In the past, the team competition system was that all teams played in a round-robin in the regular season, and the win points were counted at the end to rank them. In the eleventh season, due to the increase in the number of participating teams, the league divided the team competition into upper and lower halves, so the group list became the focus of everyone's attention.

After explaining the competition system, the official competition director will announce the group list.

Before the grouping was announced, the players were discussing it enthusiastically in private. Shan Lan leaned over to Master's ear and asked, "Master, do you think we will be in the upper half or the lower half?" Nie Yuandao said calmly, "Anyway, we will not be in the same group as Nirvana."

As soon as the words fell, a group list appeared on the screen.

The upper half, also known as Group A, includes the old clubs Fenghua, Guihe and Liushuangcheng, as well as six second-rate teams. Among them, the more famous ones are Phantom Team and Sanctuary Team. Wu Xie Mingzhe has never heard of the remaining four teams.

In the lower half of Group B, veteran clubs include Judgment, Temple of the Gods, and Dark City. Other teams like Terminator, Peak, Wolf Tribe, Brilliant, and Moonlight are all second-tier teams that have never made it to the playoffs. However, Nirvana, which was just established this year, has attracted much attention due to the fame that Xie Mingzhe and Chen Xiao had made in the Masters.

Shan Lan: “…”

He shouldn't have asked the master so bluntly, knowing full well that whatever the master said was true.

Not only were Nirvana and Judgement assigned to the same zone, but it was also the first game of Group B!

Xie Mingzhe really doesn't mind which teams he is assigned to the same zone with. In normal matches, he has to play a round-robin match with all teams. However, he only has to play one game with teams in the same zone, while he needs to play two games with teams in different zones.

After announcing the group list, the tournament director immediately announced the schedule for the regular season from April to June.

Seeing the dense schedule, Xie Mingzhe couldn't help but feel nervous - in April, there will be a cycle within the group first, and he specifically picked Nirvana to watch. Nirvana's most recent team match is scheduled for April 4, which is three days later at 8 o'clock in the evening. The opponent is the very strong Judge in the same district; followed by a fight against the Temple on April 6, and the opponent on the 8th is the Dark City. It is simply a three-game series of battles against powerful teams!

After beating these three strong teams, although the next opponents are all second-tier teams, the schedule does not give them any time to rest and adjust. They play a game every other day, and all the intra-group cycles will end on April 20 and enter the extra-group cycle stage.

The first opponent in the group cycle is the giant Fenghua from Group A...

Does the person who arranged the match in the league have a grudge against Nirvana? It's simply a nightmare schedule!

Xie Mingzhe looked at Chen Xiao and whispered in his ear, "This schedule is a bit like a roller coaster. At the beginning, we challenged three strong teams in a row. After a few days of peace, we started to challenge Fenghua, Guiyu, and Liushuangcheng three strong teams in a row..."

Chen Xiao said calmly, "It's okay. We'll have to face these strong enemies sooner or later anyway. Meeting them earlier will help us learn lessons and adjust our tactics as soon as possible." He pointed to the first match on the schedule and said, "You can command the match against the referee."

Xie Mingzhe said with a bitter face: "I have absolutely no confidence in beating Nie Shen!"

Chen Xiao said: "My style is too similar to Nie Shen's. I can't beat the referee with a head-on fight. I have to rely on your wonderful tactics. See if you can get a point from the referee."

Xie Mingzhe touched his chin and said, "How about we go back and discuss this with Master?"

Chen Xiao said: "Well, I'll send the schedule to my brother and let him prepare in advance!"

Xie Mingzhe nodded and decided to go back and discuss the detailed plan with his master.

After the team competition schedule was announced, the individual competition schedule was also announced.

Since there are so many players who have signed up for the individual competition this season - Nie Yuandao, Ling Jingtang, Zheng Feng, these old players who debuted before the third season have all signed up; in addition, there are great players who have won individual championships, and new generation players such as Tang Muzhou, Fang Yu, Liu Jingxu, Shan Lan, Pei Jingshan are all present. In addition, there are runner-up winners such as Xu Changfeng, Zhen Man, Ye Zhu, Xu Xingtu, etc. Almost all the well-known players in the alliance have signed up. It can be said that it is a star-studded gathering!

Xie Mingzhe was blinded by the ranking and couldn't help but complain in a low voice: "What happened this year? So many players signed up for the individual competition? It's twice as many as the tenth season!"

Tang Muzhou heard his muttering and explained with a smile: "The alliance has been established for ten years. The eleventh season is the beginning of a new stage. It is normal that many people sign up for the individual competition."

With so many great players, it is extremely difficult to win a prize.

Fortunately, the individual competition is also divided into regular season and playoffs, just like the team competition. The regular season is played in the first half of the year, and the highlight of the playoffs is held in the second half of the year. Therefore, Xie Mingzhe still has a long time to hone his skills and awareness.

There are no groups in the individual competition. The first stage of the competition is similar to the Masters Tournament. Players are drawn to play ten games, each of which is a best-of-three series. Players who win six or more games advance to the next stage. After the top 32 are selected, there will be a group round-robin competition. Finally, two players will be selected from each group to form the top 16 to play in the playoffs in the second half of the year.

In the first stage, there were hundreds of players from the entire league who signed up for the competition. Xie Mingzhe was quite confident that he could beat the other players except for the masters. It shouldn't be difficult to win six out of ten games. The difficult part was the top 32 stage, where the group stage was a four-to-two competition. If he was put in the same group with a particularly powerful master, he would have to defeat the master in the same group if he wanted to qualify...

Xie Mingzhe rubbed his swollen and painful temples. No matter how he looked at it, he felt that the future was bleak.

We can only take one step at a time.

No matter what the final result is, it is always right to prepare seriously for every game. After all, the most important thing for him to play in the game is to make more people like his cards. It doesn't matter even if he can't win the championship, as long as he is worthy of himself and his fans.

***

After the meeting, since Xie Mingzhe said he would take the initiative to treat everyone to a meal, Tang Muzhou gave him an idea and asked him to treat everyone to a buffet. There was a hotel nearby that had a good buffet, and the buffet format could also cater to the tastes of different players.

A group of people came to the hotel in a mighty stream, eating and chatting.

When someone invites everyone to dinner, of course everyone will not be polite and will pick up their plates to get food.

Shan Lan took the initiative to find Xie Mingzhe and asked with a smile: "The first team match is against our referee. Will you take out Qin Keqing? My peacock is ready to hang himself."

Xie Mingzhe smiled dryly and touched his nose: "Lant God, you are joking. Be gentle when the time comes. Don't let us lose too badly."

Shan Lan said: "You may not lose, don't be modest."

The two of them were polite in words, but they were unsure in their hearts.

Logically speaking, for a veteran club like Jue to play against a new player like Nirvana, it would be a 2:0 crushing victory. However, the key point is that Nirvana has Chen Xiao, a first-class player with excellent skills and awareness, and Xie Mingzhe's strange cards and creativity...

No club can guarantee that they will win Nirvana.

Other clubs are waiting and watching. After all, everyone knows the other old rivals well, and there is only Nirvana's deck in the entire alliance, which is still an unknown.

Ling Shen from the Temple of the Gods and Captain Pei from the City of Darkness, who were in the same group, also came over to say hello to Xie Mingzhe and the others. They sat at the same table to eat, chatted, and at the same time, they took the opportunity to find out what new cards and new scenes Nirvana had.

Yu Ke is relatively short, and Ye Zhu is less than 165cm tall, so the "two short guys in the alliance" huddled together consciously and chatted while taking cakes.

Ye Zhu pulled Yu Ke aside and said, "We, Dark Night City, submitted five scene drawings this year. They are all newly developed and very interesting. How about you? How many did you submit?"

Yu Ke said proudly: "We submitted dozens of gigabytes!"

Ye Zhu: “………………”

Gui Sirui, who was passing by, pricked up his ears and heard this. He immediately walked over with a plate in his hand, smiled and stretched out his hand to Yu Ke: "Hello, Xiao Ke, I have been following your ghost cards for a long time. You also like the horror and supernatural style, right? We can leave contact information and exchange horror film resources."

"Do you have any resources?" Yu Ke's eyes lit up and he immediately gave his contact number to Gui Sirui. He thought to himself that this great man was very humble and easy to talk to.

Gui Sirui immediately sent Yu Ke a bunch of resource packs, all horror movies and horror novels, and then asked casually, "I just heard you and Xiao Zhu chatting, you made a lot of new maps, right?"

"Well, dozens of GB!" Yu Ke happily sorted and organized the resources sent by the other party in the optical computer.

Gui Sirui was surprised: "It's so big, how many are there?"

Yu Ke smiled and scratched his head, saying, "Too many, I can't even count them all."

Gui Sirui: “…”

Ye Zhu: “…”

The boy looks innocent, but he is actually quite smart and refuses to reveal any key information.

However, the dozens of gigabytes of maps he mentioned scared Gui Sirui and Ye Zhu a little bit - how many maps did Nirvana make? It seemed that this season, the Nirvana team, which had just joined the league, might become the most difficult dark horse to deal with.

***

The afternoon was the time for press conferences of all the major clubs. The league arranged a unified conference room for all the major clubs to hold press conferences in batches. The press conferences of the first-tier clubs were of course surrounded by reporters, but the popularity of Nirvana, a newly formed team, was not inferior to that of other veteran strong teams.

When Xie Mingzhe, Chen Xiao, Yu Ke and Qin Xuan arrived at the Nirvana press conference, they saw a large number of reporters who had been waiting there for a long time. The four of them were a little confused and looked up at the sign at the door to make sure they had come to the wrong place.

After finding out that it was correct, Yu Ke said nervously: "There are so many people! I don't know what questions they will ask. What should I do if I don't know how to answer them?" Qin Xuan said calmly: "You just need to be a background board. Leave the answering of questions to Azhe and Brother Chen." Yu Ke thought it made sense, so he took a deep breath, followed Xie Mingzhe with a smile on his face, and tried to reduce his presence as much as possible.

After all, Chen Xiao has seen a lot of big events. After entering the venue, he picked up the microphone and said with a graceful smile: "Hello everyone, we are four professional players from the Nirvana Club. If you have any questions, please raise your hands in an orderly manner."

Immediately, a girl raised her hand and said, "I heard that there are a lot of teams participating in the group competition this year. Nirvana is a new team joining this season. What is your goal?"

Chen Xiao said: "The professional league is full of experts. Our goal for the first half of the year is to try our best to qualify in the team and individual competitions and make it to the playoffs."

Although their real goal is to win a trophy, it would only make people think that a new team is too arrogant if they say so. They should first enter the playoffs in the first half of the year, and then go all out in the second half of the year to win a trophy, and then make gradual progress.

Then another reporter asked, "The team match schedule has been released on the official website. I found that Nirvana's first team match opponent is the referee. What do you think are their chances of winning this match?"

Chen Xiao passed the microphone to Xie Mingzhe, who said calmly: "The referee is a very strong opponent, but we will not sit idly by and wait for our defeat. We must prepare well when we return. This is our first team match after Nirvana. No matter what the final result is, everyone will definitely try their best and treat it as a test of teamwork."

Xie Mingzhe's words were flawless, and his teammates all gave him thumbs up behind his back.

The reporter then asked: "Has Nirvana submitted a self-made map this season? I heard that Nirvana Club does not have a professional map development department. Will you suffer a loss in terms of home maps?"

When the staff from the official map department, programming department, and card department who were watching the live broadcast heard this, they all wanted to beat up this reporter.

They're going to lose out on the map? What a joke!

Our three departments worked overtime to review and complete a map of dozens of gigabytes. It was definitely a waste of time but we won't compensate you for it!

Xie Mingzhe picked up the microphone, smiled slightly, and said humbly: "We have made some home maps, which have passed the official review, but compared with other clubs, our maps may not be so outstanding. When the official games come, I hope the audience will be more tolerant of us. Thank you."

Official staff: "..."

Just pretend! The last sentence is the key point. Be more "tolerant" of your weird maps, so you have to accept the settings of cards getting pregnant, cards falling in love, cards accompanying the elderly shopping, etc.?

In the following Q&A session, some reporters also expressed their curiosity about the new face Qin Xuan, but because Qin Xuan was paralyzed throughout the whole process, he only answered the reporters' questions with short "yes" and "yes", which was a dead heat. Xie Mingzhe looked friendly and answered all the questions he could answer seriously, so the reporters rushed up and surrounded Xie Mingzhe to ask questions.

Since this press conference was a pre-match interview, the reporters were relatively gentle and did not ask too many sharp questions. However, after the press conference, a large number of reports about Nirvana appeared on the Internet, and there were many posts on the forum, predicting the results of the team match between Nirvana and the referee.

"Nirvana is so unlucky. He encountered a boss like Judgement in the first game!"

"Xie Mingzhe and Chen Xiao are good individually, but team competitions require coordination, and Nirvana's team competition strength is not strong!"

"It will be difficult for Nirvana to qualify from Group B. Their support rate in the first team match was less than 30%. Their schedule included continuous challenges against strong teams, which can be called a nightmare schedule. I feel like their mentality will be broken in the first round of the regular season!"

"What kind of answer will Nirvana give to fans if he is judged in his first match? I think a 0:2 is more likely!"

The so-called "analysis posts" posted by reporters in the forum competition area collectively criticized Nirvana, which really made Yu Ke angry.

After reading these posts, Yu Ke couldn't help but say: "Is there no wise media supporting us to get rid of the referee? Maybe we will get an unexpected 2:0!"

Chen Xiao rubbed his head and said, "You're overthinking it. How is 2:0 possible? The Judge is really strong in teamfights, and Lao Nie is very calm and an excellent commander. It's hard for a new team like us to beat the Judge in teamfights."

Xie Mingzhe agreed, "That's right. Team battles require coordination, unlike individual matches where you fight alone. Nirvana's current support rate of 30% is already relatively high. If it were another new team playing against an old team, the support rate would probably be less than 5%."

Yu Ke lowered his head with a frustrated look on his face: "So what you mean is that we will definitely lose if we play the referee?"

Xie Mingzhe smiled slightly: "That's not the case. What we mean is that we should be prepared to lose, and then - try to win a round!"

Chen Xiao agreed with this and said, "We should prepare for the worst, so that the final result will not be too uncomfortable for us. This is what we call the lower the expectations, the more surprises we can get."

Yu Ke complained: "You are possessed by Captain Pei, what are you learning about philosophical dialectics!"

Chen Xiao raised his eyebrows: "Doesn't what I said make sense?"

As he was talking, Chen Qianlin pushed the door open and walked in. Chen Xiao immediately shut up and put away his smile, pretending to be a very serious person. Chen Qianlin glanced at him, raised his lips slightly, and said, "Are you all back? There's a meeting in the next room in five minutes, don't be late."