"James, you're up next!" Alan Adahan's expression was grave. He actually knew Huang He's strength, as the very first real esports match of Warcraft 3 had been between him and Huang He.
Roughly calculating the time, exactly one year had passed, and it was in Seoul, South Korea, with even the same venue. This gave Alan Adahan a sense of destiny.
However, Alan Adahan never expected that after a year, the Jiangnan Group would become so inflated. Huang He should have been incredibly busy, putting aside game matters.
But the result was that Huang He's gaming skill had improved instead of declined, which was truly astonishing.
Little did Alan Adahan know that the shameless Huang He had handed over all his work to others. Apart from making high-level strategic decisions, he spent almost all his time playing games in his office, assembling models, and occasionally engaging in intense "exercise" with Leng Zhiruo. His life was incredibly leisurely.
Huang He's own talent was not bad, and his more than ten years of Warcraft 3 experience back then were not wasted. He was still the man who understood Warcraft 3 the most in the world.
Therefore, Alan Adahan never expected that Huang He would actually defeat two of his top players, even though these two were the weakest among the five players.
But the next player, James, was different. He was the treasure Alan Adahan had found this time, ranked first, second, third, fourth, and fifth on the North American ladder.
This might sound a bit confusing because the top five on the North American ladder were all James's accounts. Once he got bored of grinding an account to the top of the ladder, he would start a new one and continue grinding it to the top.
Even more terrifying was that he could simultaneously maintain all his accounts at the top of the ladder, occupying the top five spots. His win rate was as high as 96%, and he had swept through the North American qualifiers with an undefeated record. He was undoubtedly the most terrifying professional player in the world, and this was why Alan Adahan had chosen the challenge format.
Alan Adahan had also carefully studied the Chinese finals and found that the top five Chinese players were far superior to the North American players. Only James's skill could match these five, even surpassing Xuanwu by a notch. Therefore, Alan Adahan had found a way to set up this challenge match format.
In fact, the current situation was as Alan Adahan had predicted: the other five players were all heavily defeated until James stepped onto the stage and swept through them all.
It was just that Alan Adahan hadn't expected Huang He to come on stage and sweep away two of his champions.
"James, you must be careful. Huang He's strength is far beyond our imagination!" Alan Adahan said.
"It's just that those two fools were too weak!" James stretched his fingers, his expression fearless. "Actually, the first player who appeared had the strength to defeat Huang He, but he was too overconfident."
"The second player was on par with Huang He, but he was intimidated by the previous matches. He actually gave the Human player fifteen minutes of stable development time. Isn't that courting death?"
"But I am different. I will not underestimate Huang He, nor will I think too highly of him. I will use a powerful attack, like a holy light judgment, to let him understand what it means to be crushed by strength!" James's tone was full of dominance, making Alan Adahan nod. It seemed Huang He was truly doomed this time.
Soon, James sat in the player's seat. After a few minutes of preparation, the match officially began, entering the map loading state.
"Alright, we see the third match has started. The map is EI. This is a small map with limited resources and gold. It seems both sides will quickly enter close combat, which is a very dangerous map for Huang He, who isn't very skilled in micro-management!"
"That's right, especially since Huang He's opponent, James, is a Night Elf player. Night Elf has a significant advantage against Human. And with such a small map, combat will erupt easily. At the same time, Huang He won't have the conditions to easily set up secondary bases like before, making it impossible to create space for combat. This is very disadvantageous for Huang He!"
"Furthermore, according to our intelligence, this James is the strongest player in North America, bar none. I heard the top five on their ladder are all his accounts. I think besides our Xuanwu, it's hard for anyone to directly confront him!"
"Indeed!" The commentators' tones were filled with regret. Obviously, in their eyes, Huang He had no chance of winning with this map and opponent.
Only Huang He, upon seeing this small map and his Night Elf opponent, suddenly sported a sly smile.
Wasn't this scene the perfect opportunity for that tactic to shine?
Soon, Huang He made up his mind. The moment the map loading was complete, Huang He circled his mouse around his villagers and clicked the bell on the Town Hall.
"Wait, what are we seeing? Huang He has sounded the combat alarm, turning three villagers into militiamen!!" Both the commentators on TV and the players watching the match were stunned.
Militia is a unique ability of the Human race, which can turn unarmed villagers into lightly armored militiamen, giving them some combat ability.
However, militiamen are probably the weakest combat units in the entire game, and once a villager becomes a militiaman, they cannot produce resources. Therefore, unless the base is harassed in the early game, no one would turn three villagers into militiamen at the very first second of the game.
"Huh, we see Huang He's three militiamen have left the base and are heading into the fog of war. My goodness, judging by the direction, these three militiamen are going directly to James's base!" the commentator exclaimed.
Because this map is small with only two starting points, as long as one is familiar with the map, they can determine the opponent's starting point position immediately without any scouting.
So, Huang He's three militiamen headed precisely towards the opponent's base.
At the same time, the two villagers remaining in the base were mining gold and chopping wood respectively. Huang He's base was also continuously producing villagers. However, the newly produced villagers were not mining gold; instead, they were going to chop wood. It seemed wood was the most important resource for Huang He at this moment, and gold was irrelevant.
By the time Huang He had recreated three villagers, the three villagers who had become militiamen had swaggered into James's base.
Because militiamen only last for 45 seconds before turning back into villagers, by the time these three militiamen arrived at the opponent's base, they had coincidentally turned back into villagers.
"What does this Huang He want to do!" James, who was constructing his base, looked in shock at these three villagers who had suddenly appeared in his base.
The game had only just begun, 46 seconds in. James hadn't even placed his Ancient of War yet. His main task at the moment was still to produce villagers and gather resources.
He had absolutely no idea that three enemy villagers would appear in his base 46 seconds into the game.
"Not good!" Before James could even process what was happening, his pupils instantly narrowed, because these villagers simultaneously placed three structures in his base. Judging from the unfinished appearance of these structures, they should be three Human defensive towers.
James was a master, so he immediately saw that the attack range of these three arrow towers covered more than half of his base, including his base's core, the World Tree, and the hero altar that was under construction, all within the attack range of these three defensive towers.
Once these three defensive towers were fully upgraded into arrow towers, they could immediately launch an attack on his base.
"No, I must eliminate these three villagers immediately!" James roared in his heart. However, as he looked around, he found helplessly that there was nothing he could do to deal with these three villagers, because the Night Elf race was the only race with no offensive or defensive capabilities at the start.
Human villagers could become militiamen. Undead ghouls were both villagers and combat units. Orc workers, although unable to fight, had Burrow, which was both a population building and a defensive structure for the Orcs. As long as a unit occupied the Burrow, the Burrow could shoot arrows and attack approaching enemies.
Only the Night Elves had their villagers as Wisps, units with no attack or defense. Their only method was to self-destruct to drain the opponent's mana. However, against three villagers with no mana, this combat method was meaningless.
At this moment, the only way for James to eliminate these three villagers was to place his Ancient of War as quickly as possible, then produce a few archers to take care of these villagers.
However, James couldn't place his Ancient of War at the moment because most of his resources had been used to produce Wisps and the hero altar.
Therefore, James could choose to abandon the hero altar and build the Ancient of War instead, but this would waste too much time and be extremely uneconomical.
"Forget it, it's not too late to deal with these villagers after my hero is summoned!" James thought to himself. Then, the construction of the three defensive towers was completed, and one of the three defensive towers began to transform, preparing to become an arrow tower.