Nova competed in the Women's Open, and the girls took a group photo before the game. Courtesy of respondents
The 2021 Glory of Kings Women's Open City Race ended at the end of October, and the nova team ranked fourth with a total of 29 points to advance to the annual finals.
The results are worthy of recognition, but the team went from the runner-up in the first station to the best result in the last three races to the top four, what is the problem of high and low?
A few days ago, Zhou Jing, the manager of the nova team, and the players were interviewed by the Beijing News, analyzing the reasons for the ups and downs in the state of the team, and also introduced the stories of the girls inside and outside the arena.
Prepare for battle
The one-day break per week after Wuhan Station was cancelled
On the evening of September 19, the first final of the 2021 King's Glory Women's Open Women's City Branch Tournament ended in Beijing, the nova team lost 0-3 to re-girls, and the champion lost, what everyone did not expect was that in the subsequent Wuhan station, this team that was expected to rush to the championship was once again defeated in the 8-in-4 match, ending the Wuhan trip early, and the back of the nova girls leaving the stadium was full of loss and unwillingness.
The nova team on the field. Courtesy of respondents
As the first fully independent women's track in the Glory of Kings project, this year's Open Has been highly anticipated from the official announcement to the landing. Both clubs and players are gearing up to make a name for themselves on the field, so as to gain a firm foothold in women's e-sports and even the entire e-sports industry.
After the Wuhan station lost again, all the nova members realized that they had to pay more if they wanted to get good results. Captain Hou Fangli (id: Ke Sauce) felt the most obvious, "Everyone has higher requirements for themselves than before, and they are more motivated in training." ”
Among the first five nova players, in addition to Playing Ye Hou Fangli and Qiao Yushu (id: Shuye) who confronted The Road, Tan Ying (id: Qingying) in the Middle Road, Wang Man (id: Yiman) and Peng Lifan (id: Baiyu) are all new members who have just joined this year, and the whole team is still in a run-in state.
In order to strengthen the cooperation with teammates and enrich their hero pool, the nova players spend almost all their energy on training. Every day at 2:00, 4:00, 7:00 and 9:00 p.m., the 4 training matches and the subsequent peak matches are only "standard", and after the end of training at 12:00 pm, each team member will arrange additional training according to their own situation. "Personally, 24 hours a day, I spend more than half of my time fighting the king." Hou Fangli said.
In addition, since the end of the Wuhan race, the girls' one-day rest time per week has been basically cancelled, and the life from the third floor dormitory to the training room on the second floor is repeated every day.
For the long training every day, everyone said that they did not feel tired, and their strong desire to win supported them. "When I was playing, I felt that I was playing very badly, and I wanted to improve myself," Wang Man said to everyone's heart, "so I have to work harder and strive to get a good result later." ”
Kitten "Wang Yirui". Courtesy of respondents
mentality
Kitten is the "decompression artifact" of the nova team members
High-intensity training and substandard results invisibly affected the mentality of the girls, mentioning the expectations for the future, the "big sister" Qiao Yushu in the team could not help but sigh, "I feel that I am always very dissatisfied with my performance." ”
How to reduce stress and how to adjust to the best state is a compulsory course for competitors. Now, in the face of mountain pressure, the girls of nova have their own tricks.
Peng Lifan, who is in the wandering position, said that one of the ways she releases stress is to eat. Previously, due to the relatively young age of the players in the club, the ability to take care of themselves was not strong, coupled with the heavy daily training tasks, the club specially invited the cooking aunt to be responsible for the diet of the players. But every day after the training, Peng Lifan, who claims to have a physique that does not eat fat, will order a takeaway as a supper.
For her, whether it is the spicy hot and spicy food of takeaway, snail powder, or the home-cooked side dishes prepared by her aunt, she eats with relish. "My favorites are my aunt's five-grain shrimp, fried chicken wings, braised pork, and a lot of dishes that I can't remember my name, and they are also very delicious!" When it comes to decompression, this "foodie" girl gushes endlessly.
However, most of the girls in the team were hindered by controlling their bodies and did not dare to eat and drink like Peng Lifan, so they shifted their attention to Peng Lifan's young short and relieved their anxiety by petting cats.
Although it is Peng Lifan's cat, many times, this group pet prefers to stick to Wang Man. Because of his admiration for kpl (Glory of Kings Pro League) player Yinuo, Wang Man took a pseudonym: Wang Yiman. Thanks to her, this kitten, originally named Rui Rui, was also named "Wang Yi Rui". "Sometimes we take Wang Yirui to the training room and pick it up whenever we have time." Wang Man smiled and said, "It's chubby, feels good, and feels very healing to the touch." ”
Although the girls are easy to say, in fact, in addition to eating, sleeping and training every day, there is not much time for the girls to self-decompress.
Perhaps as a professional player, although there is very little time to relax, when resting, they will still choose as many relaxation methods as possible that can help them improve their field operation. For example, when brushing short videos, their favorite is game commentary, and each person will also pay attention to the corresponding anchors according to their own positions to learn and study the use skills of some heroes. For example, in addition to the glory of the king, their favorite games are playing piano and black and white blocks to exercise the flexibility of their fingers.
It can be seen that the loss of the previous game has hit the girls a lot, and everyone is holding their breath and wanting to prove themselves again on the field.
Female nova team member waiting for the meal. Courtesy of respondents
prospect
Zhou Jing is worried about the future of the women's e-sports industry
When Zhou Jing first took over the nova women's team, this team did not even have a coach, and the original group of players was only Hou Fangli and Qiao Yushu. After taking over, Zhou Jing recruited coaches, team leaders and assistant coaches through various channels, selected team members, and organized online trial training for everyone... It wasn't until April that the new nova took shape.
According to Zhou Jing, after regrouping the team, nova faced a crisis of not being able to do it. The reason is that since playing the TGA Tencent E-sports Games King glory women's game last year, the team has been in a state where there are no games to play. No competition means no income. For the club, it's a deal that only loses and doesn't make. This year, the re-establishment of nova is largely aimed at the women's Open, "but there was a period of time in the middle, the Open has not been heard, I am under a lot of pressure, just consider whether this team will continue to do." 」 ”
Zhou Jing chose to insist, and at the same time, after inquiring from many parties, it was also determined that the open tournament would be held as scheduled. However, the development of the story is always twisting and turning, and before the start of the game, this small team has encountered new problems.
In response to the new policy, the tournament side made new regulations on the age of the participants, resulting in two underage players in the team losing the opportunity to play. Forced to do so, nova can only adjust the position of the players, the original auxiliary position of Coco temporarily transformed into a wild, Baiyu supplementary assist, with the lack of tacit understanding of the team members also have to adapt to the challenges brought by the position change.
Despite this, the team still completed the goal of advancing to the annual finals, which also made Zhou Jing very optimistic about the performance after the nova. In contrast, what worries him even more is the development of the entire women's esports industry.
Manager Zhou Jing (left) watches the nova team match. Courtesy of respondents
manage
"A lot of women players lack the courage to admit their mistakes"
After taking over the women's team, Zhou Jing found that compared with the male players, many female players lacked the courage to admit their mistakes. "Sometimes when coaches talk about problems with players, they act more resistant."
In Zhou Jing's view, the reason for this situation is mainly because the female players have too little fresh blood, he said bluntly: "Why are male players more obedient?" I think it's because of the strong fungibility that if you don't obey the instructions, I can replace you. But now the problem facing the women's team is that they can't change people, and they can't find stronger players to replace them. ”
Zhou Jing believes that the ideal state of the team is to have a first team and a second team to compete, only in this way, the players will have a sense of crisis, thus generating internal propulsion. "But the reality is that we can't do it as a team, let alone form a second team."
To this end, Zhou Jing has been recruiting as many high-quality players as possible for the team, strengthening the team at the same time, and creating an atmosphere of competition among players to promote the pace. In mid-October, nova had two more new members, Wei Shu'er (id: Crispy) and Wang Shasha (id: Crispy Shark).
Referring to the holding of the King's Glory Women's Open, Zhou Jing was very excited, on the one hand, from the perspective of the club, there was income from the competition, and the project that had been operated for a long time finally saw the hope of income, and the pressure on him was also reduced a lot. On the other hand, more female players have come to the fore through the competition, which makes Zhou Jing doubly confident in the subsequent selection, he frankly said: "Before playing the game, I really did not expect that there would be so many female players and teams, so it is quite good, and I will have more space to find players in the future." ”
Although eager to discover more strong players, Zhou Jing said that for children who want to embark on this road, they still need to be cautious. From the perspective of the team manager, he believes that to become a qualified professional player, it is not enough to have a superb level of operation, but also to achieve standards in personality, mentality, learning ability, professional attitude and other aspects, "When we judge a player, its operation, hero pool and understanding of the game may only account for half of the score." If they can't fit into the team, or don't have a correct professional attitude, and a little bit of achievement will drift, such a player I think is not suitable for taking the road of professional e-sports. ”
Beijing News reporter Zhao Xue
Edited by Han Shuangming Proofreader Wei Zhuo