"The victor has been decided. In the first round of the post-season, Team Happy has secured victory on their home turf." The match hadn't truly ended, but Pan Lin was already announcing it on the broadcast.

Team Happy earned five points in the individual competition, and now they’ve eliminated five opponents in the team competition, gaining another five points, for a total of ten.

And what about Team Blue Rain? They only managed three points in the individual competition, so their team competition not only had to be a win, but they also needed to keep the number of casualties on their side below five. But sadly, they failed to achieve this. With Gun Shower falling, five Blue Rain players were defeated. Even if Song Xiao could rely on his perfectly healthy Flowing Clouds to defeat Su Mucheng and Qiao Yifan, securing victory in the team competition, it couldn't change the outcome of the entire round: Blue Rain's defeat.

"Director Li, could you tell us about this match?" Pan Lin said.

"This match… how should I put it…" Li Yibo pondered, "Team Happy, you could say they completely grasped Team Blue Rain's tactical characteristics, greatly limiting Blue Rain's performance. We can see that in this match, both opportunities Team Blue Rain seized were actually deliberately arranged by Happy. But if you were to say they were traps, it wouldn't be entirely accurate. In reality, they were indeed opportunities, but during execution, they were subjected to a certain amount of interference, which Blue Rain failed to resolve effectively."

"For example, Wei Chen delaying Yu Wenzhou and Lu Hanwen?" Pan Lin said.

"Yes. Happy's tactical arrangement was actually very bold. Entrusting two All-Star-level players, Yu Wenzhou and Lu Hanwen, to a veteran who had left the pro scene for seven years before returning. Let's imagine, if Wei Chen's Wind Howl had been killed even a step earlier, or if he hadn't been able to hold back both of them single-handedly, the situation might have been very different." Li Yibo said.

"If that situation had truly occurred, I wonder if Happy would have had any remedial measures?" Pan Lin said.

"That, we wouldn't know. If I were to guess, I'd say they probably would? After all, it was a rather risky arrangement," Li Yibo said.

"Oh, now the match on the field has officially ended. As expected, although Song Xiao fought one against two, he ultimately defeated the two Happy players because his character was in much better condition, but this had no impact on the final result of the match," Pan Lin said.

"Judging from the final technical statistics of this team competition, Blue Rain didn't fall behind at all. And indeed, they won this team competition, but sadly, they lost the overall round," Li Yibo said.

At this time, the players from both teams had also emerged from their player seats.

Both sides lined up in the center of the arena, shaking hands and exchanging greetings again.

Compared to before the match, the moods of the two teams were now polar opposites.

"You played well, thank you for the guidance," Yu Wenzhou still maintained his usual calm, unperturbed by anything.

"You played so-so," Ye Xiu wasn't polite with him at all.

"See you in the next round," Yu Wenzhou said. If it were anyone else, these words would have sounded a bit like a declaration of revenge, but coming from Yu Wenzhou's mouth, it was truly just a simple statement of fact.

And then, Huang Shaotian.

"Hehehehe." Ye Xiu just laughed.

"What's there to be smug about? It was a narrow victory," Huang Shaotian scorned him.

"Championships are found in narrow victories," Ye Xiu said.

"Get past us first before you talk!" Huang Shaotian shouted.

"That's for the next round," Ye Xiu said calmly.

One by one, they walked past, exchanging simple conversations. The victor wasn't arrogant, and the defeated weren't dispirited. And on Happy's side, the last in line was naturally their sixth player, Wei Chen, who was the most eye-catching in the team competition, accomplishing something people thought was impossible.

"Convinced now!" Wei Chen said as he shook hands with Yu Wenzhou.

"I've always been very convinced," Yu Wenzhou smiled.

"Scared yet?" Wei Chen asked as he shook hands with Huang Shaotian.

"So scared." Huang Shaotian rolled his eyes. He was sincerely grateful and respectful toward this senior player, but as for how they got along, you definitely couldn't be completely serious around him.

"Little brat, do you know how powerful your senior is now!" On Blue Rain's side, Lu Hanwen stood in third place. The teenager, who hadn't even finished puberty, still had an unchanged voice, and was a head shorter than the other players. Wei Chen casually patted his head.

"Very powerful," Lu Hanwen nodded, "Let's decide the victor next time, Senior!"

"Damn little brat!" Wei Chen cursed inwardly. Of course he knew very well that if he and Lu Hanwen were to fight a few more rounds, the odds would definitely lean toward the other side. And today's confrontation had nothing to do with victory. From the perspective of life and death in a PK, he was killed by Yu Wenzhou and Lu Hanwen. And all he did was accomplish what he had expected and hoped to accomplish. He achieved his goal, so he was successful, but as for victory… Forget about him, Team Blue Rain won the team competition.

In the end, this result also presented the League with a difficult problem, and they were struggling to select the Most Valuable Player for this round of matches.

For the team competition, regarding the victory or defeat, Blue Rain won, but Happy ultimately secured the victory in the round of matches. The final trend of the team competition showed that Happy didn't even try to fight for victory; they just went into the team competition to earn kill points. From this perspective, Happy was more successful in the team competition; they achieved what they wanted to achieve, but… can the real victory or defeat just be ignored like that?

Judging solely from the technical statistics, Huang Shaotian was the outstanding performer in the team competition. Whether it was withstanding damage or creating output, he was the best on the field. This showed his activity and contribution in the match. However, the problem was that Happy ultimately achieved their goal in the team competition. The second problem was that Huang Shaotian's Night Rain Sounds was hit by a tree in the individual competition, losing half of his health. No matter how you put it, that should be considered a bad mark.

As for the players on Happy's side? Wei Chen's performance in the team competition was amazing, playing a decisive role. However, he was defeated early in the battle, and he didn't participate in many of the decisive moments that followed. Moreover, he didn't even participate in the individual competition.

Speaking of the individual competition, Happy's Mo Fan's performance was also amazing, but he didn't participate in the more crucial team competition afterwards.

And so, after looking back and forth, weighing both sides, in the end, the Most Valuable Player for this match was still awarded to Ye Xiu.

In the individual competition, Ye Xiu's one-versus-two contribution was also significant. It's just that Mo Fan, as a rookie, defeated Huang Shaotian and also completed a one-versus-two, making him appear more conspicuous.

In the team competition, Ye Xiu wasn't as eye-catching as Wei Chen, but there were also several moments where his key performances played a decisive role.

"Perhaps we're just used to Ye Xiu's core-level performance, so we always tend to overlook him?" In a post-match report, Ye Xiu was described as silently becoming the key player in this match, and then, the following annotation was given.

The victory in this round of matches didn't earn Happy much praise. The next day's *Electronic Sports Weekly* called Happy's victory "the most utilitarian victory method under the new format."

The main reason for this comment was because the intention revealed by Happy in the team competition showed that they were going to win by small points. The team competition has always been the highlight of the event. Happy lost the team competition, but ultimately won the entire round of matches, which made people somewhat uncomfortable. The new format was first adopted in the post-season of the ninth season, but it was only in this match that such a situation occurred for the first time.

"Fighting at home, they still had to exhaust themselves and desperately cling to the advantage in kill points they luckily obtained in the individual competition to win. In the next two away games, will Happy have enough courage and enough confidence to cope?"

Another media outlet's report discussed it this way.

The victory in the individual competition was described as a fluke, of course because of the incident where Huang Shaotian's Night Rain Sounds was hit by a tree and lost half of his health. This kind of out-of-the-blue scene would naturally be regarded as an accident, and Happy's victory became a fluke based on this accidental foundation.

And then, two away games…

This casual stroke of the pen was also filled with malice. Happy's next match only needs a win, and the first round of the competition will be over. But the other party casually wrote down two away games, which already implied that Happy would definitely lose the next match.

People who like to criticize Happy found a lot of topics to talk about because of this match. But before Happy could even play another match, the first match of the fourth round on the second day slapped these guys in the face.

In the fourth match, Team Tiny Herb's away challenge against Team Thunderclap turned out to be another match where kill points decided the victory with a score of 10 to 9. Moreover, the distribution of points was exactly the same as Happy's match against Blue Rain. Tiny Herb won 5 to 3 in the individual competition, but lost 5 to 6 in the subsequent team competition, but the final score was 10 to 9, Tiny Herb won.

Utilitarian?

A fluke?

The answer is no.

The problem was that the two matches were so close together, with the same result, but two different voices were suddenly heard, which easily made people feel that the comments were unfair. In various reports, when commenting on this match, they had to bring up Happy's match against Blue Rain again and say it together, mainly to compare the differences in the process, in order to explain that although the result was the same, Happy was utilitarian, but Tiny Herb couldn't be said to be.

"In the individual competition, Tiny Herb achieved a strong victory, and there were no flukes."

"In the team competition, Thunderclap, fighting at home, was strong, but Tiny Herb didn't rely on their advantage in the individual competition. Instead, they launched a vigorous showdown with Thunderclap on the road, and ultimately gained five kill points, which was the result of their pursuit of victory."

"The intentions and attitudes shown by the two teams are decisive."

The comments and reports on Tiny Herb and Thunderclap ultimately became a comparison between Happy and Tiny Herb. All the reports were afraid that they wouldn't explain it clearly and damage their own image.