Chapter 18 April 18th

On April 18th, the match results for the Peak Showdown S3 semi-finals were announced.

The matchups were as follows: [Garbage Alliance] vs [Gates of Heaven], [Hell Front] vs [Order].

Since all four teams were contenders for the championship, there weren't many complaints about the pairings... Anyway, no matter how they were matched, it would be a clash of titans, so the audience had no reason to say it was rigged.

However, the introduction of "Artifacts" certainly made the situation more interesting.

The effects of these four artifacts are as follows:

[Crown]: Applies the "King's Dread" effect to all hostile units entering the battlefield. Targets affected by it will continuously lose survival points as a percentage until death (Note: The damage from "King's Dread" cannot be resisted by effects other than artifact effects, including battlefield barriers).

[Holy Grail]: All members of our team receive the "Divine Blood Blessing" effect upon entering the battlefield. If a target affected by it has not taken any damage for ten consecutive seconds, a "Divine Blood Energy Shield" will automatically generate around them. This shield can resist and eliminate a special effect applied to our team by an opponent (including artifact effects).

[Philosopher's Stone]: Periodically releases the "Midas Touch" effect on all hostile units entering the battlefield, once every thirty seconds. Targets affected by it will have a "Value Increase" buff attached to their equipment, skills, and items. This buff will increase the "quality" and "equipment requirements" of the items and skills, but the effects remain unchanged (this effect can only be removed by artifact effects); when the equipment requirements of an item or skill exceed the holder's capabilities, it will become invalid or unable to be activated.

[Amulet]: All members of our team receive the "Divine Right Protection" effect upon entering the battlefield. When our team members are affected by persistent abilities (including artifact effects) from opponents, the debuff and damage effects will be reflected, while the buff effects are retained and strengthened.

According to the information provided by the officials, the artifact counter relationships are quite obvious.

[Crown] definitely counters [Holy Grail], because "King's Dread" can start reducing the opponent's health across the barrier from the first second they enter the battlefield; this kind of uninterrupted "continuous damage" that cannot be resisted by the players themselves is equivalent to disabling the "Divine Blood Blessing."

And [Holy Grail] counters [Philosopher's Stone], because the "Divine Blood Energy Shield" can eliminate the latter's constantly stacking "Value Increase," and the generation frequency of the energy shield is higher than the frequency of "Value Increase."

Next, [Philosopher's Stone] counters [Amulet], because "Divine Right Protection" not only cannot nullify the "Value Increase" pseudo-buff effect, but will also strengthen it.

However, because "Divine Right Protection" can reflect debuffs and damage effects, [Amulet] is a complete counter to [Crown].

Finally, looking at the cross-comparisons... there is no obvious counter relationship between [Crown] and [Philosopher's Stone], [Holy Grail] and [Amulet]; they are in a situation where they can mutually exert their effects.

The above is the information about the artifacts; although it cannot be said that the countering side will definitely win, the advantage is so great... that it at least makes up for the gap in hard power to a large extent.

Therefore, in this round of strong showdowns, the choice of artifacts has clearly become the key to determining the outcome.

According to the rules, [Gates of Heaven], who were switched to the "bye position" in the previous round, do not have the right to participate in the artifact distribution in this round, so we will leave them aside.

Let's talk about the other three teams...

First, [Garbage Alliance] obtained the right to allocate artifacts first in the semi-finals because they finished the previous round with the second-fastest speed.

This kind of brainy work is naturally left to Honghu to do; after careful consideration... he finally chose the [Philosopher's Stone] for his team, allocated the [Amulet] to [Gates of Heaven], and allocated the [Holy Grail] to [Order].

Honghu's thinking was very clear, to reduce the possibility of his team being "countered" as much as possible (it is impossible to completely eliminate it in theory, so it can only be reduced).

How to reduce it? The allocation he made is the best answer...

Honghu not only calculated the accounts for his own team, but also calculated the accounts for [Order].

After [Garbage Alliance] finished selecting, the initiative will fall into the hands of [Order]; although [Order] can choose whether to exchange the artifacts of [Gates of Heaven], this exchange cannot change their fate of being "countered," because [Hell Front], who finished first in the previous round, will inevitably (according to normal logic) take an artifact that counters [Order] in the end.

Therefore, this choice of [Order] is actually just deciding whether they will be countered with the [Holy Grail] or countered with the [Amulet].

If they keep the [Holy Grail], the entire field will be affected by a continuous health-draining dot effect; if they exchange for the [Amulet]... in battle, as time goes by, all item and skill effects will gradually be rendered useless, and because of the artifact effect itself, this process of being rendered useless will be accelerated.

Comparing the two, it is obviously better to keep the [Holy Grail] in this kind of evenly matched duel.

Calculating it this way... [Order] will naturally choose not to exchange.

Of course, [Order] can forcibly choose to exchange... after the exchange, they will get the [Amulet], and [Gates of Heaven] will get the [Holy Grail]; and in order to counter [Order], [Hell Front] will inevitably use the [Crown] to exchange for the [Philosopher's Stone] in the hands of the [Garbage Alliance], so that the final situation will still become... [Garbage Alliance] uses the [Crown] to counter [Gates of Heaven]'s [Holy Grail], and [Hell Front] uses the [Philosopher's Stone] to counter [Order]'s [Amulet].

That is to say, no matter how they exchange, [Garbage Alliance] and [Hell Front] will be the countering parties, while the other two teams will be the countered parties.

If you want to make [Garbage Alliance] the countered party, there is only one possibility, that is... no matter whether [Order] exchanges or not, [Hell Front], who chooses last, forcibly puts themselves in the countered party's position, dragging [Garbage Alliance] down with them.

No matter how crazy Feng Bujue is, there is no reason to do that kind of thing...

It is one thing to use madness to conceal reasonable wit or some kind of belief or intention, it is another thing to do illogical and even stupid things in order to appear crazy.

Therefore, the final situation is consistent with Honghu's layout.

The semi-finals began with this set of artifact allocations: [Garbage Alliance] - [Philosopher's Stone]; [Gates of Heaven] - [Amulet]; [Hell Front] - [Crown]; [Order] - [Holy Grail]...