Chapter 455: You're telling me this is a commander?

13:9

Inside the studio's match room, when the score locked in at this number, NIKO once again took off his noise-canceling headset, though this time he didn't burst into hearty laughter, but instead let out a long sigh of relief; recalling that he had done the same action at match point, the others couldn't help but chuckle.

Coach Xiaoxiao didn't mind at all and patted NIKO on the shoulder: "Promise me, don't pop the champagne early next time, okay?"

"The pressure is so high."

NIKO rolled his eyes: "I already said, my brain just short-circuited earlier, I didn't mean to pop the champagne early!"

The moment he took off his headset earlier, he was immersed in the joy of winning his first offline match since the rebuild against Faze.

What kind of strength does the current Galaxy Battleship have?

With the French slacker crazily vacationing, as long as Faze participates in an offline tournament, they can stably secure a championship or runner-up spot.

After these old-timers arrived in CS2, their adaptability was terrifying!

Although COL's roster on paper was unprecedentedly strong, he had actually been on many teams with strong rosters on paper, and he joined COL entirely for the sake of Xu Beifang.

So, without feeling real pressure, he still felt a bit nervous inside.

And these nerves all turned into joy the moment they won.

It was just a tiny little accident, hmm, a tiny accident... NIKO was certain.

"You don't look like a coach at all." NIKO was gradually infected by Coach Xiaoxiao and started to enjoy himself too.

Xu Beifang stood up and high-fived NIKO, replying: "Don't mind him, he's just a coach, what can he even do..."

NIKO nodded; exactly, what can a coach like T. C do?

Wait, something feels wrong, it feels like my brain is starting to grow.

The COL group was full of laughter, while the mood on Faze's side was a bit low.

They were actually okay with losing the first two matches in every offline tournament; after all, the former Galaxy Battleship had the reputation of "Map 1 for fun," and these star players were all veterans with decent resilience, so they could accept a loss without being devastated.

But the problem was, losing to COL, this newly rebuilt team, was still a bit uncomfortable.

There were quite a few acquaintances on the other side, and Xu Beifang hadn't returned to the competitive stage for a long time.

They had thought they could smoothly take the first round of the confrontation, but the result exceeded their expectations.

Among the Faze members, for Karrigan, he was more inclined to believe that the current COL had strong combat power.

There were actually quite a few top-tier teams formed during the off-season, but very few could actually make a name for themselves.

However, he was personally quite optimistic about COL; after all, these people in COL had all performed exceptionally well in their previous teams, and Nice, Elige, NIKO, and JKS were not lopsided in their playstyles—whether it was the fast-paced offense of North America or the attention to detail in the European system, they could all play well, so the team's overall style wouldn't have any major problems.

So in his estimation, COL would at least have the level of a first-tier team, and the fluctuations in their performance would depend on how well Nice maintained his form and what kind of chemistry these players generated.

But because Nice had once suppressed the entire competitive scene, the Faze members were extremely excited after knowing their opponent for this match, each of them clamoring to punch NIKO and kick Nice.

Then, after truly entering the match and coming to the first Full Buy Round, he felt something was wrong. Because he realized that Nice's command level was not bad at all, and this "first-tier level" of COL still had a lot of room to improve!

Even though commanding cannot entirely determine the direction of a match, an excellent commander can drive the rhythm of the entire confrontation.

Furthermore, Nice's Gunplay was just like it was back in the day, leaving them with no temper at all.

Now that Map 1 was over, Karrigan took off his headset and exchanged "what a pity" with his teammates, but his gaze was fixed on COL's match area; at this moment, he already understood that another powerful opponent would appear on the professional stage. As a player, Karrigan was very happy that Nice could have this kind of performance upon his return, but as a team captain, he also felt immense pressure.

He just stared quietly at COL's match area, while the sounds of his teammates complaining and other players tapping keyboards and communicating reached his ears.

At this time, Nice finished interacting with his teammates, and his gaze quickly met his; the two smiled at each other.

He watched the sturdy man walk toward him, "I thought our Inferno was already strong enough, but in the end, we couldn't beat the 'King of Banana Road'!"

Facing Karrigan's social pleasantries, Xu Beifang just smiled, "Good form today."

Karrigan shook his head; this couldn't be explained by just "good form."

When he was on the offensive side, many of his round instructions were blown up by Xu Beifang; today, Xu Beifang had crushed him in both Gunplay and command.

The others just exchanged brief pleasantries and agreed with Nice to hang out when they had time.

Soon, Xu Beifang led the COL members away and disappeared into the studio.

The Faze members packed up their peripherals, and Rain looked at the final stats on the screen, joking: "After today's match, quite a few teams might start sweating."

……

When Cadian was packing his peripherals, the other two teams in the studio began to enter one after another, all of them full of fighting spirit.

Usually, he might have calmed down to appreciate this scene; after all, what he loved most were these scenes of Professional Players full of fighting spirit.

But they had just won their first-round victory, and his mood at this moment was a bit complicated.

According to common sense, he should only feel joy, after all, the rebuilt team had won their first round.

But the problem was, he had led a rebuilt team to win against Heroic, the team he had built with his own hands.

After he left, Heroic seemed to lack the competitiveness they once had, which made him feel a bit lost.

And as for the joy of victory, he actually didn't have much.

Because he truly felt the difference between a native-language team and an international squad.

Or rather, the difference between building a team from a newcomer's perspective and commanding a group of veteran players with rich experience.

In this confrontation, even though they won, he didn't feel much joy.

Because during the process of the confrontation, too many "accidental" factors appeared.

This was very hard for him to accept.

So, he just hastily packed his peripherals and headed to the lounge.

After entering the lounge, he happened to see the post-match stats of the game on the big screen, with Twistzz having the best performance with 21 kills and 9 deaths.

"Twistzz is great, I feel like you can adapt to the star position, didn't you play quite well?" Cadian said with a smile.

Yekindar chimed in from the side, saying that he had a blast following Twistzz for Trade Kills in today's match, and Twistzz's frontal firepower was directly maxed out.

The few of them were mostly just finding topics to chat about, and Twistzz didn't pay much attention, saying casually: "I mainly rely on form; if my Gunplay is good, I feel like I can go toe-to-toe with peak Nice, but if my form is bad, it might be quite uncomfortable, so it's hard to rely on me as a single core to perform, which is why when I was at Faze before, I only occasionally acted as a tactical core."

NAF shook his head from the side; it had been so many years, and Twistzz had told him privately that he wanted to try to become a true star player, but personality issues are hard to change; he was too humble.

Humility is not a particularly good word for CSGO; unless one has the monstrous strength of Zywoo, it's better to have a wilder personality, which might be more suitable for becoming a star player.

For the core of a team, a spiritual leader of a team, sometimes a bit of paranoia is needed.

Clearly, Twistzz is lacking a bit in terms of personality.

"The fastest legend of the Outside, right?" Cadian looked at Twistzz and smiled, "Top-tier Canadian tactics, don't worry, we can also design some excellent tactics centered around you later; you can trust that my tactics won't be worse than Faze's."

Twistzz didn't speak, but since Faze was mentioned, he suddenly remembered: "By the way, I remember the first match of Group B was COL versus Faze, they should be done by now, right? How many points did COL get?"

Yekindar chimed in from the side: "How do you know COL couldn't win?"

Twistzz smiled: "If you're interested, you can go flip through the community discussions; those netizens still have quite a lot of confidence in Faze."

Twistzz spoke with a bit of pride; after all, that was also the glory he had fought for with his own hands.

NAF was curled up in a corner scrolling through his phone, looking as if he were about to fall asleep, but soon he shouted in surprise: "Oh!"

"What's wrong?"

NAF was unhurried: "COL actually won, they hammered Faze on Inferno, ended 13:9."

The Sloth's voice was quite flat, but in the ears of the others, it was huge news.

Cadian was puzzled: "How could COL win? That shouldn't be the case, Faze is a heavy favorite to win the championship right now..."

He thought for a moment, "Could it be that someone on Faze underperformed?"

NAF swiped his phone, "That's not really it, only Karrigan's kill count didn't reach double digits, everyone else is relatively normal."

Soon he took a screenshot and shared it in the Liquid group chat.

Cadian and the others took a look.

It was indeed as NAF said, only Karrigan's data on Faze's side was 6/2/17, the kills of the others on Faze were relatively average, around 12.

Then they turned their attention to COL's side.

"Nice, is this guy actually an In-Game Leader?"

"You're telling me an IGL can have these stats?"

"What kind of fragging IGL is this?"

Several people couldn't help but complain.

They all knew that Xu Beifang had transitioned to an IGL, but in this first map of the first round, Xu Beifang's stats were truly a bit exaggerated.

ID: Nice

Kills/Assists/Deaths: 27/6/10

Average Damage per Round: 117.2

Rating: 1.96

Broky, who performed the best on Faze's side, only managed a 0.96 rating in such a passive situation.

In other words, Xu Beifang had a whole person's worth of impact more than the opponent's best player.

Although CS2 data has become easier to farm due to the reduced number of rounds.

But in this first offline match since his return, facing Faze, the current world number two, to put up a 1.96 rating from the position of an IGL, isn't that a bit excessive!

You have to know that's Faze, not some amateur team!

Is this just straight-up smurfing?

"What exactly is the situation?" Cadian was very confused.

Their rebuilt lineup was able to defeat Heroic mainly because the current Heroic isn't strong; after he was kicked, the two snakes didn't renew their contracts and joined Team Astralis.

This resulted in the current Heroic lineup being relatively loose, and their synergy isn't even as good as the current Liquid.

Plus, with his understanding of Heroic, he could easily come up with some targeted strategies.

But Faze can be said to be one of the teams with the fewest changes this offseason, and they are also the favorites to win this IEM Chengdu; it's truly rare for them to be blown out in this situation.

So he really wanted to know what exactly happened.

"This stat line is most likely because Nice was in the zone, he just stunned Faze with his entry fragging," Twistzz said with a smile. Nice's combat power has always been exaggerated; after he retired, the word 'Nice' had already become an adjective for evaluating a player's combat strength. It's likely that upon returning to the arena, Faze hadn't adapted to his style of play and got stunned by a wave of it.

Hearing Twistzz say this, the little assistant on the side had a complex expression: "Twistzz, you seem to have guessed wrong. Although there were parts of today's match where Nice's Gunplay was on display, it was more that he blew Faze out with his calling..."

"Ah?"

Everyone in the room was stunned, and then Twistzz looked at the little assistant, signaling him to continue.

The little assistant received the signal and immediately began to describe it vividly: "During the Pistol Round, Nice designed two special plays; he pre-rotated to reinforce B with a 3B setup, plus an anti-flash, which directly won them the Pistol Round."

"Later, when it came to the Full Buy Round, Nice also made a similar play. When NIKO was the first to die, he first returned to A, then a moment later brought two teammates to the B site, actively executing an anti-flash, which directly crushed Faze's formation..."

Hearing the little assistant say this, they felt like they had been scratched where it itched. Cadian made a prompt decision, pulled out a tablet from the side, found the replay of that match on HLTV, and then started playing it at double speed.

The others were also drawn over.

Even for the rounds the little assistant had described, they still watched them carefully, and in the process, they couldn't help but exclaim.

Compared to the little assistant, whose level wasn't as high, they, as active Professional Players, were even more shocked by Xu Beifang's decisiveness in decision-making.

Throughout the lounge, shouts of "WTF" and "Ah?" could be heard from time to time.

They couldn't believe that those decisions were made by Xu Beifang, the 'former World No. 1 Rifleman'.

You have to know that in their impression, a Gunner and an IGL are two completely different paths, so if an IGL can sometimes put up an excellent performance, it's worth praising.

But in this match, the debut of Xu Beifang's transition to IGL, he not only led COL to victory over Faze.

He even won this match for the team from the position of an IGL.

Although Karrigan was at a disadvantage in this match due to the small sample size, how many IGLs in the world can make Karrigan, the world's number one IGL, suffer?

For the Liquid group, this was completely another side of Nice, the former World No. 1 Rifleman.

But for them, this side hidden in Nice.

It was a bit too terrifying!

PS: The rain in Jiangxi is so heavy, it collapsed my grandmother's Kitchen, tough to handle...