Chapter 34 The End of the Group Stage

The group stage was over, and there was a ten-day break. The knockout rounds would begin on Friday evening, May 16th, and three matches over three weeks would determine the final Challenger League champion.

The teams eliminated in the group stage left one after another in the following days. For many player teams, reaching this point was already satisfying enough. After receiving a generous bonus from the Alliance, they felt the trip had been worthwhile. The most unwilling to leave was Team Xuanqi. On the second day after the group stage ended, the media reported the news of Xuanqi's coach, Zhang Yiwei, being dismissed. Reporters had tried to contact him for an interview, but were refused. The official statement from Xuanqi was that after nearly three seasons of cooperation, they felt that the coach's format was not suitable for the current Glory esports.

Subsequently, the May 9th edition of Esports Weekly also published this news. However, the report focused more on Team Happy, who had completely swept Xuanqi out the door.

Chang Xian had long written a detailed introduction to Team Happy, and had revised it many times through his interactions with the team. Now that Team Happy was attracting so much attention, Chang Xian's long-hidden manuscript finally had the opportunity to be officially published. The situation of Team Happy was finally given a positive and complete introduction. In addition, how could such a high-profile team not have their voices heard? In the same issue, in addition to the introduction, there was also an interview with Team Happy by Chang Xian. In this issue of the Weekly, Chang Xian was in the limelight, relying on Happy, he alone occupied half of the Challenger League's coverage, making the other two reporters who followed the Challenger League quite envious and jealous.

They also tried to grab the topic of Happy, tried to find Happy for some interviews, and wrote some introductions to Happy, but how could their work compare to Chang Xian, who considered himself Happy's on-site reporter? In the end, all the selected manuscripts were Chang Xian's.

Being an on-site reporter for an internet cafe grassroots team? Chang Xian's move had initially caused the other two to laugh at him, but now they couldn't laugh anymore. "Let's see how long you can be so proud!" the two thought maliciously, and began to curse Happy to be eliminated quickly. A subject that could not bring them any gain became worthless in their eyes.

Cao Guangcheng, however, lived up to his reputation as a veteran reporter. He didn't even try to compete with Chang Xian to write about Happy. He continued to calmly work on his special topic, this issue analyzing the situation of Team Excellent Era in light of the new format.

The Challenger League had entered a new stage, and the professional league this season had also entered the final stage of the regular season.

On May 10th, the 34th round of the ninth season of the Glory Professional League ended. The Tyranny team, with its Four Heavenly Kings, had led the way from the very beginning with an extremely steady posture. So far, they had not created any suspense for the first place in the regular season. Moreover, with their scoring efficiency, it seemed that breaking the highest regular season score since the expansion to 20 teams was not a problem. However, it was impossible to break the record created by Team Excellent Era in the second season. In that season, Team Excellent Era scored a final total of 276 points. The total score seemed not high, but this was because there were only 16 teams in the league at that time, and there were only 30 regular season games in the entire season. So if you want to compare scores under these two different backgrounds, you can only compare the average score per game. Then Excellent Era's average score of 9.2 points per game in that season was abnormal to the extreme. With only four rounds left this season, Tyranny had no hope of surpassing them.

However, being able to be compared with the best performance in history, Tyranny's strength this season was undoubtedly demonstrated.

After Tyranny, the second place was the defending champion Team Samsara. Their goal this season was to defend their title. Although they were suppressed by Tyranny in the regular season, the outcome of the playoffs had nothing to do with the regular season. Last year, Team Samsara was also suppressed by Team Blue Rain in the regular season, but what about the final finals? The regular season has many games and a long cycle, so the stability of the team is compared; and the playoffs, the elimination system, determines the outcome in one or two games, which is compared to the burst.

After Team Samsara, the third, fourth, and fifth places were Team Blue Rain, Team Howling Wind, and Team Tiny Herb, respectively. The scores of the three teams were very close, so this ranking did not distinguish the strength of the three teams, but Team Howling Wind did not even make the playoffs last season, but this season they have been reborn into a strong team that can entangle with Blue Rain and Tiny Herb. Tang Hao's transfer has been regarded as one of the most successful transfer operations of the past summer.

After that, the competition for the last three playoff spots in sixth, seventh, and eighth places was also extremely fierce. Team Misty Rain was in sixth place, and there were no strong enemies in the last four rounds, so the situation was good. Team Hundred Blossoms in seventh place lost too many points in the early stage, and only started chasing hard after regaining their form. The current situation is inevitably a bit grim. Ranked eighth was Team Void. The Ghost Duo had persisted for many years, but had always been unable to reach great heights and seemed to have a bottleneck. Their performance this season was also quite fluctuating. Although they still occupy a playoff spot, they have been regarded by many as one of the most disappointing teams this season. Once they finally lose their playoff spot, then the "one of" can be removed.

Will Team Void lose this spot? There is still suspense. Closely following them is Team 301, a typical civilian team. The players are not the most outstanding, and the characters are not the strongest, but this team is very well managed, and the team's results have always been stable, and they are regulars in the playoffs. This season, because Xu Bin left, it had a certain impact on their results, otherwise they might have squeezed down the unstable Team Void long ago.

And after Team 301, closely biting them is another great miracle of this season.

Team Zhao Hua, Team Yueyun, Team Yizhan, and Team He Wu, as if they were holding a group, advanced and retreated together. The four teams were neatly ranked from 10th to 13th. This is definitely a shocking thing. These four teams, from the initial impression, should be hovering above the relegation zone. As a result, they have all run to the middle zone, and at any time there is a possibility of launching an impact on the playoffs. And teams with All-Star players like Team Royal Wind and Team Seaside have been squeezed behind them. Team Thunder, which was originally ranked tenth and was regarded as another surprising team this season besides Howling Wind, has now been squeezed out of surprise.

These four teams were regarded as seizing the opportunity of the game update, which changed the situation. However, the connotation of their ability to seize this opportunity can only be known to the club guild elites who have snatched wild Bosses in the online game. However, as the season draws to a close, it is clear that the focus of each team has shifted once again. Many players withdrew from the online game and began to focus on the competition, especially Hundred Blossoms, Void, 301 and other teams that still have a lot of suspense, how dare they be negligent at this time?

With their focus on the competition, it was of course not easy for the Zhao Hua four teams to fight. Therefore, attacking the playoffs may seem possible on the standings, but in fact, the four teams know very well that they are just reaping the benefits of the fisherman, taking advantage of the trend to grab a glimpse of it, and they do not yet have the matching strength to make this happen.

Both the professional league and the Challenger League have reached their most intense degree. However, compared with the stalemate of the professional league, because there are indeed some differences in strength in the Challenger League, everyone's focus is still relatively concentrated. Therefore, except for individual teams, most teams do not have much pressure. Excellent Era's opponents will definitely not lose sleep thinking about how to deal with Excellent Era, which would be ridiculed as being a self-inflicted injury.

Ten days passed in a flash, and finally it was game day again. Among the four games of the quarter-finals, the game between Team Zhuxian and Team Team Excellent Era was regarded as the most interesting duel. Team Excellent Era, who squeezed out the professional team in Group B, was obviously the biggest dark horse in the offline competition. Coupled with the eye-catching performances in the direct dialogues with Xuanqi and Happy in Group B, everyone really did not dare to take Team Zhuxian as a professional team in this round against the outdated Team Zhuxian.

As a result, the dark horse's journey came to an end after all. The most interesting game ended up being plain and unremarkable. In the individual competition, and then in the team competition, Team Zhuxian seemed to be just taking steps step by step, walking over, and Team Excellent Era fell beside them like this.

Team Happy, Team Excellent Era and the game were also not suspenseful. The player team was easily defeated by them, so in this round, if there is anything to watch, it has to be the game between the first in Group C and the second in Group D. The strength of the two teams is similar, and although the quality of the game is not high, at least it is lively. It's a pity, if only such liveliness can satisfy the audience, then what is the significance of the existence of professional teams?

The quarter-finals ended in such a plain and unremarkable way, without any exciting scenes. Even the reports of the major media on the day's game afterwards were so weak. However, thinking about the next duel, everyone can still be refreshed. On the upper half, Happy and Zhuxian are finally going to meet. This should be a game of good quality. As for the lower half, players who like Excellent Era should continue to appreciate the heroic posture of their gods abusing food. If they haven't gotten tired of watching it along the way.

"There are two more games!"

The morning after the game day, Chen Guo woke up from a dream with a smile. The sun had already filled the room. Chen Guo continued the pleasant mood in her dream, and then looked aside, but found that Tang Rou, who shared the room with her, was gone.

"Up so early?"

Chen Guo muttered, got up to wash, packed up, and walked out of the room. The corridor was extremely quiet. Chen Guo estimated that everyone else was still sleeping, so she didn't bother, and went downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast, and then went to the Internet cafe training room.

Excellent Era still lived alone in another hotel. The one arranged by the alliance was no longer as lively as it was at the beginning. Of the 19 teams, only 3 were left today. Having been together for such a long time, and having the common topic of Glory, especially since the players are generally mixed in online games, so although they are here to play games, they have also become good friends in addition to the games. Those who can reach this step in the Challenger League are also absolute elites among the players, so Chen Guo enthusiastically recruited these people to Happy.

However, since they are all elites, these people mostly have foundations in online games, and most of them are vague about Chen Guo's recruitment. Chen Guo has rich experience in online games, and she still understands this, so she is not in a hurry for a while. Her Chasing Haze has added a lot of friends during this time, and everyone has agreed to meet again in the Realm of Gods!

However, in comparison, these people are actually more interested in Ye Xiu. As a result, to Chen Guo's surprise, Ye Xiu, who used to pretend to be mysterious and not show up, now seems to have no such scruples.

"What's going on?" Chen Guo asked, puzzled.

"Nonsense, I used to impersonate, wouldn't it be better to be low-key?" Ye Xiu said half-jokingly.