Chapter 806: Outstanding Hardheadedness

The opening ceremony of the GPL’s Spring Compet.i.tion was relatively simple. First, it broadcasted the promotional video of the extremely enthusiastic Spring Compet.i.tion on the big screen. Then, the captains of each team took to the stage, and the host introduced the clubs and celebrity players to the audience one by one.

The captains of the sixteen teams corresponded to the sixteen war flags in the stadium, and also corresponded to the sixteen heroes dressed up in the promotional video CG.

The audience in the venue were all old-timers. They were very supportive, clapping and cheering continuously.

After that, the compet.i.tion officially began.

Strictly speaking, the GPL’s Spring Compet.i.tion was lacking when compared to the IOI World Finals. They were not on the same level after all. The IOI World Compet.i.tion was held in a large stadium that could accommodate 20,000 people. It was definitely much more grand than the GPL’s Spring Compet.i.tion.

However, the advantage of the GPL’s Spring Compet.i.tion was that the details were better done.

From the initial GOG Global Invitational Compet.i.tion to the pre-season compet.i.tion, GPL’s entire operations team had acc.u.mulated rich experience.

On one hand, the rules were clear and the various contingency plans were very detailed. The probability of problems appearing was very low. Even if there were problems, it could be resolved quickly without causing too serious broadcast accidents.

On the other hand, they had already gotten a good grasp of the audience’s preferences. They would try their best to do the parts that were necessary and cut off all the unnecessary parts.

It was just like how many E-Sports compet.i.tions liked to have cosplay or singing and dancing performances at the opening ceremony. However, most audiences did not feel much about it, so the GPL completely cut off such unnecessary segments, bringing the audience the purest viewing experience.

Therefore, in the view of the audience, the GPL venue was relatively small, but it was done very formally in all aspects. From the details, it could be seen how much effort was put into preparing for the compet.i.tion. Thus, it would not appear to be degrading.

Soon, the compet.i.tion officially began.

SHG was a new team but they performed very well. They dared to fight but they finally still lost against H4 Club after three rounds.

Even so, SHG’s performance won applause from the audience. Some eye-catching decisions and operations caused a heated discussion on the forum.

Pei Qian was satisfied watching the live-stream. He took out his cell phone and opened the live-stream to see the netizens’ reactions.

However, some discordant voices appeared on the bullet screen.

“Is this the standard of the H4 World Champion? They are playing so badly against a newly formed team?”

“This shows the value of GOG’s international invitational tournament. Everyone knows it.”

“With H4’s ability, they can still beat foreign teams. I don’t have to say much about the quality of the foreign teams they hired, right?”

“I already said that GOG’s compet.i.tiveness is bad. The so-called ‘dominance’ of domestic teams is only because no one plays it overseas!”

“What’s so great about spending money to get someone to spar with them?”

“Entertain yourself, entertain yourself…”

A group of people of unknown origins were crazily “self-entertaining” in the live-stream, belittling the value of GPL and GOG’s international invitational tournament.

This was the same strategy as the previous post about “domestic eSports started late, had a weak foundation, and had to continue working hard”. It kept using the wrong logic to brainwash the audience: GOG had tortured foreign teams because no one played overseas, so it was not very valuable; IOI lost to foreign teams because the local players were not good enough, so it was very valuable.

The final conclusion was that IOI was far superior to GOG.

This argument had already been raised once before. Now that the GPL compet.i.tion had started, it was brought up once again. Obviously, these people with ulterior motives were trying to fight the popularity of the GPL spring compet.i.tion and promote IOI’s global finals.

Many gamers of GOG were furious. They argued with the gamers in the live-stream and forum, but it was useless.

These people were all professional haters. They would pretend that they did not see you when you put the facts and reason with them. They would only use their own twisted logic to hara.s.s you endlessly. They would even attack you in a strange and personal manner. Once you went up against them, you would fall into their trap.

The bickering between the two groups of people caused the GPL’s live-stream to become foul. The compet.i.tion was originally very exciting, but no one discussed the contents of the compet.i.tion. They were all fighting, which greatly affected the feeling of watching the compet.i.tion.

Pei Qian was not angry at all. Instead, he was very happy.

Long Yu Corporation and Boss Zhao were finally working. How touching!

He would be able to watch FV Club’s compet.i.tion at five in the morning. If FV Club lost, the internet would definitely be very lively!

While Pei Qian did not think that this bit of public opinion would affect the GPL league’s profits, it was better than nothing!

Pei Qian decided to rest early tonight. He would wake up at 5 AM tomorrow to watch FV Club’s compet.i.tion.

…

…

Los Angeles Time, 7th, 1pm. Jingzhou Time, 8th, 5pm. The IOI International Finals’ quarterfinals officially began!

There were a total of four matches in the quarterfinals, played on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday Los Angeles time. FV Team would be the first to fight against the European club CEM Team, which had previously slaughtered domestic teams in the group stages.

CEM was also a veteran European and American team that was similar to FRY. They showed extremely strong dominance in the group stages and made it in the group stages with a result of 4-0. That domestic team in the same group could not even lift their heads.

The staff of FV Club were all waiting backstage. Wu Yue and Manager Lu looked slightly nervous.

While they completely trusted the strength of their players, the outcome of an E-Sports compet.i.tion was not that absolute. The other party was not a weak team, and FV Club did not have a 100% chance of winning.

What’s more, this was an offline tournament. The European and American teams were considered the home team. It was hard to say if the players would lose their mentality and perform abnormally because of their opponents’ cheers.

“It’s time to take the stage!”

Someone shouted, and everyone looked at the screen backstage.

At the same time, thunderous applause and cheers came from the venue!

The CEM was the first to take the stage. The five members were all smiling confidently and waving at the audience, enjoying the applause and cheers.

Next was FV Club. The audience was also very supportive. The cheers were lower than CEM Team’s but they were also very pa.s.sionate.

FV Club had persevered in tweeting and frequently interacted with the major clubs after all. Thus, it had obtained quite a good reputation among foreign players.

However, the netizens on foreign live-streaming platforms were not so kind. There were overwhelming comments about “3: 0” and “cn ioi noob”.

Obviously, most foreign audiences only felt that FV Club was very capable in their performance but did not acknowledge their compet.i.tiveness.

In the eyes of the majority of the audience, this would be a compet.i.tion without any suspense. FV Club would probably not even be able to score any point.

The members of FV Club could not see the bullet screen comments so of course, they were not affected. They just enjoyed the cheers and applause from the audience to their heart’s content, waiting to use their performance in the compet.i.tion to conquer the 20,000 audience.

The top eight and quarter finals were not that fancy. The compet.i.tion soon entered the BP segment.

…

At the same time, Pei Qian had just woken up.

He switched on the television, took out his chips and c.o.ke, and sat on the sofa. He happened to see the BP[1.’BP’ refers to Ban Pick]segment of the two teams.

The bullet screen comments were still very chaotic. The players were fighting.

Some of them were mocking GOG for their own entertainment, some kept spamming comments like ‘swim back’, some cheered for FV Team, and some kept spamming meaningless numbers to block the screen. It was simply a sightless compet.i.tion.

Obviously, the fake reviewers hired by Long Yu Corporation at GOG’s opening battle yesterday had angered GOG’s players. Today, GOG’s players had also come to IOI to fight back.

In the end, the bullet screen comments of both compet.i.tions could no longer be seen.

Pei Qian was speechless. However, he saw a string of question marks floating across the screen just as he was about to close the bullet screen.

“????”

“The FV is so hard headed? They are giving up Chaos Misfortune?”

“The four rounds in the group stage have all been played badly. Why are you still playing?”

“Could it be that FV Club doesn’t know how sick this hero is because they did not go through mock compet.i.tion? That’s not right. Even if they did not play mock compet.i.tions, they should have at least watched the group stages, right?”

“I understand now. Maybe FV thinks that since it was 3: 0 anyway, they could still find an excuse to give up Chaos Misfortune, to make it seem like they did not lose because they were noobs but because of the BP problem. This wave, this FV is on the fifth level!”

“You can turn off the live-stream now. Go have breakfast and come back to watch the second game in 30 minutes!”

“I really have to give it to you, FV!”

“I’ve already read the following script. Chaos Misfortune will grow up and emerge in twenty minutes and end the compet.i.tion in three waves.”

“Who is the coach of FV Club? He can even think of such a tactic. Is his brain flooded with water? Or is his accommodation in Los Angeles too good? Is his brain rusty?”

“Coach seems to be… Old Zhou? Holy sh*t, isn’t that the original support player of DGE Club?”

“Huh? Someone who played GOG came over to be the head coach? That’s f*cking ridiculous. No wonder he played Chaos Misfortune! He’s not playing GOG, brother!”

Previously, a few groups of people had been arguing non-stop in the bullet screen comments were repeatedly attacking each other, just like a battle royale. However, after the BAN ended and CEM directly s.n.a.t.c.hed the hero, ‘Chaos Misfortune’, the comments on the bullet screen content immediately unified.

All of them were criticizing FV Club!

It was only then that many people noticed that the coach on stage was Zhou Pengyuan.

As a former GOG star, Zhou Pengyuan had not appeared in public since he came to Los Angeles.

This was the first time he had gone on stage for BP. In the end, they did not ban Chaos Misfortune for the purple side, which was publicly recognized as the heroes that should be banned. It could be said to be an amazing feat.

Pei Qian was a little curious. He searched for the hero ‘Chaos Misfortune’ on Qiandu.

This was a new hero that had only appeared recently in IOI. It looked like a dark cloud. It was a long-range hero but its shooting range was only slightly higher than close combat. Its strength was that it had good team control ability in the mid to late stages. It was also a good tank and could be an offensive. Once it entered the team battle stage, it would almost certainly win.

There were a total of four rounds in the group stages. The teams that were released were all smashed without exception.

Everyone thought that this hero should have stayed in BAN and would never appear in the elimination rounds. They did not expect FV Club to release him immediately.

Pei Qian could not help but feel invigorated. FV Club was good, they did well!

This style reminded Pei Qian of the legendary game where they did not ban the strongest heroes. They stood out because they were hardheaded and did not want to win.

Pei Qian munched on his chips as he watched the compet.i.tion.