1281 After Round 18

Wind Howl lost.

A thorough, bitter loss.

Even though their team competitions had always had the style of bullying the weak and fearing the strong, their individual round performances had always been quite good. They'd won two points against Samsara, four points against Tyranny, and three points against Blue Rain. Aside from Samsara, in which they'd been slightly weaker, against Tyranny and Blue Rain, Wind Howl had won the majority of the individual round points.

But when it came to the team competition? A team that lacked strategic focus was that much more vulnerable in front of powerful enemies. In the team competition, it was clear that passion and spirit weren't enough to win. And this time, Wind Howl hadn't even managed to win a victory in the individual rounds, either. 

0-10. Wind Howl lost cleanly and completely. Amidst the jeers and laughter of the stadium filled with Happy fans, the six players from Wind Howl who'd played in the team competition were drooping like that team flag in the midst of their fans, never to fly again.

This was the first time this season Wind Howl had lost so badly. In fact, it had been several years since they'd earned zero points in a match. How long would it be before Wind Howl was never again swept like this? Wind Howl's members were stunned! In terms of length of time they'd been in the team, each player's was shorter than the next. Had they paid attention to Wind Howl's past before? They were the ones who hated and abandoned Wind Howl's long-standing dirty playstyle, and it seemed that they had never bothered to note this team's past and tradition.

Accepting the cheers of the crowd, Happy's players left the stage. 10-0, another 10-0, and the fact that they'd won this over a strong team like Wind Howl only made this achievement even more joyful. Their performance from start to finish had been exceptional. Ye Xiu came up and wiped out Tang Hao, Fang Rui scored a record-setting 1v3, and then they'd easily defeated their opponents in the team competition. Just as Wind Howl's diehard fans were beginning to doubt their team, Happy's fans were only swelling with belief toward their team.

In the post-match press conference, even Liu Hao didn't have the heart to try and please the media. Amidst all the doubts, Wind Howl gave a few words of official, meaningless talk, and then forcefully ended their press conference. Then, Happy's players came up, and Fang Rui was immediately the subject of attention. A record-setting 1v3 against his old mother team, wasn't this a thrilling topic? As soon as the group arena had finished, the reporters had frantically prepared all sorts of questions, and now they tossed them about heroically. During this press conference, Happy's other members were basically invisible.

Round 18 finished. Happy's victory over Wind Howl was the big highlight. This time Samsara, Happy's direct competitors in terms of 10-0 scores, lost to Happy. In their home game against Thunderclap, Samsara lost an individual round, and ultimately won the match 9-1. This match that had been chosen for the television broadcast finally allowed the broadcasters to feel no regrets about their choice. This was truly an extremely exciting match, especially the team competition at the end.

There was a great disparity in both players and characters. One reporter added up the value of the players and characters in each team's roster for comparison, and the power indicated by those numbers only made this match feel even more like they were trying to use an egg to crack a rock. But ultimately, the two teams had fought in the team competition for 33 minutes, which was extremely rare to see in a match against the powerful team that was Samsara. It could be seen that they'd faced many hit and runs.

Relying on their seemingly much-cheaper roster, Thunderclap played a careful and calculating death battle against Thunderclap.

Samsara's ultimate victory had been extremely difficult, and some people had even thought during the match that it was a good thing this was Samsara's home game. If it had been Thunderclap's, then Samsara's golden win streak might have finally been broken. After that, the strategy that Samsara had used to obtain victory was exactly the same strategy that Happy had used to defeat Thunderclap in Round 16.

In the end, Samsara's Sun Xiang had forcefully broken his way through countless obstacles, performing exceptionally well to drag down Xiao Shiqin. Even though his One Autumn Leaf didn't have the same crazy attack rhythm as the unspecialized Lord Grim, the offensive power of the other members of Samsara was generally a step higher than that of Happy. Ultimately, Samsara had relied on this one opportunity to shatter Thunderclap's strategic plans.

This was raw power destroying refinement, and many people felt that it was a shame that Thunderclap lost. And after this destruction, the question of whether or not to open voice channels was once again brought up. Thunderclap, who had once taken advantage of the rule but then suffered twice, finally stood firmly with Blue Rain as a victim of the rule.

And this time, the opponents of the ban on voice comms made their point unusually clearly: the rules were killing the development of Glory.

After seeing that strategy had been completely destroyed by power, one could imagine, in the future why would anyone bother to study these sort of refined strategies? Because even if they developed them, they would be of no use. After several teams in a row successfully used these methods in battle, then the shotcallers of the more strategy-oriented teams would face all sorts of suppression, the goal simply being to prevent them from having the time to type words.

This is a slaughter of Glory strategy. If this continues, then all we will see in future battles are crude, brute-force competitions of raw handspeed. And Glory was more than just that!

The opponents of this rule let their voices resound, and all sides began paying more attention to this than before.

At first, Thunderclap had profited from this rule, but the two subsequent times, they had suffered from it. And they were also without a doubt a team that performed tactics to the peak level. Even before this season, Thunderclap was always this kind of team, but during that time they hadn't had this kind of unbelievable performance. But after Xiao Shiqin went and played around in the Challenger League, it was like the team had become gold-plated.

Even though they'd been defeated by Happy in Round 16, that hadn't seemed to waver their belief at all. Facing Samsara, this unbelievably powerful opponent, Xiao Shiqin once again prepared carefully. He continued to believe that their Team Thunderclap had the ability to defeat any opponent.

This determination moved many people, and Xiao Shiqin's popularity this season exploded. Even with a collection of nameless, ordinary players who were nothing compared to a powerhouse team, they'd still managed to obtain such shining results. This had never before happened in the history of the Alliance. Happy, the self-proclaimed grassroots team, in reality had three All-Star level players, two All-Star characters, and an evildoer unspecialized that no one in the Alliance could grow accustomed to. It'd been a long while since anyone thought of Happy as a grassroots team.

Even though Thunderclap still lost to Samsara, this loss carried a lot of weight. The debate over allowing voice comms grew more and more heated. Some people even demanded that they not wait until next season to change the rules - for something like this, if they could change it, they should change as soon as possible.

Of course, the Alliance couldn't just say they'd change and change it. After the first time this had come up, they'd been studying this problem nonstop. With a new wave of pressure from public opinion, they focused harder on this issue. And after the end of Round 18, the rankings saw new changes. Samsara's strong lead didn't change, but after Happy swept Wind Howl, their ranking rose again. They were now in fifth place, with the same number of points as Tyranny. This round, Tyranny had played a home game, but lost 2-8 to Hundred Blossoms. Because of Zhang Jiale, these two teams had a rather strong conflict. Hundred Blossoms' away game victory this round caused the diehard team-following fans to become carried away in their elation. But the blood of Tyranny fans ran hot, and brawls broke out in Tyranny's stadium. Even though they'd been provoked by the excessive behavior of the Hundred Blossoms fans, it was the host side that generally had to take responsibility for these sort of entanglements.

Fortunately, no injuries had resulted, and the Alliance only gave Tyranny a serious warning. Tyranny suffered, and because of their failure this round, they'd slid down to fourth place, with 127 points like Happy.

Blue Rain and Tiny Herb had each taken down their opponents, and were currently in second and third place.

On Blue Rain's side, they'd faced quite a bit of disruption earlier after losing points to weaker teams. But judging from their recent performance, that had just been a temporary downturn. After adjusting, their scores instantly improved, and in just a few moves they had charged back to second place on the rankings.. Tiny Herb continued their beautiful win streak in the group arena. In this round, they only lost one individual round to Misty Rain, and won by a large margin of 9-1.

Misty Rain's situation was becoming more and more alarming. With 87 points, they were already 21 points away from the playoff zone, and right behind them, Miracle was quickly catching up to them with 83 points. And this new team, Miracle, was only improving with every battle. If Misty Rain was said to still have hope at making the playoffs, then Miracle, only 4 points behind them, also seemed to have this chance.

This had a great deal to do with the change in attitude of the three former Excellent Era players.

These three were originally very depressed about their fall, and they all hoped that they'd quickly find a new home. They all fought quite hard, but how much of it was for their team, that was unknown. But because of their hard work, Miracle actually managed to earn quite good results. Praise came in from all sides, causing them to become overjoyed.

They had come from a powerhouse, and there, they had only ever been side characters. Whenever the team had results, it was very rarely because of them. But now, in this Team Miracle, the three had gradually gained a true sense of owning this home. This team's scores were earned through their hard work; the heartfelt cheers of the fans were meant for them. This sort of fortune steadily let them feel satisfied, and they steadily set down the arrogance bred from their time in a powerhouse. In the private messages between the three of them, they began to recognize that being in Miracle was really quite good.

The three of them began to fight not only for themselves, but for the team. And so the new team's scores became more and more stable. Now, the season was half over, and they were actually in twelfth place.

If Happy weren't here stealing all the spotlight, then Team Miracle really would've lived up to their name, becoming the most miraculous new team in Glory history.

But even in this current situation, Miracle would no longer be overlooked by everyone.

After eighteen rounds, the media reported on the state of the Alliance after this round and the circulating topics. But just two days after the end of this round, a piece of particularly attention-grabbing news appeared in the headlines of all the major media.

Team Wind Howl, with an asking price of 15 million, was seeking to purchase Team Tyranny's Zhang Xinjie.