Chapter 01 Winning the Championship
At 22:00, the landmark of Zhaocheng, the capital city, the Clock of Time, rang on time, announcing that the capital city of China, which has been around for thousands of years, has officially entered the night.
But for many HOW e-sports players and fans, no one wants to sleep at this moment. Everyone's eyes are focused on the fifth game of the 9th HOW World Finals (S9) being held in the Zhaocheng Stadium - the Dream Ship.
HOW - Chinese translation of Heroic Spirit Spear, is a 5V5 real-time battle competition online game released by the world-renowned game manufacturer LittleCat 9 years ago.
The game is divided into five professions.
Soul Tank - Usually a relatively tanky hero, whose main responsibilities in the team are to bear damage, initiate fights physically, and provide damage output, etc. People often tease them that a real man should wear the tankiest equipment and take the most poisonous hits.
Soul Assassin - The team's first team initiator and jungle resource controller, usually cooperates with other teammates, especially the core damage Soul Mage and Soul Sniper, to kill the enemy. Soul
Mage - The team's first damage output point, usually a graceful and agile mage or assassin hero. High burst and high damage output are their terrifying characteristics, but at the same time, the mechanism of almost zero defense also requires the operator to have great courage, extremely fast reaction, and extremely graceful movement.
Soul Sniper - The team's long-range output point, with output comparable to that of Soul Mage, but the skills are usually not as flexible and elegant as Soul Mage, and needs the protection of teammates to survive. Soul
Assistant - The team's auxiliary player, mainly responsible for starting a team fight, adding buffs to teammates, and protecting teammates. Usually tied to the Soul Sniper, but sometimes wandering around the field, looking for opportunities.
After the game starts, the five players kill soldiers, push down the opponent's defense tower, and kill monsters in the resource area to get money to buy equipment. The side that finally destroys the opponent's base - the Tower of Heroes is the winner of the game.
Due to the fairness, playability and excitement of the competition, Heroes of the Storm became popular all over the world immediately after its release, and it has continued to be popular to this day. It is the most popular competitive game in the world, and it is also the highest-level and most formal competitive game in the professional league.
At this moment, the fierce competition is coming to an end. Whether it is the audience at the scene or sitting in front of the computer and TV, they are all holding their breath and staring at the big screen, anxiously and excitedly waiting for the birth of the S9 champion.
For the players of HPL (HOW China Division), their mood is more like tension and expectation than anxiety and excitement.
Because 8 years ago, when HOW launched the professional league, the GF team led by the talented professional player miracle (Qi Ji) won the championship of S1 and S2 for the Chinese division. After that, HPL missed the championship for 6 years.
In these 6 years of suffering, both the players and fans have experienced disappointment and frustration again and again. The performance of the HPL division has become worse and worse, and it has almost fallen to the third division. In
this year's S9, the double champion team GF led by the official certified The God of HOW miracle Qi Ji did not even enter the world game.
When disappointment has become a habit, it seems that no one has any hope to regain the world championship and restore the glory of the division.
Some media even predicted that without Qi Ji, HPL would lose all its miracles this year, and all participating teams were expected to be eliminated in the quarterfinals or even the round of 16, breaking the worst record in history.
What is helpless is that this prediction not only did not anger the HPL players who are known for their temper, but was recognized by the vast majority of players. Some
radical black fans even called on Qi Ji directly on Weibo, asking him to die as a sacrifice to the gods, to see if he could bring the increasingly rotten HPL back to life.
However, no matter how much they cursed and no matter how much they disliked, there were still some players who watched the game. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t watch it, but they were shocked when they watched it. The HPL region is probably really going to hit the bottom and rebound!
Although the three teams entered the World Championship, the runner-up of the division fell in the quarterfinals as expected, and the champion of the division was driven home by the Korean team KDG, the favorite to win the championship, in the semifinals.
But just when everyone thought that the third place in the division, the last to enter the World Championship, or the newly established club MG this year, would most likely go home in the top 16, the team's soul player melt was in a hotter and hotter state.
He led MG to advance all the way, not only defeating the hot champion team European and American War God team in the semifinals to advance to the finals, but also played with the defending champion Korean team-KDG to the fifth game of BO5 (five games three wins)!
The enthusiasm of the HPL audience was instantly ignited, and the hope of regaining the championship and restoring the glory of the division was ignited again. For the first time, without Qi Ji on the field, everyone expected a miracle to happen again!
At the same time, this victory is not only crucial to the HPL division, but also a chance to create history for the KDG team in HCK (Korea Division).
If they win, they will tie the record of the first team in history, GF, and become the second team in history to win double championships and consecutive championships. The team's genius soul player flower will also become the third player in history to win double championships.
The final game is coming to an end, and there are no more resources in the game. All ten players on both sides have developed fully, and each player has six god equipment. The final team battle was about to start. Who would win the championship in this finals?
Including the Chinese commentator who had been very excited before, everyone held their breath. The Dream Ship that could accommodate tens of thousands of people was even more silent. Everyone's heart was beating with the actions of the ten players on the big screen. In
the center of the game map, the ten players on the field tightened every nerve in their body. No one dared to act rashly, for fear that a small mistake would ruin the victory that was so close at hand. Both sides were in an extreme tug of war.
However, the game still had to end. Amidst everyone's nervous breathing and heartbeats, the one who took the initiative was not KDG's talented soul mage player flower, who was at the peak of her powers, but melt, a dark horse player who was only 18 years old and had debuted for only half a year!
He manipulated the seductive and sexy assassin Banshee, and instantly killed the opponent's output core soul sniper with a very tricky angle and incredible speed and operation control. The other players of the MG team followed closely and KDG was wiped out!
A dozen seconds later, KDG's Heroic Spirit Tower exploded. After 6 years, HPL finally won the championship again!
As soon as the crystal exploded, the scene was immediately filled with deafening cheers and screams, and the commentators' choked and excited voices echoed throughout the live broadcast room.
"We are the champions! Six years after Qi Shen won his second championship, the HPL region finally brought back the long-lost War Cup on our home court. MG, the eternal god, melt, the world's number one soul thorn!"
"That's right, history repeats itself, melt, the champion as soon as he debuted, Qi Shen has someone to take over! The glory of the HPL region is back!"
Like the audience and the commentators, on the big screen, the MG team members on the stage also hugged each other excitedly. The teenagers cried, shouted, and were proud of themselves.
Compared to his teammates who were shouting and yelling excitedly, melt Yuan Zhuo, who was a heavy idol and the biggest contributor to this victory, was much calmer.
The handsome boy with arrogant silver hair just stood quietly and casually in the middle, being hugged and laughed at by his teammates.
There was a faint smile on the corner of his mouth, as if he was laughing at everyone's lack of calmness and uncoolness.
At this time, no one knew who started it, and the whole venue suddenly shouted together.
"MG! MG! melt! melt!"
The director also promptly and professionally switched the camera to Yuan Zhuo's face and gave a big close-up.
The handsome and high-spirited face of the young man immediately occupied the entire big screen. His impeccable face shape, high nose bridge, big puppy eyes and long and thick eyelashes gave everyone on the scene and in front of the screen a powerful beauty attack without warning.
As if sensing the camera, the young man turned his head. Amid the screams and cheers that almost overturned the roof, he suddenly smiled brilliantly at the camera and said something.
...
What did Melt say? No one knew it except himself.
But the most important thing at the moment is not this, but the award ceremony that is about to begin.
Everyone was ready to present the trophy to the players from other regions in their home court with tears in their eyes.
But unexpectedly, MG came out halfway and not only won back the long-lost championship of the HPL region, but also won enough face for the HPL region as the host of this competition.
Because it was a competition between clubs, the national anthem was not played in the award ceremony. But I don’t know whether it was MG’s request or the organizer added it. After the award-giving guests handed out medals and trophies to everyone, the national anthem engraved in everyone’s blood and bones suddenly rang out in the stadium.
Although it was very sudden, patriotism is everyone’s innate instinct. The moment the national anthem sounded, everyone immediately stopped making noise and spontaneously stood up to sing this passionate song together.
This is a colorful scene in the history of Chinese e-sports. At the same time, everyone also remembers these five young men. They are soul tank blacksky (Duan Tianya), soul thorn melt (Yuan Zhuo), soul mage Aib (Ai Bing), soul sniper pinkpig (Zhu Yu), and soul support wawaya (Duan Xiaowa).