Chapter 52: Are you Niko's anti-fan?

Fatty: "Come on! It's just one loss, you still have a chance in the lower bracket! Keep it up!"
Xiao Guang: "Exactly! G2 is really strong, there's no shame in losing to them!"

Su Zhe heaved a heavy sigh as he looked at the comforting messages from the two of them in their dormitory WeChat group chat.

His first defeat in the professional arena had come much earlier than he had expected. NIP had barely managed to make it into the Katowice main event, only to run straight into last year's Katowice champions, G2, in their very opening match.

This match also made Su Zhe acutely aware of the gap between his team and the truly tier-one teams.

Before the match, es3tag had been full of confidence, claiming that G2 was a rather abstract team—the most prone to upsets among the powerhouse organizations—yet they had been thoroughly humbled the moment they actually met them.

They hadn't managed to secure a single map in this best-of-three series. m0NESY's AWP had posted a terrifying 64-22 K-D spread across the two maps, while their own sniper, headtr1ck—who was in the same batch of NAVI trainees as m0NESY—had been utterly shredded in the head-to-head matchup.

As a lurker, Su Zhe's role inherently relied heavily on his teammates. Although his unorthodox style had caused some trouble for G2, the lack of sufficient firepower in direct engagements left him without even the time to carve out opportunities in most rounds.

Su Zhe replied in the WeChat group: "I'm fine. Break time is over, I'm heading off to practice."

Fatty: "Alright! I checked your upcoming schedule; there are no more ridiculously strong teams left. Your chances of making it to the playoffs are still pretty high!"
Xiao Guang: "I'm still waiting for you to come back to China and sign an autograph for me! Your plays in the last two matches were seriously awesome!"

With a smile, Su Zhe closed the chat history after reading the messages, then refocused his attention on the computer screen.

Having experienced their previous defeat, the members of NIP had lost the giggly, carefree demeanor they usually had during practice. Clearly, they were unwilling to accept being eliminated just like that.

Just then, coach djL walked into the practice room, clapped his hands to draw everyone's attention, and said, "Put basic training aside for a moment. Let's review today's demo of Falcons first, and make some targeted preparations for tomorrow's match."

Just moments ago, their opponent for tomorrow had been decided: Team Falcons, who had also been defeated 2-0 by Eternal Fire (EF).

Hearing the name of this team, Su Zhe was utterly bewildered: "Team Falcons? How come I've never even heard of them before?"

k0nfig explained from the side, "It's normal that you haven't heard of them. This is an Arab team that couldn't even be considered a tier-two team previously. It's just that they bought out several professional players one after another late last year, so it's a bit hard to gauge their current strength."

Su Zhe asked in confusion, "Hard to gauge?"

k0nfig nodded, "The members of this team currently have more Major titles than G2, the powerhouse team we ran into at noon."

Driven by curiosity and taking advantage of the time the coach was using to prepare, Su Zhe logged onto the official website to look up information regarding Team Falcons.

He wouldn't have checked if he didn't want to be shocked.

Good grief, while the organization itself wasn't famous, its roster was exceptionally renowned—such as the Magisk, hailed as invincible in direct duels, and SunPayus, who had become the nightmare of the Chinese Counter-Strike scene.

es3tag, who had been expressionless beside them, couldn't keep a straight face anymore upon hearing k0nfig's words. He couldn't help but chime in: "Are you a G2 hater or a NiKo hater?"

Su Zhe caught the implication. Magisk had previously single-handedly won four Major championship trophies alongside the peak Astralis era.

As for G2, neither in the organization's history nor among its current five members did a single person hold the honor of a Major championship.

The team's NiKo was the most unfortunate case. When he joined mousesports nine years ago, people were already saying he would win at least one Major trophy in his lifetime.

Yet now, three years after three years after three years had passed, he still hadn't managed to claim CS:GO's highest honor.

k0nfig spread his hands: "Hey, don't talk nonsense! I'm just stating facts."

At this moment, djL cleared his throat as he looked at the idle chatter below and said, "Alright, focus up. You don't want to finally make it to the main event only to go home without winning a single match, do you? Falcons are a very strong opponent."

Seeing that everyone's expressions had turned solemn, he finally began, alongside the team's data analyst, to brief everyone on some of the tactics used by Falcons and the individual habits of their five players.

...

A day flashed by in the blink of an eye. Once the Katowice main event got underway, the schedule grew hectic once again.

To determine the final eight playoff teams within four days was a tall order, especially with the opening round already utilizing a best-of-three format.

At eight o'clock the following evening, Su Zhe and his teammates sat back down at the player seats to prepare for the match.

The Katowice group stage still lacked a live audience; only teams that reached the playoff quarterfinals would be allowed to step into Katowice's Spodek Arena, which could accommodate tens of thousands of spectators.

Right now, Su Zhe was warming up on the Aimbotz map.

"Arrow."
"Hmm?" Hearing headtr1ck call his ID, Su Zhe turned his head to look.

headtr1ck said with a completely serious expression, "Don't worry, I won't drag you guys down today!"

During yesterday's best-of-three match against G2, apart from Su Zhe whose stats were barely in the positive, the other four players were all in the red.

As the team's primary economy-hogging sniper, headtr1ck had even bottom-fragged among the five, serving as the biggest reason for NIP's defeat.

Su Zhe understood what he meant, nodded, and refocused his attention on the game.

Soon, the referee walked up to the captains of both teams to notify them of the map veto process for this best-of-three.

es3tag first banned Anubis as per convention, and Falcons immediately followed suit by banning Mirage.

"Should we pick Inferno or Overpass..." es3tag looked somewhat torn. Their win rates on both maps were relatively low; it was only thanks to Su Zhe's explosive performance last time that they managed to defeat Into The Breach on this map.

Coach djL hesitated for a moment before speaking, "Let's pick Inferno. Our new roster hasn't played Overpass in an official match yet, and we'll inevitably run into detail-oriented issues during the game."

es3tag nodded, locking in Inferno as map one, while Falcons swiftly selected Overpass.

After another round of bans and picks, the two teams landed on Ancient for map three.

Entering the final preparation phase, es3tag offered words of encouragement as captain: "Come on! No matter what the final result is! At least let's play to our absolute best potential and not leave any regrets at the annual Katowice tournament!"

"Let's go! Let's go!" The members of NIP fist-bumped each other in encouragement.

k0nfig even yelled at the top of his lungs, "Let's go, NIP!"

Promptly under the referee's notification, the ten players from both sides loaded into the server for map one.

Map: Inferno
Falcons: B0ROS, SunPayus, Magisk, Maden, Snappi
NIP: es3tag, k0nfig, headtr1ck, REZ, Arrow

On their own map pick, they started as the T-side (terrorists).

...

"Bloody hell, can the scheduling for these matches be any more ungodly?" Machine complained helplessly as he was jolted awake by his 3:00 AM alarm.

"Then don't cast it; aren't there still plenty of matches tomorrow?" "Maid" advised from the side.

"If I go back to sleep now, I'll have been woken up for nothing," Machine muttered while putting on his clothes.

Although he was grumbling somewhat, he still held expectations for NIP's match.

It wasn't just because Su Zhe was a Chinese player; previously, he had struggled to understand Su Zhe's playstyle, but ever since seeing their match against Into the Breach last time, he had developed a deep interest in him.

It felt rather like smoking for the first time—a mix of discomfort and lingering curiosity.

If he didn't come to cast this livestream, he felt like he'd have this strange, nagging itch.

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Two chapters for today temporarily; tomorrow and the day after will both feature 10,000+ words daily updates.