My journey of eSports in Taiwan has ended, almost 2 years, from just a normal enthusiastic player that thirst for victory just like everyone else, became a pro gamer with a bit of luck and chance. Do nothing but the best. This is the principle I have always been sticking on to and trying very hard for every game I played to prove myself. But honestly, the road ahead is not easy at all. I had been practicing more than 10 hours a day and started to feel numbness and pain in my wrist. But I still couldn’t help continue practicing even when I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. Fortunately, we did pretty well in tournaments in Taiwan, and we got the S2 and IPL5 qualifications. But I am not happy because at the same time people were jokingly referred us as King of South East Asia or King of Taiwan.
After we got the qualifications we started our training, we practiced every single day before the S2 world championship. During these 3 months, we faced many problems and stumbled so many times. We lost 18 games in a roll in BattleRoyal, and lost every single game while scrimming with Chinese and Korean teams. I felt frustrated and very depressed every time when I lost the lane, and started to have the feeling that maybe i am not as good as other mid laner, especially players like Zztai and Amibition who has extraordinary laning skills. At this point, I have lost all my confidence, no one can perform properly under this condition, and of course I failed on the coming up games. But finally, I overcame this extremely difficult situation and found my own style to dominate the game.
As the date of S2 world championship getting close, 12 teams from all over the world had advanced from regionals and were going to compete in world finals. TPA was very lucky to be the seed of South East Asia region and got straight into the quarter finals. Many websites had estimated the strength of every team participated, and TPA was only ranked higher than SAJ.
Although we won the S2 World Championship, there had been always some problems in our team. However we didn’t have the time and energy to face the problems because we had to prepare for IPL5 at that time. Before we left for IPL5, I asked Garena if I could switch to the new team (TPS) and stay for another year or even until the day I retire, but after IPL5, we had some discussion and Garena decided to switch Mistake to TPS was a better solution for all five TPA members at that time. Garena asked me to lead the team and keep playing, but my first reaction was that “No way! People will definitely criticize a lot that someone from Hong Kong to be a leader of Taiwanese team.” However, Garena still considered me as the most suitable player to be the team leader. Therefore I accepted this arrangement and continued to stay in Taiwan.
After winning Season 2 World Championship, a lot of players have considered Toyz as a world top AP, and started to research me and tired to learn from me. Therefore I set my goals really high and asked myself to win the mid line in every single game since people would think it’s unbelievable for Toyz not to win the line. Since then other teams tried to put the pressure on the middle line when playing with TPA. Because of that, it’s difficult for me to win the middle lane and I started to lose my own style of playing my mid AP. I have tried hard to change my playing style to cope with what other teams’ strategy which was focusing on me, and I did things like playing AP Janna to let the team rely on AD and all I had to do is to farm as much as I could and they wouldn’t always gank me and then in the end we would lose the game. However, thinking back, is this still Toyz? Why have I turned the playing style into the way which wasn’t really Toyz’s style?
After Season 2 World Championship, there were games like SWL, NGF, All-Star, GPL, I didn’t meet the expectations people have for TPA. We lost again and again, and I can’t explain how bad I feel about those critics and the pressure I had. Every time I checked PTT(Taiwanese forum like Reddit) and read about how people blamed and criticized me, I felt so bad that I couldn’t sleep. For a while, I had to rely on sleeping pills so I could get some sleep. Things like my nationality are not something I can do to change it, and I sometimes wondered why I wasn’t Taiwanese. Therefor, I just had to accept those critics. My old teammates left one after one, and this is not what we want to see. Thinking back, those factors made me stay after S2 has gone gradually. The faith that I had to fight for Taiwan somehow vanish and after one month’s long thinking, I made the decision to leave the team. I know very well that a lot of people support me and I really appreciate that. Maybe Some people don’t like me, but I am thankful for that you pointed out what my problems were.
Last, I want to thank Garena for inviting me to join TPA even though at that time I was just a player who won a few online games. Garena gave me an opportunity and the stage to become a progamer to prove myself. At Garena, a lot of people have been nice to me and helped me in every way, and my teammates who I have fought together all the way are great. I know I can’t be who I am now without you guys. Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart.
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