League: I really didn't tank!

Chapter 276 The Battle of Interstellar Geniuses!

Previously, Chen Dongqing and Park Yunlong had studied the StarCraft tournament format.

Like League of Legends, StarCraft has a highly prestigious year-end global championship called WCS.

At the end of each year, 16 of the world's top StarCraft II players gather together to compete for the ultimate championship.

However, obtaining these sixteen spots is by no means easy.

According to the rules, the Korean GSL league will directly determine eight of the slots – as the Korean region is undoubtedly the strongest region in the world, this rule is not unreasonable.

GSL is divided into three stages each year. The champion of each stage, as well as the top five players in points other than the champion, will directly advance to WCS.

However, if you are not a player from the Korean region, you must qualify through the tournament if you want to advance to the final global finals.

The tour consists of four stops: Shanghai, Jönköping, Valencia, and Montreal.

The tour champion, along with the four players with the highest cumulative points besides the champion, also advanced to the final.

In short, with sixteen spots available, you either win the championship or earn points.

But for LOL professional player Chen Dongqing, he doesn't have time to earn points game by game, nor does he have time to win the championship in the GSL with its strict promotion and relegation system.

So there is only one path in front of him, which is to advance by winning the Shanghai leg of the tour!

Therefore, this championship is very important to him.

Whether he can continue down the path of StarCraft depends on whether he can win this tournament.

Of course, Chen Dongqing didn't feel much pressure.

He knows his StarCraft skill level well; it's definitely not bad.

Let's not even talk about his domestic Gold League championship; the prestige of that championship is not as high as his 6,000 points in the Korean server.

Although you won't encounter the top Korean players at this rank, the unprecedented win rate speaks for itself, so the skill level is definitely not low.

Chen Dongqing checked the time.

Today is May 25th. The Shanghai leg of the competition will begin on May 29th, with a few days of rest in between.

Chen Dongqing and Lin Yuanhua first took their luggage home and stayed with their parents for two days before returning to the base on the evening of May 28.

At this time, the LOL division had already gone on holiday, and there were no players in the training room, only coaches and analysts were busy.

Park Un-yong is one of the coaches, but he is not responsible for LOL data, so he just sits on the sidelines playing StarCraft.

After Chen Dongqing went over, he first went back to his room to put away his backpack, and then returned to the training room, where he stood behind Park Yunlong to watch the game.

Chen Dongqing is different now than he was at the beginning of the year. When he watches Coach Park's games again, he can see many flaws with his sharp eyes.

Coach Park is still playing Zerg, which he is good at. Actually, Coach Park's skill level is not bad, at least his win rate is quite high. It's just that he doesn't play it for long, which is why his score hasn't gone up.

But this time, Coach Park seems to have suffered a major setback.

His opponent in this game, a human, played quite cunningly, not launching any offensive attacks at all, but just building defensive structures, laying out fortress turrets layer by layer, highlighting a steady and defensive approach.

Park Unryong's repeated attacks were repelled by the defensive towers, and his troops suffered some minor losses.

However, the Terran player on the other side did not take advantage of the Zerg's weakened forces to launch a counterattack, and continued to build structures, which was extremely annoying.

Chen Dongqing watched from behind, his eyes squinting.

He now has a certain understanding of StarCraft and knows this tactic.

This tactic utilizes the high health and AOE damage of the Terran fortress after its upgrade, as well as the Terran peasants' ability to repair buildings, to deplete the opponent's troops and resources at a very low cost. It focuses on a defensive, turtling strategy, essentially a battle of attrition.

Once this tactic was perfected, the landscape was filled with buildings, and the sheer volume of mechanical troops made it resemble a bustling city, hence the name "urbanization."

This tactic has never been effective against Chen Dongqing because the weakness of the urbanization tactic is its poor mobility, while Chen Dongqing's excellent micro-management and multi-management skills are the nemesis of this cumbersome enemy.

At this point, it was clear that Coach Park was quite disgusted by this tactic, but there was nothing he could do, since this tactic was designed specifically to counter the Zerg.

Chen Dongqing watched for ten minutes but couldn't make out anything. He did notice that Park Yunlong's stomping was getting more and more frequent.

Why are you chopping off my feet?

Just as Chen Dongqing was wondering to himself, Park Yunlong suddenly stood up and said to Chen Dongqing, "Help me play for a bit, I need to go to the bathroom!"

Chen Dongqing: "."

He suddenly understood why Coach Park stomped his feet.

The body of a middle-aged man is truly tragic.

Coach Park ran while calling back, "You don't know how to play Zerg, so just keep mining and building units, and wait for me to come back!"

Chen Dongqing raised an eyebrow, sat down in Coach Park's chair, and began to operate.

It was a long-awaited StarCraft game, but Chen Dongqing didn't seem out of practice at all, and his skills were incredibly fast.

"."

Two minutes later, Coach Park walked back to the locker room.

This long process of letting him go has allowed him to fully relax, and now he is in peak condition. He is determined to teach that turtle human a lesson!

He peeked over and saw that his seat was empty; Chen Dongqing had already returned to his seat.

Coach Park frowned.

We lost?

That's a bit of a downer.

He quickly walked back to his seat, but the result surprised him.

A clear "Victory" sign is displayed on the screen!

What's going on?

Coach Park was slightly taken aback, then turned and asked, "How did you suddenly win?"

Chen Dongqing raised an eyebrow: "You only have 4,000 points. If I can't even beat someone with 4,000 points, what's the point of me playing professionally?"

"No!" Coach Park said in disbelief, "You clearly can't play Zerg!"

Chen Dongqing grew up under Park Yunlong's nose. This guy has clearly never played a few Zerg games, so where does his Zerg proficiency come from?

Chen Dongqing smiled mysteriously, "Who said I don't know how to play?"

Do you understand the value of having all three races' proficiency at max level?

Park Unryong, refusing to believe it, sat back down and turned on the recording to take a look.

He needed to see how Chen Dongqing managed to crush the opponent in just over a minute.

While urbanization is a disgusting tactic, its drawbacks are also obvious, namely its poor mobility.

Therefore, if you use ranged units such as the Brood Lord, along with a little bit of strategic vision and micro-management, you can slowly whittle down the Terran army and defensive buildings by kiting them.

In the context of League of Legends, that would be using Vayne to counter Darius.

As long as you play steadily, you can still win even if you are two items behind Darius.

At the same time, urbanization also places high demands on users.

After all, this is a gameplay mode that requires maintaining high-speed construction for a long time, which places high demands on the user's concentration and endurance.

Even if you place just one of your buildings improperly, leaving gaps, the Zerg could easily exploit these openings.

Park Unryong dragged the progress bar to the last two minutes and was immediately amazed.

Chen Dongqing's actions were practically a textbook example of how the Zerg could counter urbanization.

They accurately exploited the weaknesses in the Terran's building layout, used their mobility to quickly relocate the battlefield, and frequently harassed the enemy.

In just half a minute, the human race's construction and expansion were suppressed and forced to a halt.

Half a minute later, the Zerg had already begun to slowly encroach on the Terran territory.

In half a minute, the game will end.

In just one and a half minutes, he easily defeated the opponent he hadn't been able to beat in half an hour.

Although I have personally witnessed too many inhuman scenes of Chen Dongqing.

But this time, Park Unyong was still shocked.

This person's talent is always so disgusting!

Coach Park reluctantly stood up and sat down next to Chen Dongqing to begin a formal discussion about the upcoming tour.

Coach Park began by asking, "Have you looked at the format and opponents for this tour?"

Chen Dongqing shook his head: "I didn't see it."

"The match is tomorrow, and you don't even know who your opponent is?"

"Yes," Chen Dongqing replied calmly.

It wasn't that he didn't want to look it up; the main problem was that he couldn't find any information about the competition on Baidu.

"..." Park Unryong sighed and said, "Then let's have a brief chat."

"As for the tournament format, it's quite simple, similar to your MSI tournament, divided into the Play-In Stage, Group Stage, and Knockout Stage. However, since you are the Gold League champion, you directly advanced to the Group Stage as a seeded player."

"The qualifying rounds concluded yesterday, with 16 players advancing to the group stage. They will join you 16 seeded players, making a total of 32 players, in the group stage to compete for the final 16 knockout stage spots."

"Finally, the sixteen players progress through a best-of-five (BO5) elimination tournament, culminating in a best-of-seven (BO7) final to determine the ultimate champion. Do you understand?"

"OK." Chen Dongqing nodded. "The format doesn't matter, I'll just play according to their instructions. What about the competitors? Are there any top players this time?"

"There are definitely skilled players, but they won't be exceptionally skilled," Park Unyong said. "After all, the tournament is mainly for non-Korean players, and non-Korean players are destined not to be top-tier players."

Upon hearing this, Chen Dongqing pursed his lips slightly.

South Koreans are even more dominant in StarCraft than in League of Legends.

Since South Korea introduced StarCraft to its esports ecosystem, generations of outstanding players have allowed South Korea to maintain its dominance in this game for nearly 20 years. From the early WCG to the current WCS, they have never relinquished the championship in top-tier tournaments.

So even though Chen Dongqing, a top genius who reached his peak right from the start, emerged in the domestic StarCraft community, domestic players only saw him as a hope, and did not really believe that he could win the championship.

Park Yun-yong took the mouse and keyboard from Chen Dong-qing and opened a website on his computer, which contained a list of the thirty-two players participating in the group stage.

Among them, the four IDs with the .CN prefix—ilex, Macsed, iA, and Time—are clearly present.

The GPL Gold League is divided into four stages. Chen Dongqing was only the champion of the first stage. In the second stage, iA and Time made it to the finals, so they also qualified for the seeding of this tournament.

Park Unryong pointed to the IDs and continued, "We're not considering domestic players. Our main opponents this time are basically just these few."

As he spoke, Park Unryong pointed out several IDs.

Neeb, Showtime, Scarlett, Serral.

Chen Dongqing squinted at the four people, and surprisingly, he actually recognized two of them.

Scarlett was someone Park Un-ryong introduced him to when he first started playing StarCraft. He was known as a genius, the Canadian Zerg Queen, and snatched a small-to-medium-sized tournament championship from the Koreans after only 18 months of playing StarCraft. He has always been called a genius.

Of course, the title of "genius" is somewhat less relevant to Chen Dongqing now. But their clash in this tour is certainly an interesting point.

Then there's Serral.

This ID is quite special. Chen Dongqing didn't meet it after playing StarCraft, but before he was reborn.

He remembered that this person was the 2018 annual champion, the first non-Korean player to break the more than 20-year dominance of Korean players. In that year, this name was quite famous in the e-sports circle.

This championship holds the same significance in the European and American StarCraft scene as IG's first LPL title in the same year, possessing unprecedented groundbreaking value.

But in 2017, this person, like Chen Dongqing, was a newcomer.

As for the two mentioned earlier, Chen Dongqing was not familiar with them.

But Park Unryong quickly began introducing them to him: "Showtime, the German God-King; Neeb, the American God-King; Scarlett, the Canadian Queen; Serral, the Finnish King. You should be able to tell what race they are from their nicknames."

Chen Dongqing asked, "Are any of these people in my group?"

"Yes!" Park Unryong nodded and said, "Scarlett is in the same group as you in tomorrow's group stage, and he poses the biggest threat to you."

Chen Dongqing thought for a moment and asked, "Is this person a Zerg player?"

"Yes."

Chen Dongqing smiled and said, "Then it's alright."

5 month 29 number.

Chen Dongqing put on the QG club's team uniform again and arrived at the Shanghai World Expo Center with Park Yunlong.

The competition was held in the multi-functional hall of the Shanghai World Expo Center, which can accommodate 3,000 spectators, making it a stage of moderate size.

The group formation ceremony and other similar things were all taken care of after the qualifying rounds ended the day before yesterday, so the players in the group stage only need to play according to the schedule.

As soon as Chen Dongqing stepped into the backstage area of the competition venue, he saw a large group of contestants already standing there.

Upon seeing Chen Dongqing's arrival, many people's eyes showed a hint of something unusual.

League of Legends competitions are undoubtedly one of the largest esports competitions in the world today.

Furthermore, given that Riot Games itself had a plan to create a legend around Chen Dongqing, and with Riot's deliberate promotion, Chen Dongqing's image is now widely known around the world.

The news of QG winning the MSI championship some time ago has already spread to major esports media outlets around the world.

Even StarCraft players have all heard of it.

Furthermore, Riot Games would certainly not use the fact that one of its players has crossed over to other games for publicity.

Therefore, many foreigners are unaware that Chen Dongqing is also participating in a professional interstellar game.

So when they saw Chen Dongqing carrying a keyboard and walking backstage, they were all wondering, what is this guy here for?

Aren't you a League of Legends player?

At this moment, the other three members of CN Starship also came over and greeted Chen Dongqing.

"Brother Tree!" Time immediately called out Chen Dongqing's nickname, praising, "I watched the MSI matches, they were awesome!"

Chen Dongqing smiled and said, "What's going on? Shouldn't you be playing in the GPL in May? How come you still have time to watch the games?"

When Chen Dongqing arrived, he even searched online for the results of the second stage of the GPL Gold League.

In the second stage, Li Peinan performed quite well, defeating Macsed, the runner-up of the first stage, and successfully advancing to the final. Unfortunately, he encountered his father iA in the final and suffered another defeat.

Fortunately, the runner-up can also participate in this Shanghai station competition.

The four strongest players in CN StarCraft right now are all here.

"I only watched the finals; my match was already over by then," Time said honestly. "I think LOL is pretty fun; it's very interesting to watch."

Upon hearing this, Hu Xiang and iA, who were standing next to him, both changed their expressions.

Although Time has always been a comedic character, he was born in June 2000 and is a true future leader of CN StarCraft.

If Chen Dongqing were to steer this towards League of Legends, that would be completely out of line.

Chen Dongqing chuckled upon hearing this: "No, no, you are the true hope for the future of Chinese StarCraft! The world championship is waiting for you!"

Time looked on incredulously: "With my skill level, how could I possibly win a world championship?"

Li Peinan has been a professional player for two years, but he hasn't even won a domestic championship. He's been constantly taught a lesson by iA, and his fighting spirit has been worn down.

"You know, nothing is impossible in this world." Chen Dongqing patted Li Peinan on the shoulder. "Just keep going."

Chen Dongqing's words were always persuasive, and they filled Li Peinan with a sense of pride, prompting him to nod vigorously.

Time continued to pass quickly, and it was time for the game to begin.

The group stage schedule is very simple: the 32 players are divided into eight groups and play a double round-robin format within each group for six days. The top two players from each group advance to the knockout stage.

In other words, each person plays one best-of-three (BO3) game per day, for a total of 16 BO3 games per day, and the results will be determined after six days.

As the host announced the start of the competition, the first day of the competition quickly commenced.

The order of the matches is also very simple, it's one group at a time. After Group A finishes its two matches, it's Group B's turn. Chen Dongqing is in the sixth group, which is Group F, so he has to wait a while.

Chen Dongqing wasn't in a hurry. He sat down in a chair and watched the big TV backstage with the other contestants.

Chen Dongqing didn't recognize most of the StarCraft players around him, but that didn't stop him from watching their StarCraft duel with great interest, to see just how good they were.

However, it must be said that, as foreign players, those who come to Shanghai to compete are clearly the best in their respective countries.

Moreover, in recent years, the level of StarCraft players in Europe and America has clearly surpassed that of domestic players. Therefore, Chen Dongqing could clearly see that the tactical level of these players was slightly higher than that of domestic players.

But it's not much higher.

After watching two groups, Chen Dongqing had already made a prediction about their skill level.

That's all.

It seems we'll have to face off against the South Korean players.

Just then, the Group B matches began.

iA stood up, greeted Chen Dongqing and the other two, and then went up on stage.

His opponent in this match was quite tough. His name was uThermal, a professional player from the Netherlands. He was nicknamed "Chang Wei" because he often used one or two ships or a few Reapers to wipe out the entire opposing team. He was one of the "Six Gentlemen of Shanghai".

As for how the title "Six Gentlemen of Shanghai" came about.

Just a few days ago, during Huang Xudong's live stream, a viewer asked him about the Shanghai leg of the tour, asking him, in his professional opinion, what the chances of Ilex winning were.

Huang Xudong waved his hand and immediately began to offer his opinions:

"Ilex was playing in the MSI for League of Legends this month, and he just got back to China and now he's playing StarCraft. How can he be in competitive form? He's probably just playing around with the competition."

"I'm telling you guys, Ilex won't win. The champion will definitely be one of these six: Showtime, uThermal, Major, Scarlett, Serral, and Neeb. If I'm wrong, I'll just go straight to COSD.va at this year's GPL finals."

It's been an open secret that CN's StarCraft skills aren't great, so this statement is quite reasonable.

However, since these words were spoken by Du Naise, countless people immediately started making jokes and calling the six people named by Huang Xudong the "Six Gentlemen of Shanghai".

Of course, despite the "poisonous prediction" rhetoric, these six gentlemen must have some real talent to have been singled out by Master Xudong.

Chen Dongqing sat in a chair, watching the battle between humans and insects.

Logically speaking, as the domestic Zerg King who has repeatedly taught Li Peinan a lesson, iA should have a wealth of experience against Terran.

However, abundance is also relative.

The difference became apparent when he faced uThermal; all the strategies and experience he had against Li Peinan were completely ineffective against this European player.

The two sides were tied 1-1 at first, but in the decisive third game, iA made a scouting mistake in the middle of the game and failed to detect the opponent's flanking attack, and was eventually overwhelmed.

"What a pity, what a pity." Chen Dongqing comforted iA when he saw her return.

"It's nothing." iA remained calm, not taking it to heart.

For him, failure is the norm, and victory is the surprise.

Over the years, repeated failures in international competitions have left me with a sense of numbing disappointment.

In the StarCraft Old Boys livestream, Sun Yifeng sighed softly and said, "iA actually played very well this game, but he was just a little weak in the mid-game, otherwise he would have won!"

Huang Xudong glanced at the schedule and said, "In that case, we can only place our hopes on Coach Sed. He should be able to help us get our first win, right?"

After the Group B matches concluded, the Group C matches began quickly, and this time there were also domestic players.

Macsed took to the stage to face off.

Macsed's opponent this time was an unknown European Protoss player who had made it through the qualifying rounds.

Theoretically speaking, Macsed has a very high chance of winning this game.

But what happened on stage was a huge surprise.

Because of the Protoss's warp mechanic, Protoss civil wars have always been a stage for competing in terms of ghoul tactics.

It's all about creativity and brains.

But unexpectedly, Hu Xiang seemed to be unable to defend against the opponent's dog-like moves in this game, and was at a huge disadvantage in two consecutive games!

The two games were almost identical, with Macsed gradually falling into a disadvantage during the game's operation, and the disadvantage eventually became too great, leading to defeat.

At this moment, the live broadcast room was filled with question marks.

"Ah??? What happened to Sed teacher?" Huang Xudong cried out in the live stream, "We shouldn't have lost!"

After losing this match, the situation for today's game is not optimistic.

After Group C ended, we waited for Group D, and then all the way to Group E, before domestic players took the stage again.

This time it's Time's turn to take the stage, but his opponent is someone of great caliber.

Serral, the king of the Finnish insects.

The future world champion, and the biggest favorite in this tour.

Time is still far from being fully developed. He hasn't even overcome his mental block against iA, so how can he possibly beat such a top player?

Without a doubt, Time lost again, 0-2.

In Shanghai, their home turf, three domestic players suffered consecutive defeats!

This was a significant blow to the audience who had come specifically to watch the game, and countless spectators shook their heads in dismay.

If Ilex loses again, they really need to reconsider whether they should come to watch tomorrow's game.

At this moment, the chat room of StarCraft Old Boys was filled with countless discussions.

【send!】

Of course I'll send it! You don't really think you can win, do you?

That's hard to say, trust Brother Tree!

[You can still trust League of Legends, but StarCraft? That's highly unlikely!]

"But it's going to be tough for Ilex too!" Huang Xudong said with a frown in the live stream. "His opponents are too tough!"

The Group E matches have now ended, and we've finally moved on to Group F, the sixth group.

On the right side of the live broadcast room, you can see the players for the next match.

Ilex vs. Scarlett.

One is a top genius who came from the League of Legends world championship and won the domestic championship after only two or three months of playing StarCraft.

One is a recognized genius who snatched a mid-sized tournament championship from the Koreans after only eighteen months of playing StarCraft.

This match was truly a battle of geniuses.

Backstage, Chen Dongqing had already taken out his peripherals and was preparing to go on stage.

Time, Macsed, and iA quickly came over to cheer Chen Dongqing on.

Chen Dongqing asked with a smile, "I haven't played StarCraft for months, do you really trust me that much?"

"I can't disbelieve you!" Macsed said with a wry smile, "We've sent them all, except for yours."

If they lose all four matches today, Macsed doesn't even want to imagine what the esports forums will say about them.

"Don't worry, leave it to me," Chen Dongqing said with a smile. "I've never lost to the Zerg."

After speaking, Chen Dongqing quickly stepped onto the stage.

At this moment, countless contestants present also turned their attention to this.

Serral, the king of the Finnish insects, was also watching the big screen intently.

They all wanted to know just how strong this League of Legends world champion really was.

Once on stage, Chen Dongqing saw his opponent.

The person in front of me had a feminine face, long blonde hair, and was dressed in women's clothing.

It has to be said that it is quite strange to see a female player like this in an esports competition dominated by men.

Chen Dongqing had heard that this person was born intersex and confirmed his female gender through surgery at the age of thirteen.

Of course, she still retained some of her male interests, such as enjoying playing video games, and being quite skilled at it.

When she first started participating in professional competitions, she chose to compete in the women's division, but she gave up after playing a few matches.

She felt the women's competition was too weak and had no interest in it. Ultimately, she chose to compete against male players and reached a peak level.

It's quite rare.

This was the strongest opponent Chen Dongqing had ever encountered on the field. Even though the opponent was a Zerg, he still had to be on high alert.

In the first game, Chen Dongqing, who rarely used the skill of raising two boats, still managed to take off precisely at 4 minutes and 35 seconds, a number that seems to be ingrained in his bones.

Immediately afterwards, the two ships split up, one launching a frontal assault and the other harassing from the flanks. All the riflemen were under perfect control, demonstrating a level of micro-management that was still dreamlike!

Scarlett had been a seasoned veteran of the martial world for many years, but this was the first time she had ever seen a shotgunner of this caliber. She was caught off guard and countless poison bugs were sent into the shotgunner's pockets.

One fierce exchange is enough to secure victory!

Chen Dongqing then played steadily, and the follow-up troops quickly caught up. In less than ten minutes, they destroyed the opponent in one fell swoop!

In the second game, Scarlett toned down her game slightly and began to focus on defense.

Chen Dongqing sneered and quickly changed his strategy, focusing on economic suppression, and then gathered two hundred people to deliver a powerful punch, easily taking them down once again!

game over!

At that moment, countless spectators in the audience gaped open, their faces filled with disbelief.

Backstage, Serral, the Finnish insect king, also stared wide-eyed.

The live stream chat was filled with question marks.

Huang Xudong exclaimed, "Impossible!"

No one expected this.

In this match that most people didn't expect to win, ilex surprisingly swept Scarlett in two dominant games, defending the honor of the home team!

This battle of geniuses seems to have come to a conclusion!

Since we're writing about interstellar travel, let's write more and move the plot forward faster. I'll aim for about 8,000 words today.

See you tomorrow, guys!

Thank you to Blooming Peony for the 100 Qidian Coins donation.

Thank you Lingguan for the 100 Qidian Coins donation.