The discussion about player selection was over. Then, in the match, the referee gave Mo Fan, who remained calm and stoic, a yellow card. Mo Fan helplessly adjusted, but the referee felt he was being mocked, so he gave him a second yellow card, and Mo Fan was sent off.
"Mu Cheng, you've told him about the rules, right?" Ye Xiu asked.
"I have," Su Mu Cheng said with a smile.
"Okay, that's good." Ye Xiu nodded, not even bothering to ask Mo Fan to stand up and say something, and ended this round directly. "Let's watch the next one."
The next round was Tang Rou's brilliant performance of defeating two opponents. Because it was a match she played herself, Tang Rou was clearly much more involved. She wasn't like Bao Zi, who couldn't figure out the situation. Her clear thinking allowed her to extract the most from the review of her own match.
After the Challenger League, there was the team competition. Every battle, every player's performance, including those of Happy and Hundred Blossoms, were being carefully analyzed and studied.
The review lasted an entire morning, which was considered relatively quick. After all, there were several rounds in this competition that had less to analyze. For example, Ye Xiu's match against Hundred Blossoms' rookie Zeng Xinran, Fang Rui's two matches, and Mo Fan's match all had relatively little content. In addition, this was a match that Happy had won decisively. Victory usually meant that there would be fewer problems. Although the opponent's mistakes could be taken as a warning, the main focus was still on identifying and improving one's own problems. For example, there was no need for Happy to emphasize too much the nervousness that Zeng Xinran had revealed.
However, the match in which they were crushed by Samsara in the first round revealed far too many problems. Last Monday, the review of the first round's match had lasted from morning until night.
After the morning review, the afternoon was the usual training. The life of a professional player was just such a monotonous repetition, doing roughly the same things every day. Passion and fire were reserved for release on Saturday night.
On days without matches, all the players could do was reminisce and look forward to them. In the second round of matches, Happy and Hundred Blossoms had stolen the limelight. But objectively speaking, the level of play in the televised match between Thunder, playing away against Void, was actually very high.
In that match, Thunder took the lead in the individual competition with Dai Yanqi, but then lost the next two individual competitions and the team arena competition cleanly.
Trailing 1 to 4, with continuous losses and no sign of improvement, Thunder seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and Void seemed about to steal a big win on the road. But no one expected Thunder to launch a counterattack in the team competition, defeating Void, snatching 5 points for the team, and ultimately winning 6 to 4.
Such a dramatic process was well worth the broadcast, but the commentators were distracted and kept bringing up the match between Happy and Hundred Blossoms, so some viewers had complaints.
Most of the post-match commentary focused on Happy versus Hundred Blossoms. However, some professional media outlets needed to provide comprehensive coverage of the entire competition. For example, *Electronic Sports Weekly* did not neglect to report and comment on the match between Thunder and Void.
The reporter and special commentator for this match unanimously pointed out the changes in Thunder this season: they had become more confident.
Taking 7 points in the first match and another 6 points in this match, Thunder currently had 13 points and ranked 7th in the standings, a good start. Maintaining this stability, it seemed that winning a playoff spot would not be a problem. (In chapter 1165, Thunder's score was miscalculated as 11 points, a mistake.)
In particular, Thunder's performance in the team competition was specifically highlighted. Thunder used to be led by the tactical master Xiao Shiqin, and they were already better at team competitions. This season, with Xiao Shiqin's return, facing former, grown-up, and newly arrived teammates, he quickly integrated the team without any awkwardness. Both Heroic Wind and Void, who had played against Thunder, said that Thunder's team battles were more difficult to deal with.
Of course, some people also claimed that this was because Thunder's team level had declined last season without Xiao Shiqin. Compared to that, Thunder's team battle strength had returned to its previous level after Xiao Shiqin's return this season. This "more" was in comparison to last season without Xiao Shiqin. It was hard to say when compared to the Thunder of the past.
In the professional circle, there were always endless debates. Even Happy, after winning a big victory, had people looking at the problems in light of their first-round sweep.
One round was swept, and the next round was a big victory. Such an up-and-down performance was simply the best proof of unstable form!
The third round of the league was needed to answer such debates.
A week passed, and the third round of the league arrived. With the groundwork laid by the first two rounds, the third round was much more lively. How would the up-and-down Happy perform this round? Could Howling, who seemed to be better in team battles, continue their winning streak in team battles? The attention on these two teams was a continuation from the first two rounds, but in the third round, neither team was destined to be the protagonist. Because in this round, there was finally an undeniable peak showdown. No matter how much buzz Happy and Thunder had in the first two rounds, they couldn't steal people's attention from this match.
The third round of the Glory Professional League's tenth season saw Samsara face off against Tyranny at home.
The collision of the champion and runner-up teams from last season was like a clash of worlds, appearing as early as the third round of the league. What match could compete with this showdown? None, absolutely none!
Even many professional players were watching this match. They were the people who loved Glory the most, and of course they also enjoyed seeing exciting duels.
Before the third round of the match, in the Blue Rain team's preparation room, Liu Xiaobie was fiddling with his phone, which was noticed by team captain Wang Jiexi.
Liu Xiaobie's expression immediately became unnatural. He carefully and furtively tried to put away his phone without attracting attention.
"What are you doing?" Wang Jiexi asked after all.
The preparation room suddenly became quiet, and many people looked over. Some people knew what Liu Xiaobie wanted to do. This guy just wanted to watch the match between Samsara and Tyranny during the break between matches. No one wasn't curious about that match.
However, the captain's words, even if they were curious, would certainly be well-contained in their hearts. He wouldn't be distracted while he himself was also playing, and of course, he wouldn't want to see the Blue Rain players being distracted either.
"Turn off your phone." Wang Jiexi didn't ask much, but said in a very ordinary tone.
Liu Xiaobie lowered his head dejectedly, took out his phone, and turned it off.
Wang Jiexi's gaze swept over each of the players one by one. The players who were seen by him couldn't help but stand up. "In this match, our opponent is Misty Field. Although they are not a strong team, we are not allowed to be careless."
"Yes," everyone responded.
"Okay, let's go!" Wang Jiexi gave an order, and the Blue Rain players walked out of the preparation room. Liu Xiaobie touched the phone in his pocket and finally let go of it completely.
Focus on the match!
He said this to himself, raising his head and chest, and followed in the footsteps of his teammates.
Each match taking place at the same time seemed to be affected by this peak collision. Even at the pre-match press conference, some reporters would run off-topic and ask for their opinions on this match.
At Happy's pre-match press conference, some reporters hoped that Ye Xiu would make a prediction. Ye Xiu was very familiar with these veterans from Tyranny. And what about Samsara? Did there need to be any more said about the bond between the account One Autumn Leaf and Ye Xiu?
"Talk about it! Just predict a score, okay?" The reporter pestered Ye Xiu for an answer.
"10 to 0," Ye Xiu said.
"Ah!" All the reporters were surprised. Which team did Ye Xiu have such high hopes for to give such a big score difference?
"Which team is 10, and which team is 0?" Someone quickly asked, feeling that there must be a story here.
"Whatever," Ye Xiu said with a smile.
"Wha... Whatever?" Everyone was stunned. What was going on?
"This... how can it be whatever?" The reporter who had been pestering him from the beginning said.
"You were the one who said to just predict a score," Ye Xiu smiled.
"I..." The reporter was immediately speechless, watching as the Happy players left the press conference.
Happy's opponent in this match was Team Everlasting. After two rounds, they finally encountered an opponent that wasn't too strong. As a result, there were soon people who were meddling in other people's business, saying that true gold needs to be tested by fire, and that this match couldn't prove anything. They still needed a strong team to test Happy's mettle.
"Who is this person!" The Friday edition of *Electronic Sports Weekly* often had such predictive comments, and this one in particular made Chen Guo very unhappy. While throwing the newspaper down, she firmly remembered the name of this commentator: Cheng Jianbo.
"What's so bad about that!" Ye Xiu said with a smile after seeing Chen Guo's unwillingness to accept it. "This at least shows that in the minds of some people, we are already a stronger team than Everlasting and shouldn't be compared with Everlasting."
"Naive!" Chen Guo said.
"Yes, quite naive," Ye Xiu agreed, and then looked at everyone in the preparation room.
"I think everyone has already seen this week's research on Everlasting. Even if Everlasting is a team that has never been ranked too high in the league, they are by no means an easy team to deal with. Focus on the match and don't think about anything else," Ye Xiu said. In the first round, Happy endured a lot of talk after being swept. In the second round, Happy endured a lot of talk again after winning decisively. This kind of discussion accumulated and was actually a burden for the players. Sometimes, they would involuntarily develop a deviation in their mindset due to the influence of these comments. This was especially true for rookies, who didn't have enough experience to deal with these things.
"Understood!" But now, everyone responded to Ye Xiu with great energy.
In the third round of the league, Happy challenged Team Everlasting on the road. After an hour and twenty-three minutes of fierce fighting, the score on the electronic scoreboard hanging from the ceiling of Team Everlasting's home stadium was fixed at 3 to 7.
"I'm sorry..." On the eve of the press conference, in the preparation room, Tang Rou was saying to her teammates.