Chapter 1 The Interview

The trophy had been lifted, the medals had been distributed, and the photos had been taken. Finally, it was time for the interview.

The curiosity of all the foreign viewers towards the FV team had reached its peak.

Although the five members of the FV team were considered to be among the earliest star players of IOI in the eyes of the Chinese, their fame was limited to China.

After all, this game was developed by Finger Corporation, and for a long time, the most exposure had been given to the star players of European and American clubs. Therefore, the foreign audience knew virtually nothing about these five players.

During the group stage, the poor performance of the Chinese teams led the foreign audience to lump the FV team together with them as a weak team, and they had no interest in understanding them.

After the quarter-finals and semi-finals, the official organizers arranged interviews, but those interviews mainly focused on some details of the matches and lacked substantive content.

For example, after the semi-final, Pan Ying was interviewed, but Pan Ying himself had the personality of an interview black hole. His answers were either two words short or no more than a sentence long, giving the impression that he was all swagger and no substance, and there was really nothing to discuss.

Compared to the FV team's official Weibo, which was always stirring things up, the players' answers were remarkably unremarkable.

Therefore, for most viewers, FV was still a very mysterious team.

Why were they so strong? Starting from the quarter-finals, they had won all their matches 3:0, and judging from the results, there was basically no suspense. The opponents had no chance at all.

This suffocating sense of oppression forced everyone to admit that the FV team was currently the most dominant IOI team in the world, bar none. They were not only in a league of their own, but also a league ahead of the Fry team, who took second place.

The official hosts from Finger Corporation also had many questions to ask.

The FV team members and coach Zhou Pengyuan stood in a row, each wearing a champion medal, their heads held high, waiting to be interviewed.

The host began to interview the players one by one, from the top lane, to the jungler, then to the mid lane, bot lane, and finally the coach.

The host first came to the top lane player, and after letting him greet all the viewers, he asked the prepared question: "In the second game, the team first-picked the Chaos Doom hero for you. What was the strategic consideration behind this? What is your understanding of this hero?"

The top lane player thought for a moment and replied, "According to the analysis of our coaching team, this hero is basically invincible in the mid-to-late game in terms of stats. If you can guarantee your development in the early game, you are guaranteed to win if you pick him, so we first-picked him."

"My understanding of this hero...anyone can play him. As long as you get ahead, you can win by face-rolling the keyboard."

After listening to the translation, the host couldn't help but laugh: "Anyone can play him? That's very confident. Can you comment on the player who you were facing today?"

The top lane player thought for a moment: "I feel that his mechanics are pretty good, but the victory or defeat of the game has nothing to do with him. My team is just a little bit better than his team."

After listening to the translation, the audience in the audience booed, and whistles rose and fell.

Before, in the semi-finals, Pan Ying also had a faint air of showing off when he was interviewed, such as "99% of the situations are planned", "3:0 is not surprising", "It just so happens that the opponent's performance was all within our coaching team's expectations and we didn't need to improvise", and so on.

But now they realized that it wasn't just the captain Pan Ying who had this personality, the whole team was pretty much the same!

The top lane player's "anyone can play him", "face-rolling the keyboard can win", and "the opponent is quite strong" were also highlighting a faint sense of showing off.

The host then went to the jungler to conduct the interview.

"We all know that the Storm Swordsman is your signature hero. After the opponent released him, you really won the final victory with this hero, and you also successfully scored a pentakill. How did it feel to get a pentakill? Most people think that this is a hero for stomping noobs, but you still took him out on the highest stage of professional competition and achieved good results. Can you tell us where your confidence comes from?"

The jungler didn't think too much. After listening to the translation, he immediately said, "As for the pentakill, I was still a little happy, after all, my teammates killed people too fast in the previous few games, and it was not easy to steal a kill."

"But this pentakill was indeed well protected by my teammates, and I didn't do much. I just needed to aim and auto-attack."

"As for confidence, it actually has nothing to do with my proficiency. In our coaching team's analysis, this hero is indeed a hero that can only stomp noobs. Normal development makes him useless, so I usually don't dare to pick him in the competition."

"But the coaching team developed a mid-jungle 'daddy-feeding' strategy with Storm Swordsman and Spectral Blacksmith, allowing me to use this hero to eat the economy of two lanes, so I dared to play him."

After listening to the translation, the audience booed again.

Sure enough, the jungler had the same personality, "my teammates kill too fast", "I didn't do much", "usually I don't dare to pick him". These flippant remarks sounded funny, but after careful consideration, they didn't seem to have any problems. This was the most outrageous thing.

The host then came to the mid lane player.

"In the first game, you decisively chose the Blast Craftsman to deal with the Blade Wing and the global roam strategy. In the understanding of most teams, this is a relatively weak and unpopular hero. Why did you choose such a hero? If the opponent hadn't chosen the Blade Wing, would you still have chosen this hero? Or would you have had other confident choices?"

The mid lane player was a more calm and cautious person. After listening to the translation, he thought for a while before saying, "Although this hero is unpopular, our coaching team believes that its tower-pushing ability is actually OP (overpowered) in the new version, so it's a good choice to use it to counter the global roam strategy. Of course, it also requires team cooperation to prevent the opponent from having a chance to gank."

"If the opponent hadn't picked the Blade Wing, I definitely would have picked him. The global roam strategy is still a relatively strong lineup in this version."

The so-called OP means that although the Blast Craftsman seems to have many flaws on the surface, he has become the core choice to counter the global roam strategy because of his powerful tower-pushing ability and his ability to teamfight to a certain extent when he is developed.

The mid lane player's answer also cleared up many viewers' doubts. FV's decision to release the Blade Wing was obviously well prepared. If the opponent picked it, they could counter it, and if the opponent didn't pick it, they would pick it themselves.

The host continued, "So you are also proficient in the Blade Wing hero, right?"

The mid lane hero was silent for a moment: "This hero should be the most basic hero in the mid lane. It would be outrageous if a professional player couldn't play him."

The host then came to the bot lane player.

"Today, your strategic position in the team doesn't seem to be particularly high. The strategies for the three games were arranged around the mid lane, top lane, and jungle, and the bot lane often had to choose team-oriented marksmen to cooperate with the team. But in this situation, you still managed to deal very high damage and have a very good KDA. How did you do it?"

The bot lane player smiled: "Because according to the analysis of our coaching team, the bot lane doesn't deserve to be the carry in this version, it can only be a tool. If the top, mid, and jungle are doing well, the bot lane will do well. If the top, mid, and jungle are not doing well, the bot lane is useless."

"I don't have any requirements for strategic arrangements, as long as we can win. As for the damage and KDA...I just followed my teammates and picked up scraps. Anyone could have done it."

Laughter and cheers came from the audience again. This bot lane player also had the same style of speaking as the previous players. "As long as we can win", "followed my teammates", "anyone could have done it". These flippant remarks were coming out one after another.

The host finally came to the support player, Pan Ying.

Pan Ying could be regarded as an old acquaintance of the audience. After all, he was the one who was interviewed during the semi-finals. This squinting "interview black hole" was the team's commander and captain, and he had left a deep impression on many viewers.

"Today, the team's collaboration of the FV team is still as beautiful as before, and they easily defeated their opponents 3:0 like in the quarter-finals and semi-finals. From the outside, you play very cohesively, and everyone seems to be very clear about their teammates' next actions, as if they were operating with a shared brain. How do you achieve such perfect teamwork?"