The news that Xie Mingzhe defeated Ye Zhu in the individual competition quickly spread throughout the league. Logically speaking, Ye Zhu's personal strength is much stronger than Xie Mingzhe, but Ye Zhu has an obvious flaw as a player - he is easily impulsive.
His love for butterflies is well known. It is said that he has collected many precious butterfly specimens since he was a child, and even decorated a room at home to display these specimens. After joining the Star Card Professional Alliance, he made a large number of cards based on various butterfly specimens. These cards can be transformed into realistic butterflies in the real world. Ye Zhu treats his cards as if they were his own cubs.
Xie Mingzhe took Zhu Bajie and took away his Butterfly as his wife, and Ye Zhu was completely furious. He lost his composure and made mistakes. As a result, he lost in the last round of the individual competition and entered the next round with a record of 9 wins out of 10.
Although losing a game did not affect his promotion, Ye Zhu was extremely depressed. He took off his helmet after the game and said angrily: "The official should take care of this Xie Mingzhe! He twisted a good card battle game into something? A game for kissing?"
Pei Jingshan was watching the live broadcast just now. Seeing Xiao Zhu's eyes turn red with anger, he tried to hold back his smile and patted the boy's head, saying, "Don't take these messy skill descriptions to heart. Just think of it as a displacement and control skill."
Ye Zhu said with a dark face: "I can't do it!"
The image of Zhu Bajie carrying the cards left such a deep impression in his mind that when he saw Zhu Bajie appear, he couldn't help but think of those weird emoticons used by netizens. Could it be that his butterfly was also in trouble?
He opened the webpage, typed in the keyword "Zhu Bajie" and flipped through it. Sure enough, he saw the freshly released emoticon package -
Zhu Bajie carries a blue morpho butterfly, a black butterfly, a red-banded butterfly... a total of seven little butterflies struggling and waving their wings on the old pig's back, with a caption next to them: "I have seven butterfly wives, and I change my color every day from Monday to Sunday."
Ye Zhu: “…………”
Unable to look at that weird expression, Ye Zhu simply threw his laptop aside and went to have a midnight snack - only food could relieve his sadness!
***
Xie Mingzhe entered the second round of the individual competition with a perfect record, but he was very clear about his own strength. When he met some calm opponents, he could not use the trick of "mental attack". It would become increasingly difficult for him to win the next games.
The ten consecutive wins in the individual competition on the evening of the 5th gave Xie Mingzhe a bad feeling. He felt that tomorrow's team competition would not go smoothly.
Ling Jingtang from the Temple of the Gods is an old contestant who debuted in the second season. He is usually very active in grabbing red envelopes in the group. He looks like a very humorous player, but his strength is not inferior to Nie Yuandao or his master Chen Qianlin.
The key to the Pantheon Club's ability to stand firm in the professional league's first-tier teams lies in Ling Jingtang's outstanding awareness and overall perspective, as well as the league's chief card maker Ye Suqian's strict control over card data and skills.
According to Chen Qianlin's analysis, the cards of the Temple of the Gods are the cards whose data are closest to perfection.
Ling Jingtang's weapon card and Xu Xingtu's god card were both gold cards with extremely high critical hits. If he was not careful, he might be killed instantly by them. What made Xie Mingzhe even more worried was that the Temple of the Gods specially made a card called "Piranha Plant" to restrain human cards. It was an instant death judgment and could kill his Tang Monk instantly.
Chen Qianlin asked Xie Mingzhe to adjust his own deck to deal with the Temple of the Gods, instead of directly building a deck like in the first game.
The master obviously wanted to hone his awareness of deploying troops. After careful analysis, Xie Mingzhe decided to bring the resurrection card Tathagata Buddha and the healing card Guanyin Bodhisattva. In the Journey to the West, Tang Seng is the key to the master-disciple linkage system. Once Tang Seng is killed, the master-disciple linkage cannot be started. In order to deal with the situation where Tang Seng was killed, Xie Mingzhe specially made a resurrection card "Tathagata Buddha". The resurrected target's health is restored to 19%, which just meets the triggering condition of the linkage skill when the health is below 20%.
Therefore, once the Temple of the Gods uses the "Man-Picking Plant" to kill Tang Seng instantly, Xie Mingzhe can immediately use the "Tathagata Buddha" to revive Tang Seng, activate the key card for the master and apprentice to work together to kill the opponent, and enter his own output cycle.
In addition to the Buddha, Xie Mingzhe also changed a few cards. First, he replaced Shennong with Guanyin Bodhisattva. This card has the range control release skill of "Jade Purity Bottle", which can deal with the group control of some god cards in the temple. At the same time, it also has "Universal Rain" which can restore blood to the group and increase the survival rate of our teammates. Of course, this auxiliary card will be given to Qin Xuan to use.
Chen Xiao replaced one of his plant output cards with the "Taiyi Zhenren" instant death card, with the intention of using the "Nine Dragons Divine Fire Cover" quasi-instant death judgment skill to seal the particularly powerful god card of the Temple of the Gods - Lucifer.
Among the god cards made by Ye Suqian, Lucifer and Michael have linked skills. The group attack of the two cards is very strong. If they work together to produce a critical hit, they can destroy a large number of the opponent's cards in one breath. As long as the linkage of these two cards is broken, at least the power of the god cards will definitely be greatly reduced.
The weapon card's instant death judgment is Taishang Laojun's diamond bracelet. Ling Shen's weapon card has extremely terrifying single-kill ability. It depends on the situation. If Taiyi Zhenren is effective in the first round, you can continue to use it in the second round. If the effect is not good, change the strategy and send Taishang Laojun to take away Ling Shen's key weapon.
After Xie Mingzhe shared his ideas with his master, Chen Qianlin also thought it was feasible.
Before the game, you cannot just arrange a dead lineup, you must keep some flexible cards that can be replaced, and then adjust according to the situation on the field. At present, we don’t know what map the Temple of the Gods will use, and we are unsure, but it’s always right to be fully prepared.
A day passed quickly, and the Nirvana people had already mastered the newly adjusted deck.
At 6:30 in the evening, everyone arrived at the stadium early.
According to the schedule for the second day of the team competition, Nirvana vs. Temple of the Gods in Group B is the first game, and Hell vs. Shadow in Group A is the second game.
The venue was still packed and fans were enthusiastic, but the style of the scene today was a bit strange - there were a large number of cartoon posters of Zhu Bajie, many of which were drawn by fans themselves, accompanied by all kinds of infuriating texts, it was simply a large-scale hatred-inducing scene.
Xie Mingzhe; "..."
I already feel guilty about this, can you please stop raising my hatred? You drew a shy red face for Nie Shen's lion, drew a collective wedding dress for Ye Zhu's butterflies, and even made a giant festive poster of more than ten meters... Are you afraid that I won't be beaten to death by the masters? Is there any fan like this?
Xie Mingzhe is having a headache, thinking that his fans are getting more and more naughty. Watching a competition is like attending a wedding, with wedding dresses, red cheeks, fireworks... Can they be more serious?
The director enlarged the spectacular posters in the audience seats on the screen. After commentator Wu Yue saw it, she suppressed her laughter and commented: "The styles of the fans of the two clubs cheering for the players are quite different. The posters of Archangel Michael and Fallen Angel Lucifer in the Temple of the Gods, one white and one black, look particularly cool; on the Nirvana side, many fans made posters of Zhu Bajie, which turned into an emoticon package scene."
Liu Chen smiled and said, "I think it's more like a wedding welcome poster."
Wu Yue said: "It seems that Nirvana's fans are also worried about Zhu Bajie's marriage. Who is he going to marry?"
Nirvana fans laughed, while fans of the Temple of the Gods looked disgusted. Fans in the live broadcast room gloated over the misfortune: "Zhu Bajie said he wants to snatch wives from all over the league!" "Zhu Bajie is the happiest card in the league, he has so many wives!" "Zhu Bajie is the number one scumbag card in the league!"
After making a few jokes, the commentator began to introduce the two players.
The ace player of the Temple of the Gods is undoubtedly Ling Jingtang. The other three players are Xu Xingtu, who uses the god card, his brother Xu Hang, and Zhou Xingchen, a newcomer who just debuted this season and the fourth place winner of the Masters Tournament.
Xu Xingtu is much more famous than his brother. This player is very arrogant. When Xie Mingzhe was promoted to the Star Card Master rank in the ranking competition, he deliberately went to the ranking competition to bump into Uncle Fatty, ending Uncle Fatty's winning streak, and issued a challenge to him, saying goodbye to the league competition...
In Xie Mingzhe's opinion, this is a bit like a proud boy who has not yet recovered from his chuunibyou syndrome.
Of course, Xu Xingtu does have something to be proud of - he has won the runner-up twice in the individual competition and is indeed the top strength of the alliance. His biggest shortcoming is that he does not have the ability to create original cards, but Ye Suqian, as the chief designer of the alliance, tailored a unique set of magic cards for him, and the magic card deck is very complete, with both offensive and defensive capabilities, and is extremely difficult to deal with.
There are also many fans of the god cards. Lucifer, Michael, Athena and other mythical characters are vividly brought to life by Ye Suqian's design. Ye Suqian is a perfectionist and has a serious obsession with appearance. The Lucifer and Michael he drew are so handsome that mortals can only look up to them. Lucifer's black evil wings and Michael's pure white holy archangel wings have attracted countless fans. From the large posters on the scene, we can see how popular these god cards are.
Before the match, Chen Qianlin had warned Xie Mingzhe: "Xu Xingtu's strength is only on the surface. When it comes to teamfights in the Temple of the Gods, the real strong player is actually his brother Xu Hang, a professional assistant who is unknown to the public. He can perfectly integrate the offensive rhythms of Ling Jingtang and Xu Xingtu. If the two masters of the Temple of the Gods are sharp weapons, he is the invisible line connecting the sharp weapons."
Xie Mingzhe had never heard of Xu Hang's name. This player did not participate in individual competitions, but only played doubles and team competitions. He was one of the few professional supports in the league, and he made his debut in the fifth season and played the support position for a full five years.
Xie Mingzhe has watched all the recordings of the game of the Temple of the Gods last season. He found that Xu Hang's awareness is indeed very strong. Every time Ling Jingtang and Xu Xingtu launched an attack, he could find the most appropriate rhythm to assist in controlling the game, allowing his teammates' attack to be more effective!
The fourth player of the Temple of the Gods was a veteran player who announced his retirement after the end of the 10th season and moved to the backstage. This season, the addition of rookie Zhou Xingchen will make the teamfight style of the Temple of the Gods even more fierce - three attackers plus a strong control assistant, this combination is almost a rhythm of staring at whoever is killed in seconds, and it will be extremely difficult to score points from them.
Xie Mingzhe knew that this was a tough battle, but it didn't matter, he was fully prepared.
The game begins.
In the first round, Ling Jingtang was drawn to the blue side and had the first choice of map. He almost didn't hesitate and directly submitted a map - the underworld.
This is the map that the Temple of the Gods just submitted this season, so everyone in Nirvana has 5 minutes to familiarize themselves with the environment in the new scene.
Xie Mingzhe entered the map and observed it carefully. The environment of the underworld was similar to the hell in Eastern mythology. The light was dim, and there were dead bones everywhere. There were also many phantoms floating in the air, which should be the souls of the dead.
I thought this map would be like the underground secret room in Hell, where the undead would trigger some negative states. However, as soon as Xie Mingzhe walked around the map, he saw a line of scene prompts flashing in the middle of the map screen - this scene is the underworld, ruled by Hades, the "King of the Underworld", the realm of death. Any card in the scene will disappear immediately when it dies, and resurrection is prohibited.
Xie Mingzhe's heart was suddenly startled.
——Resurrection is prohibited!
The Temple of the Gods map was chosen very specifically. In this "no resurrection" scenario, if the key card in the linkage card is killed instantly, the linkage skill cannot be activated at all.
The goal of Ling Jingtang is very clear, which is to break the cooperation between you, Tang Monk and his disciples!
Before the game, Xie Mingzhe originally planned to bring "Buddha Tathagata" to the field to revive Tang Monk, but now, facing a situation where resurrection is prohibited, Buddha Tathagata is definitely not a card to bring, and they did not prepare any other deck tactics before the game...
Xie Mingzhe's mind was a little confused for a moment.
His biggest weakness was his lack of experience in big matches. When he encountered unexpected situations, it was difficult for him to quickly think of a way to deal with them. Chen Xiao noticed his nervousness and gently patted his shoulder in the game, saying, "Don't worry, it's normal to be targeted in away games. Let's play at our own pace first. Winning or losing doesn't matter. It's more important to practice coordination."
Xie Mingzhe took a deep breath to calm himself down, nodded and said, "Okay, then use the deck arranged before the game, remove Tathagata Buddha, replace him with Sun Ce, and use Taunt and Invincibility to protect Tang Seng when necessary."
If resurrection is prohibited, then the only way to protect teammates is by taunting and absorbing damage. It is definitely not enough to rely on the single card taunt of Bai Gu Jing. The strongest card for group taunt is Sun Ce, who can ride a horse to quickly draw away hatred, so as to prevent Tang Seng from being killed instantly.
However, Xie Mingzhe still thought too simply.
The Temple of the Gods was clearly well prepared today. As soon as the match started, they played very aggressively.
When Lucifer came on the field, Xie Mingzhe immediately summoned Taiyi Zhenren, intending to directly seal this magic card and banish him from the field. However, Xu Xingtu's operation was very smart. At the same time as Lucifer came on the field, he also brought out a protection card Athena!
Holy Light Shroud——Athena's skill is activated, and all teammates within the range are invincible!
Taking advantage of this brief 3 seconds of invincibility, Xu Xingtu successively summoned Archangel Michael and Poseidon, god of the sea, and cooperated with Lucifer. The three god cards launched a group attack, and the cards on Nirvana's side were collectively depleted.
Xie Mingzhe had no choice but to summon Sun Ce to resist, and quickly summoned the Journey to the West master-disciple system, hoping that Zhu Bajie would carry the opponent's super-powerful divine card and kill him.
But the weapon cards of Ling Jingtang and newcomer Zhou Xingchen are all single-target critical hit cards. The anthropomorphic weapon cards are flexible in movement. The graceful woman holds the Wushuang Sword in both hands, and the handsome man holds the Soul Devouring Sword in one hand. The two weapon cards are on the battlefield at the same time, and the gold critical hit cards deal extremely terrifying single-target damage, instantly killing Sun Ce with a very high blood volume!
Almost at the same time when Sun Ce was killed, Xu Hang, an assistant from the Temple of the Gods, summoned the Man-Picking Plant - which had an instant death sentence, and aimed at Tang Monk!
Tang Seng's health was less than 20% and he couldn't use any combined skills. He didn't even have time to recite the spell to tighten the hoop for Sun Wukong and died instantly.
Scenes cannot be revived.
Xie Mingzhe: “…”
This tacit cooperation is really terrifying. If Xu Hang's instant death card came out 0.5 seconds earlier, his attack would be pulled away by Sun Ce's taunt; and if it was 0.5 seconds later, his Tang Monk could have launched a master-disciple linkage.
But his death, which came at just the right time, completely disrupted Xie Mingzhe's communication system.
This assistant was indeed terrifyingly calm. He perfectly connected the offensive pace of Ling Shen and Xiao Xu.
The following matches were completely controlled by the Temple of the Gods. Xu Hang took out the god card "Hades" and a wave of "Pluto's Coming" large-scale fear control made Nirvana's cards temporarily lose their combat effectiveness. Xu Xingtu activated Athena's skill "Divine Blessing" and refreshed the skills of Lucifer, Michael, and Poseidon at the cost of sacrificing himself.
Black feathers fell from the sky like a rainstorm, and the white angel wings stirred up a white hurricane that was enough to destroy the world!
Poseidon, the king of the sea, picked up the trident, and the azure water instantly submerged all the cards in the range, causing a double negative state of slowing down and losing health in the entire range...
At the same time, Ling Jingtang's weapon card was deployed.
The Bone-Breaking Knife, which had the highest critical damage, slashed towards the bleeding Zhu Bajie. However, Zhu Bajie had a skill called "counterattack". Xie Mingzhe quickly used it, with 100% counter-damage, and the Bone-Breaking Knife bounced back and killed itself!
However, Ling Shen was not Ye Zhu, whose mentality was easily broken. While Zhu Bajie's skills were cooling down, he immediately followed up with his output, and killed Zhu Bajie with the counterattack of Nirvana, completely tearing open Nirvana's defense line!
In the first game, Nirvana lost without any suspense. Perhaps the audience had expected it the moment Tang Seng was killed.
From the map that prohibits resurrection, to Athena's protection, to Xu Hang's control of the field, Xu Xingtu's group attack, and Ling Shen and Xiao Zhou's tacit cooperation in one second - in order to deal with Nirvana, the Temple of the Gods has obviously made adequate preparations.
Xie Mingzhe accepted his defeat with full conviction.
We can only wait and see if we can turn the tide at home next time.