Chapter 112: Group A Rankings

After the training match ended, Cheng Xing buried himself in practicing heroes again.

There were many marksman heroes. Previously, he had always played jungle with his master. After switching to marksman, he focused on practicing a few commonly used league heroes. His hero pool wasn’t deep enough, completely incomparable to a versatile player like Ye Shaoyang.

Although getting carried to victory was satisfying, he couldn’t just get carried every game, right?
Moreover, today’s training match with Korea’s TIP made him realize even more clearly—in future matches against strong teams, he might become Tianhuan’s weakness, the opponent’s breakthrough point!

He didn’t want to drag everyone down.

Ye Shaoyang and Cheng Xing sat right next to each other. He turned his head and found the young boy’s face incredibly serious, eyes glued to the computer screen, hands tapping rapidly on the keyboard. The colorful RGB lights flickered with his keystrokes, looking very cool and passionate.

The computer screen showed the training camp. Cheng Xing was practicing last-hitting and mechanics. He was even secretly practicing some off-meta marksmen rarely seen in the league.

Ye Shaoyang couldn’t help but curve his lips slightly. He quite liked this apprentice of Chi Shuo’s. The little guy was hardworking. Before the league started, he was tortured daily by the Ye Shaoyang-Chi Shuo duo, dying hundreds of times. Qu Jiang’s “Cheng Xing’s 100 Ways to Die” compilation had even reached its second episode, turning into a series.
After being tortured so many times, his mentality had become stronger. At first, he would look like he was about to cry after being killed, but now, he could immediately stand up full of vigor, like an unkillable cockroach.

Cheng Xing had been improving silently.
It was just that Tianhuan’s Mid-Jungle was too dominant, covering up his light.

Seeing him practicing seriously, Ye Shaoyang said, “It’s boring practicing alone. I’ll practice with you tonight.”

Cheng Xing was stunned for a moment, turning back to look at him. “Brother Yang, you want to 1v1 me?”

Ye Shaoyang said, “I’ll take a mid-laner to 1v1 you. You can try to see how to dodge various mid-lane skills.”

Previous practices had always been Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shuo vs. Qu Jiang and Cheng Xing in 2v2s, simulating scenarios where Mid-Jungle ganked bot lane. Ye Shaoyang and Cheng Xing hadn’t practiced 1v1 yet, but actually, 1v1 could improve more mechanical details.

For example, without support protection, how should one dodge the 6 balls of black mist from the [World-Ending Mage]? How should one position against the [Kraken of the North Sea]’s Devour ultimate?
Once these details were mastered, if the enemy mid-laner tried to ult and delete Cheng Xing in future matches, it would at least not be that easy.

Ye Shaoyang used to torture his own team’s marksman like this in Team GD.
The result was that Team GD’s marksman was tortured into “The World’s Hardest-to-Kill Marksman.”

A marksman must have the ability to protect themselves and escape, and not rely entirely on support protection, because the support also has to check vision and look after the team; they can’t stare at you alone all the time.
Sometimes the support has to engage, so the marksman can only pray for themselves.

Cheng Xing’s eyes lit up. “Okay! Brother Yang, practice with me tonight!”

That night, Ye Shaoyang opened the training camp PK mode, switching between various mid-lane heroes to 1v1 Cheng Xing, patiently explaining: “The [World-Ending Mage]’s black mist travels in an arc. When he ults, don’t run away; run in the opposite direction towards his face. That way, the black mist will slide past your sides.”
“The [Kraken of the North Sea]’s ultimate has a 0.3-second cast time. Mid-laners with strong awareness will predict your movement to ult. Without Flash, you need to think about how to dodge.”

The training camp allowed data adjustments at any time. Ye Shaoyang and Cheng Xing PKed in the mid lane; if he died, he immediately got up and continued. A full-build mid-laner could instantly delete a marksman. In team fights, whether it was an artillery mage or an assassin mage, they were huge threats to a marksman’s survival.

Cheng Xing tried every way to dodge Ye Shaoyang’s skills. At first, it was hard to dodge, but after dying many times and under Ye Shaoyang’s patient guidance, he summarized some experiences and insights.

Ye Shaoyang patiently played instructional matches with Cheng Xing. Sometimes he deliberately went easy to let Cheng Xing dodge his skills. Cheng Xing reacted quickly, his positioning became increasingly flexible, and his survival rate under Ye Shaoyang’s ultimate gradually increased.

Chi Shuo watched this scene with complicated emotions.
Ye Shaoyang really seemed like a captain, not like a rookie at all. Sometimes he doubted… Could Shaoyang be a hidden expert deliberately pretending to be a rookie?
But no matter how he checked Ye Shaoyang’s resume, he was a newcomer who only touched the game last year and had no tournament experience. Explaining it purely with “natural talent” actually left many things unexplained.

Chi Shuo couldn’t just ask directly. Perhaps, in the future when they were together and Shaoyang trusted him enough, he could ask about Shaoyang’s background again and might get a different answer?

For now, there was no need to get to the bottom of it.

Chi Shuo temporarily suppressed the doubts in his heart and let Ye Shaoyang continue to help mentor his apprentice.

In the following days, the 5 members of Tianhuan played training matches with the 2nd team every afternoon to practice lineups. In the evening, Ye Shaoyang would grab Cheng Xing alone for training camp PKs.

Cheng Xing used to learn jungling from Chi Shuo and knew various jungler heroes very well, but his understanding of mid-laners wasn’t deep enough. So in team fights, he was often instantly deleted by the enemy mid-laner.
Ye Shaoyang dragging him for special training was extremely effective.

Ye Shaoyang helped Cheng Xing clarify exactly how twenty-plus mid-lane heroes deleted people. He even patiently demonstrated, one by one, the differences in skills under different skin effects.
For example, the [World-Ending Mage]’s legendary skin released skills as cool black skulls; but once switched to the Christmas limited skin, they became red cannonballs, creating visual discrepancies. You had to adapt to the different skin skill effects in advance to avoid being dazzled and unable to see clearly during the match.

Professional players all had their preferred skins. Changing skins altered skill effects and colors—seemingly small factors, but in a match, even very subtle differences could change the outcome.

In the blink of an eye, a week passed, and Tianhuan met CYC again in Group A.
In this match, although CYC had improved, they desperately discovered that Tianhuan had improved even faster! Especially the marksman position—he was hard to kill. And the mid-laner, don’t even mention it; he was still the Great Demon King in their memories.
CYC was once again swept 2:0 by Tianhuan.

In the third week of the second round of the regular season, Tianhuan defeated Jixuan 2:0.
In the fourth week, Tianhuan defeated Xueying 2:0.

Up to this point, Tianhuan had played 4 out of 5 matches in Group A, leaving only the final match against Luoshen, scheduled for this weekend.

The other teams in Group A had finished all their matches.
Currently on the Group A leaderboard, the bottom 3 were destined to fail qualifying, but the top 3 still couldn’t determine the result.

In the Gods’ War group stage, “Match Points” were calculated based on wins. Winning a match gave 1 point.
“Net Win Score” was won games minus lost games. For example, 2:0 was +2 points, 2:1 was +1 point, 0:2 loss was -2 points, 1:2 loss was -1 point.
Ranking rules prioritized Match Points first, then Net Win Score.

Group A’s current rankings kept the audience’s hearts suspended.
Tianhuan: 4 Wins 0 Losses, Net Win Score 7 (3 games of 2:0, 1 game of 2:1).
Luoshan: 3 Wins 1 Loss, Net Win Score 5 (3 games of 2:0, 1 game of 1:2 loss to Moon Shadow).
Moon Shadow: 3 Wins 2 Losses, Net Win Score 3 (2 games of 2:0, 1 game of 2:1 win over Temple of Luo, 2 games of 1:2 loss to Tianhuan and Xueying).

The other 3 teams had fewer than 2 wins and no chance of advancing.

Moon Shadow had finished all 5 matches. Currently, their Net Win Score was behind Luoshan, but Moon Shadow had won 2:1 against Luoshan. Finally, Group A still had the match between Tianhuan and Temple of Luo left unplayed. This match would determine the qualification spots for the second stage of Group A.

If Tianhuan lost 0:2 or 1:2 to Temple of Luo, then Temple of Luo and Tianhuan would advance.
If Tianhuan won 2:1 against Temple of Luo, Temple of Luo’s Net Win Score would become 4, so Tianhuan and Temple of Luo would advance.
If Tianhuan won 2:0 against Temple of Luo, then according to the rule of comparing Net Win Score when Match Points are tied, Temple of Luo and Moon Shadow would both have 3 Net Win Score points. But since Moon Shadow beat Temple of Luo in the group stage, Moon Shadow would advance.

Different scores would cause different results. The attention on this match even exceeded the closing battle of Group S. After all, everyone was looking forward to seeing who the final qualifying teams of Group A would be.

May 2nd, Sunday evening 7 PM, Tianhuan vs. Temple of Luo.
The match was arranged at the Ya’an Esports Center. This was the final match of Group A.

Yueying had just finished a match yesterday and didn’t return to their base. Instead, they stayed in Ya’an City, preparing to watch the final match of Group A before going back. After all, the result of this match was closely related to them.

On the day of the match, Xu Zhuo led his team to the venue, preparing to watch the match in the backstage lounge.
They ran into the players and coach of Team Yaoguang in the corridor. Tonight at 7 PM, Tianhuan vs. Temple of Luo was the closing battle of Group A. At 9 PM, Yaoguang vs. Huowen (Fire Rune) was also scheduled as the closing match for Group S.
Yaoguang’s entire team arrived at the venue early and unluckily bumped into Xu Zhuo’s group.

Players from both sides met in the corridor, and the atmosphere instantly became awkward.
The 5 members of Yaoguang pretended not to see them, walking straight past the corner into their lounge.

Xie Weiyu’s face was somewhat pale, and he lowered his head gently. Xu Zhuo frowned tight, lowering his voice to say, “A bunch of ingrates. Not even saying hello when seeing their former captain. Truly fucking idiots. Don’t get angry over these kinds of people.”

Just then, the Tianhuan players walked over.
Xie Weiyu heard someone calling him: “Xiao Yu, you guys came to watch the match too?”

Turning back to meet Ye Shaoyang’s smile, Xie Weiyu’s mood improved instantly. He ran over to greet him. “We finished our last match yesterday. Coach said to stay one more day and wait for Group A’s results before going back.”

Xu Zhuo turned and hugged Chi Shuo, smiling. “Good luck in the match later.”

Chi Shuo said, “Mn. The result is uncertain, but we’ll try our best.”

Temple of Luo was also a strong team, a quarter-finalist last season. Although they lost 1:2 to Moon Shadow in Group A—losing a match point to Moon Shadow due to carelessness—leading to their current 3 wins and 1 loss record, the comprehensive strength of this team still couldn’t be underestimated.

Ye Shaoyang leaned close to Xie Weiyu’s ear and whispered in a volume only the two could hear, “Our Little Star has improved a lot recently; I have to thank you for that.”

Xie Weiyu was stunned. “Thank me for what?”

Ye Shaoyang: “He’s been watching Moon Shadow’s match recordings lately, learning [Wind Spirit]’s positioning from you.”

Xie Weiyu realized and looked back at Cheng Xing.
Cheng Xing was following behind Ye Shaoyang. Seeing Xie Weiyu look at him, he scratched his head with a silly smile. Xie Weiyu said softly, “Little Star is actually quite talented. His reaction is very fast; I don’t gain much advantage laning against him either.”

Ye Shaoyang said, “Mn, although there’s still a gap compared to you, he works very hard.”

Xie Weiyu had complicated feelings.
Clearly both are rookies, so why does Ye Shaoyang always have a ‘big brother’ attitude? I debuted two years earlier than Ye Shaoyang, but inexplicably, in front of Ye Shaoyang, I feel more like a younger brother being taken care of?

Xie Weiyu was very confused. Ye Shaoyang patted his shoulder gently, his brows dancing with spirit. “I’m going to prepare. Watch my brilliant performance later!”

Really not humble at all.
Xie Weiyu laughed. “Okay, fighting.”

The Tianhuan group arrived at the prep room. Coach Lin gave the final pre-match mobilization: “Everyone play with a relaxed mind today. Even if we lose this match 0:2, Tianhuan will definitely advance. However, the result of the match affects the qualification of Moon Shadow and Temple of Luo. So, everyone must still try their best and not throw the game!”

Everyone nodded to show understanding.
If they showed signs of deliberately throwing, they would definitely be scolded to death by netizens, suspected of match-fixing, or even conspiracy theories about whether a club bought off Tianhuan.
So, they had to go all out in this match to convince the netizens.