For the final BO3, EPG came fully prepared as well.
“Taking Wind head-on isn’t very realistic. I won’t bother with fancy tricks anymore… Coach, I’d like to play Lightforged Titan mid,” Jian Yang stroked his chin as he thought it through. “This thing is tanky and has tons of crowd control—super disgusting! I’ll just tank them to death!”
“Wow.” Jungler Ruan Zhou snickered. “If you don’t want to get solo-killed by Wind, just say so. Why make up all these excuses?”
Jian Yang didn’t even try to hide it, answering righteously, “Nonsense! Think about it—out of forty-eight teams, aside from Wind himself, I’m the only one who hasn’t been solo-killed by him in lane! Of course, I need to pick a big tank to stand tall, right?!”
After saying that, he even turned around to gross Ruan Zhou out a bit. “Don’t laugh. Later on, if you get caught by God Yun in the jungle, don’t expect me to save you.”
Ruan Zhou immediately stopped laughing.
“Titan mid. Lock it in!”
Support Yu Zhengqing spoke up, his voice cool. “At least ten teams have tried tank mids before and got beaten by Wind so hard they didn’t even dare to walk up for the wave at level one. Just reminding you, in case you didn’t know.”
Jian Yang: ……
The hand gripping the mouse trembled slightly.
——
In the second round of picks and bans, PNG, on red side, chose [Shadowmoon Gun · Faye] as their fourth pick. A tall young man in a silver long coat appeared in the AR projection at center stage, drawing the twin pistols at his waist and casually spinning them in a flashy flourish.
“Huh—wait?!” Chao Mi’s eyes widened in surprise. “Hold on, Faye…?? Is this for mid lane?”
He double-checked PNG’s picks. In the first round, they had already locked in another marksman, Soul-Piercing Spear · Grier.
Beside him, Tofu scratched his head and chimed in at just the right time. “Faye should be going mid. Otherwise, picking Grier in the first round would be kind of ridiculous, wouldn’t it? Putting Spear Guy mid would be… that’s getting ahead of the meta by way too much…”
[“Ahead of the meta” LMAOOO]
[The Holy Scripture of Glory: following the meta makes you a skilled player; half a version ahead makes you a genius; one full version ahead means you don’t know your own limits; ten versions ahead is terminal cancer]
[I’ll say it straight—Grier mid is pure suffering]
[ But what if Wind actually plays it? At this point, I don’t dare trash-talk their BP anymore]
“I also don’t think Wind would get Grier. Faye is definitely mid,” Chao Mi explained. “Our production team just reminded us… Today is Wind’s first time ever playing Faye on stage! Faye’s overall win rate in the Summer Split is decent—above average—but PNG doesn’t seem to favor him much. Previously, his BP rate for PNG was only around 7%, and that was all the bans against the opponent.”
Tofu added, “Wind gives us the impression that he’s better at burst-type heroes. Faye is technically a burst marksman, but that’s only compared to other marksmen—all a bunch of weaklings! Compared to mages or fighters, he can’t compete at all! This is probably the most ‘slow-burn’ damage dealer in Wind’s entire hero pool!”
Chao Mi nodded. “That’s right. Speaking of which, the battle that truly made Shadowmoon Gun a god pick this year was Cpyhc’s game at the Mid-Season Finals. There are rumors that Wind and Cpyhc are quite close in private—could he have picked up a few tricks from the God Yue?”
Tofu awkwardly tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Uh… that’s something we really can’t confirm.”
[…I’m not even hoping for teaching or anything, I just hope they training privately—at least that would prove Crispy Duck can still play]
[Since mid-season till now there’s been zero news about Crispy Duck. That useless official account just keeps repeating ‘following the doctor’s advice.’ I’m so pissed!!]
[There are rumors he’ll be back for playoffs, that he’s been training this whole time. Don’t know if it’s true… other teams aren’t leaking anything either, ahhhhh—]
With hundreds of millions watching, the two commentators didn’t dare casually touch sensitive topics. But since Sui Ning had never played a single game of Shadowmoon Gun in league matches before, they could only grit their teeth and force out some analysis.
Soon, PNG locked in their picks, saving the final counterpick for top lane.
On the other side, Jian Yang was ecstatic. “Great, Scratcher Bro! Perfect pick! Then I can take Titan!”
The coach choked a little. “You… are you sure?”
Lightforged Titan was originally designed as a melee support, with solid crowd control and damage absorption, but his damage output and mobility were both near the bottom.
Titan’s strength lay in [W – Radiant Armor], which granted him a damage-absorbing shield, and when combined with his extremely high base physical defense, Shadowmoon Gun barely tickled him—making it very hard to gain an advantage in lane.
Shadowmoon Gun excelled at taking towers and had strong mobility, but back when she was played as a bot-lane marksman, she struggled badly against certain tank supports. Without allied support, she could even be solo-killed by hard-engage supports—hence the nickname “Scratcher Bro.”
As for Faye mid, the playstyle was fairly standardized: shove the wave, push, invade, rotate. Titan’s tankiness made even the very first step—lane pressure—extremely difficult for Shadowmoon Gun.
Wasn’t this just moving the “marksman vs hard support” matchup from bot lane to mid lane? This was super safe! Once he realized that, Jian Yang felt his heart ease up, the gloom that had been hanging over him dissipating somewhat.
…The idea wasn’t wrong, but you also have to look at the ID, okay?! Coach Zhang Ming sucked in a breath. One look at Jian Yang’s expression and he knew exactly what this unlucky kid was thinking, and he couldn’t help but scream silently inside. But…
Given the gap in strength between his young players and PNG, struggling probably wouldn’t help much anyway. He might as well let them play freely.
——
“This Shadowmoon Gun pick is pretty interesting,” Chao Mi commented. “This hero is very strong at controlling tempo and macro play in mid lane. He can apply lane pressure, but getting kills is difficult, and his teamfight impact is fairly average. What is EPG planning to pick to answer this?”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Lightforged Titan’s portrait was locked in. Chao Mi’s eyes flew wide open. “Ti—Titan?!”
“Picking Titan into Faye—what does this mean??”
High-ranked player Tofu understood instantly. But precisely because he understood, he was even more confused. “EPG wants to use Titan’s tankiness to survive the laning phase and pin Faye in lane!”
“Titan mid doesn’t have slow waveclear! But the issue is, there’s no absolute counter relationship between these two heroes—it still comes down to individual mechanics and team support…”
Implied meaning: Bro, are you not awake? Do you even know whose ID you’re dealing with??
[How many poor souls have tried to counter Wind’s mechanics with pure tankiness now? Amen]
[That last tank who didn’t even dare step out of tower is still vivid in my mind. Amen]
[I checked—EPG’s mid Farcry just turned 18. Wind, please go easy on the kid. Amen]
[#Breaking! Elderly 19-year-old player Wind brutally slaughters children, scene too bloody to watch#]
[The real “elderly” Cheng Wensheng: ?]
[Anyway, I’m already lying flat. PNG just needs to steady up and cleanly take the final match—don’t do anything crazy!]
No matter what the commentators or the audience thought, EPG decisively locked in Lightforged Titan. It was now Wei Ye’s turn for the final pick.
“Earlier, EPG picked Thunderfury for top lane—pretty standard,” Chao Mi said, rubbing his chin. “And PNG, very unusually, saved the counterpick for Myerii—what top laner are they planning to play?”
Tofu shook his head bluntly. “I can’t guess. With PNG’s comp, almost any top lane hero would work. Wildfang or Furnace Ram Spirit might be better? But those are also common front-line teamfight tanks—no need to hide them.”
Chao Mi was equally puzzled, racking his brain. “Could PNG be planning a fighter top? Or maybe an AP tank? If you look closely, this BP actually kind of works—Shadowmoon Gun is meant to help top gain an advantage. What do you think about Peerless Swordmaster or Blood Count? Any logic there?”
“I think—”
Before Tofu could finish, PNG mercilessly locked in their final pick—Verdant Treant · Mioen.
[????]
[…That’s it? That’s it???]
[Wait a second, PNG—does the old tree even deserve a counterpick slot??]
[rnm, refund!!]
Tofu went completely blank. “Huh… what does this old tree pick even mean?!”
“I… I don’t know what to say anymore,” Chao Mi covered his face, half laughing, half crying. “PNG, you’re way too cruel. Every time I say something, you do the opposite! Can’t you let me break my commentator curse just once, even in the final game? Do you really have to slap me in the face every single time?!”
[LMAOOO, roughest life belongs to Chao Mi]
[With how many times he’s been proven wrong, if Chao Mi doesn’t end up as a PNG fan + level-10 Feng’s stan by the end, I won’t believe he isn’t an M]
[I suggest a strict investigation: how much did Wei Ye slip Chen Chen to get a counterpick just to play old tree??]
[Isn’t it the other way around? How much does Brother Ye owe Emperor Chen that he still has to get trolled in the final game?? (lol)]
The moment Verdant Treant was locked in, Wei Ye felt like he wanted to eat Chen Chen alive.
He glanced at the screen and sighed deeply. “Sigh… so what, coach is amazing just because he outranks me? Rank difference crushes people to death? Playing a fighter is illegal now?”
“Oh yes, yes, the coach is indeed amazing,” Chen Chen replied with a polite smile. “A fighter, right? Next game for sure!”
——
“It’s confirmed… locked in.”
At the commentary desk, Tofu was completely choked, speaking bluntly. “We all know the red side counterpick is usually meant to hide a trump card—ideally something that’s a nuclear bomb when revealed, or at least a hero that completes the final piece of the team comp. And PNG hides it forever just to pull out an old tree—counterpicking absolutely nothing!!”
“Tell me, if you’d picked this old tree earlier, what difference would it make?? Who even cares?”
Tofu looked utterly exasperated. “The only explanation would be if they got BP-trapped and literally had no good hero left for the last pick—but that’s clearly not the case! The opponent five-banned mages, all top laners were wide open! Chen Chen, come talk to me—what were you thinking?!”
The live audience was already laughing so hard they could barely breathe.
[LMAOOO, classic Tofu—streamer instincts go wild]
[Is this the first commentator who wants to ‘have a talk’ with a coach? Hahahaha]
[The entertainment value here is truly maxed out]
[Chen Chen: give me mod and I’ll talk to you myself (lol)]
“Uh, PNG picking old tree as a counterpick might have their own reasoning…”
Chao Mi tried to smooth it over with a few words, but even he felt how ridiculous it sounded. He could only wave his hand helplessly. “Forget it, forget it—I really don’t dare analyze anymore… Anyway, the comps are locked in now. Even though the process was kind of bizarre, the final lineups on both sides are still relatively normal.”
He paused, failed to hold back, and roared into the mic: “But I still want to ask, Chen Chen—why on earth did you give this old tree the counterpick slot?!”
“Does he deserve it?!”
[Help LMAOOOO, Brother Ye: what did I do to deserve this??]
[This is PNG practicing comps way too blatantly—never in my life have I seen Erllit play Little Traveler]
[EPG’s comp is pretty weird too, isn’t it? Executioner and Phantom Assassin are near the bottom in pick rate]
[Hey, that’s a one-trick—show some respect]
[So here’s the question: if the other side has a one-trick, shouldn’t PNG at least ban it? (lol)]
[Maybe this is a shady deal—let your one-trick through, next game you give me Aeria. Deal!]
[Even Chen Chen would have to applaud the netizens’ business acumen]
Once the compositions were revealed, the quick-witted director once again showed off his masterful camera work.
The camera zoomed in tightly, shoving Wei Ye’s face—looking like he’d just lost his entire family, eyes dull like a dead fish—right onto the screen.
Wei Ye: …Is this even reasonable, huh? Come on, everyone—judge this for me!
At this point, the audience was laughing so hard they could barely breathe.
——
The match officially began.
As soon as level one hit, Sui Ning showed absolutely no mercy, immediately pinning Jian Yang under his tower.
Jian Yang had planned to fully commit to playing it safe—starting with max sustain items—but he genuinely couldn’t understand how his Titan, with the highest base armor of all heroes, was getting beaten so badly by Brother Feng that he had zero ability to fight back.
As the minion health bars dropped, Jian Yang inched forward, raising his hand to last-hit—
Pa pa pa!
Three perfectly rhythmic hit sounds rang out. Shadowmoon Gun used Q plus the passive Twin Pistols—after casting a skill, the next basic attack becomes two shots—to chunk roughly 22% of Jian Yang’s HP.
And it didn’t stop there. Sui Ning kept stepping forward, pressing his position and forcing Jian Yang back, clearly saying: If you don’t leave, I’ll keep autoing you.
Jian Yang was on the verge of tears. “…Bro, I won’t even last-hit anymore. I don’t want the gold—can I at least smell some experience?”
When enemy minions die, nearby allies gain experience, but that “nearby” has a range—commonly called the XP zone.
Every veteran weak-side player knew this: in the early game, the most dangerous thing isn’t losing HP or gold, but being forced out of the XP zone. No XP means no levels—and no levels means no chance of ever turning things around.
Unfortunately, even though PNG was supposedly “testing comps,” they still intended to fast-push this game. Sui Ning raised his gun again and fired two more shots, bullying Jian Yang all the way back under tower, where he stood there in a daze.
“Whoa!” Seeing this, Chao Mi couldn’t help exclaiming, “Wind, this… you’re bringing this much pressure right from the start?!”
Tofu was bold now too and immediately opened his mic. “Just from this wave alone, I bet even Cpyhc would have to hold a press conference to clarify that Wind’s Fei wasn’t taught by him!”
“Cpy’s Fei only cares about the lane and the tower—whether he gets kills or not doesn’t matter. He plays to farm, support teammates, and build a steady team advantage. But Wind’s repeated forward steps over the line are clearly aimed at killing—!”
As the victim, Jian Yang naturally felt that killing intent and swallowed hard.
The Titan model he controlled was among the largest in the game, yet in front of Fei, he looked small, pitiful, and helpless…
Ji Yunyu glanced over after switching screens and asked without much hope, “Want me to gank mid?”
“No need, he’s about to die,” Sui Ning replied calmly. “Red side jungle is hard to enter. You can gank top first—I’ll push this wave and go with you to secure the Herald in the top jungle.”
“Okay.” Ji Yunyu answered seriously, though deep down he felt a bit regretful.
Wind was cute when he was shot-calling too—but Ji Yunyu still preferred hearing Wind say in a soft voice, ‘Yunyu, come help me for a bit,’ when he was getting pushed in…
Thankfully, Sui Ning couldn’t read minds. Otherwise, he would have grabbed Ji Yunyu by the collar and demanded to know what level of auditory hallucination it took to hear the word “soft.”
On the other side, jungler Ruan Zhou looked at Jian Yang with sympathy. “They might gank top. I’ll clear my buff and counter-gank once, then come help you.”
“…I…” Jian Yang’s eyes welled up. “I might not last that long!”
He cried out in despair, “Teammates? Where are my teammates? Someone save me—”
At 6:27, Sui Ning found his chance right in front of the enemy tower.
With practiced precision, he piloted Shadowmoon Gun through a Q–W–E combo, weaving in the passive double autos for massive damage, then flashed forward to chase—successfully solo-killing Jian Yang’s supposedly “ultra-tanky” Lightforged Titan.
“Mm…”
Sui Ning bit his lower lip, not entirely satisfied with his play. “If my details were a bit cleaner, I could’ve saved a Flash. Ah.”
Teammates: …
Do we even dare say anything right now?
[PNG_Wind (Shadowmoon Gun) has slain EPG_Farcry (Lightforged Titan)!]
[First Blood!]
“It’s over—completely over!”
The commentator let out a long sigh. “No matter how thick your armor, I’ll just fire my guns and weave autos! Wind’s combo with interlaced basic attacks was insanely smooth—hard to believe this is his first time picking Fei in the league! Just in terms of kiting alone, that’s at least ten years of experience!”
[GG, Wind level-one lane pressure, level-two tower pressure, level-three kill—again!]
[I hereby declare: GAME. OVER.]
[Feel bad for the people at the venue—paid a fortune for tickets and only got a few minutes before it suddenly ended (lol)]
[He didn’t even bring Ignite…]
Chao Mi slammed the desk. “How many minutes has it been? Mid lane has given up first blood to Wind again—and this time he’s on Shadowmoon Gun, a hero with absurd split-push, side-lane pressure, and snowball potential, plus Wind brought Teleport…”
“EPG has to be extremely careful! From all the matches I’ve cast, an early-game Shadowmoon Gun this aggressive is extremely rare in HPL. Wind has given Fei a completely new style compared to everyone else who’s played this hero before—”
After a pause, he added, “Or rather, Wind plays every hero in his own style. By the end of every match, those heroes get branded with the label ‘PNG_Wind’! The same hero in his hands versus someone else’s—it feels completely different!”
[666666——]
[Chao Mi’s commentary just now sounded a lot like a simp, but honestly… it really is like that. Brother Wind’s playstyle has such a strong personal imprint that you can’t possibly mistake it for anyone else!]
[ This is exactly what I admire most about him. I’m 110+ stars on the national server, and even in ranked, all those aggressive solo-queue mid laners are copying Wind—from mechanics to playstyle to macro ideas. In high-rank games now, mid-lane assassins running Teleport outnumber those taking Ignite by more than double. Can you believe that?]
[Does this count as a new-generation mid-lane textbook?]
[New generation? If he wins even one championship with this setup, I’ll crown him the King of the War of Glory mid lane on the spot. This guy is absurdly strong in every aspect—he’s literally just missing a title.]
[Wait, are you all really this calm? He solo-killed Farcry—doesn’t that deserve celebration?! 47 out of 47!!]
[ Holy crap, you’re right—I only just realized it!! …Watching Wind get First Blood so often has made me kind of numb to it.]
Tofu snapped out of it and immediately seized on the First Blood. “This isn’t the first time Wind has scored a solo kill in a match, but today’s First Blood is extraordinarily significant!”
“—Killing Farcry means that within a single summer, Wind has completed lane kills against every single mid laner in the HPL professional league!”
Tofu enunciated every word loudly. “People unfamiliar with the scene might think this isn’t a big deal, or that others have achieved similar feats—but in the entire history of the HPL, no one has ever done what Wind has done: completing this achievement in their rookie season, within just two and a half months. This is absolutely unprecedented!”
In HPL history, only three mid laners have ever achieved full-lane kills, and all of them took multiple seasons—some even years. Sui Ning is the first to complete the collection within a single season.
“This is the embodiment of absolute strength!” Tofu shouted so hard his voice cracked. “This is the absolute ruler of the mid lane, the final boss, the mid-lane reaper! This summer, PNG_Wind has dominated the mid lane of the War of Glory in the HPL!”
For the current PNG, taking a First Blood against a bottom-tier team would normally be nothing special. But this milestone First Blood carried extraordinary meaning, sending the entire arena into a frenzy. The exaggerated wave of sound felt like it might lift the arched dome of Longhu Esports Arena clean off.
Fans waved their light boards with all their strength, staring toward the player area, desperately wanting that person to hear them—
[Flowers bloom in countless layers; I follow the wind alone.]
“The mid lane of the War of Glory belongs to you!!”
“Winnnnnnnd—47 kills!!!”
“Gentlemen, listen to the wind’s song!!”
Some overly excited fans couldn’t help lowering their heads to wipe away tears after shouting. “It’s over, I’m going to cry… The wild mountain wind becomes a storm—he really did it!!”
When the commentator declared in front of hundreds of millions of viewers that PNG_Wind had dominated the mid lane of the War of Glory, every PNG fan felt their noses sting, hearts swelling with emotion and pride.
From the days when he couldn’t even bear to spend money to buy heroes, to becoming the league’s hottest ace player. From being mocked as someone who could only beat Bronze players, to reaching national server rank one. From being dismissed as a low-tier team farmer with no real value, to slaughtering his way through the entire mid lane of the War of Glory—
Memories flashed past like glimmers of light. Fans cheered at the top of their lungs, yet their hands clenched tightly around signs painted with chibi versions of Sui Ning’s face. Only now did they realize how far the Wind they loved had already come.
This summer passed so quickly, yet it carried such a heavy sense of legend.
They had truly accompanied this diamond-in-the-rough all the way to this moment—
And the most wonderful part was that summer wasn’t over yet!!
At the same time, Tofu roared into the mic. “This is not the end! Summer continues, and the journey of Wind and PNG is far from over! Ahead of them lie even higher and farther stages—”
As if in perfect sync with the fans, Sui Ning suddenly looked up toward the stands.
He smiled, and for the first time in a match, lifted his left hand from the keyboard and gently waved in the direction of the audience.
The fans were instantly drawn in, eyes wide, gazes locked onto him, afraid of missing anything important.
They met Sui Ning’s sincere gaze and saw his lips move, opening and closing, as if he were saying—
Thank you.
----------
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