On July 26, 2025, Chengdu AG.AL battled TTG Global in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for seven full games. Trailing 1:3 in the series, they fought back with three straight wins and defeated their opponents in the decisive final game, claiming the Honor of Kings championship at the Esports World Cup (EWC) and adding another trophy to the AG dynasty.
Honor of Kings is one of the few games I’ve followed consistently. Since the game’s early rise in 2016, I’ve been watching the AG club. From 梦泪’s (Menglei) iconic backdoor with Han Xin — a famous base-stealing play in Honor of Kings lore — to the later “Light Rotation” (光之轮换, a nickname for the team’s dazzling roster rotation strategy), to veteran player cat transitioning from mid-lane FMVP to a championship support, and on to the batch of talented newcomers the club has developed through its draft system in recent years — AG has now reached the grand finals seven times, won four titles, and with this EWC championship, completed a feat of five consecutive championships.
Though this grand final was spectacular, I find it hard to write words that satisfy myself anymore.
What follows is what I wrote back in November 2024, when AG won the KPL Grand Finals of the year.
On November 16, 2024, Chengdu AG Super Play defeated Chongqing Wolves 4-2 to win the 2024 Grand Finals. The match was thrilling and full of twists, delivering a true visual feast for the audience.
As an Honor of Kings player, I deeply appreciate the hardships of AG’s road to the championship. By following esports, I hope to explore what this sport demands of a person and the cruelty of its competition.
The ultimate test of competitive sport is not merely technical proficiency and game understanding — the basic requirements — but the test of a player’s mental fortitude and competitive form: having the ability and the strength, and being able to bring them fully to bear at the crucial moments.
This applies not only to esports but to all sports. The technical and tactical gap between top players is often tiny; what truly decides victory is the ability to perform and deliver, and that ability is an inseparable part of the person.
When technique and skill compete at the very pinnacle, they transcend pure tactics. So can we set tactics aside and directly cultivate these core abilities?
Confidence, courage, fearlessness, resilience under pressure, strength of will — these qualities seem hard to cultivate. Superficial activities rarely let us truly experience tests of these abilities. If our training stays on the surface and never touches these deeper demands, we are grasping at branches while abandoning the root. As time passes, technique falls behind and ability degrades, but the qualities acquired in cultivating these core abilities stay with us for life.
Everyone is born with different latent qualities waiting to be activated. The lucky ones find their direction early, progress step by step, experience the positive feedback these qualities bring to life, and keep iterating and improving through one small cycle after another. Those who fail to cultivate these qualities can only drift between pursuits, tossing and turning, forever changing course.
Most techniques and skills are not indispensable; not knowing them is no loss. Many things in the world are just this simple, especially in modern life. Once we understand this, we can let go of our obsession with quantity.
The division of specialized labor alienates a person into a single role within a category. If one can, in the current role, acquire qualities that transcend the level at hand, sublimate them into universal character, and then expand horizontally — gaining breadth, richness, and diversity — such a path of development is more likely to succeed. Depth first, then breadth. The reasoning is simple, yet it raises a question: facing the same thing, why do people’s insights differ so much? Some, shortly after entering a field, grasp the higher, abstract demands of character; others, even after years in the trade, remain stuck in shallow repetition, never quite getting the point. Perhaps this stems from the innate differences in inner qualities we mentioned earlier.
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