Chapter 96

           

Over the weekend after Group B games concluded, Groups A and S finished their first round games as well.

Ye Shaoyang returned to Tianhuan's base with his teammates. Everyone spent those two days watching games in a meeting room, until ten on a weekend night—when the official league finally released the team and personal rankings of the first round of the regular season.

Team Beimu was ranked first in Group S. The siblings Zhao Xinping and Zhao Xin'an were working very well with their new mid laner. Beimu, without any weaknesses on any of their three lanes, was a force to be reckoned with this season.

The point difference between the second, third, and fourth teams in Group S wasn't very large—these teams were Jingzhe, Binghun, and Huowen.

Jingzhe's double carry comps were still very difficult to tear down. Fang Zhengqing and Xie Yuan had been working together since their training camp days. They'd played four seasons in the pro league together, and their brainwaves were perfectly in sync. It wasn't like the situation with Fang Zhengqing and Chi Shuo at all.

Team Binghun was still as strong as they were last season. They could steadily hold their position through their strength in team fights alone. As for Huowen, their mid laner was outstanding, and their jungler, marksman, top laner, and support didn't have any glaring shortcomings either. Their team comps were very well-rounded.

The top four Group S teams would remain in Group S for the second round of the regular season, while the Group S teams ranked in fifth and sixth would be demoted to Group A.

Yueying and Luoshendian were the teams to be demoted.

Team Yueying had Xu Zhuo, a very capable anti-pressure top laner, and the newly transferred Xie Weiyu. Coach Lin wasn't too surprised to see this team demoted. He reasoned, "It could be that the players haven't gotten used to one another yet, after their lineup changes. Perhaps Xu Zhuo in the top lane and Xie Weiyu in the bottom lane is a combo that isn't working too well?"

There was a significant distance between the top and bottom lanes, after all. Even if one player wanted to assist the other, they wouldn't be able to make it across the map so swiftly.

Chi Shuo furrowed his brow and said, "Yaoguang has been promoted from Group A. People will definitely insult Xie Weiyu for this."

Yaoguang's promotion to Group S was very predictable.

Because Yaoyuang had been the runner-ups in S8, and they'd reached the Top Four in S9. They'd only changed their marksman, and their new marksman was actually pretty good.

It was true that Yaoguang's boss was messing around with all sorts of entertainment industry tricks that left other diligent esports players a bit speechless. However, it had to be said that the new god they were trying to raise up was genuinely skilled.

In terms of personal rankings, Ye Shaoyang topped the MVP of the Season chart with nine MVP titles to date. Yaoguang's new marksman Yu'mao was in second place, with eight titles. And Yaoguang had played their first round in Group A; rationally speaking, the games in Group A would have been more difficult.

Yaoguang had taken five consecutive wins in Group A. They advanced to Group S as the number one team of Group A.

On the contrary, Team Yueying—the team Xie Weiyu had transferred to—had fallen to Group A as the fifth-ranked team in Group S.

Unsurprisingly, Yaoguang once again hired a bunch of trolls to badmouth Xie Weiyu online.

Many netizens believed Xie Weiyu's skills weren't as good as those of the new marksman Yu'mao. More than half of Xie Weiyu's old fans had run off to support this handsome newbie instead. All of Xie Weiyu's remaining supporters were the diehard fans who liked his style of play.

Ye Shaoyang felt a bit bad for Xie Weiyu. He looked towards Chi Shuo and said, "Xie Weiyu must be under a lot of pressure, huh? Yueying was demoted from Group S as soon as he transferred in. Plus, with Yueying in Group A now, we'll be running into your old friend pretty soon."

"Old Xu probably anticipated this result a long time ago," Chi Shuo said. "He even messaged me yesterday to say we wouldn't need to wait until Group S. We would exchange blows in Group A."

Coach Lin sighed. "The second round of the group stage won't be easy."

In the regular season, at the end of the first round of the group stage, the top two teams of a group would be promoted while the bottom two teams would be demoted or eliminated. There were no 'rank-deciding matches'.

Starting from the second round, rank-deciding matches would be played. In these games, teams up for promotion and teams facing demotion would play one another to determine who made it to Group S. This would ensure that only the best of the best teams remained in Group S.

Yueying and Luoshendian, the two teams demoted from Group S after round one, were both teams that had made it into the Top Eight last year. In terms of strength, they were about the same as last year's Tianhuan. For Yueying, with the addition of Xie Weiyu, it was probable that they had yet to achieve their full potential.

If Tianhuan was going to face off against them in Group A, it seemed they would have to thoroughly prepare in order to be ready.

"The tournament schedule for the next round isn't out yet. Everyone take a few days off," Coach Lin said. He paused for a moment, then looked around at all the players. "We definitely won't be able to rely solely on our mid laner to crush the enemy in Group A, like we did in Group B. We'll have to use more powerful comps. Shaoyang and Chi Shuo, spend these days playing some more on the international server, to get into the groove.

"I'm worried that other coaches, especially the coaches of Luoshendian and Yueying, have already studied up on our Tianhuan in advance."

Lin Feng wasn't worrying for no reason. Just as Tianhuan had spent all of the first round studying Group S games, the coaches of Group S must have also been keeping an eye on the new and improved Tianhuan. They were all very experienced in these matters, after all.

Tianhuan was their old foe. No one dared to underestimate this team.

On March 18th, an announcement of the second round of the regular season was posted to the league's official Weibo account. The new groups were formally listed out.

In Group S: Beimu, Jingzhe, Binghun, Huowen, Yaoguang, and Langzu.

In Group A: Luoshendian, Yueying, Xueying, Jixuan, Tianhuan, and CYC.

The weakest teams remained in Group B. If they weren't promoted in round two, they would all be eliminated in round three.

Among the three groups, Group A saw the biggest changes. Two of the new Group A teams had been demoted from Group S, and two of the new Group A teams had been promoted from Group B. There were only two teams left that were originally in Group A. The coaches of these two teams were practically too anxious to sleep.

One boss had climbed up from Group B, and two bosses had dropped down from Group S!

The next round… was going to be hard!

 

At noon of the next day, all the players who slept in late finally got up to grab lunch at the cafeteria. But they soon saw their lead coordinator Tang Can rush in to tell them, "Everyone get ready to head out after eating. We're going to the recording studio."

Everyone looked at her in bewilderment.

Tang Can laughed and said, "Have you guys forgotten about the Silver Dragon Cup? Earlier, our Tianhuan won the Silver Dragon Cup. The grand prize includes the right to be the spokespersons for the Silver Dragon Group this year. Our club has already finished negotiating the fee, so since everyone has time during this week off, we'll find some time to record some commercials."

Yan Bin of the second-string team couldn't help but ask, "Do the second-string players get to go too?"

"Of course," Tang Can said. "You guys are the ones who won the Silver Dragon Cup, and Team Tianhuan as a whole has been offered this contract. Everyone can film a short ad."

The youths from Team Two were beyond excited.

Cheng Xing's expression was brimming over with anticipation as he said, "I've never recorded an ad before! Will it be played on TV?"

"Not only will it be played on TV, it'll be played during breaks of official tournament streams," Tang Can said. "Because the Silver Dragon Group is one of the league's sponsors this year."

Ye Shaoyang's expression remained calm. He didn't seem to be too thrilled about going.

The Silver Dragon Group was the most well-known tech company in the country. They made their own cell phones and computers, as well as smart speakers, keyboards, mice, headsets, and so on.

They sponsored the Silver Dragon Cup every year, they contracted professional players as their spokespersons, and they invested in the professional league as well. Within the esports industry, their reputation was quite good.

Chi Shuo noticed that Ye Shaoyang didn't seem too interested. He had to quietly ask, "Not happy about going?"

Ye Shaoyang gave a helpless laugh. "I'm not all that interested in things like filming commercials, but I'll do my best to cooperate."

Ye Shaoyang had filmed commercials in his past life as well. Truth be told, rather than spending a whole day at a recording studio, he would have preferred spending a whole day playing ranked. He wasn't a professional actor, after all. He could smile for the camera for a few pictures, but filming something in motion… reciting scripted lines… just thinking about it made him feel embarrassed.

But there was no way out of it. The club had agreed to endorse the company, so he had to grit his teeth and go to the recording session.

After lunch, Tianhuan's players all climbed into a car to head towards the set.

The little jiejie from the Silver Dragon Group who was in charge of handling Tianhuan was named Xu Qiman. She was extremely friendly, and she first sent everyone to a lounge to prepare. There, she started to pass out personalized scripts to each and every player. "You guys can take a look at your script first, to get a sense of the general flow of your scene! Later, we'll be splitting you into groups to record. Find your companions before then."

Chi Shuo opened his script and took a look—

Shockingly, the names on the script were 'Shuoyue' and 'Lieyang'.

Chi Shuo's heart leapt a bit, and he diligently concentrated on reading through the script.

Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang were quite popular, so naturally there were quite a lot of products the company wanted them to endorse. The first was a new laptop that the Silver Dragon Group was producing that year; it was part of their TY line, which consisted entirely of high-end computers. The new laptop would come equipped with the best graphics card available and top-of-the-line processors. It could run all sorts of major 3D games, including the popular MOBA Gods War.

The laptop looked very nice as well. It came in colors like black-gold, silver-white, red, blue, and so on. Of course, the price was high as well.

Ye Shaoyang took a look at the promotion photos and immediately grew a bit more interested. "This laptop does actually look pretty good. It should be made to be a gaming laptop, right? If I want to buy one, can we get any sort of internal discount?"

Xu Qiman warmly said, "No need to buy! Our company will gift each of Tianhuan's ten players one of our best gaming laptops!"

Excited cheers rippled through the lounge.

Qin Yizhu exclaimed, "The Silver Dragon Group is really generous!"

Qu Jiang lifted a hand and asked, "Can we pick the colors? Can I get a red one?"

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Qu Jiang actually liked red?

Cheng Xing raised a hand as well. "I want a red one too! It would look super cool!"

It seemed the bottom laners had more or less the same aesthetic sense.

Qin Yizhu said, "I'd like a blue one."

Hearing all that, Chi Shuo lowered his voice and asked Ye Shaoyang, "Which color do you like?"

Ye Shaoyang pointed at one of the promo pictures. "This white one caught my eye."

Chi Shuo nodded his approval. "Mm, the white one is pretty nice and simple… then I'll take the black one."

Xu Qiman continued, "Besides the laptops, our company will be giving you each a set of peripherals as well, including a mechanical keyboard, computer mouse, and noise-cancelling headphones! Tianhuan's logo and your player ID will be printed on your gear. The colors, the keyboard switches—everything can be customized by you. You guys discuss it with Tang Can-jie later, and she'll help arrange everything."

Tang Can quickly added, "The Silver Dragon Group has paid us to represent them for the whole year, so everyone will need to change their peripherals. Once you guys tell me what you want, they'll make your custom equipment very quickly. Everyone will have a new keyboard and mouse to use for our next game."

In addition to Tianhuan's logo and each player's name, these custom peripherals would definitely be branded with the Silver Dragon Group's emblem as well. While supporting Tianhuan, they would also take the opportunity to advertise themselves.

If Team Tianhuan became very popular, they would naturally bring in new customers for the Silver Dragon Group's computers, headsets, keyboards, and so on. It was a win-win situation.

Along with the other players, Ye Shaoyang went over to see a few sample keyboards that the representative from the company brought out. He tested them out and found that they felt pretty good.

Professional esports players had to use keyboards that felt good to their hands. The keyboards offered by the Silver Dragon Group had nice and responsive switches, which were about the same as what the team had already been using. It was just that the keyboard's outer appearance was quite different.

Ye Shaoyang checked out the keyboards laid out on the table. "I'll take a white keyboard too, then."

Chi Shuo said, "…I'll take the black one."

All the others were too flashy for his tastes, anyway.

Qu Jiang and Cheng Xing both took keyboards with rainbow light effects.

Cheng Xing said, "The rainbow ones are cool!"

Qu Jiang smiled happily and said, "I think so too!"

Of course, the flashy lights could be distracting during a game, so they could be turned off.

Old Qin quietly walked over to the blue keyboard and said, "I'll take this blue one, to match with my laptop."

Everyone's keyboards would only be different in terms of color. The design, adornments, and position of the logos would all be the same. When the keyboards were customized, each player's name would  be printed onto the side, along with Tianhuan's logo.

Ye Shaoyang found himself thinking that, if they could take these peripherals to the world championships stage…

The Silver Dragon Group must have peered into their crystal ball and realized that their investment could yield huge returns, huh?