Chapter 50 Hello, donk

"Congratulations to NIP! They take the Bo3 series 2-0 and become one of the first teams to successfully advance to the Katowice main event!" As the final kill of the match echoed across the arena, Macafee offered his congratulations on NIP's victory. "Before the match started, I completely didn't expect this kind of outcome."

Mo chimed in accordingly, "Indeed, I didn't expect it either. Ever since NIP brought in their new player, the team seems to have come back to life. The past few months of NIP were truly beyond words!"

While the two commentators were talking, the producer put up the statistics for both games.

After taking a quick glance, Macafee was left completely speechless: "This new player is a bit too outrageous! Is he just here to pad his stats?!"

Su Zhe's KDA data on Inferno was 21-7-10, with a 1.71 Rating!

His stats on Mirage were even more absurd: a 30-5-13 KAD, resulting in a 2.01 Rating!

His Rating in this Bo3 was quite literally higher than the height of 99% of professional players in CS:GO!

The viewers in the livestream chat were utterly bewildered. Could this possibly be the performance of a rookie?

[51 kills across two maps? Is he treating GL like pub noobs?]

[This is too insane! Didn't feel it that much while watching the game, but once the stats came out, it's just absurd!]

[GL must be really trash right now. Ever since their two core players left, they've fallen apart completely.]

[Even if they are trash, it shouldn't be this bad. If you sent TYLOO up there, their heads would probably have been smashed to pieces by GL ages ago.]

[Rational analysis: Arrow's style of play is fine for now, but once people figure it out, he'll be easy pickings.]

[Stop overanalyzing it. At least he's had his moment of glory now.]

The exaggerated statistics sparked heated discussions among the viewers in the livestream. Ever since CS2 was released, they hadn't seen such outrageous numbers in a long time.

Even Vitality's ZywOo, who had just been crowned the 2023 Top 1 player not long ago, hadn't put up such dominant numbers since the Paris Major.

.......

"Nice!! We played so well!!" As the match concluded, the moment Su Zhe took off his headphones, he heard the cheers of his teammates.

Coach djL walked over and immediately gave Su Zhe a big hug. "You played fantastically! Today's performance was almost unbelievable to me!"

He was genuinely thrilled! The club hadn't just given a tough assignment to Su Zhe as a rookie; they had given one to him as the coach as well.

When they boarded the plane to Poland, the team manager THREAT had made it explicitly clear to him that if the team failed to even reach the Katowice main event, he could start looking for a new job.

"I feel alright. I just feel like GL's individual skill is quite poor," Su Zhe said modestly, speaking his true thoughts.

NIP members: "......."

They hurriedly turned their heads toward GL's battle station. Upon realizing that the opponents couldn't hear him, they let out a sigh of relief, but then immediately felt something was off—they had a vague sensation of having been insulted along with them.

Aside from Su Zhe's stellar performance, everyone else on the team had been merely average. As the in-game leader and entry fragger respectively, es3tag and k0nfig actually finished with negative KDs.

Yet, given Su Zhe's numbers, he certainly had the right to say such words.

However, since they had won the match, nobody cared about these minor details anymore.

Being arrogant, so what? As long as he could carry them to victory!

Hearing this, djL laughed heartily. "The opponents indeed weren't strong, so keep up the good performance when we enter the main event!"

With that, he said to the rest of the team, "Alright, let's go shake hands first. It's rare to have two days of rest, so I'll treat everyone to a big dinner later!"

"Oh! Awesome!"

Su Zhe followed his teammates to GL's player area to shake hands with them one by one.

At this moment, the members of GL were quietly packing up their peripherals, preparing to return to the lounge and wait for the next Bo3. Although they had lost the match, dropping to the lower bracket meant they still had another chance to compete for a main event spot.

As k0nfig walked up to snax to shake his hand, seeing his expressionless face couldn't help but bring a smile to his face. "You played pretty well today!"

Looking at k0nfig's smug expression, snax felt even more frustrated. "If it weren't for the new guy on your team, would you have won this easily?"

Both of them were old rivals who frequently crossed paths in past tournaments and had a good personal relationship, so their banter was all in good fun.

Hearing this, k0nfig didn't feel any discomfort at all. Instead, he continued with a smile, "I'm only just now realizing how great it feels to be carried to a win."

snax rolled his eyes at him and didn't say anything more.

When Su Zhe finally approached him, snax spoke with a playful tone, "Good performance. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how those teams will get headaches dealing with you once you reach the main event."

He could already imagine what it would be like for the current professional teams when they ran into this unorthodox rookie.

Thinking about this washed away quite a bit of the disappointment from losing the match.

Su Zhe looked up at the two-meter-tall giant bear, feeling no oppression from his height at all. Instead, he felt that this guy was actually not a bad sort.

So, Su Zhe also smiled, nodded, and replied, "Thank you, I'll keep working hard."

After finishing the handshaking routine, everyone returned to their respective player seats to pack up their peripherals.

"How far do you think we can go in the Katowice main event this time?" headtr1ck couldn't help asking, his tone carrying a hint of anticipation. Ever since joining NIP, this was his first time participating in such a massive tournament.

es3tag curled his lips and said, "Who knows? It depends on how the bracket is drawn for the main event. If we run into powerhouse teams like Vitality or FaZe right out of the gate, nobody can save us."

One of the teams was last year's Major champion, while the other had consecutively won three S-tier tournaments not long ago; their form was ridiculously good.

headtr1ck smiled and said, "Then let's pray our luck is a bit better this time! I'm counting on the prize money from this tournament to buy myself a skin setup."

The prize pool for the Katowice main event was a full 1,000,000 USD. The higher the placement, the more prize money acquired, and the championship team alone would take home 400,000 USD.

k0nfig shook his head and sighed, "You youngsters! You just love these flashy things. Once you reach my age, you'll lose interest in skins and stuff like that."

Hearing this as if it were some incredible joke, es3tag burst into loud laughter, "How come I remember someone borrowing skins from a Chinese skin trader before the match, only to get rejected?"

k0nfig fell silent, his pride slightly wounded.......

es3tag turned to Su Zhe and said, "You should be able to borrow skins if you ask. I remember when we participated in CAC last year, all those domestic teams over there had very expensive skins. Their salaries probably aren't enough to buy those, right?"

Su Zhe was listening to their conversation while wondering what borrowing skins was all about, and he didn't quite understand es3tag's question.

So he answered honestly, "I'm not sure. They probably couldn't afford them, right? I heard from academy players back home before that the starting salaries of their teams aren't very high either."

High-end CS:GO skins easily cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of RMB. Although he had some interest in this area, he also understood his own tight budget.

The only thing in his own inventory was an AK-47 Redline that had accompanied him for over half a year.

By this time, k0nfig had already packed his peripherals into his backpack. He leaned in close to Su Zhe with a beaming smile and said, "Do you want to use some skins? Butterfly knives look really cool when spinning! They even give a buff to your hand-feel in matches, you know!"

Su Zhe nodded. "I want to. Are you going to lend me yours?"

k0nfig:.......

"My inventory only has a default knife, why would I lend it to you! I mean you can go find those guys from your country, they're guaranteed to lend them to you!"

Su Zhe shook his head. "I don't know them."

Hearing this, es3tag lightly kicked k0nfig. "If you want to borrow skins, go borrow them yourself, why are you giving Arrow a hard time! Let's go! Let's get some food first, I'm starving."

They had only eaten a single meal in the morning, and it was already one o'clock in the afternoon.

Su Zhe strapped on his peripheral backpack and followed the team out of the venue. At that exact moment, another team was walking out from the player tunnel on the opposite side.

As the two teams drew close, es3tag took the initiative to greet them: "Hello, chopper!"

chopper: "Hey, es3tag!"

es3tag: "Just finished your match?"

chopper: "Yeah, the new guy on the team played well, just won."

es3tag: "What a coincidence? So did we."

As he spoke, es3tag waved his hand to signal Su Zhe to come over. "Let me introduce you, this is chopper, the IGL for Team Spirit. Get to know him, you'll run into him often in future matches."

Su Zhe nodded. He walked closer to chopper and shook his hand. "Hello! I'm the new player for NIP."

chopper looked Su Zhe up and down. "I watched your matches yesterday, you played pretty well."

With that, he also waved to someone behind him and said in Russian, "donk! Come say hi!"

Then he turned back to Su Zhe and said, "You guys are both rookies, get acquainted."

donk!?

Su Zhe immediately perked up with interest. He raised his head and looked past Team Spirit's members.

He saw a short, long-haired teenager emerging from the back with his hands shoved into his pockets.

Su Zhe proactively extended his hand for a handshake: "Hello, donk!"