents weren't heavy enough to warrant them unleashing certain tactics, they used them more to exercise their form.

……

Soon, under the anticipation of the audience, Vitality ushered in their third major tournament of the year.

This tournament was the ECS Di 7 Ji league, with a total prize pool of 500,000 USD.

Actually, the prize pool wasn't small, but this tournament wasn't particularly famous, resulting in a not-so-high gold content.

However, the participating teams were not too weak.

Besides Vitality, there were Astralis, MIBR, NRG, NIP, North, COL, and FURIA.

All the teams were tier-one acquaintances.

Xu Beifang had always wanted to face Astralis and play against them; since they finally bumped into each other this time, he planned to just show Astralis some moves if they happened to meet.

But Astralis seemed to have not yet adjusted back from their vacation state.

In the first day of the tournament, they lost to FURIA with a score of 14:16.

Art, on this Nuke, used his unreasonable breakthroughs to beat Astralis into a daze.

And in the post-match interview, Art also issued a statement: "Thanks to Nice for chatting with me back then, which made me have an epiphany."

Xu Beifang was stunned; how did he not know about this?

He didn't know if he had actually said something to Art back then, or if Art was just memeing.

Anyway, during that time, the forums were all spamming "Quickly say thanks to Nice," and it had already become a meme.

Vitality's first-day match was against COL; the players on this team weren't very famous nowadays, and the most famous one was just that North American genius teenager, oBo, who had a physique like a stick figure.

But in this confrontation, the North American genius teenager was beaten to a 0.57 rating by them.

However, in the post-match handshake segment, the photo of the sturdy Xu Beifang shaking hands with oBo was instead screenshotted by many people to make memes.

So you're the genius teenager?. JPG

In the confrontations over the next few days, Vitality was also very smooth; on the second day, they directly defeated North with a 2-0 score.

Kjaerbye, who once made Xu Beifang feel a lot of pressure, now couldn't give Xu Beifang much pressure.

Or rather, ever since Kjaerbye left Astralis, his level had been declining.

Nowadays, he couldn't even hold up the role of Dage in a tier-one team.

On the second day, Astralis made everyone feel that their defeat by FURIA on the first day was just an accident.

Xu Beifang was still very much looking forward to meeting Astralis in the finals.

However, in the third day of the competition, Team A met FURIA once again.

They were crushed by FURIA once more, and with two losses, they were directly eliminated.

As for Vitality, they had a smooth run in the subsequent matches.

Xu Beifang and Zywoo were in surprisingly good form; after the Analyst joined, Zywoo finally found his suitable position after several matches of unadjusted playstyle.

As a Sniper, he truly began to unleash his potential.

The two of them began to exert force in different areas, making their opponents suffer miserably.

In the end, they met FURIA, who had performed quite well throughout the tournament, in the finals.

Yet even FURIA, who had defeated Team A twice, could not take a single map from Vitality.

In this final, Zywoo and Xu Beifang posted ratings of 1.79 and 1.61 respectively, and netizens commented that the two of them were chasing FURIA players down to kill them.

And they lifted the third Trophy in their team's history.

But this time, Shushu, who had an explosive performance, finally obtained his first MVP Trophy.

Vitality's fans fell into a frenzy.

Fans of other teams were also somewhat stunned to see Vitality in this state.

Because in this tournament, Vitality won the championship without dropping a single map; this exaggerated situation made them feel as if they were seeing Team A on their rise years ago.

However, many rational fans were still observing the situation and did not go into the forums to brag mindlessly.

After all, the prestige of this tournament was not very high.

Furthermore, many teams had displayed this kind of form before, but their state was merely a flash in the pan.

Teams like Team A that could maintain a high competitive state in matches year-round were still in the minority.

Besides the surprise at Vitality winning another championship, many people were also discussing the state of Team A.

Although FURIA was the top rising star of the year, as the recognized World No. 1, being crushed by FURIA twice in a row was indeed a bit hard to accept.

Entering the second half of the year, Team A showed clear signs of fatigue, while Vitality and Liquid once again demonstrated their vitality.

FaZe remained in a slump due to roster changes, and NAVI was relying on the necessity of personnel changes.

The structure of the tier-one teams seemed to have the possibility of a reshuffle.

And under these circumstances, the 2019 Berlin Major had already begun.

As a member of the Legend Stage, Vitality placed their focus on the last major tournament before the Major—ESL One Cologne!

……

……

Eleven thousand words, three thousand owed; this is a transition chapter. If I followed the plot timeline and kept playing, there would be many more matches to write, but there is no need to write them out, so I am transitioning directly to before the Major.

The transitions in CSGO have always given me a headache……