Soon after the conclusion of TI5, EHOME’s coach 71 “commended” LGD’s support player MMY on Weibo. The most controversial coach in China loves to harass people: “Not all milk is considered deluxe”.

This comment of 71 was posted together with this seductive photo which naturally resulted in many “peaceful” comments. “I didn’t know 71 is into girls too.”

But, of course, some people understood what 71 actually meant. The second photo that accompanied the post was MMY’s stats of a Dazzle game.

In the player ranking during TI5, MMY was ranked number 1 in terms of healing done per game and was the only Chinese player to be selected. LGD achieved 3rd place and MMY was known to be one of the best supports at that time.

One year later, MMY ended his professional career and quickly disappeared from the scene. He maintained a relatively low profile with no rumours except for one: He took his talent to Azeroth (World of Warcraft).

Last week, World of Warcraft announced on their Weibo that the Mythic Keystone Dungeon in China has concluded. The champion team name is Skyline.D and MMY appeared on the team list.

He managed to put up a performance on his Rogue with the highest DPS dealt.

MMY’s first ever ID was “dai”. During the old Warcraft 3 days, he was the best strategist around. After transitioning to DOTA, he changed his ID to “X!!”. In his first ever offline tournament for Dota, he led EHOME to victory at the WCG 2009 (China region).

EHOME won 10 championships in 2010 and became a legend. Manager 71 said that if EHOME would have finished second, he would have left the trophy behind at the airport. In2011, EHOME took the second place at TI1 and Tinker’s fun name was given after X!!.

In 2012, X!! switched to the support role. When EHOME drafted the Io-Tiny combo at TI2, the western fans and players were shocked. Eventually, everyone remembered the impeccable play of LaNm’s Tiny but forgot the amazing Io player – X!! who was one of the best Io players in the early days.

Thereafter, X!! officially changed his name to MMY and joined DK. After 1 year of hibernation, MMY became a key player for the team. During SL9, BurNIng played a total of 9 carry heroes and MMY played a total of 7 support heroes, in which one of them was a Meepo.

The upcoming story has already been mentioned earlier. LGD’s MMY has always been a very competitive support and he proved his talent once again in the World of Warcraft.

MMY has always been known as a very talented player. He can quickly adapt to role changes, has amazing execution and plays very well in almost any game. All these are more impressive because of his “lazy” personality.

This is a very similar situation many people faced when studying. There will always be one person that doesn’t seem very hardworking and doesn’t listen in class but always ace the exams. With regards to MMY, his friends in the professional scene always comment that it’s a waste of his talent because he is so “lazy”.

Whether or not the term “lazy” can be used to describe his professional attitude or his daily habits, the meme of “hardworking MMY” became popular.

TI5 was MMY’s final glory. It was during this year that the Chinese Dota scene started realizing that it’s time to replace the old with the new. It was also that year when the wonder-kids in the Western scene were born.

Sumail rose to fame at DAC. He was a newcomer that was afraid of no one; Miracle got into the professional scene by being the highest MMR player back then. During that time, CN community was still doubting that having a high MMR equates to being a good pro player; there was also RTZ and Zai who rose to fame slightly earlier and everyone saw them as a huge threat.

“Why doesn’t China have young talents such as Sumail or Miracle?”

Asking such a question seems weird as the term ‘young talent’ is actually not something rare.

In the year 2012, Wu “2009” Sheng organized a ‘Young Talent Solo Tournament’ where the highly skilled players gathered to compete.

Taking a look at the list, we have players such as 430, Sylar, Hao, Mu, Cty, Maybe, etc. The list comprises of a wide variety of players, from TI champions to newcomers who have not entered the professional scene yet.

Eventually, CTY who was the champion of the solo tournament and Maybe who was seen to have huge potential started to play competitively. However, their road wasn’t easy. On the contrary, it was the professional players at that time that carried the scene in the next few years.

CTY always had some moments where he fell off slightly and was never able to remove the tagging of only being invincible in the “first six minutes”; Maybe had slightly a better luck and was granted more patience and space. Eventually, he grew stronger and managed to rise to the top.

“Young talent” slowly became a term that added unnecessary burden and the solo tournament never had a sequel to it.

Over the years, people slowly realized that discovering talents doesn’t necessarily equate to discovering top professional players. Times are changing and ‘young talent’ is no longer just about their individual execution and fast reaction. They will have to face many other challenges the moment they enter the professional scene.

Someone asked Miracle this question: “Your team has 4 players with 9000 MMR. How do you prevent yourselves from playing too scattered?” When faced with this question, Miracle replied: “Forget about the 9000 MMR. Teamwork is more important.”

The same logic applies here. Forget the tag of ‘talent’ and maybe we will be able to unlock the true recipe for success. To put it bluntly, all the pro players competing on stage are all extremely talented.

With the current state of technology and ranking system, the chances of missing out on an esports genius are getting lower and lower. Thereafter, with the amount of effort everyone has been putting in, it seems more and more like a battle between the geniuses. As such, the chances of being ‘lazy’ and success is almost zero.

I have no idea how ‘lazy’ MMY actually was when he was playing Dota but I know that he craves for victory. At the lowest point of his career, he approached 71 and said “71 save me! It has been 2 years since my last championship.” After achieving 3rd place at TI5, Xiao8 said that he has never seen MMY crying so loudly before.

Many people gossiped that MMY was already hooked onto World of Warcraft even when he was playing Dota professionally. Ever since he retired, he continued to play the game even up until now. The amount of time he spent on World of Warcraft is definitely not lesser than any of his counterparts. His title of winning champion in China is definitely accompanied by hard work and practice.

In the past, the talent was the most important thing to have in esports and could be used to brag; as for today, talent is simply a threshold that you need to cross before taking your first step.

When ‘talent’ is no longer an advantage, what will these esports’ geniuses use to compete?