On January 30, the top 100 competition of the Masters Tournament ended. After fierce competition, 32 players finally qualified for the final round.
The list of 32 people was also pinned to the top of the official website.
In addition to being a public announcement, the purpose of posting the list is to advertise to all the major clubs: "These are the good players who made it to the final round of the National Masters. You can start recruiting them as soon as possible!"
The most intense competition among clubs is the announcement stage of the top 32.
This stage is like betting. Because the player who seems to be ranked the highest may not necessarily win the championship in the final round, and the player with average performance in the semi-finals may suddenly come to the fore in the finals and win the championship.
There have been dark horses in the past few rounds, such as last year's Zhou Xiaoqi, who ranked 15th in the semi-finals, but relied on her outstanding card-making talent to produce new cards in every game, and she actually made it directly to the finals and won the championship. However, the player who ranked first in the preliminary and semi-finals did not even make it to the quarterfinals because of his mentality breakdown in the final round.
Such reversals happen from time to time, so the club needs to make comprehensive considerations when deciding who to sign.
Data analysts from major clubs began to take action, analyzing the players' performance, decks, and awareness in every game, and then picking out the best ones and having the player managers contact them. They had to act quickly and offer good enough conditions to attract outstanding talents to join.
The results of the analysis came out quickly. Apart from the six reserve players who had already signed contracts, Uncle Fat and Yunxiao Zhishang, two players who had not signed contracts with the club and had a 100% winning rate, of course had the highest potential.
Therefore, Chen Xiao's mailbox has been filled with olive branches from major clubs in the past few days.
Big clubs like Ghost Hell, Fenghua, and Judgement were very tactful and didn't approach him, obviously knowing that he wanted to team up with Fatty. However, several second-tier clubs took the initiative to approach him, including Phantom and Sanctuary.
Phantom Captain Shao Mengchen is an excellent female commander. She only contacted Chen Xiao with a trial attitude, hoping that he would join Phantom to improve the overall strength of the team. The other party was very polite and the conditions were not bad, so Chen Xiao politely and tactfully declined.
The approach of the Sanctuary is a bit hard to describe: "Consider joining our club. Our club is first-rate and currently has several outstanding players. We have a good chance of winning the championship in the eleventh season. You use plant cards. Our club has a plant deck left by the Forest God, which is similar to your style. If you agree to join, the treatment can be discussed later. Everything is easy to negotiate!"
Chen Xiao was so angry that he almost laughed.
How dare you use Chen Qianlin's plant card as a selling point for your promotion? Do you know how to write the word "shameless"? Chen Xiao frowned and said coldly, "I heard that the contract of the Holy Land is a scam. I will not go to the Holy Land. Please don't insult the plant card of Lin Shen. Please don't contact me again. Thank you."
The broker of the Holy Land: “…………”
The other party was speechless and had to give up the idea of reaching the sky and instead send messages to other people.
If possible, pull one. The message was sent to a group of people, so Yu Ke and Qin Xuan both received it.
Xiao Ke of course knew about the feud between Lin Shen and this club, and he also responded rudely: "Sanctuary? I'm so scared! What if I'm sued in court one day for breach of contract? I, a nobody, can't fight against your club. Forget it, save your life first :)"
Qin Xuan simply said: "No, don't bother me."
Only Xie Mingzhe did not receive the email. So, Xie Mingzhe said with some disappointment: "Why do you all receive invitations from major clubs, but I don't get any?"
Chen Xiao sighed, patted his shoulder and said, "You can only blame yourself for being too famous. Who doesn't know that Uncle Fatty wants to build his own club? If he asks you to do it, isn't that asking for trouble? Everyone knows how irritating you are. If you fight back, isn't that asking for trouble?"
Xie Mingzhe touched his nose and said, "That's right."
As a result, that night, he actually received an invitation from... Fenghua Club.
The email read: "I know you haven't been invited, so I'm sending you an invitation letter to comfort you. I sincerely invite you to join our Fenghua Club. The annual salary starts at 5 million, and all card copyrights belong to you. I look forward to your reply."
Xie Mingzhe was amused and replied, "Brother, you are really humorous."
In order to prevent the players from being harassed by strangers, the official directly opened a contact channel for major clubs to send letters to the players, so that the letters would not be drowned out by other messages and the players could see them first. Who else could have sent this email through the official contact channel except Tang Muzhou? He was also boring enough.
Tang Muzhou replied shamelessly: "Does this mean you are rejecting me?"
Xie Mingzhe said: "Don't be ridiculous, it was you who helped rent the base for our club!"
Tang Muzhou stopped joking and said, "Go to the alliance to get your registration certificate some other day. Remember to keep your vest well covered to avoid getting beaten."
Xie Mingzhe: “…”
He almost forgot about this and confirmed that all the players who made it to the top 32 would receive invitations to the league.
Xie Mingzhe also received an invitation letter in his mailbox: "Invitation from the Star Card Professional League: Congratulations on entering the top 32 in the National Star Card Master Invitational Tournament. You will be eligible to become an officially registered player of the Professional League. Please bring your identity card to the official headquarters of the Professional League at 2:30 pm on January 31 to receive the registration certificate and player rules. We look forward to your visit."
***
On January 31, Chen Xiao drove to the Star Card Alliance headquarters with his teammates.
This was Xie Mingzhe's first visit to the alliance headquarters.
The building is hundreds of stories high and looks very impressive, and it is obvious that the alliance is very rich. As soon as you walk into the spacious and bright lobby, you will see the large icon of the "Star Card Professional Alliance" and next to it is a "Card Memorial Wall" about 10 meters long and 3 meters high.
At this time, a group of young people were gathered in front of the memorial wall, taking photos with it excitedly. They should be the top 32 players of this year's Masters Tournament.
"This memorial wall is much more spectacular than what you see online!" "Ah, there are cards of my Tang Shen, the Millennium God Tree on the top, the MVP card of the fifth season!" "Lao Nie's Lion King is also here, as well as Lao Zheng's Stone Giant and Ling Shen's Unparalleled Sword!" "Is this Gui Sirui's first joker card, the Red Bride?" "This Transparent Butterfly is Xiao Zhuzi's favorite tracking card!"
Out of curiosity, Xie Mingzhe also walked over with his friends to take a look.
The card memorial wall of the alliance contains all the original cards that have performed well in each season. Being able to hang them on the memorial wall is also a recognition of the strength of the players' original cards. The tenth season includes several new cards, including the marked cards Cursed Doll, Puppet Master and Witch made by the newcomer Wei Xiaotian of Ghost Hell, as well as some new cards made by other great players.
It is really impressive to hang the designed cards on the memorial wall.
Xie Mingzhe was watching with great interest when he suddenly heard a short-haired girl next to him say, "There will probably be a lot of character cards on the memorial wall at the end of this year! Once Uncle Fatty's cards are collected by the alliance, there won't be enough space for just one or two cards. If they are collected in batches, it will definitely be super spectacular!"
The girl with a ponytail next to her echoed, "That's right. For so many seasons, only the God Cards of the Temple of the Gods have been included in the character cards. The card pool is really shallow. The appearance of Fatty will definitely change this situation."
The girl with short hair said: "Is there a fat uncle here today? I wonder who he is, can I get his autograph?"
The two of them glanced at the contestants around them, and when they saw Xie Mingzhe, they were struck by the handsome looks in front of them. They stayed there for two more seconds, then automatically excluded the option, skipped it, and continued to search for the fat uncle in the crowd.
Xie Mingzhe: “…”
Well, if he goes up to the girls now and says “I am the fat uncle”, will he be beaten by them?
In order to avoid a beating on the spot, Xie Mingzhe decided to keep a low profile, cover up his identity, and go to the conference room with Chen Xiao and others.
The place where the alliance holds preparatory meetings is large enough to accommodate hundreds of people. When entering the conference room, you need to verify your identity, and only the top 32 contestants can enter. The four of them passed the verification smoothly and walked into the conference room, choosing a few empty seats to sit down.
The seats were all sofas, very comfortable. Yu Ke was excited, moving around on the sofa, and said, "The Alliance is really rich. It is said that each club has to hand over a certain amount of income to the Alliance every year. Is that true?!"
Chen Xiao said: "It's true, it's equivalent to protection money. If you don't pay, the alliance will kick you out. We at Nirvana can't pay even if we want to, because the club hasn't officially approved it yet."
Xie Mingzhe said optimistically, "It will be done soon! Anyway, the base is already built. After the Grandmasters, we will submit the application."
More and more people came to the conference room, and by 2:30 in the afternoon, all 32 contestants had arrived on time.
Several league executives walked into the meeting room.
A middle-aged man with regular features walked in and sat down at the podium. He introduced himself with a smile, "Hello everyone. I am Zhou Yongsheng, the chairman of the Star Card Alliance. The Yongsheng in my name means 'eternal victory'. Doesn't it sound auspicious?"
Everyone laughed.
Chairman Zhou was smiling and looked very friendly and kind. Everyone's original tension was dissipated a lot by his jokes.
The tall, long-haired woman next to him introduced herself, "Hello everyone, I am Xu Tong, the player director of the league. If you have any questions about the league in the future, you can consult me. If you need to take leave during activities, you can also contact me directly, or ask the club's agent to tell me."
The player supervisor is in charge of the players' affairs. Such a person must not be offended, otherwise even their leave will not be approved.
Chairman Zhou continued, "You all have no doubts about your abilities to have made it to the top 32 from millions of contestants. However, the masters of the professional league are much more formidable than you think. Therefore, getting a registration certificate does not mean anything. How far you can go depends on your own efforts. I am here to welcome all the new blood to join us on behalf of the Star Card League. I also hope that everyone present here will continue to work hard and never forget their original aspirations!"
There was warm applause at the scene. Getting the registration certificate was equivalent to taking the first step towards realizing the dream, and everyone was of course very excited.
Xu Tong walked down from the podium and distributed the prepared qualification certificates to everyone according to their facial features.
The alliance and the official are in a cooperative relationship. The identity information of the participating players can be directly used, and the qualification certificates produced are also based on the identity cards used by the players when they registered. Xie Mingzhe opened it and saw that the qualification certificate looked very much like a college student ID card. It read: "Star Card Alliance registered professional player, registration number 107715, name: Xie Mingzhe, registration time: 11th season".
Xie Mingzhe felt as excited as when he received the university acceptance letter!
He finally became a professional athlete!
In addition to the registration certificate, each person also received a "Professional Player Code", which contains some rules that professional players must abide by, such as dressing appropriately during games, not wearing slippers or pajamas, not making remarks that discredit the alliance in public, etc. Xie Mingzhe read it carefully and memorized several key points in his mind.
Chairman Zhou said: "The player's rules must be followed. If the league rules are violated, the league has the right to cancel the registration of any player, so everyone must read it carefully and try not to be punished by the league."
Chairman Zhou said with a smile: "I hope you will have a happy life after joining the big family of the Professional Alliance! Meeting adjourned!"
The meeting ended, and the 32 finalists left the office, but many of them looked around, as if they were looking for something in the crowd. Although they didn't say it, they were all very confused in their hearts - all the contestants who came today were young, and none of them looked over 25 years old.
Where is Uncle Fatty?
There was even a brave boy who shouted in the crowd: "Uncle Fat, who is Uncle Fat? Can I get to know him?"
This man's voice was so domineering that Xie Mingzhe was frightened. He continued to cover his vest and pretended not to know the fat uncle.
He followed the others' example, looked around, pretended to look for the fat uncle, then turned around and left with a look of regret.
Chen Xiao: “…………”