Chapter 594: Chapter 445: First Match Against King Rank

[Little Raccoon Instant Noodles has entered the room]

The first notification caught Li Pu’s attention.

This was one of his very first online friends in the Cube Cards World, but this guy never talked.

And every time he logged in and entered a table room, the other side would rush in immediately.

As if he were online 24/7, like a bot.

[Mr. Yajun has entered the room]

Among the flood of notifications there was another one that Li Pu caught.

This was Ah Yajun; he knew this ID.

[No Regrets After Playing the Card has entered the room]

With such a shameless ID, he didn’t even need to ask to know who it was.

"Teacher."

So he walked straight up to the man.

"Someone as simple and unadorned as me? What’s with this long-ass, stinky ID."

Li Fan opened his mouth with a complaint first.

"Actually, there aren’t that many shop owners on Seven-Star Street, just a bit over fifty."

"And this time, the number of people who can ultimately get a slot is six."

"So it’s roughly like 9 to 1. You still have a pretty good shot."

But right after that, he started explaining.

"Even so, it doesn’t sound very confidence-inspiring."

Li Pu propped up his chin.

Although the minimum requirement for this quota tournament was Diamond rank, he could guarantee that he’d be the only Diamond player waiting on the field.

Which meant he was about to face Master players, and even King players who hadn’t been picked in the first round.

He’d played a ton of games against players like Li Fan and Hidezang Jia at that level, and he could clearly feel the gap between himself and them.

Even if ordinary King players were a bit weaker than those two, he was sure that gap still existed, and it still wouldn’t be small.

"I get what you mean. If this were just a normal match, I really wouldn’t think you had much of a chance."

"But like I said before, there’s a reason the association didn’t give all these remaining slots to the Kings."

"They want players of different skill levels and ranks to get in and give feedback based on the different situations they go through."

"Diamond rank is just a ticket in."

Li Fan sounded more optimistic than Li Pu.

"I just went to ask around, and the format this time... turns out it’s Blind Cards!"

Right then, Ah Yajun sidled over.

"Blind Cards?"

Li Pu was slightly stunned when he heard that.

Blind Cards meant that all cards, both yours and your opponent’s, were presented face-down.

Whether it was a real flip, or an action, card info, statuses, whatever, no one else could see it; only you could.

It was a kind of more casual mode, usually only likely to show up in Cube Card dungeons.

Or sometimes when players played each other just for fun and showmanship, they might use it.

Li Pu didn’t really get why a quota-qualifier tournament would choose this mode.

But if that was really the case, it actually seemed pretty favorable for him.

"Wrong, this doesn’t actually count as true Blind Cards."

But at that moment, Li Fan corrected him.

"More accurately, this is a variant of Blind Cards."

"Like you were thinking, the other Master players are also pretty worried about those few King players."

"So today’s rules were set with the association’s approval and the agreement of most of the shop owners on Seven-Star Street."

"All kinds of variant formats are actually one of Seven-Star Street’s特色, you could say."

He chuckled and started explaining the details to Li Pu.

First, since today’s rules were called a Blind Cards variant, they were still closely tied to Blind Cards.

So the first point was that aside from the player themself, neither the opponent nor the spectators would be able to see the card situation clearly.

The only thing visible would be the projection.

As for HP, card info, and so on, none of that would be visible.

The second point was that the match would use a full-reveal board mode.

In other words, on the very first turn, all cards including the trump card would be revealed.

That effectively removed the substitute-card phase.

The main purpose was to prevent King players from leveraging their overwhelming card pools to gain an advantage.

With these two extra rules in place, the gap between Master and King players would be narrowed somewhat.

"So my opponent can’t see my cards?"

Hearing this, Li Pu couldn’t help feeling tempted.

It was just a pity that the projection couldn’t be hidden too; otherwise he could go up with the dragon deck right in the first match and screw with people, which would be amazing.

"Well, how about it, feeling a bit more confident now?"

Li Fan smiled.

"It’s definitely worth a try."

Li Pu nodded.

"Really?"

But based on his understanding of Li Pu’s deck, Ah Yajun felt like this didn’t actually give him much of an edge.

He also guessed that Li Pu was very unlikely to use that dragon deck.

So if it was just the mushroom deck, it didn’t really feel like it could beat a Master’s build, let alone a King’s.

"You don’t get it. Just watch carefully."

Li Pu patted him on the shoulder.

[All shop owners or shop representatives, please come draw lots]

At that moment, a light-and-shadow figure suddenly floated up into midair.

To make identities easier to tell apart, he’d removed the voice-masking effect; his voice sounded quite old.

He was one of the more respected veteran shop owners on Seven-Star Street.

He was also the creator of this card room—the host.

Under his direction, Li Pu took part in the draw as the representative of Fan-Fan Card House.

First was the draw for the groups: the 51 shops were divided into three zones, 17 in each.