Xm

Guo "Xm" Hongcheng (born February 11, 1999) is a Chinese professional Dota 2 midlaner currently playing for Vici Gaming. XM is one of the most technically gifted mids in the Chinese scene — a player who has been quietly elite for years across CDEC Gaming, EHOME, Vici Gaming, and Xtreme Gaming and who, in 2025, finally played at The International and reached the grand final.

Early Career

Xm started with EHOME.Immortal in 2017 at 18, grinding through China's developmental circuit before getting noticed by CDEC Gaming. He spent over 250 matches at CDEC – by far the longest stint of his early career – building the kind of structural understanding of the mid-role that Chinese teams demand. Brief spells at LGD Gaming came and went before EHOME proper picked him up in September 2020. The best result of his EHOME period came when PSG. LGD crossed paths with his team at the Stockholm Major – he finished 5th-6th, which was notable at the time but still not the platform his individual level deserved.

In November 2021 he joined Vici Gaming for his first stint there — a chapter cut short when VG released Xm and Frisk in December 2022 as contracts ended. That VG team was already in the spiral that would see the org owner threaten to disband the roster if they didn't qualify for TI12 and eventually follow through on that threat.

Xtreme Gaming and the TI Run

The real breakthrough came in August 2023 when Xm joined Xtreme Gaming. The timing was significant — XinQ arrived around the same time, and the roster that crystallised around Ame, XinQ, XM, and the supporting cast became one of the best in the world over the following two years.

In April 2024 at ESL One Birmingham, Xm was asked to rate the best midlaners in the world. He put GPK at number one — a candid, unprompted evaluation from a player who had just beaten several of the names on that list. That kind of intellectual honesty about the game is rare. He won the Games of the Future 2024 with XG, won the ACL x ESL Challenger China title, reached TI 2024 in the top 5-6, and then in 2025 went all the way to the TI grand final – losing to Team Falcons. It was Xm's first TI grand final appearance, eleven years into a career that started in Chinese qualifier circuits.

He left Xtreme Gaming after TI 2025 and joined Vici Gaming in October 2025 – one of the founding pieces of VG's rebuilt roster alongside Shiro, Faith_bian, y`, and eventually XinQ.

Playstyle and Reputation

Xm's best heroes — Storm Spirit, Queen of Pain, and Shadow Fiend — tell you everything. He plays mid like a tempo engine, looking to create problems before the enemy team is ready to handle them. He's not a patient, farm-to-late-game mid. He looks for windows, punishes hesitation, and plays with the kind of mechanical fluency that makes even losing lanes look competitive. In an interview in January 2026 ahead of the ESL Challenger China event, he said, facing his former teammates from Xtreme Gaming, he'd be pulling out Viper and Sniper – heroes built for lane dominance. The competitive mindset is clear even in offhand comments.

At Vici Gaming he sits in a mid role surrounded by players with deep individual pedigrees — Faith_bian and y ` are TI6 champions, XinQ is a two-time TI finalist, and shiro is one of China's most lethal young carries. The question for VG is whether that level of accumulated experience and talent can finally translate into a second TI title for this group of players. For XM personally, getting to the TI grand final once after a decade of trying suggests the ceiling is there. Getting back is the goal.

Fun Facts

Xm reached 10,000 MMR in April 2020 and 13,000 in May 2024 — four years between milestones, which reflects how difficult it is to keep climbing at the top of the Chinese ranked ladder while competing professionally full-time.

He was asked in 2024 to name the best mids in the world and put GPK first, unprompted. At the time XG had just beaten teams GPK played against. That's a straightforward, ego-free take from someone who watches the game carefully.

At his peak with VG in 2021-2022, XM had never played in an international group stage — the max was a top 4 at the last chance qualifier for TI 11. He finally made a full TI run in 2025. Better late than never, and he made it all the way to the final.