Chapter 7.22 Friday

On July 22nd, Friday, the members of the H4 Esports Club set foot on the land of Jingzhou for the first time.

Team Leader Su and Team Leader Guan each led the *GOG* and *IOI* divisions of the H4 Club to participate in the competition held in Jingzhou this weekend.

The schedule was simple: a best-of-five (Bo5) final, with all other matches being best-of-three (Bo3). A total of eight teams would compete in a single-elimination format, playing a total of seven matches over Saturday and Sunday.

While this schedule was a little tight, it was acceptable. After all, a more condensed schedule made it easier to maintain the heat in the short term, preventing the audience from losing patience.

What Team Leader Su found more outrageous was that the *GOG* and *IOI* matches were scheduled at the same time, both taking place this Saturday and Sunday!

Did they have to squeeze them together, forcing viewers to choose one?

Moreover, since both were games from Tenda, were they trying to compete for popularity? A dogfight within the company?

Wouldn't it be better to split the two games over two weekends?

It was truly puzzling.

However, what no one knew was that *GOG* and *IOI* were indeed fighting internally.

There was a reason for this scheduling.

Preparing for a competition required contacting teams, preparing venues, developing the schedule, and so on. Both sides had roughly the same amount of preparation time.

Whoever's competition came first would gain more attention!

For *GOG* players, if they knew that *IOI* was having a competition this week, and *GOG*'s competition was next week, then they would probably take a look at the *IOI* competition this week.

The same was true for *IOI* players.

But when the *GOG* competition started next week, *IOI* players might not bother watching.

The first to be held always gains more heat, just like many mobile phone manufacturers rush to be the first to launch.

Therefore, Tenda Games and Shang Yang Games were unwilling to concede in this regard, both wanting to be ahead.

However, the preparation time for the competition could not be shortened, and the competition had to be held on weekends, when there was more foot traffic. Neither side wanted to be behind, so after much fighting, the time for preparing the competition could not be compressed any further, and finally, they were squeezed into the same weekend.

Once the time was set, it was too late to change it, so they could only fight to the death!

In terms of player base, there was no doubt that *GOG* had the advantage.

But this time, *IOI* also spent a lot of money on promotion, in addition to inviting several well-known first-tier domestic clubs, it also invited several foreign clubs, and played the "World Championship" card.

This was very attractive to many viewers, after all, the best and most exciting matches were always international ones.

Both sides had invested a lot of advertising for publicity and preheating, and whether *IOI* could turn the tide in the national server depended on this.

If it was still suppressed by *GOG*, then future promotions would be even more difficult.

"Team Leader Su, we're going to the hotel first. Let's all work hard and try to bring back the trophy and celebrate the victory together!" Team Leader Guan said, and left with the team in a taxi.

The two venues were in different stadiums in Jingzhou, quite far apart, making it clear that they didn't want viewers to hedge their bets and force them to choose one side to watch.

Therefore, the two teams of the H4 Club were staying in different hotels, making it more convenient to get to the venue.

Of course, the hotel and food expenses were all covered by the organizer.

Team Leader Su was also preparing to hail a cab to go to the hotel.

At this time, Captain Pang Ling suggested, "Team Leader Su, it's still early, we don't have to go to the hotel yet. Wouldn't it be better to go to the DGE Club and find Huang Wang and Jiang Huan to play a practice match?"

Team Leader Su was stunned for a moment, then nodded, "That's right! It's a good opportunity to test the results of our recent training."

After the DGE Club left Modu, the H4 Club had been training hard, repeatedly watching the DGE team's recordings, and arranging online practice matches with other clubs.

The speed of progress was very fast!

The reason why the two DGE teams were able to win against H4, four against six, was multifaceted, including strong individual abilities, good teamwork, and many unexpected tactical routines.

In addition, a very important point was the understanding of the game.

What to do at each stage, what the responsibilities of each person are, how the tactical system should be implemented... These things benefited everyone in the H4 Club a lot.

Copying the tactics, and using them against other clubs, had surprisingly good results.

Therefore, everyone was a little inflated and wanted to find the DGE Club again to play another game to see how much they had improved.

Team Leader Su sent a message to Zhang Yuan, who readily agreed and sent the location.

The *GOG* division members of the H4 Club went directly to Mingyun Villa.

"At that time, we can just find an internet cafe to play practice matches, right?"

"I heard that there's a very famous internet cafe in Jingzhou called Mo Yu Internet Cafe? It's said to have very good equipment and a good environment. I wonder if we'll go there for practice matches."

"Is the equipment really that good? How good can it be?"

"Who knows, I feel like the internet is exaggerating a bit. Anyway, it's definitely better than the internet cafe we usually go to, but it's not that much better, right? Anyway, we'll see when we get there..."

The six members of the H4 Club took two taxis and arrived at Mingyun Villa about half an hour later.

On the way, everyone had nothing to do, so they also looked at the scenery outside.

The biggest feeling was: Sure enough, it's still far from Modu!

After all, Jingzhou was just a second-tier city, without the towering buildings of Modu, nor the special architecture of the Oriental Pearl Tower. Looking around on the way, all they saw were ordinary urban landscapes, with nothing special about them.

This made everyone's mentality much more balanced, and even gave them a little bit of superiority.

Because they had always heard that Jingzhou was very livable, with convenient internet cafes, food delivery, express delivery, etc. Some people even blew Jingzhou up to be better than Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, which made the members of the H4 Club very unconvinced.

Now it seemed that, at least in terms of high-rise buildings, Modu still held Jingzhou down tight.

The two taxis stopped one after the other at Mingyun Villa. Seeing the spacious villas, a bit of envy appeared on the faces of the members for the first time.

Much more impressive than the villa they lived in in the suburbs of Modu!

However, considering that this was mainly due to land prices, and that the villa in Modu could be worth two of these, everyone's mentality was slightly more balanced again.

Pang Ling, the captain of H4, was also looking at these villas, suddenly realizing that he seemed to have had an inexplicable sense of comparison since coming to Jingzhou.

Pang Ling himself was a little surprised when he realized this.

But thinking about it carefully, it was not surprising that this sense of comparison appeared.

Because the members of the H4 Club were all unconvinced after being crushed by the DGE Club!

Everyone was a high-scoring player and joined the H4 Club after a trial.

H4 Club was an old club in China, and many internet addicts were proud to join this club and become a professional player.

Pang Ling and others were very proud to be members of the *GOG* division of the H4 Club.

However, the members of the DGE Club severely shattered their pride, crushing them in terms of personal image and team strength.

How could the members of the H4 Club accept this?

It was like the chosen one in many *wuxia* novels who enters a famous sect after a lot of hard work, only to have a small sect suddenly come out of nowhere and beat you badly.

They would definitely feel psychologically unbalanced!

Therefore, the members of the H4 Club naturally developed this unbalanced mentality and subconsciously compared themselves.

Pang Ling instantly became vigilant when he thought of this and warned himself to maintain a normal state of mind.

Maintaining a good mentality is a very important lesson for competitive athletes.

Pang Ling took a deep breath and told himself not to think so much, but to concentrate on the upcoming practice match with the DGE Club.

Zhang Yuan had already come out to greet them.

"Team Leader Su! Please come in, please come in."

Zhang Yuan was very enthusiastic. After all, the DGE Club would inevitably have to maintain good relations with other domestic clubs in the future, and it was always good to cultivate more connections.

"Our training base is relatively simple, please feel free to sit down. It's almost noon, I've ordered takeout for everyone. After everyone eats, we'll go to Mo Yu Internet Cafe for practice matches."

Team Leader Su nodded, "Okay, we'll do as the host says, Zhang Ge, you can arrange it."

The members of H4 walked inside, looking around with great interest. This villa also had a yard, and the green plants in the yard were well trimmed, obviously taken care of by someone.

However, when they arrived at the training hall, the members of the H4 Club were silent.

Pang Ling didn't know how to express his feelings at this time.

Is this what you call a "relatively simple training base"?

This villa belonged to President Li, and after buying it, he basically maintained the original decoration and did not engage in extravagant renovations.

However, the original decoration was already a fine decoration!

Zhang Yuan also specially purchased various furniture, computers, etc., so the entire training hall looked very harmonious and formal, not like a homestay.

Compared with the training base of the H4 Club, Pang Ling immediately saw a clear difference!

The villa on the H4 Club's side was rented, and there were some of the landlord's furniture and sundries inside, which could not be thrown away, so they could only make do with it.

So it would appear nondescript.

The furniture included the original landlord's furniture and newly purchased furniture, the styles were inconsistent, and none of them could be considered good-looking; the accommodation conditions were even worse, some slept in bunk beds, and some spread single bedding on double beds. Many players didn't even have a wardrobe and could only buy a simple wardrobe to hang clothes.

But looking at the DGE Club's side, it was completely different!

All the furniture, including computer desks, wardrobes, sofas for resting, player's beds, etc., were obviously purchased in a unified manner, the styles were unified, the sizes were appropriate, and although there were more than a dozen computer desks in the training hall, it didn't feel crowded at all. On the contrary, it felt like it should have been like this.

These computers, flashing cool RGB lights, were very technological, and felt like they were at least ten years ahead of the computers on the H4 Club's side.

In short, the environment here was similar to what was filmed in many TV dramas, as if it was deliberately set up, and there was no "make do" place at all!

Pang Ling couldn't help but wonder, if this was called "relatively simple", what was the H4 training base called?

A slum or a garbage dump?

What was even more uncomfortable was Team Leader Su, who felt like this was a large-scale corpse whipping scene.

Because when the DGE Club visited the H4 Club, he was very proud to introduce everyone.

Now that he thought about the things he had boasted about, he felt more and more embarrassed, and he didn't know how Zhang Yuan and the others had endured it at that time...