Chapter 115.1

Chapter 115.1: Rank-Deciding Match The second round in the regular season would be the rank-deciding matches to determine which teams would be promoted or demoted. The bottom two teams in Group S and the top two teams in Group A would play against each other in the rank-deciding matches. The teams with higher rankings will enter Group S while the ones with lower rankings would drop to Group A. The reason for putting up these rank-deciding matches was to prevent situations such as amateur teams entering Group S and strong teams dropping to Group A from happening. The Tianhuan players returned backstage and went into Team Yueying's lounge straight away after competing. Xu Zhuo immediately walked to Chi Shuo and gave him a hug. "Great job!" He smiled. Ye Shaoyang went to Xie Weiyu and sat down beside him. Xie Weiyu shot a smile at him and said, "The comp you used today was pretty interesting. You won beautifully." Ye Shaoyang replied softly, "Our next match would be the rank-deciding match against Yaoguang." Xie Weiyu quickly adjusted how he was feeling and said, "I'll do my best." Both teams stayed at the live venue and finished watching the last match in Group S which was the match between Yaoguang and Huowen. Finally, Yaoguang lost 1-2. The second round of the group stage matches is over, In Group S, Yaoguang had lost four matches and won one while Langzu had lost all five matches. They were both at risk of being demoted. In Group A, Tianhuan and Yueying were qualified for promotion. These four teams would be separated into the 'rank-deciding zone' and played against each other. In other words, Tianhuan would be playing against Yaoguang and Langzu, while Yueying would also be playing against Yaoguang and Langzu. The top two teams in Group A would PK with the bottom two teams in Group S respectively. This would determine the teams that would get promoted and demoted according to the number of wins and clean wins each team has at the end. The rank-deciding match was scheduled for the next weekend. The match location was at Star City's Esports Center. Xu Zhuo took the initiative to act as the host this time and invited everyone out for supper. Tianhuan and Yueying's players all went somewhere nearby for a hotpot. Chi Shuo, Xu Zhuo, Ye Shaoyang, and Xie Weiyu all sat at the same table. Xu Zhuo said frankly, "Langzu was defeated consecutively five times in Group S and they don't have the strength to stay in Group S. Defeating them shouldn't be difficult. The key here is Yaoguang... Chi Shuo, what are your thoughts?" Chi Shuo responded faintly, "In the rank-deciding match, all ranks and scores of the four participating teams would be reset. Whether a team can enter the top two would be based on the number of matches won and clean wins. It would be best if we can defeat Langzu with a 2-0 and get two clean wins; as for Yaoguang, they would get demoted without a doubt as long as both of our teams are able to defeat them." Xie Weiyu suddenly interrupted, "Yaoguang isn't weak at all. It's just that they didn't manage to keep up with the others' pace, so they didn't do well in Group S." Everyone looked back at him and although Xie Weiyu's face was pale, he spoke very firmly, "I led this team before. Yaoguang's top laner and mid laner are all outstanding players. As for the marksman Yu'mao who was signed on this season, although..." Ye Shaoyang helped him finish his words. “Although he's arrogant, he indeed has the ability to back it up. He played the Godly Sniper pretty well and his long-range sniping is particularly accurate. He even achieved a pentakill before."  Xie Weiyu forced out a smile and nodded, "Correct. So, we can't be too careless." Xu Zhuo frowned, "This young kid had just made his debut but he's already acting so complacent. Their boss is even more disgusting, frequently buying water armies to comment and hype themselves. They've bribed the media and articles about them are being released non-stop. I think we'd better not surf the Internet in the following week, or we might come across negative news about ourselves." The schedule of the rank-deciding matches was quickly released. 8th May, Tianhuan vs Yaoguang at 7 p.m. and Yueying vs Langzu at 9 p.m. on Saturday night; 9th May, Yueying vs Yaoguang at 7 p.m. and Tianhuan vs Langzu at 9 p.m. on Sunday night. After these four matches had ended, two of the teams would officially enter Group S as new teams based on the number of matches won and clean wins. The remaining two teams would be demoted back to Group A. A week passed by peacefully, and Tianhuan was making the best use of their time by practicing their comps. On Friday night, everyone flew to Star City. Ye Shaoyang was on his way to the hotel. Feeling bored, he opened his Weibo and unexpectedly came across a hot search—— #Ranking of the marksmen in Gods War S10 according to strength# An ID called 'Gods War's Professional Stats Master' had published a ranking on his Weibo that specifically compared the performance of all the marksmen in major teams this season. It factored in their average kills per game, their KDA score, the number of MVP titles they had taken, and many more. Ranked number one is Team Beimu's Zhao Xinping. She had taken 11 MVP titles in total. The second-ranked player was unexpectedly Team Yaoguang's marksman, Yu'mao. He had ten MVP titles in total. This was including the eight MVP titles he had taken consecutively in Group A and the two MVP titles from Yaoguang's winning games in Group S. His average kills per game was seven and his KDA score was nine and a half. His stats were extremely showy. The third is Jingzhe's marksman, JZ——I'm very round. The number of MVP titles Xie Yuan had gotten was six and it's not that he played badly, but that Fang Zhengqing had taken more than half of Jingzhe's MVP titles. It was very obvious that the both of them didn't plan on competing for the grand MVP prize this season. They wouldn't give each other kills, whoever wants to take the MVP title can take it. Further down the ranking would be the marksmen from other teams in Group S and Group A. Xie Weiyu was ranked sixth. And Cheng Xing... was ranked first from the bottom. Cheng Xing's stats were indeed pitiful. He had only taken two MVP titles while his average kills per game were only three. The marksman in most teams is the core damage dealers. However, the performance of the mid/jungle duo is too outstanding and most of the kills go to either Chi Shuo or Ye Shaoyang. The player with the most MVP titles under his belt is also Ye Shaoyang, resulting in Cheng Xing's depressing ranking among the marksmen. Actually, rankings that focus on just a single role are meaningless. That's because the circumstances for every team are different. The main reason behind Tianhuan's marksman's poor stats was due to the mid laner taking most of the MVP titles. Like Jingzhe's Xie Yuan who ranked lower than Yaoguang's Yu'mao, does that mean Xie Yuan was worse than Yu'mao? Weren't Yaoguang still completely dominated by Jingzhe during their game? Besides, so what if he got many MVP titles in Group A? Not being able to get an MVP title in Group S just proves that your strength is still inadequate. Ye Shaoyang scanned the comments section and sure enough, a group of brainless fans started to brainlessly flatter Yaoguang's new marksman. 【Yu'mao is still a newcomer but he actually managed to take 10 MVP titles, how amazing!】 【Debuting with a pentakill, the marksman with the most outstanding performance this season is Yu'mao】 Please read this at PandaTL. I do not give permission for other sites to post this translation. 【The top three marksmen in the League last season were Beimu's Xinping, Jingzhe's Round Round, and Yaoguang's Little Yu. The top three marksmen for this season should probably be Beimu's Xinping, Jingzhe's Round Round, and Yaoguang's Yu'mao!】 【Little Yu is a thing of the past. His stats are so poor to the point where no one bears to see it. Putting him with Xinping-jie is truly insulting her】 【After he transferred to Yueying, Yueying's performance fell sharply. He's definitely the tumor on his team】 【All of you are discussing about Little Yu, but has no one paid attention to Fanxing who's ranked first from the bottom?】 【The player with the highest number of times of being carried to victory this season is none other than Tianhuan's Little Xingxing】 【If Little Xing isn't already dead, then he is on his way to being killed. Tianhuan’s bottom lane had already become hopeless】 【If not because his master is Tianhuan's captain, would he even make it to the starting lineup?】 【Lieyang still has some standards but for Xingxing, isn't it only right to call him the league's weakest marksman?】 【Who asked him to have such an amazing master? His grandmaster is even Tianhuan's shareholder】 【If he was in other teams, he would definitely be scolded to death with his kind of level. If he's in Tianhuan, he just needs to wait to be carried to victory】 【Tianhuan's Fanxing's strength lies in getting carried to victory】 Ye Shaoyang's eyebrows were furrowed. The release timing of this ranking was too perfect. The official league would release all players' stats rankings during the season but the 'marksmen rankings' that were suddenly published today highlighted Yaoguang's Yu'mao's excellent stats, as well as Xie Weiyu and Cheng Xing's terrible ones. It wasn't possible to only look at a single role when looking at stats. This was something every professional player understood. If Qin Yizhu was singled out, he would also be the league's first ranked top laner from the bottom, because he acted as Tianhuan's anti-pressure top laner that helped his teammates tank damage and die in their stead. This would definitely cause him to have way more deaths than others. However, netizens won't care about all these details. They would pop up collectively and take the chance to ridicule Xie Weiyu and Cheng Xing. The whole situation made it difficult for people not to dig deeper into it. Furthermore, the pattern of the comments was very strange. Some would pretend to be Zhao Xinping's fans and take the chance to step on Xie Weiyu, saying that Little Yu was unworthy of being compared with the top marksmen in the league; there were even some who pretended to be Jingzhe's fans and mocked Cheng Xing. They even came up with a rhyme that says 'Tianhuan's Fanxing, strength lies in getting carried to victory', and continuously spammed it on the Internet. There were many keyboard warriors and black fans on the Internet all along but in most cases, they would only appear and insult the team after they had lost a match. For example, if Tianhuan lost and it was Cheng Xing's fault, it would be perfectly normal for the black fans to suddenly emerge and start scolding him. However, Tianhuan didn't compete today, and they had even won the previous match beautifully. Yet, there were suddenly a bunch of people who appeared and insulted Cheng Xing, calling him the 'league's weakest marksman'. It definitely seemed a little strange. Ye Shaoyang sent the link regarding the hot search to Chi Shuo and typed: [Is it Yaoguang who's playing tricks behind the scenes again?] Chi Shuo: [Probably, I also saw it just now. This ranking was really published at the perfect timing.] Ye Shaoyang frowned: [We're competing tomorrow. Don't let Little Xing see it, it'll affect his mental state.] Chi Shuo: [...He had already seen it.] Ye Shaoyang looked to the side, only to see Cheng Xing holding his phone and scrolling through Weibo, his face becoming pale.  Little Xing had a habit of taking photos whenever he went to a new city then posting it on Moments to save as a memory. But everyone had been to Star City many times before, and the playoffs in S9 were hosted there. There was also not much to take on the road from the airport to the hotel, hence, he could only surf Weibo out of boredom——and coincidentally saw this topic. The league's weakest marksman. Stats that were so bad that they couldn't be shown. If not because his master was Tianhuan's captain, would he be in the starting lineup with the level his skills were at? Tianhuan's Fanxing, strength lies in getting carried to victory. Those sarcastic and nasty comments caused Cheng Xing's expression to become extremely ugly. The youth's fingers clutched the phone stiffly and his eyes were a little red. These words were just like the tip of a needle that poked deep into his heart and hit his most sensitive spot—— He had always been carried to victory. If there wasn't Yang-ge and master, he wouldn't be able to turn the tides at all. He's indeed... Tianhuan's weakest existence. TL/n: Second part of sponsored chapter by Pazzapiz and Sakurachan! Thank you!