As it turned out, Jiang Yang's instincts had been right.
After losing the first Full Buy Round, Tyloo seemed to have settled down, but in reality, they launched a late-round explosive A hit.
There was nothing special about the utility on A Area—no synchronized plays or clever tactics. They were simply playing ranked.
But Tyloo's players had incredibly sharp aim. They forced their way onto A Area, got the kills, and took the round.
Steel Helmet did manage to pick up some rounds afterward. It was just that Tyloo's aim was genuinely good, and Steel Helmet struggled in their isolated 1v1s.
Then their economy fell apart, and before they knew it, the score had reached 3:6.
Steel Helmet had finally saved enough to buy Jiang Yang a Big Sniper.
However, that round, MO and Su Di tried pushing up on B Area, only to be shut down by somebody from B2 Floor. B site collapsed immediately.
Jiang Yang used his Big Sniper to take down three players during the retake, but without a Defuse Kit and with too little time, he had no choice but to save his weapon.
Steel Helmet called a tactical timeout to make adjustments.
"Tyloo are playing like they don't respect us at all!" DD said over voice chat. "Are they going to Dry Peek every single time?"
Tyloo's playstyle was so abrupt that Steel Helmet hadn't been ready for it in the first couple of rounds. Their opponents had simply out-aimed them.
The economy problems that followed were what caused them to lose so many rounds overall.
Actually, Tyloo hadn't put that much pressure on them as a team.
Jiang Yang felt all right about it. It was just that, because of the timing and positioning, he'd been retaking in the previous few rounds.
His teammates hadn't managed to trade kills, which left him in a difficult spot.
The Big Sniper had its pros and cons. The worst part was that it was hard to retake quickly with one.
"With my positioning, how about MO watches B2 Floor for me? I'll hold B Area alone and watch that gap on B2 Floor," Jiang Yang said.
MO understood the young man's frustration, but still turned him down. "Let's play double B. I'll use my Desert Eagle to watch B Short for you. I can be your bodyguard while you save, too."
Their economy wasn't great this round. Apart from Jiang Yang, DD was the only one with a rifle.
So they had to be prepared for Jiang Yang's Sniper Rifle to see no one again, leaving him with no choice but to save.
Jiang Yang still wanted to take the initiative and create an advantage for his team.
When the timeout ended, he headed straight for B2 Floor.
"Jiang Yang saved his AWP, but Steel Helmet's overall setup is looking a little rough," Wan Ji Qi said with a sigh.
"He's taking the Big Sniper straight to B2 Floor. Is he planning to watch the gap?"
From B2 Floor, he could hold a direct angle with the Big Sniper and see the gap behind the entrance.
Anyone who entered B2 Floor or jumped down into Sewer would be spotted.
The gap was narrow, though, so he'd need to react quickly.
Usually, only Snipers who were very confident in themselves would hold this position.
Jiang Yang settled his Big Sniper into position and kept his eyes fixed on the gap on B2 Floor.
As he waited patiently, the instant the gap went dark, he pulled the trigger and jumped down.
"If someone close by wide-swings, Jiang Yang definitely won't be able to hold that angle. He'll have to peek again and try for a second shot."
"But he wallbanged him!" Wan Ji Qi exclaimed. "Tyloo like to move quietly, and Little Ghost has been hit down to one shot!"
"The one bit of good news is that he didn't get wallbanged to death. But is Tyloo going to B again because they don't know what else to do?"
"Jiang Yang fired his Sniper Rifle on B Area and went straight back to A. That leaves B under a lot of pressure!"
Jiang Yang's reasoning was sound.
He'd fired on B Area, so the other team knew he had a Big Sniper and would probably avoid him.
There was no point in continuing to hold B Area with his Sniper Rifle.
But then, in the late round, the VIP Smoke and Inner Archway Smoke popped, and Jiang Yang realized something was wrong.
Sure enough, Tyloo launched a late-round B Area pinch.
"Tyloo are going against the obvious read. They think that after taking a shot with his Sniper Rifle, Jiang Yang must have rotated to A site. So they're speeding up onto B now!"
"MO is the only one defending B site. With his Desert Eagle, he takes two shots and kills SLOWLY, who was blinded by his own teammate's Flashbang!"
"But now they're coming up onto the second floor. Is there any room for him to make a play?"
"MO gets one low, but from this position... there's no chance."
Meanwhile, at A site, Jiang Yang used his Big Sniper to kill Little Ghost, who had tried sneaking up through Arch to cut off the rotation.
He'd forced the situation into a 3v3.
DD was the first to rotate back and had already made it to the site, but his timing was bad when he entered B. Each time he spotted an opponent, they were beside cover. In the end, they outmaneuvered and killed him instead.
DD called out the positions over voice chat. "Two of them are low! They might die in one shot."
That left them in a tough spot.
Even with the opponents low on health, numbers were a huge advantage in a post-plant.
Jiang Yang reached Market first and quietly held the angle. He'd seen someone there on the Minimap earlier, and there was also the Bomb Planter near the Bomb Site.
That left one enemy whose position was still unknown.
Fortunately, even in a 2v3, xiaosage had picked up Little Ghost's dropped AK, giving them some room to make a play.
They were still behind on the scoreboard, which put a lot of pressure on them.
The clutch was difficult, but Jiang Yang still wanted to try.
"Let's give it a shot. They're low," Jiang Yang said to xiaosage.
"I'll hold Sofa. You push up."
A Sniper holding an angle while a rifle pushed forward was the best way to play a clutch.
Xiaosage gave a quiet "Mm" and began slowly pushing out from Market.
The tension steadily mounted. Jiang Yang held his crosshair on the angle at Sofa, but kept his attention on White Car and the Bomb Site.
He had to watch out for the Bomb Planter swinging out to take a synchronized fight.
Xiaosage wasn't very good at controlling his movement. As he pushed forward with a half-body peek, he still made some noise.
Baicai, near Sofa, heard footsteps by the entrance to Market. In the end, he couldn't resist peeking out, hoping to end the clutch right there.
But the moment he peeked, he saw the little fly-shaped head at the entrance to Market, holding a Big Sniper.
"Bang!"
[young+captainMO killed Attacker with an AWP]
"Jiang Yang held the angle and killed someone who peeked out of Market. Tyloo actually swung out during a clutch?" Wan Ji Qi sounded surprised, but kept up his commentary. "Cy1, at B Short, knows someone came out of Market. He swings to kill xiaosage, but he loses the fight!"
"That leaves Danking alone at the Bomb Site, facing a 1v2! The situation has completely turned around!"
"Danking's moving around like the King of Qin, trying to run down the clock. But after a simple clear, Steel Helmet know there's nobody at White Car. One holds while the other defuses."
"Danking hears the defuse, swings out and kills one! He wants to get away, but Jiang Yang's shot—!"
Wan Ji Qi's voice suddenly rose.
From where he was watching, Jiang Yang's nerve in that play had been incredible.
He stood on White Car without scoping in, waiting for xiaosage to defuse.
From Jiang Yang's point of view, he seemed to be paying more attention to B2 Floor.
Danking darted out from the bomb at B Short, killed xiaosage, then tried to run.
In that instant, Jiang Yang turned, scoped in, and found his target.
The audacious positioning, lightning-fast reaction, and precise aim stunned everyone watching the livestream.
But the round still wasn't over. The instant Jiang Yang killed Danking, he rushed over to defuse.
However, Danking had bought them a lot of time by circling the pillar like the King of Qin. By the time Jiang Yang reached the C4, the ten-second countdown had begun.
The audience's hearts tightened again.
Could they really win the clutch, only to lose the round at the very end?
"Little Sheep is defusing! Can he get it? It's going to explode! He's almost got it!" Wan Ji Qi stared at the screen, so nervous he was babbling.
As the C4's beeping grew more urgent, plenty of people thought it was over.
But just before it exploded, the defuse line disappeared.
Wan Ji Qi immediately shouted excitedly, "He got it! He pulled off a C4 last-second defuse!"
"Holy crap, this Little Sheep came to Steel Helmet and became an absolute carry!" Wan Ji Qi laughed. "Last round, I got three kills and still lost. This round, I got three kills and defused it myself!"
"He doesn't miss the easy shots, and he hits the hard ones too. He really reminds me of peak device!"
Wan Ji Qi took a breath. "This kid is the real deal! Tyloo are completely stunned!"
[Holy crap, Yang God!!]
[That last shot was ridiculous.]
[Yang God fired four shots and didn't miss a single one. That guy's unreal.]
[He got six kills with the Sniper in two rounds. An absolute freak.]
[Is Tyloo even human? They keep losing 3v2 clutches one by one.]
"They were guaranteed to win if they just held their angles. Why swing out and give themselves up? I'm done with Tyloo."
The livestream chat exploded, and Steel Helmet's voice chat erupted too.
"Little Sheep is a beast!"
"That scared the hell out of me."
"He was the key player that round."
Jiang Yang's adrenaline was surging. That play had been so close that it had scared him, too.
The score was now 4:7, and the gap between the teams wasn't that big.
Jiang Yang rallied them. "Come on, come on! We're not that far behind. Let's work on catching up!"
The first half ended with the score at 7:8. Steel Helmet were still one point behind Tyloo.
They'd actually had a chance to take the lead.
After Jiang Yang won that incredible clutch, Steel Helmet's morale had risen, and they'd gone on a streak of several rounds.
But during the final round of the half, there was a little incident.
Jiang Yang had just seen a message from the referee appear in all-chat.
Referee: Steel Helmet's side, don't smoke.
That set off a chorus of complaints from the old-timers on Steel Helmet's voice chat.
The final round felt wrong from start to finish, and they lost it in a bizarre way.
During the halftime break, DD complained, "We were still in it, then the ref just ganked us. How are we supposed to play?"
Xiaosage chimed in. "The ref's targeting us. Tyloo are definitely chewing betel nut over there. Why doesn't he say anything about that?"
Jiang Yang burst out laughing and joined in. "The ref's corrupt! This is unfair!"
Xiaosage carried on noisily. "No smoking, no playing! It's an online match, and we can't even smoke!"
Jiang Yang wasn't a smoker, but the old-timers on Steel Helmet all liked gaming with a cigarette in hand.
They didn't actually smoke much during matches. They just liked holding a cigarette between their fingers, as if they were busy.
The ref had told them not to smoke, and now they felt out of sorts.
They were only joking, though. It hadn't really affected them much.
MO said, "If the ref's ganking us, Tyloo must be under a lot of pressure. Everyone played well in the first half. We're just one point away from catching them. Come on, come on!"
Inside Tyloo's practice room.
Everyone was surprised that Steel Helmet had managed to pick up seven rounds in the first half.
Danking said, "That old captain of theirs is pretty good. He's putting a ton of pressure on us."
Baicai said, "It's mostly Ma Xixi's cousin. That AWP is nasty. He hardly ever misses. I only outplayed him once in the whole first half. The rest of the time, he kept holding me."
Danking said nothing. As the Sniper, he was matched up against Jiang Yang.
They hadn't faced each other that often, but Jiang Yang had clearly outperformed him in the first half.
He'd felt a lot of pressure during their duels.
When the scoreboard came up, the kid on the other team had already put up a 23/2/11 stat line in the first half.
Apart from Jiang Yang, DD was the only one on Steel Helmet with more than ten kills, with eleven. Everyone else had single-digit kills.
Su Di was the worst off, with just two kills.
One glance at the numbers made it clear who was carrying.
The kid was genuinely good.
As a fellow Sniper, Ma Xixi had clearly been trying to help young find a team.
With a performance like this, Tyloo might want to sign him.
If they actually took his spot, though...
Tie Dan instantly felt the pressure mount.
In the pistol round of the second half, MO called a play that pinched A from Arch and A2.
Jiang Yang was responsible for flanking from A2, while the rest of the team would make their move through Arch.
As the flanker, Jiang Yang had to wait patiently for the front line to engage first.
"The main group is gathered at Arch, waiting for this Smoke Grenade to fade. Then both sides will have to rely on their reactions!"
"Danking gets deleted instantly, but he still manages to trade one!"
"And what's going on at B Short? Little Ghost catches one from behind, then gets a second!"
"DD finally turns around and gets a kill, but that play has completely fallen apart!"
Their four-man Arch push only managed a 3-for-2 trade, instantly putting them under a ton of pressure.
"Little Sheep is finally about to leave A2 Floor, but can he work out that someone's hiding close on the upper floor?"
On this map, no opponent in Asia had yet been able to match Jiang Yang's pre-aims and clearing order.
From A2 Floor, he used a half-body peek to check the VIP entrance and Sandwich, then looked at Headshot Position on the second floor before clearing the corner on his right.
His teammates hadn't cleared this position, so Jiang Yang had to be careful.
The next second, he saw someone rush out.
Jiang Yang was ready for him. He crouched as he made a slight adjustment to his crosshair.
"Bang!"
[young killed summer with a Glock headshot]
As soon as he got the kill, he heard someone yell over voice chat, "Phone Booth at CT Base!"
Without hesitation, Jiang Yang turned and peeked, adjusting his crosshair in the same instant.
"Rat-a-tat! Rat-a-tat! Rat-a-tat!"
The Glock fired a rhythmic burst of shots, and he successfully headshot the CT at CT Base.
[young killed Attacker with a Glock headshot]
"What just happened?! CY1, up on A2 Floor, was worried DD would come looking for trouble from Jump Platform, so he tried to rush into A2 Floor—but his cousin was holding the angle and took him down!"
"The moment his cousin got that kill, he swung out and took out Baicai at CT Base too! In just a few seconds, the numbers completely flipped!"
"I have no idea what Tyloo is doing. They had the numbers advantage, and then they just randomly got picked off!"
"That leaves only SLOWLY at B site!"
"The two players at A site split up, one watching while the other hid, and planted the Bomb at A1."
"SLOWLY came over to retake and went straight to clear A1, but he couldn't even beat DD!"
As the final kill notification of the pistol round appeared, Helmet successfully secured the pistol-round win.
For the first time in this match, Helmet had tied up the score!
This chapter is 4K characters. There should be another one around 4K today.
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