EternaLEnVy, the best player in Dota 2

Here is a comment from Stephen Chiu:

I have been following Dota 2 for many years. About

During that time, I witnessed the seven kings of The International. I have witnessed the rise and fall of world players. I saw Wings, OG, Secret, Na`Vi, DK, Vici Gaming. I’ve seen classic tackles, I’ve seen “the play”, I’ve seen Liquid do it. And in all this time, I can confidently say that no Dota 2 player has been more entertaining than Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao.

His builds are legendary. This is the player who announced his ‘go pro’ decision on the Teamliquid.net forum. There are many memes created around EE’s love of anime, his ability to throw games, and near-impossible comebacks. Chinese fans donated the song “My Chinese Heart” (roughly translated: my Chinese heart) for his ability to throw games against Chinese teams. They nicknamed him Agent 3154 because of his famous throwing ability, and called him an artist. “EE’s Dota is like contemporary art, rarely understood.” He is the one who created the “pizza party” meme that has shaken the Dota 2 community.

There’s a lot we could go through. EternaLEnVy has more memes than any other Dota player. Yet in his matches, he and his teammates always enlightened new things. This is the man who made the ‘immortal’ Doom, Drow and Visage, Stack Creep and level 1 Roshan. From Cloud9, to Secret, to NP and Fnatic, EE-sama has had unbelievable moments.

The first time we see him is at No Tidehunter, the team then becomes [A]lliance, TI3 champion. In that lineup, EE participated in the classic Roshan level 1 phase. At Nanyang Championships Season 1, he was on Team Secret. In the upper bracket, Secret faced Vici Gaming and all members died when teamfight won roshan. In a moment of fire, he sneaked into the roshan area, stealing aegis and cheese from Vici Gaming. This moment turned the chess game upside down. At another point we had Snake.int at the 2013 MLG Columbus Final, EE’s team used the ‘triple force staff’ strategy to push the rax.

The two most prominent moments in my mind were the match against LGD in the group stage of TI5. In that match, Cloud9 was down 9-28 and LGD was pushing mid rax. Realizing that he would lose everything when he returned, he decided to take a risk. As Antimage, EE gets on a divine rapier, breaking the bottom rax and pushing the game to its climax.

In another moment, I vividly remember EE’s two divine rapiers against EG. EnteraLEnVy recalls that moment in an interview with Monster Energy as follows:

“In that game, we lost rax for 20 minutes, and I died in one hit by any hero. If Ax ‘howls’ hit, I die. If the Wyvern touches the back of my neck, I die. If there is a Shadow Shaman, I die. If I have darkness and fear, I die. I have no vision, everything around is dark because of Night Stalker’s ultimate, and we don’t have summons to detect. and if I die again, the game will be over. And if I don’t die again, then I should go to Rapier. That was the thought process in my head – the only reason I bought RAiper was because it was win or lose. Then I looked the other way: if I die, can I win? If I die without Raiper, I will still lose. And if I die with Rapier, I can still win because I can put spirit on Rapier, right where I die, buy back instantly and pick up Rapier. This gives me the chance to live twice with Rapier.”

And we look to the dark surface. Moments when EE’s team threw game after game despite the big margin – it was impossible to lose. Everyone died because no one had a teleport scroll to return to defense. When you continuously feed. This is a player and team that is capable of unthinkable matches and losing in ‘can’t even want to lose’ matches.

We look into EternaLEnVy’s mind, it’s like a mess. You can compare the smartest brains in Dota 2, of any pro player, coach, analyst and even IceFrog. They can use their Dota knowledge to analyze each team, each draft, each tackle, but EtenaLEnVy does things in its own way. He is the enterprising type of player who goes his own way and believes it will benefit him the most.

That’s what annoyed me the most about EE’s journey in Southeast Asia. In IEM Katowice, Fnatic competed in a late game style. Extending the game to the end of the game was what Team EE did, but this time he sacrificed his position. Like Xu “BurNIng” Zhilei’s transition to IG in 2017, EE now plays to the tempo of the game, picking heroes who farm less to make way for other players on the team Abed, UNiVeRsE and DJ .

I thought that moment ended the ‘utopian’ moments of Dota 2. When he had to pick super carry or the team would lose, but I was wrong. In the last game in the group stage before Secret, Secret was overthrown by Fnatic. Secret gets EE’s bottom rax, roshan and buyback. At that point, when everything seemed lost, we saw EternaLEnVy spam all the information on the map and realize the team still had a chance to win. At the post-match interview, he shouted “TheThroneTheThroneTheThrone.” UNiVeRsE captures and teleports the entire team to the opponent’s throne and claims victory. This is considered one of the best moments of this tournament.

At GESC Indonesia, we saw EE’s ‘halo’ in bo3 against Na`Vi. No game is guaranteed, no matter how far apart, that a throw can happen. The third game reproduced this. Fnatic took three of Na`Vi’s rax. Lil had a heroic tackle with Kukka and Dendi ended the game with Rapier, the team headed straight for Fnatic’s throne when Fnatic’s heroes couldn’t buyback. The match ended with the victory in favor of Na`Vi team.

Now, despite the new way of playing, the style of EternaLEnVy lives on. There is no player more interesting to watch, whether they win or lose. Other teams will surprise, fear, or respect you. Those are teams like Secret, Liquid, Virtus.pro, Newbee. But only EternaLEnVy’s team can make you confused, despair and hope, worry and laugh in the same game. That’s why EternaLEnVy is one of the best players in Dota 2.