The list of the top eight of the Grandmasters Tournament was quickly posted on the official website. It was pinned to the top of the news and received over 100 million hits as soon as it was released, which shows how many players are paying attention to this year's Grandmasters Tournament.
Among the players who entered the quarterfinals, Fat Uncle, Yunxiao Zhishang, Binbin Youli, and Xingguang have all had a 100% winning rate so far. Nine-life Cat, Headless General, and Grass and Trees are the reserve players of Judgment, Ghost Hell, and Fenghua Club respectively, with a winning rate of 99%, and only lost one game. The reserve player from Liushuang City had bad luck in the round of 16, and was eliminated by Chen Xiao after qualifying as the second in the group. However, Ke Xiaoke, who was not optimistic about it, unexpectedly made it to the quarterfinals.
At the quarterfinal stage, the players will receive a basic bonus of at least 20,000 crystal coins. Yu Ke is very happy. Regardless of whether he can win the next game or not, at least he will get 20,000 crystal coins. This is the first money he has earned since he was a child.
At 8 pm on February 1st, the first match of the quarterfinals officially started.
Ke Xiaoke vs. polite.
Netizens are not unfamiliar with the player Ke Xiaoke. During the freshman exchange competition at Imperial Capital University, Yu Ke's novel joker card game had attracted the attention of many netizens. A big anchor even live-broadcasted the competition. However, the number of people watching the live broadcast was limited, and it was completely incomparable to today's quarter-finals of the National Masters Tournament. This was also the first time that Yu Ke officially appeared on such a big occasion.
Seeing this little boy who was just over 1.6 meters tall, people who didn’t know him were a little confused: “Where did this little boy come from?” “He’s so small, is he an adult?” “It looks like he walked into the wrong set!”
Ye Binbin is quite tall, over 1.8 meters, and the contrast between him and Yu Ke is too stark. Yu Ke has to crane his neck to look him in the eye.
I thought I would be looked down upon by the other party, but unexpectedly Ye Binbin had a good temper. He smiled and greeted Yu Ke: "Hello, I have heard a lot about you."
Yu Ke had never thought that he was so famous, and said in surprise, "Hello!"
Ye Binbin is indeed as polite as his name suggests. The two sat down on their respective swivel chairs, put on helmets and entered the game.
Backstage, Xie Mingzhe and Chen Xiao were waiting in the VIP preparation area, where there were comfortable sofas for the players to rest and a large screen broadcasting the situation on the field in real time.
Chen Xiao and Xie Mingzhe had reserved a private room in advance and sat together to watch the game. Seeing this, Chen Xiao leaned over to Xie Mingzhe's ear and said, "I think Xiao Ke has little chance of winning. This Ye Binbin is very patient."
Xie Mingzhe nodded: "After all, he has been training with Pei Jingshan for a whole year, and his curse deck is very unique. Xiao Ke may not be able to cope with it."
Chen Xiao said: "The spell-playing style is quite novel. Let's take a closer look at it later."
The game started. In the first round, Yu Ke chose the map. He chose the negative status map "Dark Castle" of the Hell Club, hoping to rely on the advantage of dim scene lighting to allow Hei Wuchang to collect more kills and markers.
Ye Binbin played very calmly, and his card positioning was extremely precise. All of his cards were long-range cards. When Yu Ke released Nie Xiaoqian's card to teleport and kill him, he suddenly retreated and quickly evacuated the attack range, making Nie Xiaoqian's skills come to nothing.
Yu Keca realized that this man was very powerful, and he became even more excited, and he chased him and beat him without any hesitation.
However, as the game went on, he discovered that the card Nie Xiaoqian could no longer take advantage of its flexibility - because of the existence of the immobilization spell.
There is a card called "Immobilization Talisman" in Ye Binbin's deck. This card can attach a purple talisman with a strange pattern on it to a designated card, freezing the card and making it unable to move for 3 seconds.
Since the cooldown time of the immobilization talisman is very short, only 10 seconds, Ye Binbin can use the immobilization talisman multiple times to immobilize Yu Ke's key cards, completely disrupting Yu Ke's offensive rhythm.
Nie Xiaoqian was targeted several times in a row, and Hei Wuchang was unable to harvest smoothly. The power of Yu Ke's deck was not brought into play at all. It felt like a punch into a pile of cotton.
Yu Ke lost very quickly in the first game. Xie Mingzhe, who was watching from the backstage, couldn't help but say, "Ye Binbin's play can also be considered as displacement control, right? However, his immobilization spell is used to immobilize the opponent's cards, while my Zhu Bajie carries the opponent's cards away. The usage is different, but the essential principle is similar, disrupting the opponent's rhythm by controlling displacement."
Chen Xiao thought thoughtfully: "This newcomer's awareness is indeed good. If he joins the team battle in the Dark Night City next season, with the cooperation of Ye Zhu's tracking butterfly and Pei Jingshan's insect burst, he can almost kill one card at a time."
Dark Night City did not perform well in the team battles in the 10th season, but the Ye Pei combination won the prize in the doubles competition, because the club currently only has two first-line players, Ye Zhu and Pei Jingshan, and the strength of the other players is average. However, Ye Binbin, who appeared in this year's Masters Tournament, impressed Chen Xiao and Xie Mingzhe. The addition of this newcomer will definitely improve the sluggishness of Dark Night City's team battles.
It was the first time that Yu Ke encountered this kind of play that used the "Immobilization Spell" to control the opponent's movement. He wanted to kill the opponent's Immobilization Spell in seconds, but every time his core card just moved, he would be immobilized by the opponent's quick eyes and hands, which was really annoying.
Yu Ke was so mad that he couldn't get close to the long-range enemy in close combat. He wanted to get into the game and have a real-life PK.
The second game lasted for 10 minutes, and Yu Ke was eventually controlled by the opponent's "Sleeping Talisman" in a crucial team battle and lost the game.
Yu Ke was very upset after losing to Ye Binbin 0:2. After the game, he was still complaining when he returned to the backstage: "This Ye Binbin is so annoying. The cooldown time of his immobilization charm is very short. It can be immobilized once every 10 seconds, and each immobilization lasts for 3 seconds. It is almost seamless!"
"This style of play that relies on immobilization to control movement is indeed advantageous against a deck with many melee decks, but it is more difficult against ranged decks. You should give Meng Po's Forget skill to Nie Xiaoqian to make her immune to the immobilization control once, then activate Phantom and cooperate with Hei Wuchang to quickly kill the opponent's Immobilization Talisman." Chen Xiao patiently instructed Yu Ke, "It's normal that you can't react to this style of play for the first time, but you will get it right in the future."
"Oh, that's right. Meng Po's skill can make teammates forget all control and damage. I was too confused to react just now." Yu Ke suddenly realized and looked at Chen Xiao with admiration and said, "Brother Chen, you will definitely win if you meet him. I have no hope. Come on, you guys!"
Yu Ke was eliminated in the quarterfinals and could only get a reward of 20,000 crystal coins, but he was very satisfied with this result. After all, he was facing the reserve teams of major clubs and had undergone formal training.
He is looking forward to seeing Brother Chen and Azhe making further progress.
The second match of the quarter-finals was between Starlight and Headless General, a duel between reserve players from the Temple of the Gods and Hell Clubs. It was also very exciting. In the end, Zhou Xingchen, whose ID was "Starlight", relied on the advantage of high output of gold-type critical cards to defeat his opponent 2:1 and advance to the semi-finals.
At this point, there are only two spots left in the semi-finals.
The next quarter-finals will be held at 8 pm the next day.
February 2, 8pm.
When Xie Mingzhe and Chen Xiao arrived at the competition venue, they were amazed by the scene on the scene - it was only the quarter-finals of the Masters Tournament, but the scene was packed with people, almost comparable to the official professional league!
Many fans held up posters that read “Come on Fat Uncle!” One girl even drew a Q-version image of Fat Uncle that looked particularly friendly to her. She held it high up and shook it, apparently to encourage Fat Uncle.
There are also some funny Q-version slogans: "Don't worry, Fat Uncle, we are not superficial fans and don't care about your looks!" "No matter how fat you are, we still love you!" "We like your talent, not your weight!" "Fat and cute, fat people are the most blessed!"
Xie Mingzhe: “…”
If you do this, you will get slapped in the face later, right? Fatty is actually quite thin...
Chen Xiao smiled and said, "It seems that quite a lot of your fans came today."
Xie Mingzhe rubbed his temples with a headache: "I am worried that after they see me in person, will they throw the poster in my face?"
Chen Xiao said seriously: "It is possible."
Xie Mingzhe shrank his neck and walked silently to the backstage preparation area.
At eight o'clock sharp, the first game started on time - Above the Clouds vs. Grass and Trees.
Compared to Uncle Fat’s popularity, these two players are not very famous. Since Yunxiao Zhishang is the vice president of the Nirvana Guild, the Nirvana players and Uncle Fat’s fans who were present at the scene also cheered him on in a friendly manner.
Unexpectedly, the man who walked onto the stage was very handsome.
Chen Xiao was dressed more formally today, with a warm light grey shirt on the upper body and a pair of well-cut black trousers on the lower body, which made his legs look straight and long. The leather shoes on his feet were spotless. He was dressed like an urban elite man and looked very refreshing and capable.
He walked forward gracefully and shook hands with the other party.
Caomu Congsheng is a new member of Fenghua Club. Tang Muzhou had already told him who his opponent would be today, so he was not surprised to see Chen Xiao. He was just a little nervous and stammered, "Chen, Brother Chen, I'm a fan of Lin Shen. How is Lin Shen?"
Chen Xiao smiled slightly and said, "Thank you for liking my brother. He is a very good person."
The man's smile was captured by the photographer on the scene and magnified on the live broadcast screen.
The audience stared at his smiling face in a daze, and it took them a while to react. Many girls screamed, "So handsome!" "Oh my god, is Yunxiao so handsome?!" "His smile is so charming!" "This look, he is definitely in the top ten among professional poker players!"
Many people admired his good looks.
At this time, the Professional Alliance was in chaos.
Seeing Chen Xiao appear, Ling Jingtang couldn't help but say, "I knew that the person who has been using the dark plant card must have an unusual background. It's actually Chen Xiao! I haven't seen him for a few years, and he has changed a lot."
Zheng Feng said: "I can hardly recognize him. Is this Chen Qianlin's younger brother, little Chen Xiao?"
Shan Lan said, "It was him. I remember that he played in a one-month individual tournament in the fifth season and lost dozens of games in a row. Later, he went back to school because he was not good at the competition. Why is he suddenly back now?"
Nie Yuandao raised a key question: "Chen Xiao is back, but what about his brother Chen Qianlin?"
There was silence in the group for a while, and Nie Yuandao simply asked Tang Muzhou to come out and answer: "@Tang Muzhou, has your master also returned? You should know the most about this matter, right?"
Tang Muzhou is pretending to be dead...
Zheng Feng followed up and said, "Xiao Tang, Chen Xiao and Uncle Fatty are on the same team. Did your master guide him in making the dark plant cards? Come out and tell us, do you understand?"
Ling Jingtang agreed: "You'd better tell the truth. Or do you want everyone to torture you?"
Tang Muzhou continued to pretend to be dead.
Shen An had no choice but to come out and help his master out: "My master has gone to sleep, he doesn't know about this matter, please don't scold him."
Zheng Feng: "Xiao An, your lying skills are terrible! Everyone knows that Tang Muzhou likes to sleep in the afternoon and is very energetic at night? You might as well say he went to take a shower next time."
Shen An immediately changed his words: "Yes, yes, yes, I remembered wrongly, he went to take a shower!"
Everyone: “…”
Tang Muzhou: “…”
The young disciple was simply a pig teammate. Tang Muzhou had no choice but to stand up and say, "Well, I just came back from taking a shower. I only found out not long ago that Yunxiao Zhishang was Chen Xiao. As for the master's affairs... he rarely told me, so I don't know much either."
The people in the group obviously didn't believe it, and they continued to watch the live broadcast of the game with doubts.
Tonight's guest commentators were appointed by the official team. Both of them are experienced commentators. Therefore, they recognized Chen Xiao at the first sight. The female commentator's eyes widened in surprise: "This... is Chen Xiao? Is he Chen Qianlin's younger brother?"
The male commentator said, "That's right! It is indeed written in the player's profile that Yunxiao's name is Chen Xiao, Lin Shen's younger brother!"
As soon as the words fell, a large row of bullet screens suddenly appeared in the live broadcast room——
"Is it the rookie brother who lost fifty games in a row?" "After a few years, I wonder if his level has improved. Don't embarrass Master Lin again!" "I remember he signed with the Holy Land?" "After five years, why is he back again!" "His performance in this year's Grandmasters Tournament is not bad, with a 100% winning rate so far. He must have been practicing hard for a while and then made a comeback, right?" "How dare he come back? How shameless!"
Most of the netizens who knew Chen Xiao started to criticize him without any hesitation. There were also some newcomers who had come into contact with the game in recent years and did not know about Chen Xiao's past. They immediately searched for his past experience and then felt that... this man only had a handsome appearance, but was really bad at playing games. He was beaten terribly by Tang Muzhou in two consecutive games.
How dare he come back? Did he suddenly come to his senses, or is he shamelessly trying to show off his presence?
Netizens were full of doubts.
***
sanctuary club.
After hearing the news, Shao Bo jumped up from the sofa, his face full of shock: "What? Chen Xiao? Didn't he just terminate the contract with our Sanctuary a few months ago?!"
The player manager also looked unhappy: "Mr. Shao, that Yunxiao Zhizhi is his smurf. He just appeared in the quarter-finals of the Masters Tournament, so I hurried to find you. Previously, our data analyst specifically analyzed the data of the players in this year's Masters Tournament. Yunxiao Zhizhi's comprehensive potential... ranked first."
Shao Bo's brows wrinkled into a "川" shape, and he muttered, "Impossible! This is absolutely impossible." He paced back and forth in the office with a gloomy face, and then said, "Is it possible that the data analyst made a mistake? How can his potential be number one? Isn't he a rookie who keeps losing games?"
“That was five years ago,” the player manager reminded.
This simple sentence made Shao Bo's face turn pale instantly.
Yes, that was five years ago. The boy, who was less than 18 years old, kept losing in individual competitions, losing dozens of games in a row, and finally gave up the path of a professional player and went back to school. Now, Chen Xiao has graduated from college and grown up, and is no longer the boy he was back then.
Five years is enough time for a person to change.
Thinking of Chen Xiao's calm and smiling expression when he came to the Holy Land to terminate the contract a few months ago, Shao Bo's eyes suddenly became sharp. He took a deep breath, and his voice was filled with anger: "This Chen Xiao, did he terminate the contract with me just to come back to play in the competition? He also said that he was not interested in the competition. I was fucking fooled by him!" Shao Bo turned around and opened the live broadcast screen, squinting his eyes and said, "I want to see, he was so bad before, after five years, can he still be reborn?!"