At this moment, NiKo and the others, who had been halfway through rotating back and had watched helplessly as Meng Lang’s dual pistols flooded the kill feed and cleared the field, finally came back to themselves as well, expressions of pleasant surprise appearing on their faces.
“My God! You actually took all of them?”
“Nice, brother! You are so fucking good!!!”
Little Li and Cousin burst into cheers!
“Beautifully done! Bro!”
Beside him, old NiKo even took the initiative to reach out with a smile and gave Meng Lang a forceful high five, the crisp smack ringing out. He looked at Meng Lang, the admiration in his eyes nearly overflowing.
Although the scrim was not over yet,
after the first two practice maps, especially the second map, Mirage, Meng Lang’s steady performance anchoring B apartments had left him extremely satisfied.
Previously, although they had brought in Little Li this year, G2’s poor performance in the first half of the year had made him hold little hope for this Antwerp Major.
He had only wanted to leave no regrets.
But now, Meng Lang’s appearance had even made him begin to look forward to this trip to Antwerp.
Off to the side, m0NESY watched the almost “thread-spinning” admiring look NiKo was giving Meng Lang, and for some reason, he felt a little sour inside!
I was clearly the one who came first!
Also, he’s about the same age as me. If you call him “Bro,” then what am I?
But Meng Lang’s performance today really had been excellent. To a great extent, he had relieved the pressure on him as the sniper, and there had even been several times during retakes when Meng Lang had taken the initiative to draw crossfires for him, giving him chances to take shots.
Thinking of this, the kid sitting on the other side of Meng Lang could not help but reach out and clap hands with him as well. “Well played, mate!”
The scrim continued.
In the remaining rounds of map three, Dust2, Meng Lang also maintained his fiery form from the opening, holding the situation together alone in B site.
When it came to the second half on the T side, once Meng Lang picked up an AK, he once again displayed the bearing of the “Sand Emperor.” His firepower was maxed out, and for five or six rounds in a row, he found opening kills and broke through!
Several times he chained multi-kills together, and there were even plays where he tore apart AWPs with his AK. In the final few rounds, he directly killed the Astralis sniper’s aim out of shape.
Why out of shape?
If you are a rifler facing an AWP, you know in your heart that the other side can take your life with a single shot, so you have long since expected it. Even if you die, at most you think, “Oh, I got sniped. Nothing to be done about that. It’s a one-shot weapon anyway.”
But Astralis’s sniper, holding the AWP with the highest damage in CS and hard-scoping several times, was repeatedly wide-swung by Meng Lang’s AK and one-tapped in the head!
He was torn apart before he could even see the man clearly.
Let that happen a few more times!
If it were you,
your aim would deform too!
It was way too fucking damaging to the mental!
By the time all 30 rounds of map three had been played, Meng Lang, having returned to Shurima, had hard-forced a KD of 56/17 on his own “specialty map,” Dust2, even though scrims did not look at Rating!
That was terrifying!
Although today’s Astralis was no longer the dynasty-era team, they were still not a team that could be casually farmed like fish in a barrel. This was something that had never happened before in past scrims between G2 and Astralis!
Old NiKo was so shocked he nearly turned into shrimp paste!
He had known Meng Lang for a long time. In his impression, Meng Lang had always been a very talented CN sniper, but he did not remember his AK being this damn strong!
Thinking of this, he could not help looking at the strange bandages wrapped around Meng Lang’s hand—could those bandages have some special effect?
But was that reasonable?
NiKo was still lost in thought, but Little Li and the others had already begun cheering enthusiastically for Meng Lang.
“Nice!”
“Well played, Lang!”
“Oh my God! Bro, your firepower on the T side is simply ridiculously strong!!!”
“...”
Facing the unanimous praise from his teammates, Meng Lang took off his headset and waved his hand modestly.
“No, no, no! It was Cousin’s utility that was thrown well!”
Hearing this, huNter immediately gave a reserved smile, smugly raising his eyebrows at his cousin NiKo. But in the next instant, he felt that something seemed a little off!
Wait a second!
Aren’t I the entry fragger?
How did I end up throwing utility while playing?
In fact, the reason huNter had unknowingly shifted from entry fragger to support utility thrower on the attacking side in the second half was because, as he played, he realized something!
As long as the utility was thrown well,
Meng Lang, who was nominally the first to charge in and draw the crosshair for his teammates, would in reality often lead from the front and start by killing two, or even two and a half!
His firepower was absurdly explosive!
With a teammate that strong, when all you needed to do was move your hands and throw a few pieces of utility—
if it were you, what would you choose?
Behind the G2 players,
Coach XTQZZZ’s eyes grew brighter and brighter. In the shorthand notebook in his hand, his impression of Meng Lang gained three brand-new keywords.
Sharp instincts!
Fond of wide swings!
The firepower after getting his signature weapon, the AK...
Four words:
Terrifying beyond belief!
Thinking of this, Coach XTQZZZ’s heart gradually heated up, and the look he gave Meng Lang became increasingly gentle, as if he were gazing at a precious treasure!
The scrim ended.
Denmark, Copenhagen, Astralis club base.
“Hey, guys, what happened? Smile a little, won’t you?”
The Astralis club manager walked into the training room and, seeing the gloomy-looking Astralis players, teased with a smile, “Didn’t you say you’d arranged a scrim with G2 to help them test out a newcomer? Don’t tell me you got schooled by the newbie?”
At this time, the only meritorious members remaining from the Astralis dynasty were gla1ve and Xyp9x.
Core players such as device, dupreeh, and Magisk had already left the team between the end of 2021 and the start of 2022. The team had brought in blameF and k0nfig to form a new firepower core, and recruited the dedicated sniper Farlig to fill the vacancy left after device’s departure.
“Not to that extent.”
gla1ve shrugged, then jerked his chin toward the team’s sniper Farlig. “Bro’s AWP kept getting torn apart, so his mental’s a little boomed, that’s all.”
“I didn’t! Don’t talk nonsense!”
Farlig, the main AWPer who had replaced device, inexplicably became a little flustered and angry. Stubbornly, he said, “His swings were too wide, and I was holding too tight. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been torn apart.”
After saying that, he then realized that this was basically admitting it himself. Immediately, he launched into a string of incomprehensible remarks like “G2’s newcomer has terrible details” and “what kind of normal person dry-peeks wide every day without utility,” and the training room instantly filled with cheerful air.
“Bro, don’t say so much. Just tell us, did he tear you apart or not?” The veteran Xyp9x was still teasing him.
“Uh... he did.” Farlig choked.
“Then that settles it.”
Xyp9x shrugged, and seeing this, everyone laughed again.
“It’s nothing major.”
Coach trace came over and patted everyone on the shoulder. “A newcomer has just joined the team. It’s normal for him to be a bit excited and have good aim. We suffered a little because we weren’t familiar with him.”
“Prepare properly. In the next round, they’re going to put in Jackz. Everyone focus up. Our target is this Major!”
“No problem, mate!”
“Watch me destroy them this round!”
“...”
The two teams did a brief review and took a short rest!
Very soon, the second round of scrims also began.
Meng Lang got up and left the training room, and Jackz, who had been waiting nervously outside for quite a while, walked in.
The moment he entered,
Jackz felt that the atmosphere was a little off.
The way his teammates looked at him... somehow seemed a bit distant, as if they were afraid a certain someone would misunderstand.
Fuck!
What the hell was going on?
Was he being too sensitive?
Very soon, the second BO3 scrim began.
This time, the maps the two sides played were Nuke, Inferno, and Ancient.
This round of scrims was not nearly as comfortable for G2.
G2’s problems this year once again surfaced in today’s scrim. They repeatedly lost clutches that they should originally have won, and the rounds they scored were basically reliant on the individual performances of their star players.
Jackz’s problem also appeared once more:
As the entry fragger on the attacking side, he did not need to shoulder too much utility throwing or complex decision-making, but he needed to focus on taking the first-gun duels!
Yet Jackz had major issues with the timing of his swings and with communicating for supportive utility from his teammates. Awkward timings where he “swung out alone” often occurred, and even when utility was given, Jackz’s entry success rate remained very low. After the first two maps, it was only 35%.
One had to know that an entry fragger was especially important on the attacking side. Once his first wave of offense was thwarted, or in other words, once he gave himself up for free, G2’s entire rhythm would fall into stagnation.
In the past, without a comparison,
everyone would think the issue might lie in the team not being sufficiently coordinated, or perhaps in unclear role positioning, or maybe in problems with the tactical system...
But today, Meng Lang had come in for a trial!
As the saying went, under fierce sunlight, all things reveal their true form.
Just looking at entry success rate alone, Meng Lang, who took the first-contact fights on the T side, had a survival-and-impact rate as high as 90%, almost making a contribution in every single round.
Without comparison, there was no harm.
After three maps, G2 were behind by a large margin on almost every map. They were completely lacking the divine courage they had shown in the previous BO3!
Gradually, a subtle change occurred in everyone’s mentality. It was like “only after walking outside did they realize it had never been raining out there.”
For a time, the looks they gave Jackz could not help becoming a little strange.
Jackz also sensed those gazes.
After three maps, his miserable personal KD and Rating made half his heart go cold.
During the previous break, he had secretly asked around about Meng Lang’s stats from today, the person competing with him for the spot. At the time, he had been extremely shocked, and inwardly he had comforted himself by thinking that perhaps Astralis had simply been in poor form today, allowing Meng Lang to farm.
Until this moment,
he had no choice but to face reality.