Sanshao Says [1] If you wish to climb, you must be abstinent!

cyn: edg’s manager, sanshao, recently released the first episode of his new esports talk show, sanshao says. i’ve transcribed and translated it below the cut, but you can watch the original video here on qq if you want to see his hilarious video interludes.

Though we may grow older, our esports dreams shall never die.

Hello everyone, I am Sanshao, he who savagely separates loving pairs of mandarin ducks.

Why have I been titled the Separator of Couples? Let me share with everyone a story very near to me.

You see, we have someone called Butterfly. Butterfly is my assistant manager. Recently her performance at work has been god-awful, even the most simple of tasks become a mess in her hands. For example, booking a hotel, booking some plane tickets, submitting expenses - none of those have been done right.

“I hired you to plan my schedule. So tell me, what have you even planned out?”

Well, I couldn’t take it anymore. So I went to her, and I said, ‘Butterfly, what’s been up recently? Why have you been doing things so haphazardly?’ And well, she was really embarrassed and kept going on and on making excuses. But after I kept nagging her, she finally admitted the truth - actually, she and her boyfriend had fought, and they were currently considering breaking up.

Originally, I had intended to take this opportunity to teach her a lesson, see if I had a chance to dock her pay. But then I thought, never mind. Who hasn’t been young before? When I was young, oh, that was also an overwhelming time.

“Now do you understand?”

Because of this, I thought back to my team members. Their age now - that is the heyday of youth.

I’ve told the team members, dating’s got 380 different problems, and only one good thing comes of it - and that one I don’t need to name.

“Bilingual movie subs will put this poor translator out of a hobby.“

When a herd of males assemble, hormones will oh-so-quickly rise up. And if at this time, I allowed them to date, it would just be like us in the past.

In the morning you’d think, 'What will I take her to eat for lunch?’ And in the afternoon you’ll wonder about what to eat for dinner! And after the meal, shouldn’t you go watch a movie? And before you sleep, you look back and think, 'Oh, today’s meal was pretty good. Should we go somewhere else tomorrow?’

And if it keeps on like this, of course you’ll have no energy for practice. They all came alone to Shanghai. We cannot allow them to fall in love because of their loneliness.

“I don’t miss you because I’m lonely, I’m lonely because I miss you.“

And then there’s another example. At the time, I was preparing to sign a contract with a young team member. But on the day of the signing, I hadn’t intended to ask if he had a girlfriend, it just slipped out. Because at the time I hadn’t even thought that at his age, he would already have a girlfriend! At the time I thought this was impossible. But out of habit I asked, I said, 'Do you have a girlfriend?’

And he looked at me, and his face was full of shame. He said that, uh, he had an online one…

When I heard that, my heart exploded in confusion. But I said very calmly, ‘Over here, if you have a girlfriend, you can’t play a main role. I’ll let you consider this.’

He just looked at me and very quietly said, 'oh.’ Then he turned and left.

At the time I was really surprised. I mean, how did today’s young people turn out like this? Just think how many people would kneel, would beg, would roll, would crawl to come to EDG. And this guy has the opportunity to get a starting position - and he just says 'oh.’ Just 'oh.’ And then he just turned and left. I thought, well if he’s going to leave, I guess he can just leave. Kids of this age, they have their own ways of thinking. And so I turned and went upstairs.

But after three days had passed, three whole days and three whole nights, I was sleeping, well, preparing to sleep, and suddenly, someone knocked at the door. I opened the door and saw him walking in.

He said, 'Sanshao, are you sleeping yet?’

And I said, 'Not yet, what’s up?’

He said, 'I want to tell you something.’

I said, 'All right.’ So I stood up, and he said, 'I’ve thought it through. I want to play professionally. I won’t date for now.’

“I just want to play!”

I thought about how young he was, how on his tender face there was an expression of awe inspired by great justice. And I thought, yes, this young man is worthy of being taught.

And so from my drawer I took out that already somewhat rumpled contract and let him sign it. And I said unto him, ‘Work hard, for in the future there will definitely be good results.’

Everyone might know, when we first started this team in 2014, EDG had a lot of members who were dating then. Of course everyone would say, it won’t impact anything, it won’t be a problem. I’ll use my time wisely, my girlfriend is very supportive of me, I’ll practice hard. But in reality what really happened, the real situation is that people find it really hard to control themselves.

For example, during scrims, you were killed, you died. During the respawn timer you’d tab out, look at QQ, see, oh, is she cold, is she hot, is she hungry, is she not hungry, is she going out to watch a movie, is she taking a walk, is she looking for me, is she wanting me to look for her. And then you’d tab back into the game.

b: bby are you cold

b: are you hungry

b: babe wanna see a movie or go out

b: miss ya

g: i was taking a shower

We asked once, isn’t this affecting the practice? ‘No, no, of course not.’

But think about it, really think about it. This game, you should be thinking whether you should build an Infinity Edge or a Bloodthirster. But instead you’d be thinking, should we be getting spicy soup or spicy hot pot? Tell me, can this really not impact anything?

“Yes, mlxg’s name does stand for ‘spicy hot pot’ (ma la xiang guo).”

Of course, now you’ll ask me - then why didn’t you ban dating at the time? Well at the time, we only had five team members. If I punished someone, then I’d have to play!

Let’s look at this historically. The Beijing examination - that was the only way for cultured men to make a name for themselves. Some people, in order to make it to Beijing for the exam, would have to leave home almost a month early. Some would have to start two months early. Some would have to start half a year early.

But for this fame, they would not falter at even a thousand miles, they would have to head towards the capital city. But for many people, before they reached the capital, they would already have failed. Why?

Because on the route from their home to Beijing, they would encounter many villages, and they would choose to stay in those villages. Think about it, these scholars are usually buried in their books, how could they ever have experienced the warm and careful care of girls? And so, after they met these girls, they lost their desire for fame, and so they remained.

And professional players are the same as them.

The nerd of ancient times was the scholar! Today’s nerds are the precursors of professional esports players. The followers took the lessons of their precursors, and for the sake of fame, they would bring along an page. According to statistics I just made up, those who brought along an page were far more successful than those who did not.

“Pages hold up half the sky.“

Besides, dating has a big impact on the entire gaming environment. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in this kind of situation, but imagine, you know you are a Gold player, so you borrow a friend’s account intending to have some fun in Bronze. But instead, you find yourself getting wrecked by the other team! And no matter how you look at it, your opponent definitely doesn’t play like a bronzie. Must be an elo booster.

But actually, you’re wrong. You did not encounter an elo booster. You encountered a pro player deep in the clutches of romantic passion.

I’m not bullshitting this. This is a real thing.

In our early days, we had someone like this in our team. Every day, he would set aside about an hour to play with his girlfriend. ARAM, normals, or ranked, doesn’t matter. The important part was that he’d set aside this hour to be intimate with her.

Well, I couldn’t really do anything about it. But in my heart, I’d rather him use this hour to rest.

What I’ve talked about so far are all pro players who wanted to date or stories from when they had already dated. A lot of players have their own convictions, but no matter how self-disciplined they are, right, you can’t do anything about girls throwing themselves at you. Usually when we encounter this kind of thing, I’ll stop them outside.

Here I’ll share an interesting story with you guys. Not too long after we first started this team, there was a cute girl who kept asking for my contact information. At the time I felt pretty happy, I thought - ‘finally, after all these years, I’ve met someone blind!’ So I somewhat unwillingly gave her my QQ number.

That night, she actually added me! I was really excited, I had passed her tests. Then the first thing she sent me was, ‘Sanshao, I really like you.’

Ah, then my heart was so nervous.

And then her second line was, 'Sanshao, can you give me Clearlove’s contact information?’

“I’ve never seen such a heartfelt gaze.“ “Really? Oh, Fanny…” “Please move, I’m looking at him.”

This kind of situation just kept happening. Afterward, more and more people kept asking me for my contact information. I understood then, they really just wanted to use me to get the team members’ contact information.

So I had a brilliant idea. Whenever I encountered something like that again, I would always give them the same QQ number. That number belongs to an unmarried friend of mine.

At this point in my story, maybe many people will ask me, ‘Sanshao, you’ve said so much, but does it have any impact on actual competition performance?’

Of course it does. Let me tell you a tale of blood and tears as an example.

We go back in time to 2014. The summer split. At the time in our team we had a team captain named Fzzf. At the time he was dating someone. The relationship between him and his girlfriend, well, I can use a phrase very familiar to everyone to describe it - that would be '101 Break-ups.’

Through the entirety of the 2014 year, they broke up and made up many times. But every time Fzzf performed the best, that was when he had just broken up with her.

During the finals of the 2014 summer split, we were in the middle of a bo5 with OMG, and we ended the match in fifty minutes. The Fzzf of that time was in his best condition. In the final match, well, the style we were playing we had practiced many times, and we were also sure that this strategy’s main points hadn’t been revealed. During the entire ban-pick phase, we chose all our heroes very quickly. I remember very clearly that Fzzf was using Leona there. ADC was Jinx, jungler was Nunu, mid was Lulu, top was Kayle. The main goal of this composition was to lane swap and fast-push, then quickly push down all the outer turrets and take the dragon, accumulating a good gold lead.

But actually, our plan failed that game. Our opponents stopped our early advances and made their own advances onto our mid tower. At this time our support was just level 5. A Leona without ult isn’t very good in a team fight.

But look at this one minion. When it died, Fzzf reached level six, and with one ult stunned three low-health members. And then we cleaned up. After this one team-fight, we basically ensured our victory.

After the game, Fzzf told me, 'That was so risky. Luckily I’d taken all experience runes on Leona. If anything had gone wrong, at least I would’ve still gotten to level six first, then the teamfights would’ve be easy.’

You see, everyone, this is the benefit of not dating.

I remember once my mother told me, life is short. Some opportunities, if you miss them, will never raise their head again. When you are young, you should have fun carelessly. When you should be learning, you should study hard, enjoy the feeling of being a student. When you graduate to work, you should work hard, have a good relationship, let yourself enjoy the honey of love. When it’s time to marry, you should find someone who loves you, who cares about you to live with forever.

A life missing any of those sections is incomplete.

I feel that for pro players, in the pro player part of their life, their time here is very short, but it’s also very valuable. Especially at their peak years, in this time they should spend their time and energy on practicing hard and working on their team synergy.

If at this time, they put their feelings at the top, if they put their time and energy into relationships, or if they allow relationships to impact this short-lived period, that, to them, will make their life incomplete.

If you wish to be successful at anything, if you wish to reap its rewards, you must first learn to sacrifice.

In conclusion, if you wish to climb, you must be abstinent. This is a true proposition.

I am Sanshao. Let’s meet again next episode.