1000-7 and ZXC: Shadow Fiend duels and “ghouls”

Shadow Fiend's three razes on Z, X and C

Z, X and C are neighboring keys in the bottom-left corner of the keyboard. In DotA Allstars with Legacy hotkeys, they held Shadow Fiend's three “coils,” Shadowraze, which hit at short, medium and long range.

One-on-one Shadow Fiend duels were popular, and “ZXC” became the name for that kind of matchup. Typical rules: no runes, no Enchanted Mango, Faerie Fire or Infused Raindrop, and the game runs until the first tower falls or until one or two kills.

The duel is mainly a test of accuracy: each Shadowraze hits a fixed spot in front of the hero, and the winner is whoever judges distance better and lands more razes.

ALOHADANCE, Zxcursed and the “ghouls”

ZXC's broad popularity is linked to streamers ALOHADANCE and Zxcursed, with the peak in 2019–2021. ALOHADANCE started calling his followers “ghouls,” and in that scene the word became a synonym for “dead inside.”

One well-known duel was ALOHADANCE vs. Epileptick1d (Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko), played around May 2018 after a falling-out in matchmaking. As Cybersport.ru reported, Epileptick1d won the first game and ALOHADANCE took the next three.

Cybersport.ru later included the match in a list of the most memorable one-on-one Shadow Fiend games in Dota 2 history, where ALOHADANCE's opponent is listed under the name Nightfall. In September 2019, Cybersport.ru was already writing about the same player as Virtus.pro's new carry.

“1000 minus 7” from Tokyo Ghoul

“1000-7” refers to the anime Tokyo Ghoul, specifically the final episode of the first season, where protagonist Ken Kaneki counts down “1000 minus 7.” According to Metaratings, fans started writing “1000-7” everywhere, and Kaneki showed up on their profile pictures.

Sources disagree on whether the “ghouls” themselves come from the anime. Metaratings and Cybersport.ru trace the word back to Tokyo Ghoul, while Respawn says the ZXC “ghouls” don't refer to the anime, even though this crowd uses Kaneki as their profile picture.

Metaratings also describes the subculture's look: long hair covering the face, sometimes dyed black, white or red; dark oversized clothes with crosses and spiders; melancholic TikTok music and phonk. Ironically calling yourself “dead inside” became part of the image.

The OpenAI bot and Dendi at TI7

Respawn jokingly ties the meme to a TI7 show match: on August 12, 2017, an OpenAI bot beat Dendi in a one-on-one Shadow Fiend duel, and Respawn riffs on it with the same question, “What's 1000 minus 7?” According to Inverse, the bot learned by playing against itself, and the winner was whoever got two kills or took a tower first.

But the bot has nothing to do with the meme's origin: the popularity of ZXC and “1000-7” grew out of the streaming scene. According to Metaratings, the ZXC tag later spread beyond Dota 2 through TikTok and was picked up by players of other games.

Dark Shadow Fiend art

The catalog card shows dark artwork of the hero Shadow Fiend: a demon in black and red tones against a dark background, surrounded by a red glow, with no text.

Shadow Fiend is the meme's main symbol: his three Shadowrazes gave their name to the duels and to the whole ZXC subculture.

ZXC-style captions

Examples made up for illustration: “Mid one-on-one, no Raindrops, first blood wins. ZXC?”

“Math teacher: what's 1000 minus 7? The whole class in unison: 993…” or “When you miss all three razes and become truly dead inside.”