The first round of the IEM Cologne qualifying group stage was finally completed at 9 o'clock in the evening China time.
Sixteen teams, eight games, only Astralis suffered an upset against 00Nation.
00Nation, the Brazilian second-tier team led by Leng Shen, unexpectedly executed Team A with marksmanship in the Lost City.
Different from the previous eight teams participating in BLAST, the IEM Cologne competition included the qualifying teams, with a total of twenty-four teams participating.
The total prize of one million US dollars is a full $600,000 higher than the total prize of BLAST.
As for the final winning team, they will receive the championship prize of $400,000.
Moreover, this will be the last World Series before the long offseason.
Almost all the strong teams are already gearing up and eager to try out this IEM Cologne competition.
…
It has only been half a month since the last international competition BLAST ended, but because of Vitality’s victory, domestic players’ enthusiasm for the competition continues to rise.
The second round of competition has not yet begun, and players in major community forums have begun to predict the promotion format of the finals.
[The Little Bees should be guaranteed promotion. Next, they will play the Spanish team, which is not a big problem. 】
[Where is Tianlu? The next game is against the Brazilian team MIBR. Even if they win, they still have to play the loser of MOUZ and Heroic. I will be honored in advance! 】
[What's going on with Team A? Why doesn't polite k0nfig stop killing people? And this Farlig has transformed into Brother Weili again? 】
[Of the four great sniper gods in ancient times, our A team only has two, Lucky and Farlig, they belong to the Crouching Dragon and Phoenix. 】
[The former Kings A team is now unable to beat Brazil's second tier, which makes people feel sad that the throne will eventually decay. 】
…
In the Vitality training room.
“When communicating, try to ditch French and Danish.”
Zonic looked at the five players in front of him who were warming up for the evening game and said slowly.
Although the little bees have won all the way from BLAST Lisbon to now, zonic knows that there are still many problems that need to be solved urgently in the team.
The most critical point is still the communication issue within the team.
Even if the team members communicate in English in most cases, a small number of team members may still speak their native language in the endgame stage.
The more complex and chaotic the situation, the greater the communication problems among the team members will be.
Thinking of this, zonic emphasized again, "Whether it is apEX and ZywOo playing the end game, or Adu and the Demon Man playing the end game, if you can use English, you must use English."
"Insisting on using English can make communication smoother so that everyone will not confuse each other. This is a habit that must be adjusted."
Qin Feng nodded in agreement.
One of the reasons why Team Tianlu has not been able to get along well after four years of working together is that the language used by the team members when communicating is too complex.
Four Chinese players and one Indonesian player actually used three different languages to communicate in every game:
Chinese, English, Tianlu language.
No matter what, Vitality cannot make the same mistake as Tianlu.
The other team members also nodded.
Only apEX, looking at the honest-looking ZywOo next to him, sighed inconspicuously.
Although the International Brigade has greatly strengthened Vitality's overall strength, it has also put ZywOo, a genius who is good at collecting information and making judgments, into some kind of shackles.
The only thing worth celebrating is probably that ZywOo's position changed. The person who got the most information changed from ZywOo to Qin Feng.
…
At 8:20 local time in Cologne, the match between Vitality and Movistar Riders in the upper bracket of the group stage finally started.
When it comes to the MRS team, what impressed the Chinese audience the most was probably the scene in the PGL Major at the end of 2021, when this team stubbornly eliminated Tyloo in overtime.
However, as a professional team, Vitality naturally knows that the Spanish dark horse in front of them cannot be underestimated.
In the ESL Challenger Valencia game that just ended, MRS went all the way and defeated the veteran team Outsiders to win the championship.
During the map BP stage, both sides did not make any unexpected choices.
The three maps are: Death Mansion selected by MRS, Death Amusement Park selected by Little Bee, and Lost City, a reserved map.
This game was much more difficult than all the fans who supported Vitality imagined.
The first picture was the Death Mansion. Little Bee chose the defensive side to start. In the first round, ZywOo and Qin Feng had four kills and easily won the pistol round.
MRS's strong play failed, and the score came to 3-0.
However, in the first long gun round, MRS completed the counterattack against the little bees, easily tearing apart the B area packets defended by Adu and Mo Nan, and completed the placement of the mine packets without losing anyone.
The two sniper rifles Qin Feng and ZywOo did not have many opportunities to return to defense, so they had no choice but to go to the A area with apEX to protect the firearms in their hands.
As for the next round, the two big snipers saved by Vitality came into play, and they blossomed directly, instantly crushing MRS's default attack.
The score was then stretched all the way to 6-1 by Vitality.
After a pause, everyone in MRS adjusted their thinking and placed their main attack direction on the B area package point guarded by Mo Nan and Adu.
As MRS's several waves of speed-increasing explosive bombs successively harvested points in area B, the situation on the field became anxious for a time.
Vitality ultimately failed to expand their lead in the first half.
10 to 5, Vitality entered the second half with a 5-point advantage.
As for the second half, MRS finally showed its resilient side as a defender.
Relying on SunPayus's sniping performance, the score was once chased to 14-14.
However, in the twenty-ninth round of the game, Qin Feng's offensive sniper rifle finally came into play again.
A wave of three kills in the endgame allowed Little Bee to score a crucial point, and also caused MRS's economy to completely collapse in the last round.
15 to 14, MRS called a timeout, and the director took advantage of the timeout to show the game replay.
apEX in the camera actually took the initiative to draw the line for Qin Feng's sniper rifle.
[Ye Qingjie, apEX used to pull guns for Big Sweet Potato, and now apEX pulls guns for God A. Is this still the little bee I know? 】
Devour
[Don’t you understand this? apEX has broadened its horizons and now knows how to play this game. 】
[I really can’t accept it. It seems that a few months ago, ZywOo used curry by himself, and then his teammates used AK. 】
…
After the short timeout, MRS, who had forcibly mixed up, failed to withstand ZywOo's AK breakthrough, and unfortunately lost his own map selection 14 to 16.
As for the second picture, Death Amusement Park, the performance of the Little Bee offensive side was not ideal.
The speed of dropping people by default is still not as fast as Qin Feng's speed of finding opportunities to kill with a sniper rifle.
Fortunately, thanks to several waves of speed improvements, Vitality finally scored five valuable points in the first half.
In the second half, the Little Bee's double sniper defense was very effective. Even after losing the pistol round, they still managed to overtake the score.
At the MRS player table, SunPayus, the sniper in the team, suddenly became a little confused.
Obviously my sniper rifle was in good condition today, but a monster appeared on the opposite side.
Aether, 24-13, perfectly continued its amazing performance in the BLAST series.
Didn't the Little Bees have a training camp before the game as promised?
Do it all at once, second time tired, third time exhausted.
Picture 2: MRS failed to grasp the advantage and ultimately lost the close victory 14-16.
Qin Feng's data in this game can still only be described as terrifying.
47 kills and 29 kills in the two maps, a KAST of 91.7, a rating of 1.55, and an ADR of 99.6. It can almost be said that one person carried the little bee and fought fiercely in the two maps to win the final promotion spot.
…
As for the little bee's victory, it was the morning of July 6th, China time.
When the sky just turned white, Qin Feng's father Qin Dong got up early, drank a glass of water, and flipped through the Cologne battle report on his mobile phone.
In the six months since Qin Feng dropped out of school to play CSGO, although Qin Dong rarely took the initiative to call Qin Feng to chat, he was actually paying attention to the news in the CSGO community every day.
I hope my son will become a dragon and I hope my daughter will become a phoenix.
It should be the wish of every parent to hope that their children will make a difference and that their children will succeed.
Qin Dong is naturally no exception.
The only pity is that most CSGO games are played late at night in China due to time differences, which makes Qin Dong rarely have the opportunity to watch the live broadcast of Vitality games.
However, Qin Dong nodded with satisfaction when he saw the title "Champion's Remaining Prestige, Vitality2-0MRS Difficult to Win".
Do you still need to watch Vitality games? Woke up to another victory!
Of course, Qin Dong also watched a lot of his son's highlights on major video websites.
Netizens even organized a hexagonal panel based on the data based on the players' performance in various competitions.
As for the players who didn’t perform well:
[Pay attention to the factory entry timing panel]
[Beat type panel]
[Find a class panel]
[Passing Water Friends Panel]
[Whose general panel is this?]
If it is the eldest brother in the team, that is:
【Platinum Star Panel】
[Hexagonal warrior panel]
[Where did the Xiaodai panel come from]
As for the comments under Qin Feng’s panel...
【All rise! 】
[The tip of the pyramid, the solution to the equation! 】
[God A, the man who cleared CSGO! 】
[The screen is too small to fit in the panel! 】
…
