December 30, Friday, 8:00 AM.

Pei Qian turned off his alarm and struggled out of bed.

These past two days, his determination to study had finally yielded some results – at least he’d gone through dozens of pages of notes, which was a good start.

Today was the same. Wake up early, take advantage of his clearer morning mind to review more, before the afternoon and evening came, when all he’d want to do was laze around.

While brushing his teeth, he checked his phone.

“Hm? The ioi global finals started yesterday in the early morning. Oh right, it is today, isn’t it?”

“The matches are still ongoing.”

The competition had started at 11 AM Los Angeles time yesterday, which was 3 AM Beijing time today. Six matches a day, and now they were already on the fifth match.

Domestic viewers wanting to watch the matches had to stay up through the night, watching from early morning until morning.

Pei Qian wasn’t particularly interested in ioi matches. After all, he’d never played it, couldn’t quite understand it, the timing was inconvenient, and FV Club didn’t need to play in the group stages either.

So he hadn’t paid much attention to this matter. Only after seeing related news notifications today did he click into a streaming platform to take a look.

Obviously, with Longyu Group’s vigorous promotion, the IOI Global finals had gained considerable popularity domestically. All major news apps were pushing notifications, streaming platforms were giving plenty of promotional resources, making it appear quite popular.

Plus, the GPL preseason had just ended a few days ago, with the spring season yet to begin. During this gap period, many idle players chose to watch the ioi global finals.

Pei Qian clicked into the livestream and found two foreign teams he completely didn’t recognize were playing. Currently in a balanced state, fighting quite intensely.

The scene looked tense, but the bullet comments weren’t discussing the match at all. Instead, fans of ioi and GOG were frantically arguing.

“Garbage! Opening match got pushed over, might as well not play the rest and swim back home!”

“Playing like absolute nonsense. Why aren’t they using their signature heroes? Not using their original tactics? Trying to learn from foreign teams? Can’t even mimic them properly!”

“Pure Handan Toddler – learned away their style too! Playing so ugly!”

“Such a nice venue, such a flashy opening ceremony, what prestige for the tournament, yet domestic teams get thrashed. Isn’t this disgusting?”

“Everyone, be more forgiving. It’s only the first match. Besides, they have to learn – the version has changed. Playing with last version’s tactics would only make them lose worse.”

“Damn, main point is staying up all night, just to see this? If GPL spring season wasn’t delayed, I wouldn’t come watch this crappy tournament and get pissed off!”

“Then hurry up and go back to your GPL! Garbage game only played by Chinese.”

“Oh, let me tell you something. In overseas markets, ioi and GOG’s market share has been equal for a while now. GOG isn’t only played by Chinese. It’s just that GOG’s domestic teams crush foreign teams.”

“Don’t know if you saw – foreign club uniforms have that GOG logo. Unless you’re blind and can’t see?”

“Wearing GOG logos to play ioi finals is ridiculous. Fingerstone Company must be fuming.”

“Can’t help it. Clubs have already accepted sponsorships. Can’t force them to pay breach fees, right? Can only say Fingerstone Company didn’t think this through – didn’t prohibit clubs from accepting GOG sponsorships.”

“Stop arguing. GOG’s results are good, but that’s just Tenda dominating at home! If ioi’s esports environment wasn’t squeezed this badly, how could their strength be so weak?”

Classic blaming the environment for one’s incompetence. Didn’t Longyu Group say they took teams to Los Angeles early for practice matches? And this is what they trained up to?”

The bullet comments weren’t discussing the match itself at all – everyone was just arguing.

Pei Qian checked the previous match results and found that today’s two domestic teams had each played one match, all losses.

One was the opening match, pushed over in 30 minutes. The other was the fourth match, which lasted over 40 minutes, but they couldn’t catch their breath at the end, giving the opponents a chance for a teamfight that ended the game.

Both losses – a disastrous opening indeed.

Because this tournament’s format was special, each group had three teams with only one advancing. Though it was a double round-robin BO1, every point was extremely crucial.

Losing once already made the qualification situation extremely challenging.

More importantly, these losing teams weren’t even the strongest European/American teams. Europe and America’s first seeds, like FV Club, didn’t need to play group stages at all – they were waiting in the quarterfinals.

Can’t even beat non-first-seed European/American teams. Meeting truly strong teams would be even more hopeless.

Many viewers stayed up until 3 AM to watch the matches. After waiting so long, seeing such frustrating games naturally made them too angry to sleep, and they needed to vent in the livestream chat.

Not just the livestream – players had already vented on various forums and video sites.

“Such a huge gap between domestic and European/American teams?”

“Mm, good thing, good thing.”

“FV team’s strength is comparable to these two teams. Since these two teams got crushed, FV team probably won’t make it past quarterfinals either – won’t generate much buzz.”

Pei Qian couldn’t help feeling optimistic. He cast his phone screen to the TV, planning to quickly check highlights from earlier matches.

On AiLiDao, ioi’s official account had updated with the ioi global finals opening ceremony and highlights from previous matches.

The opening ceremony featured some European/American singers performing the theme song, with a dance troupe doing cosplay performances. Overall felt decent, quite presentable.

Big venue, lots of people, so it looked more impressive. Compared to GOG’s initial global invitational, there was a clear improvement. The bullet comments reacted quite positively.

But once the actual matches started, everything went downhill fast.

Pei Qian skipped through the two matches that domestic teams lost and found their complaints weren’t unfair at all. If he’d stayed up to watch these two matches, he’d complain too.

First match completely dominated and pushed over, second match dragged on forever, then thrown away by one teamfight – hard to say which was more infuriating.

The key issue was whether, for nerves or other reasons, both teams seemed unable to show their true strength. Decision-making was hesitant, mechanics were timid.

In terms of team composition, none of the heroes Pei Qian recognized appeared.

Previously in Shanghai, Pei Qian had watched ioi’s domestic qualifiers and was familiar with several traditional lineups. Though he didn’t know hero abilities, he roughly recognized them.

But this tournament didn’t use them – completely different from Pei Qian’s watching experience.

Pei Qian suddenly wanted to check on the FV Club’s situation.

Since the FV Club arrived in Los Angeles, Pei Qian hadn’t paid much attention. With over ten hours’ time difference, communication wasn’t very convenient.

But now was perfect timing, so Pei Qian video called Wu Yue.

Pei Qian was a bit worried because most arenas have a poor signal. If Wu Yue were still at the match venue, this video call might not have connected.

After waiting a bit, the video call went through.

“Mr. Pei!”

Wu Yue wasn’t at the arena but in his hotel, using hotel wifi for this video call, so the signal was stable.

Pei Qian nodded: “How’s the situation on your end?”

Wu Yue immediately understood: “Mr. Pei, are you worried about our condition after seeing the other two domestic teams lose badly?”

“You can rest assured. Our players have been training hard. I won’t guarantee victory, but we’ll show our style.”

Wu Yue didn’t want to boast too much. After all, FV Club only practiced against SUG, never faced European/American teams. No telling how actual matches would go.

If he bragged too much to Mr. Pei and ended up losing in the quarterfinals round one, that would be humiliating.

Pei Qian nodded. Wu Yue looked quite unconfident – it should be fine.

But Pei Qian didn’t think FV Club would exit in the quarterfinals round one. After all, his luck was always terrible – things he hoped for never happened.

Maybe they could push through to the semi-finals.

Losing in the semi-finals would be acceptable.

Then fans would focus all their anger on the other two clubs, while FV Club remained the strongest ioi domestic club…

This won’t work!

Pei Qian suddenly felt that the current situation was stilln’t stable. Mainly because the other two clubs performed too poorly, instantly making FV look better.

Even without winning the championship, getting semi-finals would still be the best domestic team performance.

Thinking this, Pei Qian said: “I see our club’s official Weibo has been posting daily photos and videos.”

Wu Yue immediately understood: “Got it, Mr. Pei. You mean with matches coming up, we should post less of this stuff, avoid drawing hate, and affecting players’ mentality? I’ll tell them to pause Weibo posts.”

Pei Qian raised his hand: “No! That’s not what I mean.”

“I mean, this is great work – increase the effort!”

“Post on Weibo intensively every day. Maximize visibility among players.”

“Not only that, create content on Weibo. Mock other teams, comment on finished matches, specifically pick on winning teams’ flaws.”

“Jokes, memes – everything usable, throw it all in! Maximum traffic flow!”

Wu Yue was confused: “Huh? Mr. Pei, this is drawing hate!”

He could imagine the reaction once this content went public – getting flamed, plus players would screenshot everything for future receipts!

Currently, FV Club, as the first seed, could watch from the sidelines before quarterfinals, and trash-talking other teams was fine. But this would offend fans of other teams, even alienate casual fans.

If FV Club wins matches, it’s fine, but losing would mean getting destroyed online.

Wu Yue hesitated: “Mr. Pei, this… doesn’t seem good. Domestic players don’t like this kind of high-profile behavior.”

Pei Qian thought: “Mm… you mean domestic players don’t like it, but foreign players do? Mm, right, you make sense.”

“Then do this – register on foreign sites too, like Twitter and such. Sync content creation, make English versions!”

“Perfect timing since we invested in some overseas clubs. I’ll have their official accounts interact with yours. Not worried about the audience.”

“Okay, that’s settled. Start creating content after today’s matches. I’ll check tomorrow. Hanging up now.”

Wu Yue: “Mr. Pei…”

Before he could finish, the video call ended.

Wu Yue felt helpless but had no choice except to follow orders.