1243 All-Stars

Early in the morning, Team Happy had already finished celebrating what was originally supposed to be the most lively holiday: Christmas Eve. Afterwards, Christmas Day wasn't a holiday for them. The things that they needed to do still had to be done, and the matches that they had to play still had to be played. Originally, Ye Xiu wanted to remind everyone to maintain a steady mental state for the next match, but after seeing their opponent for the next week, he had no way of saying these words out loud.

On the 27th of December, Round 17 of the regular season, Happy's opponent was Team Bright Green.

After Round 16, Team Bright Green had only accumulated 30 points and was ranked second from last. The gap between them and the 18th place team had already risen to 14 points. Along with Team Seaside, they were considered to be the two teams who would be relegated without suspense this season.

Faced with a team with such an awful record, Ye Xiu felt that nagging the team about being cautious and prudent was somewhat excessive. The Alliance could be said to not have any weak teams, with examples of strong teams being defeated everywhere. Even so, for a playoff team facing against a team struggling to keep their place, simply having the appropriate attitude would be good enough. Any serious talk about not underestimating their opponents could instead backfire and cause the team members to lose confidence.

Thus, at the end of the day, Ye Xiu didn't say anything unnecessary, only getting ready in the same way they normally did. Preparing against the opponents, coming up with strategies: they didn't belittle their opponents, but neither did they attach too much importance to them.

Team Happy, who was in their peak condition, naturally didn't get defeated in an upset by Team Bright Green. In their away match, they scored a grand 10 to 0, once again catching up with Team Samsara's perfect sweep record. In Team Samsara's away game against Team Conquering Clouds, they accidentally lost an individual match, resulting in a 9 to 1 victory. Team Samsara thus remained with six 10 to 0 victories under their belt.

At the same time, Tyranny, Blue Rain and Wind Howl all achieved landslide victories in their away games. Tiny Herb lost in a surprise loss against Heavenly Swords after a fierce battle in the same city, but in terms of the number of fans, it could be said that the number of Tiny Herb fans completely overwhelmed the number of Heavenly Swords fans. Yet in Glory, the most benefit of playing a home game wasn't just the fan support received. More importantly, having the right to select the map was more crucial. 

In this round, after winning one individual competition, Heavenly Swords suffered defeat after defeat, but finally pulled off a strong comeback in the team competition, defeating Tiny Herb with a score of 6 to 4.

It was just one tiny victory, but it was enough to make the brothers at Heavenly Swords go crazy with excitement. From their debut in the professional league until now, this was their first time defeating a true powerhouse team!

It wasn't too long ago when the team was formed and the rich kids from Heavenly Swords were in high spirits, fantasizing about winning the championships until Ye Xiu helped them to come back to reality. Thus ,when they entered the Alliance, they started off carefully and cautiously, and finally realized the true gap between reality and their expectations. Glory champions? To them, this was truly too distant a goal.

Heavenly Swords' cautious progression seemed to be the most suited for their specific circumstances. But deep in their hearts, could the players from Heavenly Swords really be satisfied dithering around near the relegation zone?

Their dream of winning the championships was something that they just carefully kept away, but it wasn't something that they had completely given up on. They weren't the kind of people who accepted mediocrity after facing reality.

They persevered and worked hard, but their team roster being fixed meant that they couldn't rely on external helpers to increase their fighting strength. They could only increase the strength of their characters and equipment, but otherwise, it was all up to their individual bitter training.

But in this season, Heavenly Swords' results couldn't be said to have improved very much. The bunch from Heavenly Swords may have been a bit too idealistic, but they didn't actually believe themselves to be infallible. With these results, it was inevitable that they would begin to doubt themselves somewhat, feeling that they only had so much skill in Glory. Could they really achieve greater heights?

But at this very moment, they had unexpectedly defeated Team Tiny Herb.

This tiny victory had ignited a single answer in their hearts: we can!

No matter what the reason was, if they could win this round, they could win a second round, or a third. With enough successive victories, who could say that the dream hidden deep within their hearts was unreachable?

"God, isn't that right?"

This glorious and uplifting victory for Heavenly Swords led Lou Guanning to specially discuss it with Happy.

"Yes, that's exactly right, keep working hard!" Ye Xiu replied.

"Alright, you too. Happy New Year in advance!" Lou Guanning called.

Right, it was close to the new year already.

Round 17 had ended on the 27th of December. The next week was a winter break for the Pro Alliance, so the rounds put on hold temporarily, but the once-a-year All-Star Weekend would still happen the following weekend.

The voting for the All-Stars had already entered its final stages. The Alliance was counting the votes, the fans were watching closely, and even the pro players would talk about it in their free time.

From the start of the voting until now, Zhou Zekai's first place in the All-Stars was completely untouchable, and no one had any hopes for such a miracle to take place anymore.

But in second place was surprisingly Ye Xiu!

The Ye Xiu that had routed Excellent Era in the Challenger's League and proclaimed "I'm back" had become a real talking point over the past half a year. When the voting had just begun, there were a few old fans of Ye Xiu and a few people who just went with the crowd who voted for him, allowing him to break into the list of 24 All-Stars.

Afterwards, at the start of the regular season when the teams were feeling each other out, aside from one great victory against Hundred Blossoms, Happy seemed to be on a losing streak. But after the 8th round when they lost to Tiny Herb, Happy rose abruptly and went on a winning streak, continually winning 10 to 0 and violently sweeping through the entire Alliance.

Some conspiracy theorists thought that the difference between Happy's strength at the start and end of the season was too dramatic. They even suspected that Happy was deliberately throwing games at the start of the regular season, waiting till the teams had a good idea of each other's strength before revealing their true prowess and snatching as many points as they could. And from Round 2 onwards, Ye Xiu swept through the individual competition without losing a single match. 

Such a strong player not competing in the group arena and instead competing in the individual rounds from start to finish did draw some criticism from people, but such a trivial matter had no way of diminishing his real battle records. Ye Xiu's individual record was very domineering, Team Happy's record under Ye Xiu's leadership was also very domineering, and this fact caused his All-Star votes to continually climb upwards. Both veterans and rookies were watching this already legendary figure. This time around, was he getting ready to create yet another legend? Currently, he had already cemented his name for the number of consecutive individual matches won. And this was a constantly updating record, as he broke his own record again and again…

Even until Round 17, Ye Xiu's record was unstoppable, and Happy's consecutive victories were unstoppable. Afterwards… for now, there was no afterwards. The next round of competition would have to wait until next year, and the All-Star voting for this year would end here. Team Happy, which had never participated in the Pro League before, and its players, who mostly had never had the distinction of winning a championship, would naturally have a weaker standing in the All-Star voting. Even so, the matches that Happy had participated in were significant enough, and in defeating Excellent Era, they displayed a might worthy of a playoff-level team. On top of that, in defeating Excellent Era, Happy had created a miracle, and the effects of that miracle were tremendous. Ye Xiu originally had a firm standing in the Glory circle, and even though he had left for a year and a half, his powerful return meant that it was completely unsurprising for him to have a place in the All-Stars.

With his valiant return, and the strength he displayed after his return, his rise in the All-Star rankings was unstoppable. It was now coming to the end of the voting period, and it looked like there was little hope of him catching up to Zhou Zekai, but it also looked like his position as number two was very stable. Because just behind him was Team Thunderclap's captain, Xiao Shiqin, who was relying on the astonishing results that Thunderclap produced under his leadership this season. After his failure at Excellent Era in the first half of the year, he had returned in full force, surprisingly crushing many top teams.

Originally, the number of votes that the two of them had was really too close to call, but on the 20th of December in the 16th round of the regular season, the two teams faced directly, and Team Thunderclap was defeated 9 to 1 by Team Happy, indirectly proving an answer to this question. To many of the indecisive fans, their votes depended on the player's performance. Happy defeating Thunderclap indicated that Ye Xiu was stronger than Xiao Shiqin, and so after that day, the results of the struggle gradually became clear. The two player's vote count now had a clear difference between them, and this tussle between second and third place was resolved in this way.

Fourth place in the polls went to Tiny Herb's captain, Wang Jiexi, fifth place belonged to Blue Rain's Huang Shaotian, but sixth place was once again taken by a player from Samsara, the new addition to their roster, Sun Xiang.

People had long become numb to Team Samsara's strength, but this numbness didn't mean that people had overlooked their abilities. Cloud Piercer and One Autumn Leaf, this new duo had attracted explosive amounts of attention from the very beginning. This was a duo between two Gods at the peak of Glory, one old and one new. Just this topic alone was enough to be discussed for days on end. On top of that, there was Samsara's undefeated winning streak… that's right, undefeated.

Seventeen rounds of competition, and Samsara had won seventeen rounds without even a single draw.

Victory belonged to every single player in Samsara, but within these people, there would always be those who would shine brighter.

The first of them was Zhou Zekai, the second of them was Sun Xiang... afterwards, the value of Jiang Botao, the vice-captain of Samsara had long been recognized, and he was in ninth place.

In the top ten ranks of the All-Stars, Samsara had already monopolized three of the places, and their Grappler, Lu Boyuan was also ranked at twentieth. After transferring to Team 301, the previous All-Star Grappler, Li Yihui, had gradually lost his former fame, and didn't make it into this year's list of All-Stars.

Four All-Stars! Team Samsara's lineup was truly shining with talent. What about Team Tyranny, who had four All-Stars last season? Now, they only had two. Zhang Xinjie, ranked seventh, and their captain, Han Wenqing, had fallen out of the top ten for the first time in his career, and was ranked twelfth.

In reality, Team Tyranny was currently rank number two in the regular season, but they had very quietly made their way to this position. In the All-Star voting, it was easier for everyone to notice the performances of those with strong, flashy performances. In this season, Team Tyranny had rotated their players. Even Han Wenqing's votes had seen a significant decrease, while Zhang Jiale and Lin Jingyan had finally been dropped from the list of All-Stars. 

What about new players replacing the old?

Regrettably, it was very rare for rookies to appear amongst the ranks of All-Star players. Last season, Gao Yingjie and Lu Hanwen received an unprecedented number of votes, but after their novelty faded away, in this season, they didn't even receive as many votes as last year.

Tang Rou was originally amongst the rookies who had a great number of votes, but unfortunately, after the 1v3 incident, her votes plummeted. There was no need to consider the top 24, her name couldn't even be found within the top hundred players.

Aside from the four players, Ye Xiu, Xiao Shiqin, Sun Xiang and Su Mucheng who had returned from the Challenger's League and become All-Stars, there was one new name in the list, but it wasn't a newcomer to the Alliance.

Team Wind Howl, Liu Hao.