“No wonder I felt something was off back then!” Danking slapped his thigh, suddenly realizing it too.
“After that match, I was thinking, even if there was some genius kid on the other side, we still shouldn’t have lost that badly.”
Danking’s instincts had been right. That game had felt bizarre, and sure enough, something had been wrong afterward.
He just hadn’t expected that not only did the other side have cheaters, his own side had them too.
Then, looking at the post-match stats chart, he teased, “But this Potato is seriously insane, isn’t he? Those three cheaters didn’t even get as many kills as him?”
“Looks like we might’ve found ourselves a treasure this time.”
The more Danking looked at the match record, the more satisfied he became with Yang Yu.
A genius youngster’s debut ought to have that kind of imposing air, crushing everyone in the present era. In that respect, he was just like Danking back in the day.
Danking was amused. “I’ll message him now and set up a time for him to come over for a tryout.”
“Still setting up a tryout?” the TYLOO manager asked in return.
“What do you mean?” Danking could hear that the manager’s tone wasn’t good.
“I feel like he really seems like a cheater,” the TYLOO manager explained his view. “How can someone be that fierce? Even people using cheats can’t kill as much as him.”
“And if it’s really like what you just said, and this guy has been playing CSGO for less than two months, yet in ranked he can already kick your… go toe-to-toe with you.” Thinking of the HLTV TOP list that was about to be announced, the TYLOO manager joked, “Give him a little more time, wouldn’t he be taking TOP 1?”
“Some people pick up games fast…” Danking thought of former CSGO pro Shroud. That guy was an FPS genius; no matter what game he played, he got the hang of it very quickly.
The manager’s words did make him feel that Yang Yu’s talent was a little too exaggerated, but he still felt it was understandable. He could accept that there was always a heaven beyond heaven, and people beyond people.
Yang Yu had taken the initiative to ask for a tryout, wanting to come offline and play professionally. To some extent, that proved Yang Yu wasn’t afraid of proving himself offline.
“There’s no harm in giving him a tryout opportunity. Have him play a few offline scrims and won’t we know whether he’s cheating or not?” Danking had already understood the TYLOO manager’s attitude, but since he had promised Yang Yu, he still wanted to fight for a tryout opportunity for him.
The manager thought for a moment and decided to give Danking some face after all. “Do you know how old this pub player is?”
Danking laughed a little awkwardly when he heard that. “I think he’s eighteen.”
“Then there’s no need,” the TYLOO manager said. “Personally, I’m more inclined to believe he’s cheating. Even if he isn’t, he’s already eighteen now. If he spends some time in the academy, he’ll be too old.”
Eighteen was still the prime of youth, but for esports, it was already a little old.
Danking said nothing.
Although the average professional age in CSGO was still constantly rising, most players who came into contact with the pro scene started academy training at fourteen or fifteen.
They would train in the academy for a year or two, and only enter the professional arena once their fundamentals were solid.
Potato was already eighteen now. Even if he was exceptionally talented and only spent less than a year in the academy before making it into the main roster, he would be nineteen, nearly twenty.
After entering the main roster, he would still need old guys like them to slowly lead him along.
By the time Potato truly had combat strength, he would more or less have reached the age where his level would start gradually declining.
Thinking of this, Danking did find it somewhat headache-inducing.
Bro, why didn’t you get into CSGO earlier!
What were you doing before?
Yang Yu: “Playing Valorant.”
The TYLOO manager spoke again. “Unless his talent is so outstanding that he can be promoted to the main roster right now and have you guys take him along, but do you think he has the kind of talent s1mple or ZywOo had, the kind that can turn him into a star player?”
“Most importantly, I really don’t think a clean player can outfrag cheaters.”
Just this July, NAVI had been beaten badly by a cheating team in an online match. S1mple, as the TOP 1 player, had even been knocked down to a 0.2 rating.
One had to know, S1mple was TOP 1, the strongest active professional player, and even he fared like that against cheaters.
The manager did not believe that China could produce a genius youngster even more exaggerated than S1mple. He was more inclined to think that Perfect World simply hadn’t banned this genius youngster yet.
It was precisely because he had thought of this that the TYLOO manager felt there was no need to waste effort on a tryout.
He understood Danking’s temperament, but he felt even more that this genius youngster was using Danking’s and TYLOO’s popularity to whitewash himself.
“Danking, if you have some thoughts about the roster, we can also pull people up from the academy. Right now our academy has quite a few usable talents too. For example, that ZDR is pretty good. We’ve been training him for more than a year as well.”
The TYLOO manager felt that Danking was dissatisfied with the team’s results over the past year and wanted to hint at making roster changes.
“I don’t have that idea. I’m just simply trying to get this guy a tryout opportunity. If you really think it won’t work, then forget it.”
Danking no longer wanted to argue with the manager.
As a professional player on the team, scouting newcomers wasn’t his responsibility.
He also couldn’t act too proactive, otherwise it would easily cause conflicts within the team.
After all, there were only five spots on a team. If a newcomer rose up, that meant an old player was destined to step down.
A change of position was not only related to whether one could play in matches, but also salary, reputation, and all kinds of things.
If he was merely introducing someone to come play professionally at TYLOO, and Potato fairly competed in the academy, slowly climbed up through his own performance, even charging into the main roster and replacing someone, then Danking felt no one would have any complaints.
After all, in esports, strength was king. If you were replaced by a newcomer through strength, what else was there to say?
But if he was too proactive, the player who got replaced later would inevitably have thoughts about it.
There was no helping it. Wherever there were people, there was a jianghu. Especially in a small circle like CNCS, where everyone saw each other all the time, one had to be even more careful.
The manager had used age and suspicion of cheating to refuse him, and Danking had absolutely no recourse.
Deep down, he felt even more that the manager had foreseen that public opinion might be huge afterward, and had no intention whatsoever of getting involved in this matter.
After all, there had been four cheaters in this one game. The community had already been discussing Potato quite a lot to begin with, and now things were even more uncertain.
But he felt Potato really did have good talent. They had played ranked together before; whether Potato was entrying head-on or cutting off rotations from the side, he provided all kinds of information to the fullest, making the game very comfortable for Danking.
Danking had even fantasized about the two of them playing matches together in the future.
Thinking about it now, that idea was temporarily impossible to realize.
But he had promised Potato to get him a tryout opportunity, and now he could only respond with a bad result. Danking really felt a little guilty.
He was quite disdainful of the manager’s words.
The age issue—he didn’t believe in that age issue at all.
Potato being eighteen was indeed a little old for academy training, but who said eighteen-year-olds couldn’t have just stepped into this game?
Karrigan was already in his thirties and still fighting on the professional stage.
The French male model JackZ had only truly stepped onto the tier-one stage at twenty-seven.
So as long as one’s ability was sufficient, age really wasn’t that big of a problem. Besides, Potato’s age wasn’t exaggeratedly old.
“No, I still have to fight for a tryout opportunity for Potato.” Danking suddenly thought of a chicken on Inferno.
He quickly found 259 on WeChat—the current IGL of RA—and sent an emoji over.
259, who was in ranked, had no idea what was going on, and replied with an emoji as well.
Seeing this, Danking directly made a voice call.
“Isn’t this my President Dan? How do you have time to call me?”
Danking laughed. “Old Nine, do you want a genius youngster? As long as you say the word, I’ll immediately have him come to your side for a tryout.”
259 asked in return, “Your TYLOO doesn’t want this genius youngster yourselves?”
“Isn’t it because Ninth Master, you’re good at cultivating talent? Look at Freeman, Jamyoung, Mosi Yu, and Hamburger. All these young players now were trained by you.” Danking cleverly flattered him. “I finally saw a genius youngster in ranked, and I’m afraid of ruining him if we raise him badly.”
259 smiled. “Then send me the ID. I’ll go watch the demo after I finish ranked.”
Danking instantly let out a breath of relief in his heart. “Alright, I’ll send you the ID. Take a look at the demo later. If you think he’s okay, I’ll set up a time for him to go to RA.”
“Okay, wait for my message. I’m duoing with Zhong Weijie first,” 259 said.
“Alright. I’ll treat Ninth Master to drinks when you’re free.”
……
“Who was that?”
Zhong Weijie was a former VG rifler. Because his mouse sensitivity in matches was extremely low, whenever fights got intense, his mouse looked like it was shifting gears, so he was also known as the old driver “Gear Shift.”
“Danking called. He said he saw a genius youngster and asked if I could give the kid a tryout,” 259 explained.
“His own TYLOO doesn’t want him?”
“How would I know?” Though he said that, 259 immediately prepared to check the match record on Perfect World. “I’ll go see what’s going on with this kid.”
But just then, the match was found.
The moment he saw the IDs on the opposing side, 259 lowered his head and glanced at his phone.
He turned to Zhong Weijie and suddenly smiled. “Looks like there’s no need to look.”
“What do you mean?”
“That kid matched against us.”
There, on the opposing side, was a player with a Potato Mine avatar.
The ID was exactly the one Danking had sent him.
Stay calm!
……
P.S. In reality, TYLOO has never done this kind of thing, but in Europe, some clubs really do refuse to even give a tryout opportunity because of reputation and so on.
The most classic example is when ZywOo wanted to try out for G2 back then. G2 felt ZywOo looked too much like a cheater and didn’t let him try out at all.
There’ll be another chapter later.