Rise

It was gametime! Team Shanghai and Fuzhou Tech sat down behind their computers in the two soundproof booths and double-checked their settings. The hundreds of spectators in the stands were spending these last couple of minutes until Game 1 speculating about the final outcome of the best of three series. Many of them were relatively new to competitive League of Legends and hadn’t the faintest clue who either of Team Shanghai or Fuzhou Tech were. But there were also some who’d attended the previous edition of the East China Regionals. One of them turned to a friend and asked, “Fuzhou Tech got this far last time around too, right?”

“Think they might’ve even made it to the quarter finals last year. It’s a bit fuzzy… But from what I recall, they were on a roll,” the friend responded.

“Fuzhou is a pretty decent team then? Are they gonna win this one?” someone else asked.

The friend nodded and explained, “Yeah, I think they were pretty good. If I’m not wrong, they went down against Fudan in quarters. And Fudan was like the best team. Oh shit! I remember now! That was a pretty exciting series too! Fuzhou made it really difficult for Fudan, almost took a game even! They really should’ve made it to semis…”

“You must be dreaming!” a random audience member butted in. He sat a row behind the friend and leaned forward to join the conversation. Then he continued, “Semis? Fuzhou in semis? Dream on! No way! Only the really big teams make it to semis. Think Fudan, Zhejiang and Shanghai University of Finance! Fudan was just trolling around a bit in that series. They’re like a gazillion times better than Fuzhou Tech!” He shook his head and laughed before adding, “A little team like Fuzhou Tech? They were lucky to get as far as they did. Bunch of noobs.”

The audience had gone mostly quiet, many people either listening or joining in on the conversation going on. One of those joining in was Han Ying. She attended Shanghai University of Finance and was a member of its esports club. She was also the one who’d welcomed Team Shanghai on campus and witnessed the 2-0 KO Team Shanghai dealt to Luo Yu’s team. If our team is one of the big three, then what about Team Shanghai? They destroyed Luo Yu! That Midlaner was a freak! We never did get his phone number after how that played out… She giggled and then said, “Team Shanghai might win this series then. They beat Luo Yu 2-0 a few weeks back in a scrim. It was a really one-sided series. Team Shanghai played that really well!”

There were many people in the stands who refused to follow Han Ying’s line of thought. They didn’t know Team Shanghai and had never seen them play. The only fact of interest to them was that Team Shanghai comprised five high schoolers, two of whom were girls. Their limited view on League of Legends consisted of their experiences in solo queue and the matches they watched on television. Neither spoke very highly of high school students or female players. That alone was reason enough to toss any notion of Team Shanghai actually being good aside.

“Just a bunch of fucking kids!”“How good can they really be?”“Fuzhou Tech has an Ionia Master Midlaner! Try and beat him, damn high school kids!”“He’s a real life B Midlaner! And then you got the noob at Team Shanghai!”“Noob high schooler better surrender if they know what’s good for them!”“I should’ve skipped today… Boring matches. Fuzhou is just gonna stomp those high schoolers!”

There were also people in the crowd who’d attended the earlier rounds Team Shanghai had played in. They’d watched the high school kids tear through strong lineups of university teams! And they could hardly believe what they were seeing in those rounds. They’d mumbled and whispered with each other during those games, trying to comprehend what was going on. It didn’t make sense to them that high schoolers could be that good! But seeing is believing. And right now, as a direct result from those earlier rounds, they were on the Team Shanghai bandwagon!