Chapter 804: Endless Topics
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
As the opening round came to a close, all sorts of news and topics began to trend.
Although Team Tyranny’s four ace player team made them the highest trending team among players, the single pro-gamer who gained the most attention wasn’t Zhang Jiale, Ling Jinyan, Han Wenqing or Zhang Xinjie.
Lu Hanwen.
Known as this season’s most important transfer of Team Blue Rain, Lu Hanwen. With the departure of an All Star, he directly stepped up to take a place on the main roster. The youngest pro player in the history of Glory.
On the day of the match and under Team Blue Rain’s protection, Lu Hanwen had not attended the press conference. But was it that easy to wave off the enthusiasm of these reporters? After the opening matches, each team received an application for a certain team member to be interviewed, and Lu Hanwen’s popularity rocketed.
Was Lu Hanwen’s ability comparable to a G.o.d? Not necessarily, but the halo of being 14 gave him a bonus. Being so strong at merely 14, if he continued improving, wouldn’t his ability be terrifying when his skills matured?
Although Team Blue Rain was protecting their young partic.i.p.ant, that didn’t mean they were hiding him from public view completely. Their goal was to let him grow in the best conditions. After the opening matches, Team Blue Rain’s PR department gave Lu Hanwen a few pointers on dealing with the media, and finally agreed to letting him be interviewed. However, the interview wasn’t conducted like the press conference where a myriad of reporters would be fighting for a chance to ask questions. Team Blue Rain instead decided to arrange for someone from the influential ESports Home to conduct an exclusive interview. They would let the two find a quiet place to sit and talk, and Team Blue Rain would go over the draft before it became published.
With this arrangement, they wouldn’t have to fear Lu Hanwen saying anything that could negatively affect his future career due to his lack of experience. And being the most influential eSports media, ESports Home wouldn’t go and irresponsibly publish nonsense to catch the eyes of the people.
Not long afterwards Lu Hanwen’s exclusive interview appeared on the Monday’s ESports Home headlines. Through Q & A, they let the normal players better understand this young pro player.
Vibrant, optimistic, diligent!
This was ESports Home’s final opinion of Lu Hanwen. The Exclusive interview naturally concluded with well-wishes for Lu Hanwen. Meanwhile, this made antic.i.p.ation swell in the hearts of Glory fans. How much could this young pro player achieve?
Of course, there was plenty more to speak of in the next pages of ESports Home.
Such as those teams who had gone through major adjustments, their style and technique in the opening matches was a hot topic as well. And speaking of style, the rare combination of a cla.s.s overlap appeared in the opening matches of two powerhouses.
Blue Rain, Tiny Herb.
With Troubling Rain and Vaccaria, two aces among their cla.s.s, there was somehow another same-cla.s.s character that appeared in their team battles.
Flowing Cloud, Kind Tree. With the same cla.s.ses as Troubling Rain and Vaccaria, respectively, the two accounts were being played by the rookies of each team.
A dual cla.s.s combination was very rare. Only Team Void’s Ghostblade duo was currently active in the league. Sobbing Ghost and Carved Ghost were both Ghostblades. But Ghostblades had their own unique playstyle. Phantom Demons and Sword Demons could more or less be seen as two different cla.s.ses. Team Void’s Ghostblade Duo had Sobbing Ghost as a phantom demon, while Carved Ghost would switch up his skillset every now and then. Through this, they managed to create a variety of play styles.
For Blue Rain and Tiny Herb, Tiny Herb was alright, since Witches had many styles to choose from. But with w.a.n.g Jiexi being known as the Magician, his Vaccaria didn’t use any of the typical play styles of Witch players. Instead, he used a style unique to himself. Vaccaria didn’t have particular skills. He didn’t favor particular skills like the mainstream Body Technique or Magic Tool users. Instead, his skill points were placed into all the different skills. With the limit in skill points, Vaccaria’s skill levels were definitely imperfect, but his skill tree make-up was beyond the comprehension of most.
And Kind Tree, who fought at Vaccaria’s side, wasn’t one of the mainstream Body Technique or Magic Tool accounts either, yet he was also different from Vaccaria, or so the opening match seemed to reveal. From the current a.n.a.lysis, he seemed to uphold w.a.n.g Jiexi’s Magician playstyle, but his skill tree was tailored to Gao Yingjie’s personal tastes and habits.
Two unique Witches. What kind of combination would they be able to make? Everyone was trembling in antic.i.p.ation.
As for Blue Rain, Blade Masters didn’t have that much of a variation. Different players would simply pick different combinations of sword types and skills that were to their liking. Troubling Rain wasn’t as unique as Vaccaria, and Flowing Cloud was even more of a typical Blade Master. What sparks these two cla.s.s overlaps would create had been a.n.a.lyzed by the media for the opening matches, but it wasn’t thorough; they would have to see over time.
As for those like Tyranny, Hundred Blossoms, Wind Howl.... All the teams would gain reviews from the media after the opening matches. Whether the a.n.a.lysis in these reviews were accurate or not wasn’t something certain, but for normal players, they needed someone more professional than them to a.n.a.lyze the matches and tell them what was truly going on.
In comparison, the Challenger League, which had also finished its opening matches, only got a tiny, negligible place on the ESports Home. In this tiny area, half of it was used to emphasize how incredible this time’s Challenger League was. Then, it mentioned which teams used to belong to the Pro League. With Excellent Era as the top priority, they were given a good bit of praise. As for Happy, they were mentioned too. Though it was just a sentence of "the recently infamous Team Happy easily defeated their opponents, a small team of players, in the first round."
Though it was just one sentence, one could tell that ESports Home was keeping a close eye on Happy. Out of 14218 teams, they were the only team to be specifically named in the small article. Even Excellent Era had just been shoved in with the other struggling pro teams, briefly mentioned as "winning with full points".
Even with that, Chen Guo wasn’t happy when she saw the article. With how hilarious their opponents were, who had two players who didn’t even come, they could write much more! However, among these 14218 teams, there wasn’t a lack of crazy names, Worldwide Insomnia was nothing compared to some of the others out there. As for coming with two people missing, this was a situation too common to count in the first round. Two people was actually considered few, for some teams, no one even turned up. And Worldwide Insomnia managed the same in this round. With not a single point in the first round and knowing how strong the opponent was, they simply decided to not turn up at all for the second round. With that, Team Happy had won against their first opponents.
The next day was the second round of the Pro League. The focus point was, of course, the continuation of the first round. Chen Guo originally wanted to go with the popular choice and broadcast Blue Rain’s match with Lu Hanwen being a focus of the new season. But looking at the match schedule, Blue Rain’s opponents were Conquering Clouds, a bottom-tier team. Going against such a team, the match didn’t seem very interesting. Even if Lu Hanwen performed very well, it wouldn’t really mean much.
So Chen Guo looked to the schedule again and saw that Tyranny was going up against Team Royal Style.
Royal Style had Tian Sen and his Peaceful Hermit, a big name in the Glory scene. Tyranny had four ae players.. This match seemed to be more interesting.
Chen Guo’s choice didn’t disappoint. The level of play shown in this match was very high. The four aces performed stably,, crus.h.i.+ng Royal Style’s hopes for victory. Though these four only got together during the summer, they seemed as if they had fought as long-time teammates. The tactical sense of veterans was far greater than what the younger generation could achieve, especially since these four were all the cream of the crop. It was like Tyranny didn’t even need an adjustment period and could already function nigh flawlessly.
In this round, all the powerhouses managed to accomplish a satisfactory victory, apart from Hundred Blossoms. They didn’t seem to be able to find their way yet. Going up against the weak team Clear Splendor, they only managed to get three points.
Two rounds completed. Two weeks pa.s.sed by in a flash.
The goal for pro players was to win matches. Apart from these matches, there was only training and making sure they had the right att.i.tude for these matches. As for Happy? They were much busier. Apart from training everyday, they would still be going around s.n.a.t.c.hing bosses under Ye Xiu’s leaders.h.i.+p.
Loulan Slash and the others from Heavenly Sword weren’t here to help anymore, but the other guilds were still the same. Really, all they had lost was Loulan Slash and the other experts. The other guilds didn’t have pro players helping anymore either. Within two weeks, Ye Xiu and his alliance naturally benefitted. Ye Xiu cla.s.sified and stored the materials they had gained.
Everything seemed to be going well. But after the end of the current week, came Monday and the names of their next opponents. Happy’s opponent: Team Everlasting.
Compared to all those flashy names, a name like Everlasting was very inconspicuous. Yet with a standard name like this, it seemed to tell of the background of the team.
Team Everlasting, a team eliminated from the Pro League in the seventh season.
In the eighth season’s Challenger League, they fell at the finals.
But they didn’t give up. With the new season and a good start, Team Everlasting and Team Happy somehow managed to draw one another.
This result made many people curl their lips.
But after a while, those who wanted to see Happy humiliated cheered.
As for Happy, with Wei Chen representing them, their complexions weren’t so good.
Though they had been eliminated, Team Everlasting was still a team from the Pro League. With the two years spent there, they had some experience. No matter what, they were miles stronger than Worldwide Insomnia.
Chen Guo shot Ye Xiu a worried glance. At times like these, she needed to find confidence from Ye Xiu. Ye Xiu didn’t disappoint her, smiling upon seeing the matchup. "Not Excellent Era, huh? Not bad!"