Map Three: Dust II!
ID: G2-Dark
K/D: 43/12
ADR: 156.6
Rating: 2.59
Meng Lang’s shocking stats made the live chat go wild!
Everyone had thought his 30 kills on Inferno in map one were already astonishing enough. Who would have expected him to blast out a 43-kill performance on Dust II in the Major proper? It blew countless people’s minds!!!
One had to know that, in the CSGO era, the highest number of kills on a single map in a Major proper was 52, achieved by old NiKo against FlipSid3 at the 2016 Columbus Major.
But that match had gone a grueling 59 rounds!
How many had Dark played?
“Holy shit! That’s way too ruthless!”
“Whose booster came here to take an order?”
“Hiss! If those stats were put on domestic Perfect World, wouldn’t even his parents get confiscated?”
“Parents? Even eighteen generations of ancestors couldn’t save him!”
“I thought Black God’s 30 kills on Inferno in map one were already exaggerated. Didn’t expect there to be something even more exaggerated!”
“True. Watching Dust II, it was completely Dark swimming through them like a dragon!”
“So good, so good, so good! Brothers! This is the ultimate combat high!”
“As expected of us CNCS players. One dry swing and he directly swung Dust II apart!”
“It’s over! I’m about to become a Black God fan!”
“No question, G2 definitely picked up a treasure this time.”
“Big Sweet Potato only got 22 kills on this map. This is fucking ridiculous.”
“Feels like ZywOo’s parameters were tuned a little too high on map two. By map three, his values were a bit unstable.”
“True. Map three was completely suppressed by Dark.”
“I don’t need to say who the real Desert Emperor is, right?”
“Dark: I like Dust II! The CS on this map is very pure!”
The bullet comments in the livestream flooded the screen like a tide.
But Vitality and ZywOo’s fans were starting to lose their seats.
“No, seriously! ZywOo was one green with four reds, and you’re telling me he got suppressed?”
“Internet-celebrity team is making such a fuss! Rein it in!”
“Are Vitality’s teammates even human? Four earth-shattering maggots, more like!”
“When ZywOo farms, they take rounds. The moment he goes quiet, they get beaten to death. It was like this last year, and it’s still like this now.”
But someone in the chat immediately refuted them:
“Lmao, that only proves you didn’t kill enough.”
“Learn from Dark. Kill 30 on map one, 43 on map three, then see if you can win.”
“Holy shit! Add in his 18 kills on map two, and Dark dropped 91 kills across three maps today! Too ruthless! This guy! Once the stats update, isn’t he going to explode?”
“.”
At this moment, at the Antwerp Major venue, the director’s camera also cut to the players’ seats.
As the best-performing player in today’s BO3 and the biggest contributor to G2’s advancement, even though Meng Lang had been nothing more than an unknown Eastern player before Antwerp, the camera was now almost constantly locked on him.
At this moment, the world’s focus was on this seventeen-year-old CNCS prodigy who had stunned everyone in a single battle!
G2’s teammates could hardly contain their excitement.
NiKo took off his white wrist guard and gave Meng Lang a fierce hug, praising him again and again: “Nice, bro!”
To be honest, when they lost map two, Nuke, old NiKo—who was already used to going soft-legged in key matches—had gone numb. In that instant, the scenes of his past failures had even started habitually flashing through his mind.
Who would have thought! Who would have thought!
Meng Lang on map three had actually given him such a massive surprise!
Aleksib also yanked off his headset, hugged Meng Lang excitedly, and shouted, “I LOVE U! Brother! You’re amazing! No—your performance today was too outstanding!”
There was no helping it. Today’s BO3 had been too intense, with the first two maps both nearly maxing out the rounds.
As the in-game leader, Aleksib had been burning brain cells crazily in round after round of mind games, to the point where his brain was almost unable to turn by the end.
Then ZywOo broke out, and Vitality started chasing points.
With his CPU somewhat overloaded, Aleksib thought that since the young player in the team had such a hot hand today, why not drop him an AK and let him try?
In the end, who would have expected that this try would open up a whole new world!
He threw all that academy-style CS tactics stuff to the back of his mind—at least on a simple and violent map like Dust II, Aleksib quickly discovered that dropping Meng Lang an AK was the simplest and most effective tactic!
Every opening, he could reliably get one kill. Alone, he could create an opening. His ability to chain kills and multi-kills was maxed out. What academy-style tactics could be more useful than this?!
It was also at this moment
that Aleksib could not help but sigh inwardly:
In the end, CS was still an FPS shooting game!
At the same time, m0NESY beside him also excitedly wrapped an arm around Meng Lang. “My god! You played this map too well, brother!”
He truly had been shocked!
Although Meng Lang had said earlier that Dust II was his specialty map, and after losing Nuke had once again emphasized it with a serious face, m0NESY hadn’t taken it too much to heart. He had only thought Meng Lang was trying to encourage him, who had been somewhat dejected at the time.
Because Dust II, as a simple beginner map, shouldn’t be a question of whose “specialty” it was. Rather, one should ask who didn’t have it as a “specialty.”
There were hardly any pros who weren’t good at Dust II.
The kid felt that Dust II was his specialty too!
But after personally witnessing Meng Lang’s performance today, he finally understood. How was this merely a specialty?
This was practically the specialty among specialties!
This guy!
Where the hell had he practiced those wide swings on Dust II?!!
At the same time, huNter- came forward from the side, patted Meng Lang on the shoulder, then wrapped an arm around his cousin NiKo on the other side and asked with a smile, “How does this Major feel?”
The Major had always been the pain in NiKo’s heart.
From the three boxes in Boston 2018 to the three shots on Nuke in 2021!
He had always been only one bullet away from the throne, yet the trajectory of that bullet had pierced through the most heartbreaking moments of his entire career.
After experiencing the trauma of Stockholm last year, combined with G2’s poor results in the first half of the year and the team making an emergency roster change on the eve of the Major, NiKo originally had not held too many expectations for Antwerp this time.
It wasn’t that he didn’t crave the championship!
Perhaps it was simply that when expectations were low enough, there wouldn’t be too much disappointment.
But at this moment, hearing his cousin’s words, old NiKo was radiant with joy. Though he did not open his mouth to plant any flag, everything was already understood without words.
Seeing this, huNter- could not help laughing. Looking toward Meng Lang’s figure, he sighed again, “You really picked up a treasure for our team!”
“Of course!”
Old NiKo raised his brows proudly.
After a brief celebration, the group walked toward the Vitality players’ seats opposite them to shake hands.
At this moment, the atmosphere at Vitality’s seats was gloomy.
apEX raised his head and looked at the tall, upright Eastern face walking over from the other side of the stage. This French captain, who had always been arrogant and wild, had a somewhat complicated expression for a moment.
On map one, Inferno, they had fallen short by a single move.
Fine, he accepted that.
The other side dropped 30 kills.
He deserved to win!
On map two, Nuke, they found the opponent’s weakness. The opponent clearly wasn’t good at Nuke, and in the first half it had been NiKo carrying the team too.
Although in the second half, that four-kill retake from ramp into the inner site had created some difficulty for them, fortunately, at the final moment, NiKo had still agreed.
They successfully took it!
But what the hell was this Dust II on map three?
43 kills on a single map!
Brother, are you smurfing in low elo here?
And that unreasonable style of his—coming out of mid doors and immediately looking for people to kill. apEX had always thought he himself was the “freest madman,” until today, when he saw Meng Lang on Dust II and finally understood what ultimate unrestrained freedom meant!
Beside him, old buddy ZywOo looked sullen, head lowered as he gnawed on his finger, as if he still had not walked out of Meng Lang’s fastest Long A, heaven-shaking four-kill in the final round.
Thinking about it, that made sense!
After he won the previous clutch and broke G2’s economy, the premonition that they would chase back and overturn the match had truly been unprecedentedly strong in that instant!
But never did he expect it!
With one fastest Long A acceleration from Meng Lang, all suspense was directly strangled!
In the time it took to hold mid doors with an AWP, he turned his head and saw that all his teammates were dead.
I love you my ass!!!
At this moment, looking at Meng Lang with both hands in his pockets, high-spirited and full of confidence,
for one instant, he seemed to see his former self. His eyes could not help dimming slightly.
The venue director aimed the camera at the two of them—the spirited Meng Lang and the visibly dejected ZywOo forming a stark contrast!
The livestream chat exploded again:
“66666!”
“Dark’s stride with both hands in his pockets comes with its own wind pressure!”
“Tsk, tsk! As expected of an entry fragger. Even when he walks, it looks like he’s pressing forward!”
“Holy shit! Is our CNCS also going to have its own chosen one?”
“.”
Of course, Vitality and ZywOo’s fans were still stubborn:
“They only made it into the Legends Stage. It’s not like they won the Major. Is there any need to hype him this much?”
“His teammates kept dropping him AKs. Pure bloodsucking!”
“To be fair, with so many star players on G2, it’d be strange if they didn’t win!”
“If ZywOo had even half of G2’s normal teammates, would he have lost today?”
“I feel like Dou Dou’s calling and old Astralis’ system don’t match at all. It’s like a brute meeting a scholar. If ZywOo were given the same freedom to take fights as that Black bastard, how could map three have been this miserable?”
“Seriously, zonic, stop playing your damn Astralis system!”
“True, ZywOo completely failed to play at last year’s level today. It was suffocating to watch!”
“The Danish trio is fine, but they’re limiting ZywOo. Vitality only has a future if they play a protect-the-king style centered around ZywOo.”
“They should reconsider the roster setup. Stop fucking thinking about turning Vitality into a second Astralis. B1ad3 was suppressed by your peak Astralis for so long, and even he knew to find another path and choose a new lineup and playstyle to bring NAVI to where they are today.”
“.”
Clearly, even though Vitality still had a chance to advance to the Legends Stage after losing this qualification match, they could no longer go through directly 3-0, which left many fans still unable to let it go.
After all, in the first two days of Antwerp, Vitality had been sweeping through everything, kicking down whoever they met, sending ZywOo fans’ expectations soaring—only for them to be stopped at the edge of qualification today by G2, the “internet-celebrity traffic team” in their eyes, two maps to one!
How could they not be angry?
Of course, there were also trolls stirring the pot:
“Right, right, right!”
“Saint ZywOo is NBA, teammates are CBA.”
Wanjiqi looked at the bullet comments, not knowing whether to laugh or cry:
“You guys are making such a fuss, bros! I was wondering why there are still so many fans thinking about Vitality’s all-French lineup. If France had anyone who could fight, would they need to form an international squad?”
“Seriously, the people spamming that they miss last year’s Vitality now are probably the same batch who flamed the roster change last year. Last year’s all-French lineup had a stable floor, but the ceiling was just like that. If they stubbornly stuck to an all-French lineup, then let me say something ZywOo fans won’t like to hear—ZywOo might never win a Major championship in his life, just like NiKo! Ah, of course, old NiKo this year is hard to say…”
“Uh! Not trolling anymore! What I mean is, although Vitality’s roster change this year and introduction of the Astralis trio hasn’t shown huge improvement yet, at least you can see where the problems are. Switching from a native-language lineup to an English-speaking lineup is indeed difficult, but it’s a necessary attempt. To put it bluntly, just treat it as training ZywOo’s English. No destruction, no establishment!”
“Hehe, someone in chat says, if you make it sound so nice, then why did Vitality lose today?”
“Why? Today was purely because Dark was fierce enough!”
“Huh? Someone’s still asking where he was fierce? Do I even need to say it? No, bro! Just look directly at the stats from the three maps and you’re done!”
As he spoke, Wanjiqi logged into HLTV, opened the freshly updated post-match stats, and checked the results of today’s entire BO3 between Vitality and G2:
ID: G2-Dark
K/D: 91/29
ADR: 145.1
Rating: 2.45
The instant he saw the data, Wanjiqi couldn’t hold it in. He sighed again, “Crushing everything in his path! Across these three maps today, aside from Nuke, Dark’s stats on Inferno were just outright killing! His stats on Dust II were outright bullying! He may have already set the record for the highest number of kills on Dust II in a Major proper! Even on Nuke, he also took responsibility once! You really can only describe it in four words: crushing everything in his path!”
“This Rating is even more exaggerated! 2.45 across three maps! And if I remember correctly, in the matches from the previous two days, he also got Ratings of 1.76 and 1.87. In other words, across the entire Challengers Stage this time, Dark’s average Rating is 2.19!”
As Wanjiqi spoke, he sucked in a breath!
“Holy shit! Brothers! Something’s not right! If Dark can keep these stats stable in the upcoming Legends Stage, then he might be about to break s1mple’s historical record for the highest Rating at a Major event!”