Chapter 263 - Opening of the Group Stage
Chapter 263 – Opening of the Group Stage
During the training at the hot springs hotel, Li Cangyu and Ling Xuefeng had carefully studied the key players at this World Competition. They had long been familiar with the style and characteristics of most players. However, the players from many countries in the World Competition changed their IDs when they registered, making it harder.
Still, they had a clear idea of the professional configuration and key players of the national teams. LIng Xuefeng was a master of PPT production and specifically made introduction materials on the players from each country for Li Cangyu’s future use. As Li Cangyu said, he was simply very intimate with Xuefeng.
The Australian team was indeed a weak team in the current World Competition but they had four players with very high personal standards. They were the bard William, the swordsman James, the blood kin assassin Riley and the black magician Matthew. Among them, the bard William was ranked high in the world and he was also the captain of the current Australian team.
As far as Li Cangyu was concerned, Tan Shitian’s personal strength wasn’t much worse than William’s. However, Tan Shitian’s debut was relatively late. As a young captain, most of his energy was invested into the management of the Time team. The rest of his time was on Weibo, writing stories and drawing comics. This was very popular and his fans weren’t obsessed with the rankings. They would rather see his small paragraphs.
This created a strange phenomenon. Tan Shitian’s popularity in China was so high that he was affectionately called the Storytelling God, while his international popularity was very low.
In the world’s Miracle circle, the elf bard was also known as the archer class. The number of masters was particularly large and the rankings changed every year. For example, there was Kim Yoonhee of South Korea, William of Australia, Thomas of the United States, etc. However, very few people had heard of Tan Shitian of China.
Most of the people who knew Tan Shitian were from the World Carnival last year. Tan Shitian’s performance in the 3v3 project wasn’t bad but everyone’s impression of him was just that. On the other hand, Su Guangmo and Lou Wushuang had higher recognition in the world and they had more fans.
Tan Shitian was a bit invisible in comparison.
He didn’t mind this. He smiled and bickered with Cheng Wei all day and was very polite to his seniors. As the best-tempered captain in the Chinese Miracle League, there were no signs of a god on his body.
Still, Li Cangyu knew this young man wasn’t simple.
Among the new generation captains, Tan Shitian was the most powerful one. It was just that he always loved bullying Cheng Wei and his teasing of Cheng Wei made people feel he wasn’t stable. They didn’t realize he had never dropped the ball on the field.
***
After introducing the ace Australian players, Li Cangyu said very simply, “I have studied it with Xuefeng. In this economic battle, Tan Shitian will command and select the people.”
Tan Shitian was startled. “Me?”
There were so many captains present. He didn’t expect that in the first match, Cat God would hand over the heavy responsibility of commander to him.
Li Cangyu glanced over at him. “Captain Tan, are you questioning your own strength?”
“That’s not it.” Tan Shitian touched his nose and smiled. “I thought Captain Su or Captain Lou would command. I am new…”
Su Guangmo patted him on the shoulder and directly interrupted. “Don’t pretend. You might be the youngest captain here but you have debuted for at least three years.”
Li Cangyu added, “Captain Tan doesn’t have to be modest. Although the strength of the first opponent isn’t too high, many of us are abroad for the first time. We are still adapting to the environment here. Some people still have jet lag and might not necessarily play as well as they did in the domestic league. It is most crucial to stabilize our state in this game.”
Tan Shitian listened to Cat God and was no longer polite. He knew that his responsibility was great and put away his smile. “Okay, I will try it.” He looked around and easily named people. “I will command using the kite flow tactics. Lu Xiao, Cheng Wei, Liu Xiang, Yang Muzi and Meng Jie will fight with me.”
This decisiveness was worthy of the handsome Time team’s captain.
The named people raised their hands to express their understanding while Li Cangyu looked at them with appreciation.
“Next up is the death racing mode.” Li Cangyu continued. “The rhythm of death racing is very fast. I suggest that you take a healer to stabilize the situation. This will be commanded by Captain Su.”
Su Guangmo nodded, looked at the remaining people and soon decided the lineup. “Xiao Yu, Ah Shu, Daddy Bai and Vice-Captain Yan will fight with me.”
Three melee attackers were sufficient. Bai Xuan’s survivability was guaranteed and Yan Ruiwen’s black magician could play a controlling role. The lineup selected by Su Guangmo was quite balanced and stable. In the first match, adopting this stable and winning lineup was the most rational arrangement.
Li Cangyu looked over the remaining players. “I will arrange the arena using the rest of the people.”
He clearly understood the national team and didn’t need Tan Shitian and Su Guangmo to repeat their lineups. He directly named people. “Zhuo Hang and Captain Jiang, the two hunters will be responsible for the opening.”
Jiang Xu had always been a stable person and he nodded to express his understanding.
Zhuo Hang looked a bit excited as he cried out, “No problem!”
Li Cangyu went on to say, “Xiao Han and Qin Mo will play the second round.”
This arrangement surprised many people, especially the named Xiao Han and Qin Mo. Qin Mo hadn’t expected that they would be allowed to play as partners in the first match of the World Competition.
“What is it?” Li Cangyu saw that the two of them didn’t speak and asked, “Is there a problem?”
Qin Mo’s spirit returned and he replied with firm eyes, “No problem!”
Xiao Han also said, “I also have no problem. I am just very extremely surprised.”
What was with the very extremely surprised? Young man, isn’t your Chinese becoming more ridiculous?
Li Cangyu was forced to ignore his apprentice’s mistake and continued, “The Lou Zhang combination will be responsible for the ending.”
Zhang Shaohui revealed a bright smile. “No problem! Give it to me and my brother!”
Lou Wushuang pushed up his glasses and nodded at Li Cangyu.
Li Cangyu quickly typed on the keyboard and placed the lineup on the big screen, so that everyone could check it. The 17 people who could play were very happy. For the rest, Chu Yan and Zhu Qingyue were psychics and their compatibility with other classes was relatively low. They were very clear that the main reason why they joined the national team was to deal with the illusion flow genre of the European teams.
Guo Xuan’s fixed partner Yan Ruiwen was transferred to Su Guangmo’s death racing team so he had no complaints.
The eyes of the group focused on Li Cangyu and Ling Xuefeng.
Cheng Wei couldn’t help asking, “What about Cat God?”
“Me? Isn’t everything already arranged?”
“…” Cheng Wei’s eyes widened. “You mean, you aren’t playing?”
Li Cangyu smiled. “I have other tasks to do with Xuefeng. We have to study the situation of the other two countries in Group B. Italy and Spain are both strong and we can’t make mistakes.”
Cheng Wei looked at him with confusion. “Is that so?”
“Yes.” Ling Xuefeng’s cold voice was heard from the side, apparently to help Cat God. Captain Ling’s tone was very clear. The word might be simple but it was convincing.
“…” Everyone had to stop asking questions.
The mobile commanders, Tan Shitian and Su Guangmo knew that the combination of Ling Cat was as terrible as a biochemical weapon. It couldn’t be exposed in advance. To be honest, using the best matchup in the group stage was just stupid. There was no need for the Ling Cat combination to deal with Australia. Tan Shitian and Su Guangmo could handle it.
***
In the evening, Bai Xuan and Xie Shurong gave the translated rules to everyone.
Dressing neatly, not insulting opponents, no typing on the public screen during the game etc. The rules were the same as China.
However, some of the rules of the World Competition created a heated discussion.
“When randomly selecting maps, maps freely submitted by the countries can’t have two disabled at the same time. Does this mean that if two of the maps submitted by China appear in the same match, the other side can only ban one?” The first to speak was the always lively Cheng Wei.
“According to this rule, I guess that the World League has adjusted the probability of the random maps.” Tan Shitian carefully analyzed. “The possibility of the country maps appearing in the match is very large. Otherwise, there are so many maps and they won’t easily appear. If the map is banned as a result, the submission of maps by the countries will be in vain.”
Zhang Shaohui jumped forward in agreement. “This is nice if it is the case! Then our designers didn’t waste time creating the five pitfalls!”
“I wish Australia would encounter the eight-trigram array. Wouldn’t they directly surrender?”
“I’m curious about the map submitted by Australia. Won’t it be full of kangaroos?”
The crowd was so excited that they almost couldn’t sleep.
Three days passed quickly. The first Miracle World Competition finally officially opened at 8 o’clock on the morning of October 3rd.