The 2005 Singapore wcg finals is a day that makes old e-sports people unforgettable, with the word gg typed on the public screen of the shortround (United States) players, the sky players from China finally stood on the top of the frozen throne, so that countless Chinese players fulfilled the dream of the wcg single-player project championship, and it was also that day that the world remembered the we.ige.sky id.
To this day, the vigorous development of the competitive industry has been able to bring a lot of income and honor to professional players, but as early as 2005, when e-sports was still regarded as a flood beast, everyone mentioned that the impression of e-sports was electronic heroin, not doing business, and was a negative image of underground punk and tattooing groups. But Sky braved the pressure to win the first wcg championship gold medal for China, and the world's highest event in the world's e-sports issued the first roar of China's e-sports to the world. When the five-star red flag was raised in the Lion City, he became a hero in the minds of Chinese Warcraft players, but behind the hero was carried many unknown pasts and hardships.
01: The hero of glory in front of people, but behind it there is an indescribable gray childhood
"When I was a child, I was very thin, and I had younger siblings, and my whole family of five depended on the income of my father, who was a doctor. I was the eldest son, so my father was the strictest with me. Li Xiaofeng recalled the "gray" time of his childhood and could not help but sigh. The burden of the economy made Li Xiaofeng's father's temper become more and more grumpy, and as the eldest son of the family, he naturally became the object of his father's venting. Li Xiaofeng's childhood was in a fight, calling his parents, being repeatedly beaten and scolded by his father, and even ran away from home at one point.
02: Open the game, like a gray childhood has a color mark
Like many rebellious teenagers in adolescence, Li Xiaofeng, who was still a junior high school student, became fascinated by the arcade game hall that sprung up at that time, which was one of the few entertainment venues for children, and it was at this stage that he was exposed to his favorite arcade game in his life, "Devouring Heaven and Earth". Li Xiaofeng, who recalls this time, always has a childlike happy smile on his face: I save my breakfast money every day just to buy two more game coins so that I can go to the arcade to play a circle when school is over.
03: Family or Dream? This is the conundrum that every successful man must face
By chance, Li Xiaofeng entered the Internet café at that time under the leadership of his cousin, which made Li Xiaofeng contact "StarCraft" for the first time, experienced the charm of rts game games and indulged in it, and also knew for the first time the concept of gamers and professional players, at that time Li Xiaofeng secretly swore in his heart: He must become a professional player and fight for his beloved e-sports career for a lifetime. Li Xiaofeng's interstellar level is getting better and better, and the opposite is that the test results are getting worse and worse, and it should be known that in that era when the college entrance examination was regarded as the only way out, "playthings lost their minds" was a reverse scale that parents could not touch. Li Xiaofeng's father was no exception, and his angry father dragged him home from the Internet café and beat him up fiercely and forbade him to go to the Internet café again, at which time Li Xiaofeng fell into a tangled choice between study and dreams.
04: The house of life and the gain of career, "sky" was born!
In hesitation and confusion, Li Xiaofeng finally made the most important decision in his life: stick to his dream! And fight for it! So he registered his first account on BattleNet, which was later the id "sky" that attracted the attention of the world.
Although the dream is beautiful, but the reality is more cruel, Sky's StarCraft road is not smooth, and he participated in the wcg China audition for the first time but was eliminated in the first round. It was not until 2003 that he won the wcg Xi'an Division championship, which he was more satisfied with and recognized by players.
At the beginning of 2004, the Beijing Hunter Club was recruiting professional e-sports players and offered a condition of 1,000 yuan a month to eat and live. Sky was very impressed after learning about it, and after repeated consultations with his family, Sky finally took his first step towards becoming a professional player, however, what he did not know was how great an impact his step would eventually have on Chinese e-sports.
05: Sky mistakenly became a war3 player, and wcg became king in one fell swoop
Sky who came to Beijing wanted to continue to show his fists in the "StarCraft" project, but Hunter's interstellar players already had world-class masters such as pj, and war3 players were seriously insufficient, and the head of the club saw that Sky had entered the top five of war3's battle net in 2003, so he included Sky in the club's war3 player list and signed a three-month contract.
The Hunter Club was later dissolved for various reasons. Sky went to Yoliny, later known as the We Club, and a training camp brought Sky into contact with a man who had changed his professional attitude, South Korea's popular player "Moon God" Moon.
In that training camp, Sky trained for about 12 hours a day. However, what makes him feel terrible is that every time I go to bed, after getting up, I can see the figure of the Korean player Moon training, and the result is that the competition Moon won the championship with an undefeated record, moon's experience has changed his heart, people who are better than you are still working hard, why do you slack off? So, after returning home, Sky began a daily training of up to 18 hours, accurate to every minute and every second of the tactical details, and finally created the original genre "sky stream" that later caused headaches for countless professional players on wcg.
At the 2005 Weg World Esports Masters, Nirvana's reborn Sky rushed to the third place in one fell swoop, and after weg, the ambitious Sky set its sights on the world championship. In June of the same year, at the acon5 World Computer Game Global Finals held in Xi'an, Sky once again won the trophy of the war3 project. This is Sky's first world championship and the first world championship in China's eSports war3 event.
However, this was not enough for him, and Sky set its sights on the world's highest-spec esports event: the wcg finals! He is eager to win the championship of WCG, he is eager to let the players of the world know their own strength, let the players of the world know the strength of Chinese e-sports.
In the 2005 WCG group stage, Sky defeated WCG's 2004 champion Grubby with an original "sky stream", followed by another victory over the notorious Winner and French Terran player Tod. In the final stage, the opponent waiting for him is the American night master Shortround, at this time Sky is only one step away from his dream wcg championship. Adjusting his mentality and relaxing his body, Sky did not have the slightest fear in the face of this mountain in front of him, suppressed! Keep suppressing until the opponent concedes defeat! In the end, the mountain failed to stop Sky's progress, and Sky cleanly won the WCG Global Finals 2:0! Let the five-star red flag representing China fly over the Lion City! Chinese players are boiling over, which will be the most important milestone in the history of the Chinese war3 profession.
06: The creation of myths and the rise of idols
A year later, in the 2006wcg final, Sky once again won the wcg championship with machine-like precision operation, and the unprecedented wcg second consecutive championship made sky a new generation of e-sports idols in China, and also became the first Chinese player to enter the wcg Hall of Fame, the first Warcraft 3 event player. Countless Chinese players are cheering for it, and the domestic media are vying for coverage, as the rising star of China's e-sports is no different for a while.
"It's not what I want to do, it's that every time you play a game, there will be a lot of people coming to interview you. He didn't interview the other contestants, which means I was pushed into this position. Sky said.
After realizing that he was no longer a simple professional player but as a spokesperson for Chinese e-sports, Sky began to demand himself in words and deeds, as the only voice channel in the e-sports industry at that time, he began to think about his responsibilities and obligations, how to make the public accept his favorite e-sports industry is the most thought-about problem after Sky won the championship, and as a spokesperson, he will lead by example and strive to deliver a positive, sunny, and healthy image of e-sports people to the public.
07: Heroes are late, how will you exist in the e-sports world when you have faded your aura?
After two consecutive championships, Sky's career is a smooth road, but the wcg in 2007 is a joke made by fate on Sky, and Sky, who won all the way to the final, launched a sprint towards the unprecedented goal of "wcg triple crown", and finally was won by 4k-creolophus in the case of the next city first, carrying the expectations of countless players Sky finally returned home, which is regrettable.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Sky became a glorious torchbearer, which symbolized the recognition of his efforts by society and the recognition of the e-sports industry. It was also at that year's wcg event that Sky hastily fell in the qualifiers of the Chinese division, which also symbolized that his career gradually began to be pushed off the altar.
The successive defeats in 2008 and 2009 made everyone wonder if Sky was old and could not move. But in the face of everyone's doubts, Sky chose to respond with harder training.
In 2011, Sky, who fought against the water, once again reached the WCG finals and marched towards the dream of the Treble. However, the drama of 2007 was staged again, and it was once again reversed by someone who reversed the game 2:1. Watching the medals that were close at hand being taken away, stubborn as Sky finally could not hold back, bitter tears came out of his eyes. It was also after this defeat that Sky began to re-examine what was left after he had removed the aura of a professional player, and at the end of the same year, Sky's personal autobiography "When Li Xiaofeng Became Sky" was published, telling everyone who cared about that period of time about the development of e-sports.
In 2014, the Legend of Chinese E-sports chose to retire and no longer active in the e-sports circle as a professional player.
08: New era, new world, new era, the return of the "new" posture of the emperor
Five years later, on January 16, 2019, Penguin E-sports held a grand award ceremony in Shanghai, as many as 100 e-sports anchors arrived at the scene, and more popular stars Chen He joined in, but they were not the protagonists of this grand ceremony. As the host shouted out one title after another, the players in the audience welcomed this veteran figure in the history of e-sports, China's first world champion, the emperor sky with their warmest applause and shouts!
Since retiring in 14 years, Sky, who is far from the arena, has been contributing to the development of the e-sports industry behind the scenes, until june last year, as a special coach of peace elite, it returned to the public's vision, and sky also entered the peace elite live broadcast area of Penguin E-sports, the popularity of the premiere day exceeded more than four million, even if it has not appeared for a long time, sky still has such a high popularity, his status in the minds of players can be seen.
E-sports itself is cruel, and the changes of the times have faded from the players' vision, but the wave of people who watched Sky put on the flag still love the game and still remember the green years. The return of this sky live broadcast also makes those players who like war3 and those who like Warcraft RPG excited, after all, history can end, but the "legend" will never be erased.
09: Let's embrace wcg again with the heroes
After the suspension of WCG in 2014, many esports fans felt deep regret. But today, after five years, the wcg competition will be re-held in the ancient city of Xi'an from July 18 to 21, 2019! This is undoubtedly an exciting news for e-sports players, and what is even more valuable is that the opening ceremony will invite the legendary "Emperor Sky" of Chinese e-sports and the representative figure of Korean e-sports "Luna Moon" to open the opening battle for the restart of this wcg, so that players can return to that period of time to experience the blood and emotion at that time, let new e-sports fans feel the love of the older generation of e-sports people for the game, and let this former e-sports palace competition restart again. Sky will also take this opportunity to return to the public's vision and return to the esports circle, starting again as a new anchor and commentator.
In order to conform to the current e-sports trend, the project of the competition is also advancing with the times, following the announcement of the first competition project "dota2", the "Glory of the King" this e-sports rookie has also been announced to become the second official competition project, this wcg is destined to be a carnival of the entire e-sports circle, and will also witness the "ordinary Li Xiaofeng" set sail again.