After half a month of relentless scorching sun, in the early hours of the last day of August, Shanghai finally welcomed a brief spell of rain.
But once the fleeting coolness faded, by noon hot winds laden with stifling moisture baked the eastern half of the city into a top-tier sauna, leaving the spectators who had queued outside the venue since early morning utterly miserable.
“The next social news headline will be me getting heatstroke from lining up!!”
“Even the sunshade canopy is about to melt. Damn this thieving old sky, it’s roasting us to death!”
“Avalokitevara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Perfection of Wisdom… ugh, chanting a calming mantra doesn’t help at all, it just dries my mouth out!!”
“Brothers, it’s 12 noon right now. The streamer is at the entrance of Shanghai Central Sport Arena. This line is for the 2:30 p.m. finals. See it? See how many zigzags there are? See this blazing sun? See the sweat on my forehead? I got here at 11, my water’s already gone, and in an hour I’ve barely moved. Anyone who thinks I’m risking my life, spam a wave of 6666!”
“Even my little fan has started blowing hot air…”
This was probably the liveliest day Shanghai Central Sport Arena saw all year.
More than an hour later, the surging human dragon finally began to reveal its tail. Inside the venue, the commentators’ lounge had also filled with many unfamiliar faces of different skin tones, trailing long camera crews in and out. For a time, Asian faces were instead the rare sight.
Back when China’s esports scene was still weak, many players from other regions didn’t even recognize Chinese teams until they met them for the first time at Worlds.
But in recent years, as all-Chinese rosters took the lead in claiming more and more international titles, the other regions finally lowered their lofty heads and began broadcasting HPL matches. No choice—viewers loved them.
And starting last year, every Worlds qualifying region stationed permanent broadcast teams in China, including casters, cameramen, analysts, and more, based across dozens of cities such as Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou.
This group of newcomers wore official caster badges from different regions on their chests. Chao Mi rolled his eyes subtly at them, then leaned in to whisper to Qing Ci, “These foreigners. They never came before, and now that it’s the semifinals they’re rushing over to scout intel.”
“Regular season has N streams running at the same time; they can’t exactly make shadow clones. They’ve all been doing rebroadcasts,” Qing Ci shot him a look. “Also, some of these foreigners understand Mandarin. Watch what you say.”
“…If they can still understand me, I’ll take their surname.”
Chao Mi muttered in the dialect of his hometown county. “It’s just that they thought PNG was a small team and never took them seriously. I’ve checked foreign forums—there are too many HPL matches, and lots of team VODs go overseas without any foreign-language commentator at all, just the Chinese broadcast with subtitles. Now PNG is breaking out and can’t be stopped anymore, so these guys are finally panicking. A few days ago they even asked the club for interview authorization—”
Qing Ci raised an eyebrow. “How come I never heard about that?”
“They went straight to the club owner. The owner wasn’t even in Shanghai, so in the end they could only talk to the secretary. And with so many game divisions under the owner, who do they think they are, going straight to him?”
Chao Mi continued, “In the end, all the secretary kept saying was, ‘These matters are decided by the team’s head coach.’ Those high-and-mighty foreigners messed around for ages and still couldn’t even figure out who to ask for permission. Isn’t that funny?”
“They lost face big time—of course they wouldn’t spread it around.”
“Then how do you know?”
Chao Mi shook his phone. “Who doesn’t have a few informants?”
“Damn, you guys are already running spy movies now!” Qing Ci laughed and scolded. “Is it really necessary?”
That didn’t sit well with Chao Mi. He glared. “Back in S2, when Tayloo went to Busan, they clearly won the match and still had water bottles thrown at them by the crowd—have you forgotten? Later, it turned out it was because a commentator had been slipping in biased commentary for a long time.”
That commentator was an extreme racist. Not only did he insinuate during live commentary that TL had ‘seized’ their own national team’s slot through on- and off-field cheating, he also spread large amounts of false information online using multiple accounts, maliciously steering public opinion. As a result, many uninformed viewers developed a very poor impression of TL, and there were even extreme incidents of spectators attacking players at the venue.
The smile on Qing Ci’s face faded slightly. “…That commentator should’ve been held criminally responsible later, right?”
“I heard he was even dragged into an alley and beaten up, right on the streets of Busan. They never found out who did it. But there’s a rumor it was Cheng Wensheng.”
Qing Ci nearly spat out his water. “Are you crazy? You believe that kind of brainwashing rumor? Didn’t he have matches to play?”
“Not necessarily—he was young back then, hot-blooded youth,” Chao Mi said. “Anyway, keeping an eye on this kind of thing can’t hurt.”
——
At exactly 1 p.m., the two commentators who had gotten carried away gossiping backstage reluctantly straightened their collars, sat upright before the cameras, and delivered that classic line. At the same time, greetings in different languages rang out in broadcast rooms around the world.
Qing Ci waved his hand, and the giant screen behind him displayed large team posters for both sides.
“Summoners, welcome to the HPL Professional League S6 Summer Semifinals, with the top seed of Playoff Group A, PNG, facing the top seed of Group B, HTG!”
“We are today’s match commentators. So—without further ado—the starting lineups for both teams are out!”
Phoenix Nirvana Gaming vs Heretics Gaming
Top: Myerii (Wei Ye) — Guesz (Yu Cai)
Jungle: Cloud (Ji Yunyu) — Viy (Qu Feiying)
Mid: Wind (Sui Ning) — Boring (Feng Yi)
Bot: Mior (Lin Zhaoxu) — Style (You Guangji)
Support: Erllit (Cheng Su) — Breathe (Yu Ze)
“In the top lane, Myerii versus Guesz.”
As soon as Qing Ci read out the IDs, the director put up a comparison of the two players’ seasonal stats. “From the data, Guesz’s KDA of 7.1 and average 5.1 kills per game rank first among all top laners—higher even than some carry positions, and far above Myerii’s 4.9. This also shows, from another angle, that the two top laners differ in playstyle and team role. Guesz generally doesn’t pick purely tank champions.”
Chao Mi added, “That’s right. Even when Guesz plays tanks, he prefers picks like Furnace Ram Spirit or Wildfang—champions that still have solo-kill potential in lane. He rarely chooses tree-type champions that just farm safely. He really likes to fight. So this raises the first question for HTG: as everyone knows, PNG loves to gank top in the early game. If Guesz keeps fighting the way he always has, could he become PNG’s breakthrough point?”
“On the flip side, Guesz has both ferocity and refined mechanics, and with timely support from his teammates, he could just as easily catch PNG off guard.”
Qing Ci said, “Of course, whether PNG will even gank top is hard to say. Every time the commentators get stuck not knowing what to predict, this team always manages to surprise us.”
[Waiting for Brother Cai to smash Erii]
[??? What did my wife ever do to you?]
[Brother Cai’s stats are still insane—7.1 on average. At this point I have to @ some carry positions that absolutely can’t hit that number, like @Nv_Fiw, @GEN_Midc, @FR_Reling… there are too many.]
[ So you’re just farming mid laners now, huh? A ton of ADs don’t have a 7.1 KDA either, okay?]
[So what? That only proves Brother Cai is genuinely cracked.]
[I don’t know who’s below him, but I do know someone who’s definitely above him. I’ll @ them for you—no need to thank me. @PNG_Wind]
[Welp, Feng-bao accidentally became the last remaining glory of the mid lane (lol)]
“On the jungle side, Cloud’s stats this season are also ridiculously stacked—average participation rate of 7… wait, what the hell, 74.5%?!”
Chao Mi stared at the numbers in disbelief, rubbing his eyes several times. “I’m not seeing things, right??? That’s way too outrageous. A normal jungler is around 65% for this stat!!”
“That basically means he’s present in almost every single fight!”
Qing Ci held back a laugh. “But Cloud’s first-blood participation rate is actually quite low. Viy’s is as high as 87.9%, above the league average of 71.03%, while Cloud is only at 59.4%—still 0.6 short of the passing line. This is also the only stat where he’s significantly below the league average. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure someone on PNG has a very high number in this category.”
[Whose fault is it? I’m not saying.]
[Behind every solo-kill king is a jungler quietly tanking everything, hahaha]
[Discipline Director: So you’re the kid who failed the exam, huh?! Can’t even hit 60 and you still want to go pro?!]
[Holy shit I’m dying hahaha—‘someone’ really should come see this!!]
[Cloud: Don’t I get to keep my dignity???]
After laughing for a while, the commentators steered the topic back. “Of course, the most anticipated matchup in this game is still the mid lane.”
“In their regular-season meeting, Boring played while sick, and the champion he picked wasn’t even his signature. A lot of fans said afterward that it wasn’t satisfying enough! This time, in a BO5, the league’s two top-tier mid laners can finally face each other head-on.”
As Chao Mi finished speaking, the stat panels for Sui Ning and Feng Yi appeared in front of all viewers.
[Middle Lane]
[PNG_Wind] vs [HTG_Boring]
KDA: 10.4 / 8.1
Avg. Kills: 7.3 / 5.7
Gold per Minute: 462 / 485
Damage per Minute: 797 / 628
Damage Share: 33.6% / 24.9%
Damage Conversion: 164% / 112%
Damage Taken Share: 11.2% / 18.4%
[……]
[……holy shit……]
[So it really is “no comparison, no damage”—now do you see who the real hard carry is?]
[Is this orphanage-director level? Eating grass but still squeezing out milk—nothing more to say]
[33.6% average damage share??? I couldn’t hit that even if my teammates AFKed, let alone as a season average]
[You have to look at this kind of percentage in team context. If there are other damage cores, the share naturally goes down. HTG has three damage points top–mid–bot, and the jungler sometimes does damage too, so Boring’s share being lower is normal]
[Normal??? Look at that 164% conversion before you talk, okay? If this isn’t blood-C data, who qualifies as C?]
“Honestly, if this weren’t system-generated data, I’d think it was photoshopped.”
Chao Mi shook his head in amazement. “Wind’s numbers are just absurd! His post-game stats in the very first match of the Summer Split looked almost the same—I didn’t even praise him then because I was afraid he’d get cocky! If it were just one or two games where everything went smoothly, that wouldn’t be surprising. But to maintain this level across an entire season… I don’t even know what to say. Viewers, this is the new generation of homegrown HPL mid laners—do you see it?!”
At the same time, Chao Mi seemed to hear gasps coming through his headset from several neighboring studios, followed by excited chatter in various foreign languages, all blending together.
“The analysts from the backstage data team also mentioned earlier that, whether for Wind individually or for HPL mid laners as a whole, this represents a brand-new peak!”
“First of all, PNG is absolutely not a four-protect-one mid team. If carry players on teams like TL, TMX, or GEN take over 30% of team damage, that’s nothing surprising. But PNG more often runs dual-core or even triple-core setups. In a team like that, Wind’s 33.6% is worth its weight in gold!”
Chao Mi continued, “Exactly. Wind is the kind of player who dares to fight and dares to output—every game he pushes his damage to the limit. As long as you give him a chance, he’ll dare to make the play. His average kills per game are unmatched domestically! On the other hand, his gold per minute isn’t particularly high, which shows he’s a true ‘maximum damage with minimal resources’ player. What’s even more outrageous is that his KDA is actually higher than most support players’!”
Qing Ci was also stunned. “After the support item changes this season, it’s been much easier for supports to get assists, which indirectly boosted their income. As a result, in the latter half of the season, most teams’ supports have seen a clear rise in KDA, averaging between 8.5 and 9.5—far higher than other positions.”
“But Wind, as a mid laner, putting up a 10.4—that’s a clean, decisive proof of strength!”
“Boring’s overall stats rank second in the league, and before this he crushed every other mid laner he was compared against. But the moment this table came out, the only word that came to mind was—shabby. I never thought I’d see the day I’d use that word to describe Boring!”
HTG fans definitely didn’t like hearing that. Their group chats had already exploded when the comparison chart first appeared, and now it was fuel on the fire.
[Five-Year Newbie]: What the hell is this dumbass commentator implying?? Looking down on my Brother B??
[Five-Year Newbie]: Brother B would casually smash these diamond-level commentators in-game—what skill level do they have to lecture like this??
[Ten-Year Old Fan]: Honestly, just looking at the stats, it is a complete loss
[Five-Year Newbie]: Stats are bullshit, once you’re in-game it’s all about mechanics!
[Ten-Year Old Fan]: …So you’re implying Wind has no mechanics?
[Twenty-Year Old Fan]: Damn. @Five-Year Newbie, bro, what rank are you?
[Five-Year Newbie]: ……
[Five-Year Newbie]: Why are you all so calm?
[Ten-Year Old Fan]: What’s the point of panicking? A BO5 only gets settled after it’s played. This is the real Mount Hua Sword Debate moment—just watch the match quietly for now.
The newbie was thoroughly shaken.
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