Chapter 409: NIKO has a secret crush on Nice

Without twists, turns, or suspense, the second half of the Train match was quite dull. Once Vitality grasped the rhythm, they easily swept Big away in one go.

"Vitality defeats Big with a final score of 16:11 on their own map pick!" the English-stream commentator announced loudly in the broadcast room. "The conclusion of this Train match also means this BO3 has come to an end!"

"Because Vitality has already defeated Big with a 2-0 scoreline, they have successfully advanced to the next round of the tournament!"

Vitality's fans were quite happy.

They hadn't just been following Vitality for a day or two; every time after a break, Vitality would enter their state quite slowly. Today, being the first match after the break, they were worried Vitality would give them another cerebral hemorrhage. Although there were quite a few "appetizing" (poor) plays between them and Big on Train today, the final result was good.

【Looks like they didn't train any less during this break; this is much better than before.】

【Didn't you see the video posted on Vitality's official account? Beifang practiced 10,000 bots every day during the break.】

【Using the Negev to do it, right? I could do 100,000!】

【Laughing to death, who would have thought Beifang would actually pull out a Negev today.】

【Today's match was truly abstract; it made me laugh so many times.】

Broky asked with some confusion: "Don't they not play Train?"

"It really was quite abstract."

But he could always mess up eight or ten utility throws a day.

Initially, he wanted to pick up the big sniper rifle again, but he received unanimous opposition from NEO and Xu Beifang.

"That Big is also quite abstract."

He decisively changed the subject: "How did Vitality's first match of the off-season go?"

NiKo shrugged: "I don't get it either; maybe they were thinking of practicing another map... but this level is truly just practiced, the offensive coordination is really foul."

Xu Beifang's stats were second only to Zywoo, ranking second among everyone with 44 kills and 30 deaths. His ADR was 97.7, even 2.1 higher than Zywoo's, and his rating was 1.49.

The only one on the team with this kind of voice is the youngest, Broky; after all, everyone else is considered an old hand, and their voices aren't this young.

Broky is the rookie he is most optimistic about.

So, after benching NEO and Guardian's departure, their entire team underwent a restructuring. Good snipers on the market are hard to buy, so NiKo proposed buying a rookie to try it out.

"Watching Beifang operating in the server the whole time, but the MVP ended up being Zywoo."

Why would a T0.5-level rifleman want to become a T1.5-level sniper? This is completely not worth the loss.

Broky shook his head as he listened: "Actually, you're not wrong; Nice's impact was still greater. He also racked up 44 kills, it's just that he died more times."

"In Map 2, Vitality proactively chose Train..."

Broky is a genius teenager he is very optimistic about. His performance in Faceit and tier-two matches has been quite outstanding. Apart from some flaws in utility, his gunplay, consciousness, game understanding, and competitive IQ are all quite good.

【That moment of him jerking off in front of everyone cracked me up】

At the time, he had the idea of poaching, but Xu Beifang politely refused him, so he could only talk with the genuine idea of building a future Galaxy Battleship.

"Watching Vitality matches again? You really have a secret crush on Nice, don't you!" A slightly immature voice came from his ear, and NiKo felt his head full of black lines.

Just like in this BO3, Nice died 10 more times than Zywoo.

Broky instantly stopped talking.

Throwing a piece of utility and hitting 1000 bots, that's really not much.

To be honest, NiKo thinks his own AWP usage is actually not bad, but Xu Beifang and NEO felt it was completely unnecessary.

Before NEO left, he had a talk with NEO and Nice, envisioning the future of Faze.

Although Zywoo's stats are more outstanding, Broky himself, as a sniper, understands very well that snipers are more likely to put up pretty stats in high-intensity matches.

"Emmm..." NiKo thought for a moment, "How to describe it, their overall performance is actually quite good. In Map 1, they even hard-crushed them on Big's strong map."

"You keep blabbering here; later, throw a piece of utility and go hit 1000 bots for me!" Regarding Broky's teasing, NiKo wasn't angry, just replied indifferently.

NiKo thought for a moment; on the map Train, smooya shot his own teammate who was covering the rear and even jerked off in front of the opponents.

【smooya is top-tier in today's match, constantly switching between human and non-human】

"Can only say, as expected of two AWP maps, the sniper's advantage is too great."

Looking at it this way, it's very obvious.

Apparently, he was also watching the match on his phone in the restroom just now.

After the BO3 match ended, Zywoo ranked first among everyone with 45 kills, 21 deaths, and a 1.55 rating.

If one had to hit nearly ten thousand more bots, wouldn't that tire a person to death?

While speaking, Coldzera also walked into the training room and said with a smile: "Vitality's first match of this off-season went pretty well."

However, he also understands that it is harder for snipers to put up pretty stats in low-intensity matches.

"Vitality lost? Then how was Map 3?"

On a large map like Train, players' synchronization, utility timing, etc., all require deliberate practice, but Vitality played it like a ladder match, which left him somewhat speechless.

"No, Vitality won."

And the fact that he could still approach Zywoo's rating despite being killed 10 more times explains a certain issue.

NiKo nodded at him, then searched for the post-match stats on HLTV, and couldn't help but laugh while looking at them.

Because a sniper might be holding an angle and not even see anyone before teammates have already rushed into the opponent's face and killed everyone; in those rounds, if you're a bit slow, the kills are already gone.

Looking at Xu Beifang's stats, he couldn't help but exclaim: "If Nice performs normally in the upcoming IEM Beijing, then this year's TOP1 will definitely be him, right?"

He thinks it's really outrageous.

In 2018, S1mple beat everyone to win HLTV's TOP1, letting them all see the power of a top-tier sniper, and everyone thought an era of sniper dominance was about to emerge.

But they didn't expect a rifle kid to pop out and stun all the pros in the tier-one scene.

"What are you thinking?" NiKo said disdainfully, "This guy doesn't even need good stats at IEM Beijing; as long as he doesn't put up outrageous stats like 0.3 or 0.4 at IEM Beijing, he has already locked in this year's TOP1."

As he spoke, NiKo was somewhat speechless: "This guy's stats are already fucking off the charts!"

As a famous "epiphany kid," Xu Beifang's stats in the first half of the year weren't particularly exaggerated, mainly stable.

Hovering around 1.3, 1.4.

But the sudden explosion in Cologne, plus the good Major stats, directly raised his stats by a point, which is quite terrifying.

Xu Beifang's full-year stats have now reached a terrifying 1.51.

Ranking second is S1mple, whose stats are 1.29.

Xu Beifang's average stats in matches are already 0.2 higher than this guy's in the same period; it really is off-the-charts strong.

Coldzera smiled and said: "Actually, this is a good thing. In this shitty game CSGO, the ceiling has never been slowly discovered. Before '18, everyone thought an average of 1.2 was already outrageous, and then this guy S1mple broke my record and put up a 1.33, which broke everyone's cognition."

"I knew at the time that at some stage in the future, a player would definitely emerge to break S1mple's record, but I didn't expect it to be so fast, and so outrageous."

NiKo took a breath: "But him, it's not exactly 'emerging out of nowhere,' this guy had signs in '18."

"Pointing at me, are you." Coldzera laughed, "It disgusted me to death at the time."

During the 2018 HLTV selection, Coldzera was stepped on by Xu Beifang.

At that time, Xu Beifang had only played a few matches in total, and many people commented that the judges chose him for the Huaxia market; Coldzera also felt very unconvinced for a period of time.

But now, he doesn't feel there's any problem with being ranked behind Xu Beifang.

This is very reasonable, okay!

In the future, he can say that he was just ranked behind Xu Beifang.

But on second thought, he could probably just brag that he is TOP1.

"At least it's good news for you young people." NiKo looked at the delicate Broky and said, "His outstanding stats will make your pursuit of goals higher, and your requirements for yourself will naturally become higher."

(Broky: I was still very young then)

Just like in the era when he debuted, TOP1 stats hovered around 1.2, so he definitely pursued stability above 1.2, because these stats were already outstanding enough.

But with Senbei constantly raising the stats, the goals of subsequent CSGO youngsters naturally have to become higher.

Because competitiveness is hard to satisfy, desires will naturally be stronger.

"Requirements become higher?" Broky smiled mischievously, "My heart is already dead! 1.51, is this a rating a human can chase?"

1.51 in an ordinary match is already very, very good stats.

If he explodes for a round, he can also put up these stats, but a full-year average of 1.51 is a bit too outrageous.

Broky feels that compared to surpassing such industry goals, surpassing his own records is more realistic.

"By the way, when will we have a chance to play Vitality?" Broky still recognizes Xu Beifang's strength; after all, the two often play together on Faceit, and Xu Beifang is really carrying hard, and he only occasionally complains about his utility.

So he is still very much looking forward to playing against the world's strongest team today.

Coldzera pushed his glasses and recalled: "If I remember correctly, there will be a chance to meet in the upcoming IEM Beijing; it just depends on how the group luck goes."

As he spoke, he looked at Broky: "However, with Vitality's state, entering the playoffs is definitely no problem, so work hard yourself, the chance of meeting them is very high."

Broky didn't speak; he just wanted to clash with the world number one, and Coldzera's reverse psychology didn't work on him.

Faze's recent strength is quite considerable, in the honeymoon period of a new lineup, but wanting to win against Vitality is still quite difficult.

However, he is quite looking forward to it; if he can really defeat Vitality, then he will have established a firm foothold in the tier-one scene.

At this time, NiKo also asked: "Who is Vitality playing next?"

Coldzera looked at his phone: "If nothing goes wrong, it should be..."

"ENCE!"

"smooya, why don't you just join Vitality." Xu Beifang issued an invitation to smooya in the TS voice channel.

smooya listened with a head full of question marks: "What the hell? The off-season is already over and you're saying this bullshit..."

"Otherwise, you can be the sixth man in the match, our boss won't pay you a salary anyway!"

smooya's face turned dark: "That was an accident!! Fuck!"

He had shifted his attention at the time, so when he saw a shadow in the crosshair, he fired subconsciously.

"It's just that after coming to Vitality, don't jerk off in the match, it doesn't look good."

smooya shouted: "Stop talking about me, share those 200g of seeds with me."

This time it was Xu Beifang's turn to be helpless: "You fucking spread rumors outside every day!"

smooya laughed this time: "With this combat power, you still come to mock me? Forget it, next time there's a chance for LAN, I'll explode you directly!"

Hearing smooya say this, Xu Beifang was actually quite looking forward to it.

smooya really played like he was sick today, throwing away several key rounds.

If it weren't for his issues, Big could actually have gotten more points.

However, even so, the person who performed best in Big was still him, which shows how powerful this sniper from the Great British Empire is.

And because it's an online match, this guy enters his state relatively slowly.

But if it were a LAN match, playing against smooya is still quite fun.

Both sides can mock each other, shouting face to face.

A troll like smooya won't get angry with you, which is really interesting.

After mocking each other with smooya, Xu Beifang lay leisurely on the sofa.

Winning the first BO3 of the off-season perfectly felt pretty good to them.

However, it was precisely the off-season issues that led to many problems appearing.

First is that their tactical playbook needs to be updated; their overall tactics are still a bit old and need some new things to use as trump cards.

Then there's the communication and coordination between players, which still needs to be strengthened. They actually found some feeling on Train, and as long as they play more matches later, they should slowly find their state.

Then there's Train, which XTQZZZ has high hopes for.

On this map, their overall performance was actually not bad, it's just that things like explosive grenades and synchronization were quite abstract when taken out individually.

XTQZZZ is still scratching his head watching the recording, summarizing the problems on that map.

Xu Beifang had nothing to do for the moment, so he finished watching the Train confrontation from his + global perspective, and conducted a simple review and summary from his personal perspective.

He actually didn't have any major problems with his personal operations; everything was based on team coordination for adjustments, and the few times he gave away kills were also due to timing issues.

For Train, he still has to look at the review from the bald coach regarding the whole team later; from the team's perspective, the coach is much better than him.

After scanning Train once, Xu Beifang turned his attention to Dust 2.

Although they won on this map, Big still put a lot of pressure on them, which proves that Big's playstyle has some merits.

Xu Beifang also watched the recording of this map once.

After watching it all, Xu Beifang found that Big really likes to fight for A Long.

And after fighting for A Long, they can get too many advantages relying on this position.

The leader understands the CT's psychology after losing A Long very clearly; after A Long is lost, CT can only be forced to stand in a "one" shape, and the acquisition of outside information depends entirely on how much information the terrorists give.

In this situation, he uses the A Long CT spawn smoke as a fulcrum, forcing the CTs onto the platform, compressing their vision, and then executing tactics like direct A Long rushes, A Long and A Short pincer attacks, feinting A Long to B Tunnel, etc.

Their set of playstyles has many variations, but it can just get points, which is quite interesting.

Xu Beifang studied in front of the computer for a long time; shox heard his thoughts and joined in the discussion.

shox said: "The simplest one should be to directly counter-flash out to get information, to confirm if he has anyone holding A Long directly."

Big is making a fuss around A Long; if they counter-flash out to confirm if Big is attacking, they can read the opponent's offensive intent.

"But it's not very appropriate." Xu Beifang rewound a round and adjusted the time, "Look, this round Big is preparing to rush A at the second timing, they put smooya in the Pit to hang out at the start; if you counter-flash out at this time, it's highly likely you'll be held dead directly by him. Once the first kill is obtained, Big will directly speed up."

"Then how about we group up and push out from B site to try?" Jack asked.

"That's actually a good method." Xu Beifang nodded, "Map control is lost, just counter-flash down from B site; getting the information here can also be considered a map resource exchange, and it can lock in that they are going to hit A."

Locking in the opponent's offensive route makes subsequent defense easier.

Countering various utility and preparing crossfire in advance can block the opponent outside.

The analyst added from the side: "Actually, the best method is to directly take A Long, so you don't have to worry about these things."

apEX said speechlessly: "Stop adding to the chaos here, this is discussing countermeasures after losing A Long; what you said is equivalent to saying nothing."

After complaining, he turned back and said: "Jack's train of thought has no problems; A Long is lost, so find a way to get back at them from A Short or B Tunnel, we can even plan to clear Mid at the second timing in advance."

shox asked again: "Then what if our formation at the start is more biased towards A Long, but we didn't take A Long?"

"And even if we control A Short, what if they use Big's way of touching to the near point and then popping a flash to attack?"

Not every round can they make the best preparations; sometimes it's all on-the-spot decisions, needing to be forced to face the enemy.

Zywoo muttered: "It's just that this CT spawn smoke is annoying; once these two smokes pop, the difficulty for me to get information on the platform is relatively high."

In the case where the opponent has a sniper rifle, the platform will likely be held dead by the Pit; even if he borrows a flash to counter-flash out, his whole body position against the Pit's head-peeking position doesn't seem worth it no matter how you look at it.

"CT spawn smoke!" Xu Beifang took a breath, "The key point is here!"

His eyes lit up, inspiration already in his mind, and he immediately opened the client.

After thinking about it, he also pulled in Zywoo, who was eating snacks on the side.

Everyone else gathered around, wanting to see what inspiration Xu Beifang had come up with again.

"Shushu, you just need to throw those two CT spawn smokes." Xu Beifang commanded.

He wanted to let Zywoo simulate the terrorists executing an explosive bomb attack.

Zywoo nodded, and after asking Xu Beifang, he immediately started throwing the bombs.

"I thought of two methods, one is to directly throw fire to destroy the landing point of the smoke grenade."

Xu Beifang took out an incendiary grenade, his eyes fixed on the teeth on the wall.

The moment he saw the smoke grenade appear, he immediately smashed it towards the middle of the road.

The mechanism of CSGO smoke grenades is not that they pop instantly upon landing, but that they will go through several bounces before popping.

But smoke grenades can extinguish incendiary grenades, so as long as you use this mechanism in reverse, you can reach a method of using incendiary grenades to destroy the landing point of smoke grenades.

This is somewhat similar to the method of using incendiary grenades to destroy the landing point of the first-line smoke on Nuke.

After this CT spawn smoke was destroyed by Xu Beifang with an incendiary grenade, it didn't reach the designated position and popped in the middle of the road.

The CTs under the CT spawn platform can easily output damage to the terrorists passing through.

"Then the second method is, when the opponent throws smoke, proactively push a smoke grenade out, then seize the timing, and directly give the smoke grenade an American-style interception!"

As Xu Beifang said this, he aimed at the position and directly used his body to block the second smoke grenade thrown by Zywoo.

All utility in CSGO has a characteristic: utility will stop after hitting a person.

On Mirage CT spawn, people often use their bodies to block the smoke to destroy the landing point of the CT spawn smoke.

Applying it to the map Dust 2 is the same.

"The idea is indeed not bad, but using this method to intercept, won't the risk be too great?"

Professional matches are not like low-end matches; if Xu Beifang pushes this smoke out, the opponent might frantically wallbang this area, and if he gets wallbanged to death, then it's directly game over.

"There is nothing without risk; you always have to try to break the situation."

"If the opponent directly wallbangs, then it's actually fine, you don't even need to bump into the smoke, because we can basically determine their approximate position, and they also don't know if we will counter-flash."

"As long as we can delay time and consume their utility, our goal is achieved."

Although there is indeed a certain risk, apEX feels it is much stronger than the all-in counter-flash that shox mentioned.

Can only say that in terms of game IQ, Xu Beifang is still very strong.

apEX nodded: "Then let's leave it at that, everyone go into the server and practice for a while, get familiar with the trajectory of the two CT spawn smokes."

Only by understanding the trajectory can they be better used in matches.

Next time they encounter a similar situation, they will have more means to deal with it.

Although they can play the map Dust 2, the cards in their hands are actually not many.

For them, individual practice is not difficult; they only need to input a few commands in the console to simulate their own actions, and they can achieve self-throwing and self-receiving.

Xu Beifang also practiced for a while, and after getting familiar with the general landing, he ran around Dust 2 to explore some new utility.

Then after running for a while, he found a fire that covers behind A Door with a very abstract aiming point.

And a supreme fake-attack smoke.

While he was jumping around the map casually, thinking about what other utility was needed to coordinate the attack.

With a casual jump inside A Door, he suddenly hung in the middle of the A Door boxes.

Xu Beifang: "!!"

Although he accidentally came down the next second, he had clearly stepped on it just now, and he had a very deep impression.

And the flight key in his map-running server is set to the 'P' key, which is impossible to misclick.

Now Xu Beifang was excited; that discovery just now clearly showed that this place can be climbed up solo.

If he can really find the technique to climb up solo, then there is a lot to talk about.

In certain specific rounds, this information can be used to mislead the opponent.

Even in certain specific clutches, this technique can also play a big role.

At worst, in an eco round, this technique can also be used to steal an opportunity.

Xu Beifang immediately started research on climbing the A box solo.