After securing his first knife kill, Jiang Yang glanced at his savings of over 5,000 and smiled.
Meeting the sniper rifle he had always dreamed of at the prime of his lifeâwhat a rush.
But he didnât pull out the AWP just yet.
It wasnât that his love for the sniper rifle had diminished.
It was because his Special Forces instincts were calling!
Since VG failed to plant the bomb in the pistol round, based on his understanding of them from the last two rounds, they were definitely heading into an ECO round.
MO, standing nearby, saw Jiang Yangâs loadout and chuckled. âAlright, go do your thing.â
Hearing that, Jiang Yang immediately sprinted toward A Site.
Meanwhile, in VGâs team comms.
But he had to admit, Cousin was really damn good at it.
In the last two maps, whenever they were broke, Cousin would always push and pick off a few kills.
This put a lot of pressure on them in ECO rounds.
Sure, losing an ECO round wasnât a big deal, but the fact that Jiang Yang kept snowballing his economy like this was frustrating as hell.
At the start of the round, they played it slow, defaulting inside T-Spawn for quite a while, waiting for a push.
But nothing happened.
259 checked the clock, realizing they were running low on time, and gave the call: âLetâs group up and try pushing Iron Plate.â
But just as he finished speaking, a flashbang popped out of Yellow Room.
259 turned his back in time to avoid getting full-blinded, but even through the flash, he saw a fly-head dart out.
In that instant, a familiar phrase from Jiang Yangâs chaotic livestream moments echoed in 259âs mindâ
âYou guys⦠ECOed, didnât you?â
Before he could react, Jiang Yang instantly deleted him.
The two teammates beside him scrambled to trade the kill, but without armor, they were melted in seconds.
In a flash, Jiang Yang had three kills.
The last two VG players rushed into Yellow Room to try and trade, but DD was already there waiting.
The ECO round ended in record timeâa full ACE.
259 felt his head throbbing.
Before meeting Jiang Yang, he never thought much of players like Da Zhuang and Jiang Yang, who loved going all-in on ECO rounds.
After all, farming kills with a weapon advantage didnât seem like real skill.
But after facing Jiang Yang himself, 259 had completely changed his mind.
Because he realizedâbeing able to farm ECO kills was a skill in itself.
Jiang Yangâs ability to convert frags in these rounds meant his economy skyrocketed, allowing him to secure weapon advantages in crucial rounds.
And that was just annoying as hell.
âAlright, letâs play it safe for the rifle round,â 259 sighed. âHeâs definitely bringing out the AWP now.â
Jiang Yang, now sitting on over 8,000 in economy, was grinning from ear to ear.
This meant he could afford back-to-back sniper roundsâwhat a dream come true.
Entering the first rifle round, Jiang Yang immediately ditched his MP9 and bought an AWP.
MO thought for a moment. âCousin, why donât you take the AWP and anchor downstairs? Theyâll have full utility this round, so going warehouse early wonât be worth it.â
Since this was the first rifle round, if VG planned to play outside, theyâd definitely dump utility.
If Jiang Yang tried peeking through smokes, heâd be gambling at best.
But if he played at K1, unless he got pre-aimed and instantly deleted, heâd at least trade one kill and stall for a full team rotate.
âThis setup is actually decent,â the caster, Steel Helmet, commented. âAWP anchoring below, outside covered by just Main Entrance and Third Floor, with most of the focus on defending the inner site.â
VG wasnât in a rush. They played default, using utility to trade map control.
After some time, Cousin climbed up the vent and dropped a vent smoke to stall further.
VG then threw another wave of standard outside smokes. They sent one player down to K1, but left two behindâmeaning they were likely to contest DD at Warehouse.
DD was playing a passive angle inside Warehouse, covering Main Entrance.
With VG pushing this fast, he was guaranteed to see action.
Caster Ma Xixi was watching from X-Ray mode, eager to see DDâs reactionâ
But before anything happened upstairs, a loud AWP shot rang out from underground.
âBANG!â
[young (AWP) killed jamyoung]
âCousin secures the first frag of the round! His AWPing is as reliable as ever!â Ma Xixi exclaimed with a wide grin.
In Steel Helmetâs team, Jiang Yang was now the undisputed backbone.
From their godâs-eye view, as long as Jiang Yang was alive, they believed heâd frag outâeven if five enemies pushed him, their first thought would be:
âHow many can he take with him? Two? Three?â
With Jiang Yang securing the first kill, DD now engaged T-side players at Warehouse and Main Entrance.
âDD missed his spray on 259, got spotted, tried to repositionâbut Ah Zhong peeked and instantly deleted him!â
The kill feed updated immediately.
DD quickly called out, âTheyâre pushing Main Entrance, Liu Ke, watch out!â
MO, playing inside, threw a smoke to block Main and delay their push.
âBut VG isnât hitting insideâtheyâre grouping up for a Third Floor push!â
âBrother Xiaosa is rotating from Iron Plateâcan he spot them?â
âHe sees them! Gets one, but gets instantly traded!â
Jiang Yang, rotating back from Iron Plate, knew MO was under immense pressure inside.
But with enemies still on Third Floor, he couldnât make a reckless move.
Holding his AWP, he kept a close eye on Third Floor.
As he expected, a gunfight erupted near Vents.
Hearing the shots, Jiang Yang immediately climbed Third Floor.
If MO died and VG locked down Third Floor, his chances would be slim.
Holding his AWP, he ignored footstep noise, climbing quicklyâ
But as he reached the top, he discovered something unexpected.
There werenât just one enemy on Third Floorâthere were two.
The moment he surfaced, an enemy was already holding an AK on him.
With no time to retreat, Jiang Yang instinctively clicked left mouse.
âBANG!â
[young+DD (AWP blind shot) headshot advent]
âTHEREâS ANOTHER ONE!â Jiang Yang shouted in comms.
Even as he called it out, he was already reactingâ
The sheer luck of that blind shot surprised even him, but he quickly chambered another round.
The second enemy was just turning towards himâ
âBANG!â
[young+CaptainMO (AWP blind shot) killed Kaze]
âHE HIT THAT BLIND??â Ma Xixi gasped. âDid he turn on his cheats??â
âWHOA!! What is this?! A tribute to S1mple? Does this ladder actually have hit-reg??â
âThis is world-class difficulty, boys!â
Ma Xixi was losing his mind.
Because in CS:GO, when youâre hanging on a ladder, your shots are supposed to be wildly inaccurate.
Yet somehow, Jiang Yangâjust like S1mple in Cologneâhad landed two absurd ladder shots.
With two kills secured, Jiang Yang rushed onto Third Floorâ
And just in time to flick onto a shadow emerging from Main.
[young (AWP headshot) killed aumaN]
Ma Xixi shook his head, laughing.
âWithout Cousin, Steel Helmet wouldâve crumbled already!â
On the right side of the screen, the livestream chat was going wild.
ãYang God is as insane as ever. These two shots just made me kneel in awe!ã
ãHe's really starting to resemble
...ã
ãStill calling him Yang God? More like
!ã
ãI wanted to say Ma Xixi was overhyping him, but honestly, when itâs my own cousin, why
hype him up?ã
ãAt this moment, heâs channeling S1mpleâs spirit.ã
And then, everyone saw the game screen freeze.
VG had called for a tactical pause.
There was no other choiceâ259 was utterly speechless.
They had played out every possible detail perfectly, yet somehow, this prodigy of a player had still broken the round wide open with two absurd blind shots from the ladder.
How do you even counter that?
259 felt something shift inside him.