After watching the entire demo, the Nip players finally understood why their coach had been so eager to review it.
Su Zhe's role as a lurker was a little too free, if you asked them.
His movement was bold at every turn. He was clearly going for the maximum possible advantage.
That was one of the bad habits of casual players.
Most pro players had been promoted from youth teams and had received systematic training. Over the years, with coaches correcting them, they learned when to attack and when to hold.
But Su Zhe was entirely self-taught. He'd joined the Main Team right away, and although he'd trained for a month, that was far too little time to change his habits.
So in matches, he naturally played according to his own experience, doing whatever felt comfortable. That was perfectly normal, too.
The problem was that Su Zhe had been the MVP of this match...
A KAD of 21-3-15 and a Rating of 1.53 made it hard for them to criticize him...
If his stats had been a little worse, they could have found a reason to lecture him and urge him to change his playstyle as soon as possible.
But with a performance like this...they weren't sure what to say.
The Training Room fell silent. Su Zhe felt a little awkward. Had he really played that badly?
Suddenly, es3tag broke the silence. "Actually, I don't think there's anything wrong with this playstyle..."
The others: Right! Mm? Huh?
Es3tag continued, "You know that kid from Green Dragon who made his debut not long ago?"
K0nfig chimed in. "You mean the one who came back from a 0-2 deficit to beat VP in the Villa Cup Grand Finals two months ago? I think his name was donk, right?"
Donk!? At the familiar ID, Su Zhe's ears perked up.
He'd looked up donk before and found out he was a player on a Second Tier Team.
At the time, it had given him the impression that the pro scene was full of hidden talents. Even players on second-tier European teams were that strong!
Now, in the Simulation Training Ground, he could occasionally take donk down in a duel, but only occasionally.
And yet, he'd just played against ENCE and found all five players' aim so bad.
It left him unsure of what the average pro player was actually like.
Es3tag nodded. "Right, that newcomer from Green Dragon. I watched his demo before. His playstyle is unusual and hard to counter, which is why his stats in recent tournaments have been so good. He even helped his team win a championship."
As he spoke, he turned to Su Zhe. "What I mean is, if Arrow's playstyle can give the team an advantage, then he can keep playing that way. It might even catch the opponents off guard."
"When the other teams start countering him, we can work on correcting his habits then."
"Since he's in the lurker role...let him roam free."
At that, es3tag laughed. In all his years as a pro, he'd never run into a situation like this before.
Even back in the early days of CSGO, when matches didn't have the kind of elaborate mind games they did now, the standards for trading kills were still strict.
But ever since CS2 came out, many teams had changed, at least to some extent. Everyone was feeling their way forward, either figuring things out as they went or learning from what other teams had developed.
There was nothing wrong with Nip, as a First Tier Team, trying something new.
Coach djL hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
If they wanted to force a change, it would take months at least.
Since the playstyle was working, they might as well stick with it for now. Besides, the team didn't have anyone they could put in Su Zhe's place. Even Bao Lan, who'd previously been sent down to the youth team, had been loaned to Mouz recently.
Su Zhe listened to them, completely baffled. He'd been waiting for feedback, but after all that reviewing, they'd just told him to keep doing what he was doing.
So his playstyle wasn't wrong after all...
After the match between Nip and ENCE ended, netizens flocked to HLTV's official website to look up information about the Nip team.
They found that the person filling the long-vacant spot on Nip's roster was indeed Su Zhe.
A month ago, HLTV had even published a news report about Nip recruiting a new player. But the team was so washed that hardly anyone had paid attention.
[I've watched the whole match, but it still feels like a dream]
[No wonder Xiao Zhe said he didn't want to join Tianlu Youth Training. Nip is so much stronger than Tianlu!]
[After Xiao Zhe's performance today, those guys at Tianlu should really make room for him!]
[@Tianlu Esports Club Hahaha, regret it now?]
[259 must be kicking himself]
[Here's a joke: someone who can make it onto a first- or second-tier European team can't even start for a domestic team]
259 had also heard from others that Su Zhe had joined Nip.
His first reaction had been that it couldn't possibly be true. But when he checked the official website, there it was in black and white.
It completely upended everything he thought he knew. A newcomer had joined a European team and passed their tryouts? How was that possible?
When Su Zhe had tried out for their team, he'd only just scraped by. How much time had even passed since then?
Unwilling to believe it, he went to HLTV's official website and downloaded the demo of the match.
As he kept speeding up and slowing down the footage with his mouse, 259's brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
Jamyoung returned to the Training Room, rubbing his round belly. "Captain, aren't you going to eat? It's already this late, and you're still watching the demo?"
His words snapped 259 out of it. He turned to ask, "Have you heard about that guy, Su Zhe?"
Jamyoung pulled out the chair beside him and sat down. "How could I not hear about something this big? Are you watching his demo?"
259 nodded. "I can't quite believe he improved so fast, so I wanted to take a closer look at the details."
Then he joked, "At first, I thought he was the illegitimate son of some Nip executive."
"Oh?" That piqued Jamyoung's curiosity. "Did he really improve that much all of a sudden? I ran into him on Ladder once. He had some individual skill, but he still had a long way to go before he could play professionally."
Everyone who made it into the pro scene was a genius. Going from C+ to S, or even Gold, Diamond, and S, in a month or two wasn't hard for Jamyoung.
But going from a casual player to a starting player on a pro team in just a few months wasn't something even a genius could pull off.
259 nodded. "His fundamentals are good. He understands positioning and where to aim. It's just a shame."
"What's a shame?"
259 continued, "It's a shame he didn't go through the youth system, and it's a shame he has no Match Experience."
Jamyoung: ?
"I remember he carried against ENCE. Wasn't his Rating around 1.5?"
259 shook his head. "He was just lucky. Want to bet he won't last more than three months on Nip? Unless his parents really are Nip club's chairman and chairwoman."
259 wasn't very good individually, but his calling was unquestionably among the best in the country. He had also been one of the first in the country to study the playstyles of European pro teams.
Jamyoung looked at 259's serious expression and nodded. "I believe you."
Before you continue