November 8, 2023, Wednesday.
The long-awaited CAC tournament finally kicked off in Shanghai today.
People were looking forward to it not only because the world's number-one team, Faze, and number two, Mouz, were competing, but, more importantly, because three Huaxia teams had entered the international tournament.
Fans also wanted to see where domestic professional teams stood since the CS2 update.
Although players across the community kept saying CNCS was hopeless, a complete disaster on par with the national soccer team, deep down, who didn't want CNCS to get better?
Most players were frustrated with their teams because they wanted them to improve. If they truly didn't care, they wouldn't even bother criticizing them.
At noon, Fat Brother and Xiao Guang hurried back to their dorm after class without even stopping for lunch. They were joining Su Zhe, whose break wasn't over yet, to wait for the match to begin.
"Almost time! Tianlu versus ENCE! Ten minutes!" Xiao Guang said, his face alight with anticipation. "I wonder if Tianlu will do any better after changing up their lineup."
Fat Brother had been following CS matches for a long time and knew the pros well.
"There's a chance, but not much of one. ENCE has been on a downward spiral ever since Little Plum left, but they're still way stronger than Tianlu overall."
Then he turned to Su Zhe. "Have you made up your mind? Honestly, I think joining the youth team and getting some experience would be great. Every pro has to start somewhere."
Su Zhe shook his head. "I looked into it over the past few days. Tianlu hasn't promoted anyone from the youth team to the main roster in a long time. If I joined, it'd take at least two years before I could play in a match. That's too long."
Three days ago, he'd told the youth team coach he needed time to think, then returned to school. There wasn't much to think about, really. The system's countdown wouldn't give him that much time.
He was starting to feel lost.
With Tianlu out of the picture, LVG was the only other domestic CSGO club with a youth team. But after checking the changes to LVG's roster, he realized they weren't much different from Tianlu.
He'd noticed that the few domestic teams had started to look like they were playing musical chairs. The same handful of players kept switching rosters, and new faces rarely appeared. Even when one did, it was usually someone who'd already spent years in a youth team.
Fat Brother couldn't understand. "Man, I really don't get you. You know how many players would kill to get into a youth team? First you turned down NIP, then Tianlu. Are you actually serious about going pro?"
"You don't understand. I have my own reasons—wait, when did I turn down NIP?" Su Zhe asked, bewildered.
"Have you been playing so much CSGO that you've lost your mind? That day, k0nfig messaged you to ask if you'd thought about going pro in Europe, and you turned him down right away."
"Huh? That counts as an invitation?"
"Of course! Why else would he ask if he wasn't interested? You've only been working out with me for a few days, and your head's already all muscle!" Fat Brother was still annoyed that Su Zhe had turned NIP down. It had been such a great opportunity!
Domestic teams had always wanted to scrim against European teams, but even offering money wouldn't get them a match. And this guy had gone and rejected a team's invitation.
Su Zhe felt awkward. "I thought he just wanted to chat with me."
He didn't really know k0nfig and had no particular impression of him. If it had been a well-known pro like Niko, he would've chatted for a while.
Su Zhe suddenly thought of something and asked Fat Brother, "If I wanted to go pro in Europe, what would I need to prepare?"
"I'd say you need to get yourself a new brain!" Fat Brother was exasperated, but soon regained his patience. "First, you'd need to learn English, obviously. You can't even communicate without it."
"But even if you went pro in Europe, you'd still have to go through a youth team. The process is pretty much the same for teams here and abroad."
Su Zhe didn't know much about foreign teams, so he pressed on. "All of them? No exceptions?"
"Uh..." Fat Brother thought for a moment, then said, "There are exceptions. Zai Wu and ropz, for example."
"But that's different! Zai Wu has been at least a Top2 player since his debut, and ropz is widely considered the best lurker in the world right now. I admit you've got some talent, but how can you compare to them?"
"I think you..."
"Enough, enough! Stop talking! The match is about to start!" Xiao Guang interrupted.
The broadcast had already switched to the game, so Fat Brother gave up on lecturing him and silently started cheering Tianlu on.
"Learn English... incredible talent..."
Su Zhe murmured to himself, then focused on the match. He wanted to see with his own eyes just how big the gap was between the domestic and international CS scenes.
Since the CS2 update, matches had gone from 30 rounds to 24.
In other words, unless the score reached 12–12 and went into overtime, the first team to reach 13 points won. This had sped up the matches considerably.
Once pauses and the halftime break were excluded, Tianlu's match against ENCE lasted only a little over thirty minutes.
The three of them went from anticipation to nerves, and finally to a sense that, despite the loss, Tianlu had put up a respectable fight.
"Holy crap! Is this 259 even human? A 7–16 KD and a 0.46 Rating? Su Zhe would've played better than him!"
"And Kaze's Big Sniper—can he keep missing every shot!? A sniper with a 0.53 Rating?"
Fat Brother couldn't hold back after seeing the final results. "Moseyuh did way too much! A 1.55 Rating and he still couldn't carry the other four! I'm done! What the hell was that performance?"
Tianlu lost to ENCE by a final score of 13–7.
The scoreline didn't look too lopsided, but on Nuclear Crisis, even Su Zhe, who rarely watched matches, could tell Tianlu had been completely outclassed in both strategy and individual skill.
In the first half, Tianlu had fallen behind 2–10. If Moseyuh hadn't gotten two kills right at the start of the second half's Pistol Round, then won a 1v2 clutch, Tianlu might've already been sent packing.
"Has the gap between Chinese CS and Europe always been this big?" Su Zhe asked in surprise. It was nothing like he'd imagined!
"Man, you get used to it. Let's just see how LVG and wings UP do," Fat Brother said. After getting it off his chest, he felt a lot better.
By the time the third match, featuring wings UP, came on, they couldn't stand watching anymore, so they each went off to do their own thing.
The CAC tournament had eight teams in total. The three domestic teams had all lost in the first round, and they hadn't even faced Faze or Mouz.
As he watched, Su Zhe couldn't help imagining himself in their place.
If he managed to join one of those teams and finally earn a starting spot, how could he win against foreign teams with teammates like these?
1v5... Could he really do it?
He quietly took an old English textbook from his cupboard, one he hadn't looked at in a long time.
"Abandon, abandon."
Thanks to MingFFF for the 1,200-point tip!
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