Chapter 918: Challenger League Ninth Round
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
The two girls failed to get a single stocking two rounds in a row. They were obviously feeling terrible, and felt especially worried about whether this would affect their future. And now, after knowing that the outcome of these two rounds were closely related with Ye Qiu, the two girls couldn’t keep their cool.
Going onto his alternate and pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger, what’s with this guy?
The two girls complained and angrily blacklisted Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim and Listened Promise. They used to have a decent impression of Listened Promise. Even though this guy stole away all the stockings in the end, they had managed to ally together and cheated a powerhouse team like Excellent Era. That feeling of satisfaction filled up the hole from acquiring zero stockings, but after finding out Listened Promise’s identity, the feeling of satisfaction disappeared and what replaced it was a feeling of being cheated. Twice too!
When they checked the Christmas rankings, the two of them still stood out from the regular crowd. However, after two rounds of no stockings, they only stood out by a tiny bit now. Their stunning performance on the first day couldn’t be seen at all today, especially in contrast to the leading teams.
As for Excellent Era’s team, once this round passed, they were doomed to be unable to surpass the second place team of Lord Grim and Steamed Bun Invasion.
Seeing the placings for those two, Lower Your Head and None Dare Attack gnashed their teeth furiously.
The timber has already been turned into a boat though. They could no longer replicate their splendor from the first day. The two were more worried whether the various teams would notice this fall and change their minds, making them value every invite extended to them even more.
In reality, the amount of time for them to consider the offers wasn’t very much.
There were only two transfer windows per year in the Glory Pro Alliance. One was the summer transfer window, lasting for the entirety of July and August. There was plenty of time, and it also took place during the transition between the previous season and the new season. Most transfers occurred during this transfer window.
The other was the winter transfer window, which took place in December.
By December, about a third of the season would be completed. Initially, when December became the winter transfer period, the Alliance didn’t yet have 20 teams. There weren’t as many matches in a season, so back then, December was actually the midway point of the season. As the number of teams increased, the number of matches increased, and December moved closer and closer to the beginning of the season. The Alliance once thought of moving the winter transfer window to January, but the teams felt like having an early transfer window in December was quite nice,
because there usually wouldn’t be any extremely pre-planned important transfers during this period. There were more emergency transfers. For example, if they found out that a new player transferred during the summer window didn’t fit the team, a transfer might be put in place during the winter window. Or if a player suddenly got injured and couldn’t continue playing for the rest of the season, the team might transfer a different player over to replace him. Then, there were also retirement announcements like when Ye Xiu had left the team. That would naturally need someone transferred over as a replacement. For teams, these types of transfers were obviously better earlier on in the season. That way, there would be more time for teams to adjust and fix any issues regarding the roster.
As a result, the discussion on whether to move the winter transfer window to January kept getting dragged on. At least, for season nine, the winter transfer window was still in December. This season’s December was similar to the vast majority of winter transfer windows. Just like the winter cold, there were more teams that traded rather than bought.
Lower Your Head and None Dare Attack weren’t pro players yet. They were transfers that could freely sign a contract, but it wasn’t necessary for them to sign during the beginning of the transfer window. It was 12/26 and there were still five days left until the transfer window closed. If they wanted to join a team earlier, then they needed to make their decision within these five days. The two originally had a lot of confidence, but after fighting against Excellent Era’s pro players, they realized actually fighting them was very different than seeing them play in matches. In addition, their performance on the second day was terrible. They started to worry that delaying their decision might bring them trouble. If they didn’t make their decision in this winter transfer window and waited until the summer, would they still receive this many cordial invitations?
It was time to make the decision that would affect their future!
The two girls logged out of the game and carefully considered their future as pro players.
On Ye Xiu’s side, Listened Promise and Rain had only completed one round of the event. They naturally continued with their second and third round. They didn’t coincidentally encounter Excellent Era these two times, but with Excellent Era not getting a single stocking in one of the rounds, their end total for today instantly became ugly to look at.
"Hahahaha, you did beautifully! Seeing your performance, I’m becoming more and more confident in our chances of victory against Team Excellent Era." Wei Chen was obviously the happiest about this outcome. Excellent Era’s performance today was equivalent to having one less round. Wei Chen’s only chance of losing to them was if his team also gave up on a round.
"Our first place on the team rankings is already set in stone!" Wei Chen laughed delightedly.
"It’s too early to be excited, no? I’ll have to trouble you to open your eyes." Ye Xiu said.
"What? Did something happen?" Wei Chen shouted. He immediately looked at what Ye Xiu was pointing at. Ye Xiu wasn’t pointing at someone else’s team, but rather his own Lord Grim and Steamed Bun duo.
In the round with Lower Your Head and None Dare Attack, they ended up with a grand slam. Their total stocking count naturally wouldn’t be low. Excellent Era’s team had been thrown back, but the two of them were closely chasing Wei Chen’s team. It was possible that if Wei Chen’s luck was poor tomorrow and Ye Xiu’s luck burst out and got another grand slam, first place might just go to the duo.
"Don’t be stupid." Wei Chen said gravely, "Seeing how a grand slam rewards each player, from my understanding, the final ranking rewards will be the same. Us getting first place will get us five rewards, but you guys would only get two. I’m sure even you can do such simple arithmetic."
"Hahahaha." Ye Xiu gave a hollow laugh. He got up and looked at everyone: "Everyone go to sleep early today. Tomorrow, finish up all the quests in the morning. We still have a match tomorrow night."
"It’s just an trivial match. As long as we don’t forget to go, what’s there to worry about?" Wei Chen objected.
Ye Xiu wasn’t sure what to say towards this attitude.
Apart from Team Everlasting, Team Happy had only encountered normal teams. Against these teams, if Ye Xiu stressed how they couldn’t be careless, it would be a bit overboard.
12/27 was the final day of the Christmas event and the ninth round of the Challenger League.
14218 teams had registered for the Challenger League. After eight rounds, only 40 teams remained.
The ninth round would determine the final 20 teams. These 20 teams would be split into four groups. Each group would have five teams, and these five teams would compete in a round robin style tournament. The two teams in the lead would enter the playoffs. The final winner of the playoffs would be the champions for this season’s Challenger League and they would be the team entering the Pro Alliance.
Starting from these 20 teams, the Alliance would organize an offline tournament for everyone. These offline tournaments would have some sponsorship support, as well as media broadcasting. Teams that reached this point would have the qualifications to have a share of the profit.
For normal player teams, reaching this step was already considered a huge success, but having reached this step, many of them would begin scouting other teams and dream of entering the pro scene. Any team that could make it to this step certainly had some real skill. However, their strength could only pale in comparison to a powerhouse team like Excellent Era.
The ninth round was the final test before the offline tournament. What was most important in passing this test? It was obviously luck.
No matter how outstanding you were, if you drew Excellent Era, your journey would end. However, among the 39 teams, there had to be one team, including Happy, that would draw Excellent Era, and because there were fewer teams, the chances of drawing Excellent Era at this stage was the highest.
In the end, a different team sadly drew Excellent Era. Happy could now relax. Meeting Excellent Era early and getting eliminated wouldn’t happen. Because in the round robin, even if they were placed together with Excellent Era in a group, the top two teams in the group would qualify for the next round, so there would be a seat for Happy regardless.
As for meeting Excellent Era later, that would only happen in the finals at the end of the Challenger League. This conformed with Happy’s hopes. What they planned naturally wouldn’t be thwarted beforehand.
On 12/27, Happy cleared their Christmas quests early. Wei Chen’s team ended up sitting at first place. In the individual rankings, first place actually belonged to Mo Fan’s Deception. Wu Chen’s Dawn Rifle, and Tang Rou’s Soft Mist followed afterwards. Then, it was their alternates. All of them were at the very front with considerable achievements.
The rewards wouldn’t be given today though. The presents from the stockings, as well as the ranking rewards, would be given out after today ended and the event concluded.
Everyone in Happy had been through this before. They wouldn’t lose their cool because of these rewards. After finishing their quests, everyone began preparing for their match tonight.
Their opponents tonight was a normal player team called Team Crack. Ye Xiu had looked over a few of their matches before. After confirming it, he concluded that tonight’s match shouldn’t pose any problems for Team Happy. On the other hand, Team Crack was crestfallen. When they drew their opponents, they were initially cheering because they didn’t meet Excellent Era, but after seeing Happy’s name, their cheering stopped.
Team Happy was no longer a team that was taken lightly. They had been covered on Esports Home several times already. Even though many still believed that beating Excellent Era was beyond them, if they themselves had to go on stage, they had no choice but to admit that they had no chance against Happy.
That night, in the ninth round of the Challenger League, Team Happy beat Team Crack; their entry into the offline knockout tournament was decided.
Around the same time, Team Excellent Era also crushed their opponents and was now locked into the offline tournament as well.
"What a pity.... Wouldn’t it be great if they had been eliminated here?" Chen Guo felt regretful.
Ye Xiu smiled. Their match with Excellent Era would eventually come.