"Bang!"
2K slammed his fist viciously onto the desk, the keyboard bouncing from the impact!
"Seriously... how the hell do you even play against that? Huh?!"
In this moment, he transformed into a "high-voltage generator," on the verge of unleashing his fury on his teammates.
"Timeout!"
The EG coach called for a timeout almost at the exact same moment 2K blew up.
EG had played the first half smoothly.
They'd barely called any timeouts, and now the coach spent the rest of them without hesitation—because he realized that if he didn't use them now, there might be no chance to use them later.
"Hey! Man! Calm down!"
The coach first held down 2K, who was nearly jumping out of his seat, then pressed further, "That round—the economy clearly called for an ECO. Why buy the Scout? Why the Desert Eagle with half armor?"
???
Are you questioning me?
2K, already frustrated after losing three rounds in a row, shot his head up and fired back: "Why? Because I want to win! I want to win that round! If I didn't want to win, I might as well lie down like a piece of trash and wait to die! Is there a problem with that?!"
"You want to win?"
The EG coach's temper flared up as well.
Ever since that little C9 clique had joined the team, arguments like this had never stopped—something even the North American EG fans all knew about.
He shot back with a pointed counter:
"Then did you win that round?"
"Tell me—did you win?!"
"I..."
2K was instantly at a loss for words, his cheeks visibly flushing red and burning hot.
The next second, once he came back to his senses, he avoided any mention of how he'd peeked early in the round and gotten picked off for free by Meng Lang's one-shot, and instead abruptly turned his fire on his teammates.
His voice went shrill with rage:
"I wanted to win! But how are we supposed to win with teammates playing like that?!"
"I just don't get it! CeRq's Scout already hit that guy in the body! With HP like that, any one of you three just needed to land two shots! Two shots! We would've won!"
"How do you miss every single shot?! Huh?!"
The three teammates were stunned by the torrent of abuse.
RUSH, Brehze, and CeRq's faces first showed shock, then twisted into an odd expression mixing frustration and disbelief.
That image... that figure holding an AK, sliding left and right across the screen, accompanied by that immaculate spray control!
It surfaced uncontrollably in their minds once again.
Was it their fault?
It was that guy on the other side who had the problem, right?!
Meanwhile, in the 6657 stream room.
On the broadcast screen, the highlights of Meng Lang's previous round were being replayed—from the early-round one-tap on the jumping peek by the car, to the mid-to-long-range spray transfers afterward!
Even watching it a second time, many viewers in the stream room were still dumbfounded.
Of course, some chat messages raised doubts.
"Dark's spray control on that play was indeed terrifying, but the real question is why is EG so bad?"
"Right? Three CTs, plus a Desert Eagle, and they can't trade out a half-HP T?"
"No wait! Am I imagining it, or was Dark's crosshair actually sliding while he sprayed? Is it just my eyes from... you know?"
"Buddy, you're not alone! I watched the replay and Dark's view was sliding too! How can you slide while spraying with an AK that's already so unstable?"
At this point, Wanjiqi's voice came faintly through the soundproof headphones, carrying an almost moan-like admiration: "Guys... I kind of... don't even know how to cast this..."
"That AK... that spray control..."
"Look at Dark's details on this play! Look carefully!"
"He's not just spraying and controlling recoil—he's holding down the left mouse button while strafing left and right as he sprays! Because that makes him harder to hit."
"Some chat is saying my P90 run-and-gun is even harder to hit."
"Hahaha, buddy, honestly, you're not wrong there."
"But what's terrifying about Dark's play is that he's using the AK, the hardest gun to control in the entire game. In this crouch-slide spray, the crosshair shakes far more violently—yet the landing point of every single bullet is being corrected! Every tiny movement is setting up an advantage for the next bullet!"
"This kind of spray control... it's simply unanswerable!"
"What Dark did here was combine elite spray control with movement, overturning our understanding of the game and its rules—that's why it all feels so alien to us."
"The observer just cut to a victim's POV too, and seriously! From the victim's perspective, Dark is basically a ghost! Erratic, impossible to track down! Even with a Deagle you're not hitting that."
"The key point is, if you don't land your shots, you won't get another chance to shoot. Watching this whole sequence, Dark's AK punishes everyone who misses."
"Honestly, no more words needed—Dark's AK play is just too beautiful to watch!"
The moment Wanjiqi finished his analysis, the stream chat completely exploded!
A flood of comments instantly drowned out the screen:
"Holy crap! It really does look like that!"
"I took a closer look—Dark's AK really is different from other riflers. Xia-ge goes for perfect pre-aiming; this guy shoots first and aims after, then pulls the crosshair back into place!"
"You're telling me that spray control comes from a hand wrapped in bandages?"
"This is actually insane. By the way, didn't Hei÷ used to be pretty mediocre with rifles? Don't even mention the AK—the AWP was the only thing worth watching."
"It's called a breakthrough, got it? If you don't get it, go grind more!"
"No no no, every time you say 'breakthrough' I think of that 'sudden enlightenment' guy from Perfect World."
"Speaking of which, if Hei÷'s rifling is this strong, why did EG cut him back then?"
"He'd just switched to rifles at the time, hadn't fully developed yet, right?"
"Isn't the new IGL Chinese too? You'd think he'd look out for a fellow countryman, give him some time!"
"Stop making me laugh, buddy. Banana boy 2K is like: who the hell are you calling a 'fellow countryman'?"
"."
The chat in the 6657 stream room flooded the screen in waves.
At the Antwerp studio venue.
On the G2 side, Xiao Lizi took advantage of EG's timeout to turn to Meng Lang with a delighted face and joke, "Bro, that AK of yours is unreal! From now on I'm just buying you AKs, alright? Feels like that's our real strategy!"
That was indeed the case.
The round before, he had flanked from the A site through CT spawn, originally planning to catch them from behind, when he first heard the scattered gunfire of a Scout, a Desert Eagle, and a USP by his ear!
Then the AK roared!
The world instantly fell silent.
By the time he circled around to the back of CT spawn, all that was left in front of him was a floor covered in corpses.
Naturally, none of the strategies they'd set up got used.
"Bro, your AK barrel was on fire today."
Coach XTQZZZ's face was also glowing with barely concealed admiration and excitement. When the opponent called the timeout, he came straight over and gave Meng Lang a "shoulder massage." "Great play! Next round, keep playing exactly like that! Take them down in one go!"
XTQZZZ had every reason to be excited.
No team wins on the back of one player alone.
Not even a star player.
More often than not, a star player's role is this: when the team is teetering on the edge, relying on individual brilliance to clutch a crucial round or secure a multi-kill to win the key round.
To activate his teammates!
To crush the opponent's confidence!
But Meng Lang?
For three rounds straight, he had—by all appearances—done it entirely on his own!
One man taking one round!
And three rounds in a row at that!
Two aces and one four-kill!
His individual K/D had rocketed up to [22/12]!
This didn't just completely destroy the soaring momentum of EG's three-round win streak to open the second half—it was like a shot of adrenaline injected straight into G2's veins!
And Meng Lang wasn't even G2's "star player"!
To put it bluntly,
he was just a temp.
If even the temp was exploding like this, shouldn't the team's actual star player step up a little?
Aren't you embarrassed?
Xia-ge, stop smiling—I'm talking about you!
And Ilya, stop whiffing the AWP—it's time to show the other side what real skill looks like!