CSGO: This player is too persuasive!

Chapter 446 7. The Charm of the North

(Because of the chain reaction caused by the protagonist, the timeline has been fluctuated a bit to avoid distortion caused by time being too close to reality...)
Sunday, February 2023, 7.

Suitable for: getting married, getting a haircut, bathing, live streaming...

In a small apartment in Chengdu, the COL members are killing time in a makeshift training room.

The auditions for IEM Chengdu are about to begin. According to the rules, they can participate online.

However, considering that the online delay was a bit high, and they all felt that there was no pressure in this audition, they came to Chengdu offline in advance to conduct the audition in a low-latency environment.

The first COL audition will be held this afternoon. Now they have all completed their preparations and are chatting casually in the room.

Returning to their home court, it was quite comfortable for Xu Beifang and Danking.

Chengdu is also a very interesting place, with all kinds of delicious food, which makes them feel very comfortable eating.

His wife wanted to come over and accompany Xu Beifang, but Xu Beifang refused and only asked her to call his eldest brother and his family to come over and play after the IEM Chengdu competition actually started.

COL is in training now, and he is the commander with more say in the team. If everyone on his team goes out to play, the team's atmosphere will go astray.

But I have to say that Xu Beifang was very happy with his wife's idea. The feeling of having someone care about you is always reassuring.

This little episode has made Xu Beifang in a good mood recently.

This also made the rest of the team feel good.

Danking even had nothing better to do so he turned on the live broadcast, intending to catch up with his fans.

[Fuck, the host finally started broadcasting]

【Have you had enough live streaming time this month? 】

【What’s up with this hairstyle? 】

[Danking really thinks he can handle pink...]

[Don’t say it, Col is now a hair style group]

[Beizi's black medium-length hair, JKS's side-slicked back hair, NIKO's 3:7 split hair, Elige's bald head, and Danking's most abstract pink hair]

[I live in Bengbu, so is the coach the director? 】

"What do you mean I can't handle pink hair? I'm still handsome, okay?" Danking argued, "It's just that the ultraviolet rays in North America are stronger, so I got tanned these days!"

[Why hasn't Danking been on air these days? Does it need your training? You can just cheer for the North! ]

Danking shook his head: "I can't help it. I won't train the North to punish me with his iron fist of justice."

"Besides, if you don't follow the crowd, you don't know how tiring it is. Please be considerate of the anchor."

At this point, Danking suddenly smiled evilly: "You always said I was bragging before, but now that I can really play in the Shanghai Major, what do you think?"

The corners of his mouth were almost reaching his ears, and his face was full of complacency.

However, the fans in Danking’s live broadcast room did not buy it.

[I give in. It’s purely based on human relationships]

[No way, this live broadcast room is like this, there are smart, handsome, considerate, rich fans, and a most useless anchor]

[Danking, can you roll something and get your position in COL? Then, I, NIKO, Nice, Elige, and JKS will be invincible! ]

[So can the housing management do something? Can they allow Beifang to start broadcasting? ]

Looking at the comments floating by, Danking focused on the last one, then tilted his head and shouted, "Northern, the fans are calling you to start the show."

Hearing Danking's voice, Xu Beifang, who was complaining about the TV series with his wife, came back to his senses.

He thought about it and realized that he hadn't interacted with his fans for half a year, so he simply opened the live broadcast room.

As soon as he opened the live broadcast room, he heard Danking yelling, "Hey! Why are all the people in my live broadcast room gone!"

He marveled at Xu Beifang's exaggerated charm.

Xu Beifang was surprised by the number of people pouring into the live broadcast room, but it was not the first time he had encountered such a situation, and he quickly grasped the rhythm.

"Good morning, brothers."

Danking simply ignored his live broadcast room and came to Xu Beifang's camera with a pink hair.

He noticed that the speed at which the barrage of comments refreshed the screen in the live broadcast room on the right was a bit exaggerated.

He was once again amazed at Xu Beifang's influence. You know, Xu Beifang hasn't been on the air for a long time, but he has such popularity just after he started, which is quite exaggerated.

【Northern Stickers】

[I have made a wish on the small broken station dynamic for a long time, and the north has finally come out]

【This is the power of persistence! 】

[I also participated in this audition, hoping to have a chance to snipe the anchor]

[The possibility is very small. Brother Beizi is too charming. Thousands of teams participated in the audition.]

"Thousands of teams participated in the auditions?" Xu Beifang was puzzled. "What's going on?"

But it is troublesome to get the answer from the barrage, because there are too many netizens spamming the screen, and Danking, the moderator, is not very helpful.

So Xu Beifang simply checked in the forum.

It is not complicated to check, mainly because a live broadcast clip of CSBOY became popular.

At that time, Masisi was in the live broadcast room chatting with the audience as a food show host, and then he suddenly found out that they were going to come to the Asian region for auditions, and he was stunned for a moment.

The audience in the subsequent live broadcast even joked and asked Masisi, "Will he win?"

Masisi replied in bewilderment: "You will die."

Masisi's vivid expressions and contrasts directly made this slice a big hit in the CSGO section.

Masisi understood that there was definitely a huge gap in strength between them and the current COL lineup, so he let out that kind of wailing.

But COL is preparing to come to the Asian region to participate in the auditions, which has excited many passers-by players and netizens.

Even if they team up to fight COL, they will definitely not be able to win in theory.

But it would be interesting if I could bump into COL in the auditions.

Directly colliding with idols, I can experience the level of top professional players firsthand.

Besides, what if you win?
CSGO is an FPS competitive game. All players have that hope in their hearts. If they really win, they can definitely brag about it for a whole year!
Even if you can't beat them, if you can kill NIKO or Nice once or twice, it will be a big win!

The auditions for the IEM Chengdu station were originally intended to encourage casual teams to participate, so there were not many restrictions on qualifications during the audition stage.

As a result, by the time the auditions closed, more than 7,000 teams had signed up to participate.

"More than 7,000 teams? Doesn't that mean there are more than 30,000 people participating in the IEM Chengdu auditions?" NIKO was a little stunned after listening to Xu Beifang's description.

What does it mean to have more than 30,000 people audition for a competition?
Three stadiums with a capacity of 2 people are full, and this group of people will compete for two qualifying spots.

Although many people come here just for fun, the difficulty of this audition can be said to be one in a million.

"It's very interesting!" NIKO did not feel bothered by the increased difficulty, but was eager to try it.

Xu Beifang and Danking continued to chat with the audience about various things.

It was not until noon that he turned off the live broadcast room.

He was quite satisfied with the long-awaited broadcast.

However, before eating, he opened the long-forgotten system and checked the system panel.

[Host: Xu Beifang]

【Age: 25】

[Team: COL]

[Role Positioning: Commander/Breakthrough Player]

[Status: Hot]

【Mindset: 97】

[Marksmanship: 99]

【Consciousness: 97】

[Reaction: 97]

[Firearm proficiency...]

【It’s worth listening to advice...】

[Overall evaluation: After settling down and coming back again, your gaming philosophy has been impacted, but as a player, you have reached the peak of your physical condition. PS: Data is only a reflection of your condition, and confidence is always the best weapon.]

Looking at the data, Xu Beifang nodded with satisfaction.

The system's evaluation is actually not much different from his own feelings.

His overall statistics aren't much different.

Although he has been taking a break in the past two years, he has maintained the habits he had during his professional career. Unless he is traveling, he will always play CS:GO when he is at home. Even if he doesn't play in the ladder, he will still play BOT to get a feel for it.

So the gun feel is actually pretty good.

In addition, his body has indeed reached its peak. At the age of 25, a person's physical functions are at their best, and they will slowly begin to decline afterwards.

So his statistics have become even better because his ceiling is higher.

But CS2 still had some impact on him.

Before, he had only played in the ladder, and he could crush his opponents by relying on positioning and aiming. However, in professional-level confrontations, he was slowly adapting to the changes in positioning, the feel of strafing guns, and the way of peek.

However, Xu Beifang thought it was a good thing.

His current physical condition has a higher upper limit. Although he has not yet fully adapted to the game content of this version, after the arrival of CS2, due to the influence of the economic mechanism, snipers have been further weakened. In other words, riflemen actually have more room to play.

So if he can adapt to the game content of CS2, he will be stronger than in the CSGO period.

He also plans to take advantage of his last two years of peak years to achieve some more results on the field.

However, if you want to adapt to the game content of CS2, there are actually not many shortcuts. You just need to play more and think more.

Use your experience to feel and get feedback during the game.

"What are you thinking about? So engrossed?" Danking's voice disrupted Xu Beifang's thoughts.

"I'm wondering if I should practice more next time."

"No buddy!" Danking laughed, "You train 11 hours a day and more, and you still train more!"

Xu Beifang sighed, "It's mainly because I don't play enough ladder games, so I'm a little slow in adapting to the pace of the version."

Danking stopped talking. Although he knew that his brother was a training maniac, it was only when he joined a team that he, the lazy dog, realized what pain was.

It’s so damn curly!
Normally, he would fish for three days and dry the net for two days when he was live streaming. Now, he is so motivated that he trains for 10 hours every day to move up.

But in this situation, Xu Beifang still wanted to practice more.

Danking gave Xu Beifang a thumbs up.

"?" Xu Beifang gave him a puzzled look.

Danking said: "It would be strange if a pervert like you didn't get a grade."

"Just consider it as a compliment." Xu Beifang said with a smile.

After saying that, his attention returned to the system.

Because of the previous live broadcast, he remembered that he might have a few suggested tasks to take on.

【drop! 】

[Suggested mission: Return to the professional arena, difficulty level 4 stars...]

[The mission has been completed, and the C-level treasure chests are being distributed. ]

【…】

【drop! 】

[Suggested mission: Team up with NIKO, difficulty level 6 stars...]

[The mission has been completed, and the A-level treasure chests are being distributed...]

【…】

I haven't paid attention to the system for a long time, and I have completed quite a few tasks in this wave.

He fired them all in one go.

[C-rank treasure chest opening...]

[B-level treasure chest is opening...]

[A-level treasure chest is opening...]

[Congratulations to the host for getting...]

There are still quite a lot of rewards to be gained from the suggested tasks, but this system has a kind of beauty that doesn’t care about people’s lives. It has entered the CS2 version and has not kept up with the times. It also includes a lot of things from the CSGO era.

Those techniques and tactics were either understood by Xu Beifang or had become the tears of the times.

But there are still many useful things, for example.

[Intermediate command skills: nafany's original friend economics, ropz's intermediate understanding of the small town side road, elementary command skills: chopper's amusement park attack ideas]

Now that he has become a conductor, he still attaches great importance to some insights into conducting.

These three are also what CS2 can use nowadays, so he uses them one by one.

After using it, Xu Beifang seemed to have entered the sage moment.

I have realized it!

Nafany's original economics is quite interesting.

Nafany is one of the strongest commanders in the online era of CSGO. He is still very good as a commander. There have been a lot of changes from CSGO to CS2, and the changes are not actually in the economy.

However, the number of rounds was reduced from 15 to 12, which forced the game economy to become tight.

At this time, as a commander, how to spend every dollar well is a very important knowledge.

Nafany’s understanding of economics, the first concept is very interesting.

When on the offensive side, the starting amount for a pistol round is 800 bucks.

If no one is firing their guns at the beginning, find a way to place the grenade.

Although the price is losing the pistol round, in the second round the bandit will have 800 deposits + 1900 defeat compensation + 800 yuan of bomb economy = 3500.

Entering the second round, the bandits can directly equip them with fully armored Galil 1000+1800, and there is still 700 yuan of economy to equip them with props.

This means that if the bandit loses the pistol round, he can go for full armor, a spear + three or so items in the second round.

In this round, CT can only use half-armored spears or full-armored MP9.

In terms of firearms and configuration, the bandits simply crush the CTs.

"Hiss~" Xu Beifang took a breath. Although this was an idealized state, he had to admit that Nafany's understanding of economics was meaningful.

And even if you fail to complete the package in the first round.

In the second round, three Galils can also be assembled.

Combined with Xu Beifang's previous gameplay of Hero AK, this tactic became completely feasible.

If the CT team can turn the tables in the second round, their economy will explode, and the attacking team will be able to gain a big advantage.

Xu Beifang felt that he learned a lot from Nafany's understanding of the current economic mechanism.

Next is ropz’s reflections on the side roads of the small town.

Xu Beifang actually often watches ropz's POV. This guy's playing style is relatively rigorous, and every once in a while there will always be something that surprises your eyes.

Therefore, for him, this time's understanding was just an understanding from a different perspective.

Having just benefited a lot from Nafany, Xu Beifang was also looking forward to Chopper's amusement park attack strategy.

But after he truly realized it, the smile on his face disappeared.

He really didn't expect that this single-celled organism could also be a conductor?

Which commander can play 12 games in a row in zone B on the offensive end?

It’s pure gaming!

Xu Beifang could guess what Green Dragon's voice was at that time.

"Brothers, let's go straight to B in the pistol round."

"We won the pistol round. They had no money in the second round, so we used a hair dryer to get to B directly."

"The opponent is getting stronger. Don't be afraid of this armorless usp. Keep attacking B."

"We played B three times in a row. They definitely didn't expect us to play B again."

"They must have thought we were going to turn around this time, so let's keep going!"

"The commander held them back, thinking we wouldn't dare to fight."

Is the only speed-up B in your tactical library?
Xu Beifang originally thought that Doudou’s love for flying to the second floor in the small town was already the limit of his command, but he didn’t expect that there was another master!
Well, this realization gave Xu Beifang some confidence.

After all, if this kind of command can work, why can't he?

With this feeling in mind, the auditions for IEM Chengdu finally began in the afternoon.

……

In Douyu live broadcast room No. 6657.

The machine player who has evolved into a pig head also opened today's live broadcast on time.

"Okay brothers, it's time for our niche treasure competition again." The man playing the machine said this with a happy face.

He is quite passionate about commentating on matches, but Douyu has too few CSGO match copyrights, so he can only comment on matches in remote corners.

Although today is a niche treasure contest, COL is in it, and they are all his old acquaintances.

For example, Xijiang's strongest male college student Beifang, the host of the enemy station, and brothers, do you know? Let me tell you an interesting story about NIKO...

Thinking about what might be explained next, the smile on the machine's face became a little hard to keep.

Just as he was chuckling, he saw the barrage of messages reminding him that the game had started. He quickly put away his smile and switched to the game screen.

"The score has reached 1:0."

[It just feels right, it’s the familiar 6657 without pistols round]

How come he always misses the pistol round in weird ways?

[6657 is like this, the anchor only needs to commentate on the game, and the fans have more to consider]

【Hahaha】

Those who play video games are no longer young, and when faced with ridicule from comments, they won’t say “I’m the one who’s wronged”.

He changed the subject calmly: "It's okay, if we have a pistol, it's a pistol game, okay."

"Okay, welcome to watch the IEM Chengdu Asian Division Qualifiers, COL vs. 'Brother Vanilla Mud' team."

Halfway through the opening remarks, the guy playing the machine frowned and said, "Wait, what is this? There are difficult coppers in the team!"

This strange team name made the person playing the computer instantly realize that the team opposite COL was a group of college students!

Otherwise, you can’t do this kind of work in the world of the living.

He specifically checked the battle records. Among the five guys in the 'Brother Vanilla Mud' team, the one with the highest rank was Perfect B, and the others were all C+.

After thinking about it for a while, he directly changed the title of the live broadcast room to "Perfect C+ vs. TOP1".

There was absolutely no content to be found in this kind of game, and his commentary was more entertainment-oriented, but many people still paid attention to COL's first appearance.

The members of COL were quite relaxed. Although it was their first real confrontation with the outside world, after several rounds of contact, they had already understood the level of their opponent.

Then, Xu Beifang didn't even need to give any commands, he just let his teammates follow the basic instructions, and kill information began to float in the upper right corner.

At the end of the fight, Danking couldn't sit still anymore and started pushing forward, actively looking for the soup, otherwise he wouldn't even have any.

The voice of the 'Brother Vanilla Mud' team also changed very quickly.

After they knew they would face COL in the first round, they took the time to do a few days of map running training.

As a result, after a few rounds, they were all beaten a little red and warm.

After all, many times there is not even a chance to shoot, which is really discouraging for young people.

Their mentality also changed from "what if we win" to "get a few more points" to "get at least one point".

In the end, the second half of the pistol round ended in a 2V4 endgame between Xu Beifang and JKS.

In the first game of the offseason, COL scored 13:0, which was a good start!

After the game, the 'Brother Vanilla Mud' team released the video of the game. From the perspective of the passers-by, they could feel the gap between ordinary players and professional players.

This makes them even more excited about COL's subsequent performance.

Unfortunately for them, in the first few rounds of the auditions, the casual players did not put any substantial pressure on COL.

Even if they encountered a team composed of perfect top-level players, they only won 3 rounds in the end, and this was when COL played very casually.

Now the audience is looking forward to how COL will perform when facing a truly talented team.

For Xu Beifang, the only teams in the entire qualifying tournament that are of a certain level in the true sense and can at least serve as training for them are the two Australian teams and the Steel Helmets.

Although Steel Helmet is now composed of a group of anchors.

captainMO, DD, AE, xiaosage, 18ym.

Although these five people are now anchors, they were once members of professional teams.

Captain MO, DD, and AE are all former members of Tianlu.

This guy xiaosage has been in a team called 5Power, and Xu Beifang's first stop after his debut was to play against this team.

As for 18ym, this guy has also been in several domestic teams.

So now the Steel Helmets are actually a semi-professional team, and they are quite experienced and can put some pressure on them.

But after the game actually started, it turned out that he had overestimated Steel Helmet.

When they got serious, Steel Helmets used some effective tactics, but they were too experienced.

Even in the game, several players in the Steel Helmets played with passion and real fire.

But COL's frontal shooting skills are too strong now. In this level of competition, NIKO has no psychological pressure at all and fully displayed his best level.

When he first entered COL, NIKO was under a lot of psychological pressure and had to adjust his aim and personal settings all the time. But with the psychological guidance of Xu Beifang, he gradually gained confidence and now he has determined his own goals and does not even plan to change them.

In this situation, NIKO was completely the bulldozer released by Xu Beifang. Facing a semi-professional team like Steel Helmets, his winning rate in head-on battles was extremely high.

And even if he was killed, there were Elige and Xu Beifang to back him up.

But it is often not Xu Beifang's turn, because Brother Ji comes to finish off the enemies and all the enemies in an area have already been killed.

In the end, Steel Helmet only got 3 points and the game ended easily.

After the game, Xu Beifang also showed his full emotional intelligence. Facing the connection with Ma Xixi, he directly said that he was able to get so many points mainly because he studied the helmet video until late at night and organized a wave of program effects with Mr. Ma.

However, this is just a small episode for Xu Beifang today.

After defeating Steel Helmet, the most important thing was to get a place in the main competition of IEM Chengdu.

The next race is their goal.

Because it is a new lineup during the off-season, they still need time and adjustment to solve problems, so both Xu Beifang and Coach Xiaoxi have expressed that they do not have high expectations for the achievements in this competition.

The main focus is to use competition as training.

However, NIKO and his teammates still have their own aspirations. They think that with this lineup, which has been well-coordinated, they must make it to the offline knockout stage to enjoy themselves.

After the Asian region qualifiers were completed, the qualifiers in other regions also ended a few days later.

Now that all 16 teams have been confirmed, COL members have also begun discussing the upcoming IEM Chengdu main competition.

"The first round of grouping for IEM Chengdu should be out," asked NIKO.

He is the kind of person who likes to make a lot of preparations in advance. Although Xu Beifang is the commander now, he is always there to offer advice.

If you meet a familiar team in this round, you will have to make some targeted positioning a few days in advance.

"In Group A, there are G2, 9Z, Liquid, Heroic, Black Panther, LVG, Tianlu and Mouz." Coach Xiaoxi looked down again, "We are in Zone B. The situation in Group B is a bit bad."

"Besides us, Faze, Monte, Team A, C9, and VP are all in Group B, which will be more difficult."

Xu Beifang raised his eyebrows: "Didn't Green Dragon come?"

Coach Xiaoxi shook his head: "Green Dragon didn't participate in the auditions. It seems that they went to the Villa Cup."

"That's a pity." He still wanted to have a fight with Green Dragon's donk, but CS competitions were quite dense and there would be plenty of follow-up opportunities.

But even if Group B is not there, it will be equally difficult for them to fight their way in.

There were no major lineup changes on Faze's side, so they can be said to be the team that has maintained the best form after the offseason and one of the most powerful teams.

VP is always one of the most difficult teams in the world, and Jame's system of play is something that no commander wants to encounter.

C9 is the former NAVI team and is also a very outstanding team.

Although there are several second-tier teams like Monte, the gap between the second-tier and first-tier teams was not that big during the CS2 era.

So no matter which team they meet, the pressure is quite high.

The situation of Team A is more interesting. After all, there was a big scandal between the two Danish teams during the offseason. Now the Snake and Rat brothers are both in Team A, and device has also transformed into a commander. It is a question whether he can save Team A.

But thinking of this, he couldn't help but turn to JKS and ask, "Is that Bro from Team A really not your brother?"

JKS saw Xu Beifang's serious expression and thought he was going to say something important.

Hearing this, he was speechless for a moment: "I've said it several times, I'm not familiar with this Bro at all."

There is a new player in Team A with the ID Bro. He looks very similar to JKS, and the two of them are like real brothers.

Every time Xu Beifang saw BRO's appearance, he couldn't help but ask JKS about it, which made JKS very annoyed.

Elige added: "Why don't you call him Bro?"

Everyone else in the room immediately chuckled, teasing the usually stern-faced JKS had almost become a source of happiness for them.

Xu Beifang didn't dwell on this either.

The overall level of this event is actually not exaggeratedly strong.

There are currently four truly strong teams in CS2, namely Faze, Green Dragon, NAVI and Bee.

But the Green Dragon missed it due to event conflicts, NAVI took a break for a major tournament after the Major, and the Bee took a normal break, so only Faze came out to compete.

However, for them, if it were just these teams, they would really have a chance to make it to the knockout stage.

Because these are teams that have some skills, but their skills are not exaggeratedly high.

On paper, the only team that can really put them under too much pressure is Faze.

He asked, "Who will be our first opponent?"

Coach Xiaoxi no longer had a smile on his face. He shrugged helplessly and said, "Unfortunately, our opponent in the first round of the group stage is Faze."

Xu Beifang stretched lazily: "Then let me see how good Faze is now!"

……

PS: This is a transition chapter. I was originally planning to write about the confrontation with Steel Helmet, but after thinking about it carefully, I found that it is not necessary, so I will just abbreviate it and will officially enter the competition in the next chapter.

(End of this chapter)