The King's Avatar

The group arena eventually ended in Samsara’s favor. With the individual rounds resulting in a 3 to 2, a 10-0 was now entirely impossible. This meant that neither Happy nor Samsara fans had a good slogan to chant. They had always found 10-0 to be the smoothest of slogans.

Having caught up after winning the group arena, Samsara’s morale had been boosted greatly. Their fans were also much more lively. As for Happy? They were a little disappointed that they hadn’t managed to claim victory in the group arena, but Tang Rou’s performance had far exceeded their expectations. They didn’t seem to worried about losing two points, but Happy’s players were feeling far more conflicted. They could feel the pressure from Samsara.

There was a rather long break between the individual rounds and the team competition. The players of the two teams were gathered in their own groups, discussing strategies for the team competition. Technically, teams were allowed to return to their prep rooms during this time, but most teams found it troublesome, so they usually wouldn’t run back to their prep rooms.

”For the individual rounds, both sides have losses and wins. How this match will go is truly hard to predict. What do you think, Advisor Li?” During the break, apart from ads, the live broadcast could only have the commentators kill time.

”Indeed, it’s hard to predict,” Li Yibo solemnly agreed with this judgement, ”On paper, Samsara’s lineup is stronger, but Happy has the home advantage.”

”Then what do you think will be the deciding factor?” Pan Lin asked.

Li Yibo felt pained. This was exactly the kind of precise prediction he wanted to avoid, but he knew that if he avoided all questions like this, he would be worthless as a special guest. Thus, most times, even if he was hesitant, he had to harden his heart and give them something.

”Hm, I think… it will depend on the healers. Happy’s healer is their weakness. This isn’t a secret anymore. In the past, many teams have tried to capitalize on this weakness, but the only team to have succeeded so far is 301. We can see that even though Happy’s healer isn’t the best, without him, Happy’s team still cannot operate at its peak and they will still lose. In this round, I think Samsara’s focus point will still be Happy’s healer.”

”Will they have their Assassin use Life-Risking Strike?” Pan Lin wondered.

”Possibly…” Li Yibo contemplated, ”One hit KO, a powerful offensive, or like Thunderclap, using strategy to pressure them. I think all these are equally possible. It depends on Samsara’s choice.”

”Haha, comparatively, I’m actually more interested in how Happy is going to use their Cleric in this match against Samsara. Many of the strategies they plan around this weakness of theirs are very interesting,” Pan Lin commented.

”Heh,” Li Yibo chuckled, ”A significant weakness in their formation, but Happy has never gone to find a way to patch it up. With their current record, they could easily find a better Cleric player during the winter transfer window. However, Happy doesn’t seem to have any intentions to do so. Sometimes I feel like Happy’s Cleric might seem like a flaw to us, but in Happy’s designs, he’s a trap, one to counter their opponent’s strategies.”

”Ah!” Pan Lin was stunned by Li Yibo’s analysis, ”Your view on this is truly brilliant!”

”With this weakness, Happy can more or less predict what the opponent is going to target. Then, with a cunning and experienced veteran tactician like Ye Xiu, they might’ve long since calculated for what strategies their opponents will use,” Li Yibo said.

”That’s brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!” Pan Lin exclaimed even as he felt a little strange at this behavior. It had been a while since this Li Yibo had made such bold predictions about another team’s tactics.

”So how are they planning on dealing with Samsara this round? Like you, I too am very curious.” Finishing his speech, Li Yibo gave a sigh of relief. He was rather direct. Either he didn’t speak at all, or he analyzed everything comprehensively if he did. Pan Lin had already agreed with his views and began to delve deeper into discussing it.

The two killed time like it was a talk show and continued to discuss until the team competition was due to start.

Happy: Ye Xiu, Fang Rui, Su Mucheng, Qiao Yifan, An Wenyi, sixth player Tang Rou.

Samsara: Zhou Zekai, Jiang Botao, Sun Xiang, Lu Boyuan, Fang Minghua, sixth player Wu Qi.

With the formations revealed, the two began their commentary on the lineups.

”Advisor Li, I’ve realized that these two teams share a point of similarity today,” Pan Lin noted.

”Oh?”

”These two teams haven’t made any arrangements in accordance to their opponent. They’ve both chosen to use their most frequent lineups in this match,” Pan Lin explained.

”Indeed. The two teams are facing this match with a normal attitude. They didn’t place importance on this match like the outside world did and are treating it like any of the other 37 matches,” Li Yibo determined.

”Yes, but this match is still amazing nonetheless.”

”The players have performed unexpectedly well, thus leading the high performance of the match,” Li Yibo said.

After a few exchanged sentences, the players had finished their greetings and entered their booths. The team competition was ready to start. The projection started to show the characters of each team, first the away team, and then the home team. Each side had one onstage, switching positions and the screen began showing the data for each character.

When Samsara’s One autumn Leaf and Happy’s Dancing Rain appeared simultaneously, the atmosphere suddenly changed. Many of the Glory fans at Xiaoshan Stadium were past-Excellent Era supporters. One Autumn Leaf and Dancing Rain were two characters with six years of history together and harboring far too many of their hopes and dreams. Today, they were once again side by side, but not as Best Partners anymore, but as opponents. This feeling was heart rending for the Excellent Era fans, who had gotten so used their partnership. In that moment, the applause in the stadium was a little dry.

It was just good that the character introductions wouldn’t last too long. After these two, two new characters appeared, then, eventually, it got to the healers of the two teams.

Samsara, Laughing Song; Happy, Little Cold Hands.

”Huh?” Someone immediately realized something was wrong when Little Cold Hands appeared.

”That’s Little Cold Hands?” Someone called out in surprise. The equipment and style was completely different from the Little Cold Hands that they had seen for half a season.

The commentator Pan Lin and guest Li Yibo also noticed this situation.

”Little Cold Hands’ equipment seems to have changed,” Pan Lin noted.

Li Yibo nodded, already looking to the data displayed on the screen. The moment he saw it, he sucked in a breath.

”1810 Intelligence?” Li Yibo blinked. Yes, he wasn’t hallucinating. Among Little Cold Hands’ four stats, the intelligence was 1810.

”1810?” Hearing this data, Pan Lin was struck dumb. To do his job, he naturally had to have a good knowledge of Glory. He naturally wouldn’t be expected or able to remember what the stats of all the pro accounts were, but some rather outstanding stats he knew like the back of his hand.

”No way! Tyranny’s Zhang Xinjie’s Immovable Rock only has 1570 Intelligence!” Pan Lin looked at Li Yibo in disbelief and hurriedly went to check Little Cold Hands’ data himself. That’s right, the Intelligence really was 1810.

By then, Li Yibo’s attention had shifted.

”A full set of Silver equipment!” Li Yibo sucked in another breath, a pained feeling rising in his heart. Fuck, in the end he still got face slapped by Happy! He had only just said that they weren’t at all focused on strengthening their Cleric, purposefully creating openings to use as bait, yet in the blink of an eye, they might’ve not switched players, but they had strengthened their Cleric to its limits. This intelligence was 240 points above the Alliance’s Number One Cleric; wasn’t that a little overdoing it?!

Li Yibo’s mind drifted a little, but Pan Lin continued looking and noticed something else.

”These four stats… don’t they look a little off, Advisor Li?” Pan Lin called.

Li Yibo returned to the present and hurriedly took a look.

”Er… This…” Li Yibo’s foundations were very solid, so he understood, looking at Little Cold Hands’ final four stats.

”They’re pushing intelligence to the limit, no wonder it’s so high,” Li Yibo commented.

”Nowadays… are there still people who would do this?” Pan Lin said, confused.

”No.” Li Yibo shook his head with certainty. In order to maximize a player’s combat potential, balance was necessary. It was more common to see this push for intelligence in the online game. These Clerics had immense healing ability which would reduce the difficulty of the dungeon run. However, the pro scene was pure PvP. It was good to have powerful healing, but one must consider the other abilities of the healer. The stat increases the system gave upon levelling up were the same for everyone, so no one would get more or less than anyone else. Thus, the eventual four stats of the character would be adjusted by the equipment. The stats on equipment were limited though, so you had to lose some to gain some. Intelligence was the primary focus, but that didn’t mean you should sacrifice everything for it.

However, that’s exactly what Little Cold Hands had done.

Then, looking closely, the crit...

”This… this is entirely a PvE Cleric!” Li Yibo couldn’t help but yell.

”His ice and dark resistance is pretty high,” Pan Lin said,

”High counter control, but the other spirit based stats are only so-so. They didn’t seem to have pushed for them,” Li Yibo noted. The Cleric class’ growth was mainly in the spirit stat, then the intelligence stat.

”Intelligence, crit, they’re pushing these two to the limit… In terms of purely healing power, this is probably Glory’s Number One Cleric,” Li Yibo decided.

”No…” Just as he had made his judgement, Li Yibo suddenly rejected it. ”It’s better to say, looking at just the amount healed by a single skill, this is definitely the Number One Cleric. However, his cast speed isn’t outstanding, so if we consider cast time, cooldowns, etc, then it’s really hard to say how his heal per second is.”

”What is Happy trying to do, making a Cleric like this?” Pan Lin said in shock. By then, the two Clerics had left the stage, switched out for the sixth players of each team.