Chapter 5: Different Yet Familiar
Ye Xiu stood up and walked to the front of the room. He used the remote to lower the projection screen and began to select between the different videos present in the file.
"There are 16 countries in the competition with varying levels of expertise. We have 10 years of professional play and even a Challengers league. Apart from us, the countries with similar experience are Denmark and France. In fact, Denmark is tipped as the favourite to win the cup. Is it okay if we examine them today?"
He looked around the room and there were nods of agreement all round. Xiao Shiqin and Zhang Xinjie had even brought out notebooks and were flipping through them. It was obvious that they had made notes previously on these teams.
As pro players, it didn't need to be said that they were all skilled at analyzing the weaknesses and strengths of other players.
Ye Xiu played the video and continued: "The line-up for all the teams have been revealed. This is the line-up for the Denmark national team."
He pointed to the video playing on the screen. "This is not a national competition. It's an Alliance match. 6 out of the 14 players in the Denmark team play for the same team in the Alliance. They've played together for 3 years and they've won the Championship for those 3 years. These 6 players always appear together in the team competition and this last season, they won all their team matches in the entire season, including the play-offs."
Zhang Jiale whistled. "Whoa, that's too intense." Tyranny had finished 2nd in the regular season but even they couldn't say that they never lost a team competition in an entire season.
Fang Rui agreed with him. "Way too intense." His team Happy finished 6th in the regular season but had gone on to win the last season's Championship but they also lost some team matches along the way. Even in the play-offs, they had dropped a team competition against Tyranny and Samsara.
Why were they so successful and how could they be stopped? That was the question on everybody's mind.
The official fixtures were yet to be revealed but with Denmark proclaimed as the best team around, the probability that they would meet them sooner or later in the competition was high.
"I don't know why but their playstyle seems familiar to me. I feel like I've seen that style of play somewhere before." Chu Yunxiu tapped her finger on her temple repeatedly, trying to force her mind to dredge up the memory.
"Wind Howl." Zhang Xinjie answered.
Tang Hao shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Yes, the Danish team style was reminiscent of Team Wind Howl man-to-man style but he had also watched the footage and knew that their style, while similar, was far more advanced and polished.
Why?
Zhang Xinjie continued his analysis. "Wind Howl fights solely man-to-man and coordination between the team members are short and often unfruitful. Denmark also fights man-to-man but when they co-ordinate it produces an explosive increase in their offense and defense."
Tang Hao frowned. He was the only member of Wind Howl here and he wasn't being given any face. Zhang Xinjie didn't mean any insult, that was just the way he spoke. Straightforward and precise.
"One day, our Wind Howl will surpass them and be the best team in the Alliance." Tang Hao made this kind of arrogant declaration.
The pro players were already used to his behaviour so they all ignored him.
Su Mucheng leaned forward in her chair to speak.
"What is truly scary is that any two players of the team can at any point produce a stunning display of coordination. It's not a specific set of players or one player coordinating with the rest. Anybody in the team can coordinate with the other at any time needed."
No one dared doubt her word. Su Mucheng and Ye Xiu had won the Best Partners Award four times in a row. And although their coordination was God tier, Su Mucheng could produce exhilarating results with just about any other player. The fact that she acknowledged their teamwork was really scary.
"So we beat them in teamwork. We can do that, can't we? All we have to do is to make sure our coordination is better than theirs, right?" Huang Shaotian piped up.
"There's another thing to consider." Ye Xiu paused the video and pulled up the character description bar. He pointed to the 6 characters that were currently the focus of their discussions and said: "Their characters."
The six characters were:
Striker- Masked Dancer
Cleric- Quiet Psalms
Berserker- Bloody River
Witch- Caged Flight
Sharpshooter- Sea of Fire
Elementalist- Yellow Flickers
"Glory allows a character to equip a maximum of 13 equipment without regard to their quality, Silver or Orange or otherwise." Ye Xiu gestured to the 6 characters. "And all these characters are equipped with the maximum number of Silver equipment."
"So we have to go toe-to-toe with them in terms of equipment first. Before strategy, coordination or anything else, we have to match our best characters against theirs." Lu Xuan sighed.
This wasn't a problem. The people gathered here had the best Glory equipment in the entire country.
"And what about the team composition?" Fang Rui asked. "I don't think I've ever seen such a high DPS team composition before."
Now this was a problem. A serious one.
They needed to match Denmark in terms of equipment, they needed to break them through superior teamwork and tactics and they also needed a high DPS composition to match Denmark's firepower.
Even among the players in the national team, there were some with more superior equipment. Su Mucheng was not one of them. She was from Team Happy, a team with limited resources. When the Level 75 update had come out, although being a part of Team Excellent Era then, Dancing Rain had received little attention due to Su Mucheng's impending exit.
But in a team competition that needed tight coordination, did you dare not field Su Mucheng? Add that to the fact that she played Launcher, a high DPS class and her place in the team competition was almost certain.
Whichever way you looked at it, One Autumn Leaf had to be present in the team competition. Why? Because this character was among those who had superior equipment in this team and also played a high DPS class. But the player behind this character, Sun Xiang, was not one to coordinate with anyone much less Su Mucheng, Ye Xiu's former partner.
So how do they do it? Everyone was silent as they pondered the answer to this question and they all arrived at the answer almost at the same time.
Ye Xiu would have to play One Autumn Leaf.
That was the conclusion most of them arrived on but no one dared say it.
Chu Yunxiu saw Su Mucheng's hand clench under the table and decided that this was not the time to open this can of worms.
"Let's not overlook the group competition either. If we can clinch a decisive victory there, maybe the team competition will not be as tough as we think."
They all knew that that was almost impossible but decided not to pursue it. They would have plenty of time later to hash out the details.
And so the meeting continued.
Different countries, different characters, different playstyles and different players. The days counting up to their departure to Switzerland was filled with analyzing all sorts of opponents and yet with every new team they had to discuss, they found it was somehow always familiar to them.
The reason was not far-fetched. It was Glory. Glory would always be familiar to them.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
BlackClergy
BlackClergy Thank you so much for reading my fanfiction sequel of The King's Avatar. I am grateful. Please let me know what you think about the book so far and vote if you're enjoying it. Best Partners for the win! And as much as I love Lord Grim, Ye Xiu with One Autumn Leaf is just so special. Maybe it's because we didn't get to see OAL is action too often.
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