On January 24, Beijing time, bad news came. According to the European Warcraft media B2W report, the Ukrainian night elf player HoT died of cancer, and his life was forever fixed in the spring and autumn of 35 years.
After this news came out, many people's first reaction was an accident. Because in the public's impression, HoT is still the magic boy who fought in all directions on the land of Azeroth, who knows that now when he hears his news again, he has been separated forever.
But in fact, last August, the Ukrainian night elf hot, who had just celebrated his 35th birthday, was diagnosed with cancer and began to receive expensive treatment, which was also reported by the Magic Intelligence Bureau at that time.
After learning the bad news that HoT had cancer, the War3 community immediately took action, with leader ToD posting articles on social media to help HoT initiate donations, and B2W organizing an exhibition tournament to crowdfund medical expenses for HoT.
In addition, French playerSyde, South Korea's "Dream Four", China's Warcraft B station up master Mirar and other players, anchors, and viewers in the war3 community have reached out, or hundreds of dollars, or more than a dozen dollars, all of them have dedicated their own meager strength.
Encouraged by the vast number of War3 players, HoT also dragged his sick body back to the familiar battlefield. In front of the computer screen, HoT tried his best to operate each unit with slightly trembling hands, insisting on explaining his exhibition game in an already hoarse voice. Because he often started the hero of the fire demon in European clothing, people gave him the nickname "Fire Devil Brother", so the organizers also specially organized a 5v5 fire devil confrontation to pay tribute to him.
However, after nearly a year of fighting cancer, HoT was ultimately unable to overcome the disease. After the news broke, Many hoT's good friends such as ToD, Grubby, Rotterdam and many other good friends also expressed their condolences to him on social media.
Before Foggy came out, HoT had been firmly in the first place of Ukrainian Warcraft. He is one of the best Night Elf players in Europe, and if there is one word to describe him, it is "tough". Think of the WC3L Finals that year, HoT walked into the arena with sunglasses and shirts, how cold it was, and the picture of repeatedly shirtless during the game also made people have to sigh the toughness of the Eastern Europeans.
Handsome appearance, tough play style, weak night elves blooming in HoT hands, the nickname of "Ukrainian nuclear warhead" has not gone away.
Regarding HoT's fame battle, we have to mention SK, it is his little bit in the SK team that has made him what he has achieved today. In the 2007 WC3L League, HoT reached the peak of his career, in this tournament, he and Lyn, ReMinD, Soju and others defeated the WE team with Infi, Sky, and the MYM team with Moon and Lucifer to win the championship, and HoT also defeated Susiria in the final to give the SK team a final.
With a stunning ballista show, a reasonable bear-deer ratio, an old-fashioned blower, a violent sea of female hunters, unfazed in the face of Infi's towers, and a fearless face to ToD's 80-population mixed force, HoT showed all the abilities that a top night elf should have in that tournament.
After learning the news of HoT's death, the SK team official also tweeted that "you will always remember the mark you left in Warcraft."
In addition to the Shining Team Competition, HoT's performance in the individual competition was also quite outstanding. The one who made the deepest impression was WCG 2006, when he reached the final four all the way through the hurdles, but unfortunately met Sky, the king of the sky, and finally came in third. In WCG 2008, HoT made a comeback to reach the final four again, only this time it was eliminated by the current champion Grubby.
In addition, he also reached the quarterfinals in the WCG Finals in 2004, 05 and 07, creating a feat of reaching the WCG quarterfinals for five consecutive years. Such a record is enough to make him leave a glorious mark in the history of Warcraft.
Many Chinese viewers think of HoT and think of his other nickname, "Nerve Knife", which has to talk about his extremely unstable state of the game. He can defeat his opponents amazingly, or he can be inadvertently abused by his opponents, and he belongs to an unpredictable player. After watching his battle with who, in addition to admiring who's undead, there is HoT's poor race state, in the advantage but half-hearted lead to overturning, HoT lost too many games that should not be lost, which also made him never win a world championship of his own.
Off the pitch, HoT has a good personality, he mingled with his teammates when he was on the SK team, and even often played round for his hot-tempered teammate Deadman. Offline, he has a good relationship with many Chinese and Korean players, and you can always see them happily discussing Warcraft tactics together.
Most of the players in the War3 community are young and middle-aged people in their twenties and thirties, and in the hearts of most players, death is a very distant thing from them.
But in reality, death is all around us. As early as 2012, the Kazakh Terran player Verybigman died of asthma, and after that, the familiar IDs of Space, Deadman, and Ace also left us one by one. Life is sometimes too cruel, and it would be nice to carry a rebirth cross on them as in the game.
However, death is not the end of life, forgetting is. Naturally, we will always remember what HoT did in War3, remember his handsome face and classic games, and continue the War3 cause with his thoughts.
May the wind guide your way, may the holy light be with you, may the moon goddess guide you, may heaven still have your favorite War3.
HoT, all the way.