If I talked to a magical genie and he told me "You will never be the best ever," I would quit the game right now. -- EternaLEnvy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhEzJrC13No)

There is a Chinese doctrine known as “The Mandate of Heaven” or Heaven’s will. In political terms, heaven represents the natural order of things, the will of the universe. Whoever has the mandate has the right to rule all under heaven. In personal terms, it denotes fateful circumstance. You met the right person on the right day, or perhaps you watched or read something that changed your life. In the case of Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao, I suspect his fateful encounter was with two things: anime and Brood War.

It sounds ludicrous and perhaps it is, but hear me out. Anime is dramatic, it builds up a story line of the underdog who must overcome impossible odds to succeed in their life ambitions. Brood War was an anime writ large. Players like Lee “Flash” Young Ho and Lee “Jaedong” Jaedong are heroic figures that have defeated all odds to become the best. Both were two of the greatest players to ever touch that game. Jaedong was known as the Tyrant, Flash became “God.” Both players defied all of the odds thrown against them. Flash showed brilliance in his rookie year with an OSL victory, but faded afterward. It seemed unlikely he could rise to such heights again, but after a realization that Jaedong was pulling away from him to become the greatest there ever was, he forced himself back up and became the unstoppable machine we know now. Jaedong was an unstoppable force whose skill and effort ignited the fires of God. If Flash did not exist, it is likely Jaedong would be the greatest BW player ever. Instead it was their rivalry that marked the highest competitive era of BW history. Both had pushed the game to a level that no one prior to them could have imagined it and both became living legends.

It was compelling, it was dramatic, and it was something EternaLEnVy believed he could emulate. EternaLEnVy’s announcement into the Dota 2 world was auspicious in its own way. On Dec. 9, 2011, he went to the Team Liquid forum. There he posted that he was quitting engineering school to become a Dota 2 pro. He wouldn’t have bothered to announce it, but he needed some advice on streaming platforms. Prior to that post, no one had ever heard of his name before.

That moment encapsulates the core of EternaLEnVy’s character. A player full of ambition who didn’t give a damn what people thought of him, but smart enough to have a clear plan of what he wanted to do and how he wanted to execute it. One year later he had created NoTideHunter. In their first LAN at DreamHack Winter, they won the entire thing.

But like any anime, the protagonist must face adversity. Some were serious like his removal from NoTideHunter, some less serious such as chairs betraying him at events, and some were deadly serious like his obsessive need to raise his MMR. For EternaLEnVy his two greatest triumphs came from the two worst events of his life: MLG Columbus 2013 and The Shanghai Major 2016.

At MLG Columbus, team Speed.Gaming had to play with a stand-in, all of them had travel issues, and they lost every game on the first day of groups. It was a completely unmitigated disaster. On the second, they won out, of the round robin and made it to the finals where they beat the Dream Team DK lineup of 2013.

At the Shanghai Major, the booths were made of glue, asses were being kicked, and it was a generally miserable time for everyone involved. In the midst of all of this, Team Secret were able to win the entire thing and that was EternaLEnVy’s second big win. Of course, his totoro doll was then stolen from him after the event.

But what EternaLEnVy is most remembered for is not those first place victories, though they were incredible, but rather all of his almost first place victories. From 2014-2015, EternaLEnVy was the leader of Cloud 9, an incredible team that could beat almost anyone...so long as they were not in the finals. In total, the team across all iterations accumulated ten second place finishes.

“So long as Cloud 9 exists, I will never fully understand Dota.” - Andy "Draskyl" Stiles

As Dota 2 fans, as players, as scientists, it was baffling. The team was always incredible through their run up to the finals where they seemingly imploded. No lead was unthrowable, no game unloseable. Part of it is due to the fact Peter “ppd” Dager’s EG squad. The ppd era of EG could always adapt and clutch it out in the end, and thus he always spelled the doom of that Cloud 9 roster. But it was more than that as the pressure always mounted up and they made decisions that were on the verge of genius or clown. Or as the Chinese like to say, “It was like modern art, hard to understand.”

That was the character of EternaLEnVy squads and that was his character as a player. EternaLEnVy was fearless when it came to public opinion, which has garnered him more memes, disdain and adulation in equal amounts. What fueled EternaLEnVy instead was to push to the next level. To be the greatest player he could be. To not be the best player now, but to be the best player ever. EternaLEnVy is a player who kept pushing the envelope, who kept going to the next level, or if a team was already at the next level, pushed it even further to the next-next level.

An example of this was during his early days on NoTideHunter when veteran players Jonathan “Loda” Berg and Joakim “Akke” Akterhall joined the squad, EternaLEnVy was surprised to hear that they had never done jungle stacking before. Another example is the way he played his invoker in the mid lane trying to pull off moves that were clearly out of his repertoire and looking like a clown, but knowing that this was the price he had to pay to get to the next level.

EternaLEnVy lives on the very edges of existence in Dota 2. In places where even the greatest collective Dota 2 minds cannot explore. It is beyond science, beyond art. A place where he constantly pushes himself to take his game a step further in an endless quest to push his own limits as a player and expand them. And by pushing himself to this precipice, he believes he can be the greatest Dota 2 player we’ve ever seen.

And to be honest, there are moments where he has looked that. Singular series or games or tournaments where EternaLEnVy’s madness makes sense. Earlier I said that EternaLEnVy was the type of player that could throw unthrowable games, lose unloseable games. That is true, but on the other hand, he was also a player who could win unwinnable games in ways no one could have possibly predicted.

He once explained this on a cast at the Summit, “When the game is going this bad, I want to create chaos. Create so much chaos that no one understands Dota anymore. Either I lose the game or I will lose the game. All it means is win or lose the game, that’s it. Whether I get team wiped or not, it doesn’t matter because I lose the game anyways. You don’t go for the beautiful loss, you go suicidal, you have to make the game way more chaotic than this. Make it so no one understands Dota anymore. If both teams understand Dota, then both teams know you have lost the game.”

“EternaLEnVy is scarier to play against when he sees a 10% chance to win rather than a 90% chance to win.” - David “MoonMeander” Tan

There is something in his character, perhaps something from watching all of that anime, from watching all of those Brood War games where Flash and Jaedong made impossible plays to steal the game, but there is something within him that clicks in that moment. It forces him to another level of play where chaos reigns, where science and art devolve and in those moments EternaLEnVy is the best player on the server because only he has pushed this far into the madness of Dota and only he understands what lies beneath.

This ethos, this principle to push the boundaries of his play, to push the boundaries of what he can do dogs his every step. In an interview with Duncan “Thorin” Shields, EternaLEnVy said he felt like he “sold out” by playing with Clement “Puppey” Ivanov as Puppey had already won a TI and in order to be the best, he couldn’t join the best teams, he had to beat them.

Since leaving Secret, that principle has largely stayed intact. While he has played with some TI winners, he has returned to the roots of his team selection. To avoid most of the bigger names to prove that he is the best. Last year he tried a friendship stack with NP. EternaLEnVy’s original plan was to have an year where he didn’t go all-out for #1, but rather to play with people he liked.

He tried, but his destiny said otherwise. As Heraclitus said, “Your character is your fate.” EternaLEnVy is a man of ambition and along the way he realized that if he wanted chances to win TI, the team must make changes. NP then slowly morphed into old Cloud 9 except with Arif “MSS” Anwar instead of Pittner “bOne7” Armand. The old magic was there as the team immediately got their 3 best results of the year, but once again crumbled at TI.

The International has been the bane of all Dota 2 player’s existence, it is also their most cherished dream. It is the largest tournament of the year and the one everyone will remember if you win. To become the best, many believe you must win it and that is what EternaLEnVy’s sights are set on. But he has never performed well there as he has only made it to the top 6 once, every other year has had him drop out early in the event.

But he won’t stop. After all, making history wouldn’t be worth it if it was easy. This season, EternaLEnVy has taken a new route as he has tried EU and NA. This time he has gone to SEA. This has arguably been one of the worst times of his career as his team looked completely discombobulated.

During this time, the player getting the most flack was Steve “Excalibur” Ye, a player who once stood-in for Fnatic nearly 3 years ago. Despite the fact that Excalibur did not fit the team at all, EternaLEnVy felt a strong kinship with the young Swede. He was still incredibly passionate about the game and worked from dawn to dusk, but it was never enough.

Despite admiring Excalibur’s passion and work-ethic, ambition called for me. Excalibur’s play style did not fit the team and in the end the team cut Excalibur for Abed “Abed” Yusop and in four days they were able to beat regional rivals Mineski to qualify for the Summit.

This has been a trying time for EternaLEnVy. But regardless of those difficulties, I have no doubt that EternaLEnVy will return to the top of the Dota 2 scene one way or another. He has too much skill, willpower and ambition to let it end here. This anime isn’t over yet, EternaLEnVy still has a TI to win.