League: I really didn't tank!

Chapter 487 Thirty Minutes, Base Explosion

Congratulations to QG! They have won the first match of the finals!

The commentators shouted, "QG vs. ilex! Morphling and Gyrocopter! In this match, this man has once again delivered a miracle!"

Inspired by Chen Dongqing's crazy antics, countless spectators in the audience went completely wild, with cheers and applause filling the entire stadium, making it extremely noisy.

It's as if the champion has already been crowned!

At this moment, viewers around the world were also captivated by Chen Dongqing's exaggerated "high-speed water cannon" on live streams around the world, with the screen filled with comments!

[Let me introduce Ilex to you again. He is the eternal god of League of Legends, the brightest star in StarCraft, and today, he officially extends his dominance to the DOTA2 arena!]

[A Manta Style dodging Axe's Roar, OMG, is this even a human possible?]

Bro, you need to know that Ilex's greatest strength is performing actions that humans cannot.

[No skill is impossible when facing a StarCraft world champion.]

This is the chat in a DOTA2 tournament livestream on Twitch.

[Brother Tree, forever a god!]

We're really going to win! Wow!

[Brother Shu's championship is incredibly valuable; he truly carried the team all the way through.]

It's a pity there's no Finals MVP in this competition, otherwise Brother Shu would definitely have won.

[Guys, I'm running out of time, I have to go back to my workstation. I'll check back later.]

These are the comments in the domestic live stream chat. Although only one game of the BO5 has been played, countless Chinese viewers are already singing, dancing, and making a ruckus, ready to climb to the top of the world with QG!

Of course, what the last commenter didn't know was that he missed out on so much by leaving.

Even years later, he still regrets not watching the later live broadcasts.

Inside the live broadcast room, on the stage.

The audience was too noisy, and Chen Dongqing could no longer hear what the commentator was shouting. He only saw several teammates rushing towards him. Surrounded by his teammates, Chen Dongqing returned to the backstage dressing room.

At the entrance to the lounge, Chen Dongqing also saw Ame and Coach Xiao Ba waiting at the door.

"Wow, that's amazing, Tree Bro." Charles glanced at Ame and joked with a grin, "This Water Man is way more awesome than Wang Chunyu, isn't he?"

Ame didn't care about such remarks at all. He said nonchalantly, "Isn't that obvious? Tree Bro's Waterman is definitely way better than mine."

Ame's words truly came from the heart.

There's no way around it, it's really fierce.

He made a reverse shot and rushed in to hand over the championship, while Brother Tree made a reverse shot and took on five opponents at once!

Is this a level of operation?

Besides, if Brother Shu isn't as good as him, then why should he be a substitute?

Ame wants Tree Bro to be even more powerful than him!

Chen Dongqing laughed and said, "No, no, no, that's just making fun of me. I'd say Ame and I are evenly matched. He has his strengths that I don't. If it weren't for Ame's example of taking on four opponents at once, I probably wouldn't have gone in this round."

"Indeed," Maybe chimed in, adding, "Comparing Ame and Tree Bro, Tree Bro has more aggressive mechanics and develops faster; Ame, on the other hand, speaks better in Jiangsu dialect and eats more. They each have their strengths."

"You motherfucker!" Ame, who had been completely indifferent, got a little anxious upon hearing this and pounced on him, causing a burst of laughter to erupt in the lounge.

After a lot of effort, everyone finally managed to separate the two. Xiao Ba then shouted at the top of his lungs, "Seriously, everyone! This is the TI finals! Let's talk about our game strategy for the next match!"

Only then did everyone quiet down and begin to discuss the matter.

But Chen Dongqing was relaxed, laughing, "What strategies could we possibly have for the next round? We're just playing casually, aren't we? We still have so many cards to play!"

Chen Dongqing's words are true.

Chen Dongqing is, after all, a reborn person.

Although he hadn't played DOTA2 much in his previous life, as an esports streamer, he had occasionally heard some news about it and had some powerful strategies and tactics that would only appear in the future stored in his mind.

Since crossing over to DOTA2, Chen Dongqing has been filtering through these strategies one by one, and finally kept many of the usable strategies in his mind in the current version, which have become their trump cards.

There's even a formula that's perfectly suited to the current version, and if you bring it out, it's sure to shock everyone!

The QG members all understood this and nodded with smiles.

Although they had no idea where Chen Dongqing, this DOTA2 newbie, had come up with so many fancy tricks.

But it has to be said that his tactics are always incredibly fierce!

Let's give OG another little shock in this second game.

Soon, both sides took to the stage for the second time.

From the draft phase, it's clear that OG still hasn't found a good way to counter QG.

They didn't even change much in their draft picks, they just became more extreme, changing the ban on Mavericks to Morphling to prevent Corki and Io from being countered by Morphling again.

But QG's strategy was also clear; they adapted to the situation and banned the plane as well, preventing you from playing it.

OG had no choice but to think for a moment and decide to select Phantom Lancer.

This carry is also a very famous carry in DOTA2, the king of illusions. His basic attacks have a chance to create illusions, and then those illusions can regenerate into more illusions. Often, when a fight breaks out, the screen is full of people. Because the model used in DOTA1 looks like a monkey, and the illusion design is similar to monkey offspring, he is nicknamed "Monkey".

On the other side, the QG players were all amused when they saw that OG dared to pick Monkey.

You actually dared to choose that!

Without hesitation, they decisively locked onto the Io and the Earthshaker that OG had released.

When QG saw the choice of Little Elf, their thoughts froze for a moment.

You guys banned the planes yourselves, so what's the point of picking a little pix?

After much deliberation, they ultimately decided to ban TP and PA, continuing to shut down their carry. With this, they had now used all five of their previous bans on their carry!

"Five bans on carry champions?" On the domestic platform, Luwei scratched his head, somewhat surprised. "It feels like QG has to pick a carry champion first, it seems like they don't have any champions left to choose from."

Surprisingly, even under these circumstances, QG still didn't pick a carry, but instead chose Bloodseeker and Bristleback, prioritizing a passive playstyle.

This is going to be really funny.

In the final single pick round, OG banned Anti-Mage directly.

By banning six carry heroes and then picking Monkey King, OG essentially eliminated seven carry heroes in one fell swoop!

In addition, QG banned the plane themselves.

Where are the heroes left to choose in this game? They can't just pull out a weakling like Fish, can they? That would be ridiculous.

The next second, QG's fifth-floor hero lit up.

A hero who shocked everyone appeared.

The Crystal Maiden!

"Huh?" Lu Wei was dumbfounded. Not only was he dumbfounded, but all the audience members were dumbfounded.

It doesn't make sense to pick Crystal Maiden for position 5, does it?

The Ice Maiden in this game has almost no carry potential. She has an aura that restores mana to the entire team, plus a small skill with crowd control. Only her ultimate is worth mentioning. If you find a suitable opportunity to enter the fray and cast your ultimate, you can unleash a decent wave of AOE damage.

But this is clearly not enough to support the output of a position 1 player.

Even if DOTA2 has many possibilities, it's hard to accommodate a carry Crystal Maiden, right?

"The Crystal Maiden can't be the carry, so is she a mid laner?" YYF speculated in the livestream. "Crystal Maiden mid, and then Io and Bloodseeker in the safe lane? Sounds promising!"

YYF thought about it more and more and it made more sense. He even convinced several of his friends who were on a live stream with him, and they also thought it might be true.

Ice Maiden mid lane? Brother Chao really has some amazing skills!

But the next second, they were slapped in the face.

After a series of position changes, QG's lineup was finalized.

Mid lane, still Bloodseeker.

Crystal Maiden remains a pure support in position 5.

So who is the eldest brother?

Little elf.

Upon seeing this choice, countless people fell silent once again.

The little elf brother makes a slightly more valid point than the ice maiden brother, but not by much.

In the early game, the little sprite can indeed deal decent damage by relying on the ghostly aura, similar to the Dragon King's passive ability.

In the currently popular Io-airplane strategy, Io's Spectral Wraith can contribute a large portion of the damage in the early game!

But what happens next?

In the game DOTA2, there is no ability power mechanic. Skill damage is mainly affected by skill level, and equipment provides minimal improvement.

Once you reach the mid-game and your skill levels are maxed out, and you stop improving them while the opponent's health continues to rise, the Pokémon's damage will start to decline!

How can you even play then? Will you just surrender in the late game?

Clearly, DOTA2 players in 2018 could not yet comprehend the terrifying power of the Io.

If we push the timeline back a year to 2019, perhaps people wouldn't have so many doubts about this strategy.

At The International 9 (TI9), Ana, who had returned from a six-month fishing break, dominated the field with his unbeatable Io carry, and together with OG, won the TI9 championship, becoming the first team in TI history to win two championships.

At the time, OG was so popular that even Chen Dongqing, a League of Legends streamer, had heard of them and inevitably learned about their path to victory and their "big carry Io" playstyle.

This strategy seemed to appear out of nowhere, showing promise in early 2019, then quickly sweeping through TI9, before rapidly declining due to version changes.

What? You're asking how to play in the late game?

What's the point of post-production?

Against the push from the big brother's Io, OG would be considered a success if they could hold out for more than 30 minutes!

The heroes for both sides have now been determined!

Blue side (Radiant) QG: Oflane: Bristleback + Earthshaker, Mid: Bloodseeker, Safety lane: Io + Crystal Maiden.

Red side (Dire) OG: Monkey King and Silencer in the safe lane, Invoker in the mid lane, and Axe and Rubick in the offlane.

Meanwhile, on OG's side, they were also discussing the strange choice made by the little elf.

The group talked about it for a while, but they still didn't quite understand it.

Ana had some ideas about this strategy in mind, but he couldn't help but frown.

Is it really feasible to play like this?

QG really dares to bring a strategy that hasn't been tested in the market (ranking) to the TI finals?

The match began quickly!

There's not much to talk about in terms of the laning phase in this game.

Although Io and Crystal Maiden are both ranged heroes, their initial role is support, and they are relatively weak in lane. Therefore, Io had a very difficult time in the early laning phase.

Because he lacked any active damage skills, Chen Dongqing didn't even manage to last-hit the initial ranged creeps, which were then denied by the enemy.

This is quite rare for Chen Dongqing.

But Chen Dongqing wasn't in a hurry. He just kept the little elf moving back and forth behind him, trying to finish off enemies as much as possible.

In DOTA2, almost all heroes have a turning speed. If you want to change your direction of travel, you need to wait for the hero to turn around before you can continue.

Because of this mechanism, ranged heroes in this game are not as dominant as those in League of Legends, because it's difficult to kite them, and their turning speed will drive you crazy.

But there is one exception: the little sprite Io.

Because the Pokémon is not human, but a purely spherical creature, it can launch ranged attacks from any side, so it does not have a turning speed setting.

In terms of kiting feel, this is also the hero most similar to those in League of Legends.

Chen Dongqing demonstrated his solid finishing skills, taking advantage of the safe environment of his long reach to secure two last hits.

Chen Dongqing licked his lips and nodded.

The first two additions were pretty good!

On the other side, Ceb was much more comfortable, having last-hit all four of his attacks and even denying one.

For Ceb, getting this much farm for the first wave of creeps is already an amazing start!

Ceb smiled with satisfaction, feeling quite pleased with himself!

Ilex, you could have easily picked a carry with a strong lane presence to dominate, but instead you insisted on picking a carry with Io.

Isn't this like crippling yourself?

In that case, you can't blame me!

Light up!

Ceb used a voice wheel followed by his second skill, "Battle Thirst," in a combo, aiming at the sprite.

This is Axe's second skill. At level 1, it deals 10 damage per second to enemies and is affected by Axe's armor bonus. It lasts for 12 seconds. If an enemy unit kills any unit, this skill will end prematurely.

Using skills to whittle down health when the first wave of attacks is finished is, of course, the best option.

But Chen Dongqing didn't care about the health loss at all; he immediately activated E [Overload].

This hero has a buff-type skill that increases attack speed and health regeneration for both themselves and connected allied heroes. This health regeneration effect almost completely negates Axe's damage.

Chen Dongqing even took advantage of the attack speed buff to aggressively attack Axe King twice.

Meanwhile, xNova's Ice Maiden also took the opportunity to unleash two basic attacks.

However, since neither of them used any damaging skills, the damage from basic attacks was negligible and the effect of attrition was not significant.

The two sides clashed quickly and entered the second round of last-hitting battle, with the health of the second wave of minions slowly decreasing.

Ceb seized the opportunity and, at the cost of a small amount of health, denied another minion.

At this point, we can see that Axe's health has dropped to three-quarters.

He used a power-up to gnaw on a tree and began to slowly replenish his health.

The laning phase between two long-ranged opponents is still disgusting; he still needs to be as careful as possible.

But his gains from this round are still quite considerable!

Denying creeps will cause the enemy to lose some experience.

In the game DOTA2, a duo lane usually reaches level 2 after two waves of creeps.

But after those two denyes, two waves of enemy creeps passed by, and the two players were still only level one!

This undoubtedly gives them an even greater advantage in the laning phase!

With his level advantage, Ceb played even more aggressively. He and JerAx's Rubick pressed forward relentlessly, forcibly trading blows and having a great time!

Ceb was incredibly excited; he was so excited he practically wore out the voice wheel!

This is the first time he's had an advantage in lane after playing so many games against QG!

But Chen Dongqing remained calm. He ate trees to recover health while auto-attacking the Axe King to continue lowering his health.

Chen Dongqing checked Axe King's health and knew it was about time.

He said to xNova beside him, "Ready?"

xNova nodded: "Ready."

Everything in a game needs to be balanced. The Ice Maiden has a mana regeneration aura, which makes her skill system quite unbalanced. All her skills have high damage but also extremely high mana consumption!

In the early game, the Ice Maiden will run out of mana after using just two skills, but each skill she uses is enough to significantly reduce the opponent's health!

For this reason, xNova didn't use any skills at level one, in order to conserve his mana.

Why is it important to maintain mana? Because you need to slowly whittle down Axe's health to lower his health first, then wait until level two to unleash your burst damage!

At this moment, the third wave of minions also quickly arrived, and their health began to decrease slowly!

This time, Ceb still played extremely aggressively, relying on his level advantage to stand next to the minions, guarding them until they were low on health, and then denying them with a single last hit!

But he didn't notice.

QG's two players on the advantageous lane had no intention of last-hitting the minion; instead, they pushed forward directly.

The moment Axe denied the creep, the QG duo received a small portion of the experience from the denied creep, but the experience was still enough for them to level up to level two!

In the instant of the upgrade, xNova used Frost Nova to slow down Axe, chased after him and attacked once, and then used Frozen Imprisonment to imprison Axe!

A level 1 Icebound Imprisonment can imprison enemies for 1.5 seconds.

The two skills instantly depleted the mana bar, but directly dealt a total of 130+150 damage!

This number is quite terrifying. If other mages were to use their skills, they would only be able to deal half the damage to the Ice Maiden at most.

At the same time, Chen Dongqing also caught up and decisively released [Wraith]. Five wraiths appeared out of thin air and began to dance around the little sprite. Then, they all crashed into the Axe King and exploded!

This is the only offensive skill of the sprite. At level 1, the ghost can deal 10 points of touch damage and 30 points of explosion damage.

Five ghosts, at level 1, can deal a total of 200 damage, which is even more overpowered!

At the same time, Chen Dongqing activated [Overload] to increase attack speed, and took advantage of the slow and stun effects to attack Axe King three times in a row!

At this moment, the early burst damage of the Io Crystal Maiden was perfectly demonstrated. In one exchange, the Axe King, who had just lost 70% of his health, was instantly vaporized!

"First Blood!"

The first blood was born in such an unexpected way that countless people didn't even have time to react.

Ceb stared at his black-and-white screen, blinked, and didn't react for a moment.

Huh? That was a one-hit kill? Such a high burst damage? I still had over 70% health left!

A level 2 Crystal Maiden landed a single crowd control, and then Axe, with 70% health, was instantly killed? Does this combo even make sense?

Meanwhile, OG's other teammates were also stunned.

You were just yelling in the voice chat and constantly sending messages with the voice wheel, and everyone actually thought you had a huge advantage.

How come you got solo killed so quickly?

How the hell can we fight this?

An ominous premonition rose in the hearts of the OG players.

In the game DOTA2, when the opponent uses a strange strategy but strangely gains an early advantage, you should know what's going on.

You guys will most likely have to send this one.

Sure enough, it was sent.

The biggest difference between the carry and the support is that the carry often lets the support go to the jungle to store and pull jungle camps, while he enjoys the lane experience all to himself, which results in the carry's level being much higher than the support's.

While the support is usually only level four or five, the carry is already level seven.

The big brother Pokémon, Ghost, will have a higher skill level and will be stronger than the Flying Pokémon in the early game!

That alone is enough to support the early-game strength of this combination.

After gaining the advantage, Chen Dongqing became even more unreasonable. He quickly moved FY's Earthshaker to the bottom lane, and with Earthshaker's crucial play and the high burst damage of [Spectre], Chen Dongqing killed JerAx again and completed the kill.

Relying on the snowball effect built up in the early stages, Chen Dongqing quickly acquired the [Helmet of Domination].

This is a special piece of equipment. It does not directly increase damage, but it can control a non-ancient monster to your advantage.

The neutral monsters in DOTA2 are very strong; some even have crowd control abilities that play a significant role in battles!

And most importantly, the little sprite's link can be attached to this monster, which can heal the monster and increase its attack speed.

In League of Legends, it's like a cat building an Ardent Censer, riding a Gromp to fight, and becoming a harbinger of attack speed and movement speed, chasing after people and spitting them out—what a sight that would be!

It's no exaggeration to say that this linked monster is roughly equivalent to the function of an airplane.

A youth version of Airplane Elf!

But from that point on, the game suddenly became peaceful.

Because at this point, the little sprite already has a great helper for clearing jungle camps. Relying on the repeated damage to jungle monsters from [Spectral], it begins to enter a high-speed jungle clearing mode.

The match quickly reached the 18-minute mark.

The ever-developing sprite reached level 15 and upgraded its equipment again, crafting the Aghanim's Scepter.

This item, also known as Aghanim's Scepter, can change the form of a hero's skills, resulting in a qualitative change.

The skill that brought about a qualitative change for the little sprite was his main damage-dealing skill – [Ghost].

Although the skill 【Ghosts】 has high output, with five ghosts capable of taking away most of a person's health, its obvious weakness is its long cooldown.

Even at max level, the cooldown is a full twenty seconds, and it summons five ghosts every twenty seconds, meaning the sprite can only be used for a one-shot kill.

But things change once you get Aghanim's Scepter.

After obtaining Aghanim's Scepter, [Spectral Spirit] will become a passive skill, automatically generating one Spectral Spirit per second until the maximum of 5 is reached.

It used to be 5 in 20 seconds, now it's 20 in 20 seconds!

The number of ghosts has quadrupled!

At the same time, the sprite's level reached 15, and it gained a level 15 talent bonus—increasing the damage of Ghost Explosion by 55 points.

以前满级幽魂伤害是25触碰伤害+90爆炸伤害，总量115，每二十秒可以打出115*5=575点技能伤害。

现在是25+145，总量170，每二十秒可以打出170*20=3400点技能伤害！

With these two buffs, the already terrifying output of the little sprite has undergone another qualitative change!

And most importantly, these two pieces of equipment are very cheap!

Since Io can move with the help of teammates, it usually doesn't need to buy boots, and Dominator and Aghanim's Scepter will only give it a maximum of 7,000 gold.

Seven thousand gold, when converted to Spectre's stats, means that Radiance hasn't even been completed yet, and it's still a long way from being able to exert its full potential.

But when it comes to the little sprite, the output has already reached its ultimate form!

As soon as the equipment was completed, Chen Dongqing targeted Axe King. A Centaur under his control charged into Axe King's face and stunned him with a War Stomp!

The next second, a little sprite charged in along the link, and with the chain explosion of five ghosts, plus the little sprite's high-speed basic attack, it managed to instantly kill the tanky Axe King!

JerAx only glanced at the ball before Chen Dongqing spotted him, chased after the three balls, and then attacked him three more times, sending JerAx flying!

OG's position 3 and 4 players were stunned by what they saw.

What kind of damage is this?

So, Big Brother's little sprite is this powerful?

Only then did they realize it, but it was clearly too late.

As mentioned earlier, an OG can succeed if they can last for thirty minutes.

They have ten minutes left.

Taking advantage of the current gap in strength, Chen Dongqing began to combine with Maybe's Bloodthirster in the mid lane.

The two used the Little Sprite's ultimate ability to cut off the opponent's retreat. Then, the fast Blood Demon grabbed the Little Sprite and rushed to the opponent's face. Several ghosts exploded, wiping out the entire opponent!

The two then went back and continued pushing the tower.

The little sprite used the "Overload" skill, granting both herself and the Blood Demon a significant attack speed boost. The two unleashed a barrage of basic attacks, destroying a second tower in a single exchange.

Offstage, the audience's eyes widened in disbelief.

Is this really the TI finals, or some kind of smurfing game? How can they be so good at dominating?

28 minutes, OG has only two minutes left.

At this point, it can be seen that OG's three high ground towers are still intact, and no matter how you look at it, it doesn't seem like they will be destroyed in two minutes.

At this point, the little sprite's equipment was upgraded again—the Heart of Terror.

This item is called Dragon Heart, and it provides 45 Strength, 250 Health, and 1% Health Regeneration per Second.

This item provides 1150 health to all heroes, making it a game-changer in terms of tankiness.

However, because the little sprite is a strength hero, he will also gain an additional 45 attack power.

Of course, none of that matters.

Most importantly, the sprite can share replies with linked allies.

Dragon Heart regenerates 30+ HP per second, and after activating [Overload], this number will increase to 300+ HP per second. These numbers will also be directly synchronized to the connected Blood Demon!

At 29 minutes, Bloodseeker and Wisp, with over 300 HP regeneration per second, charged straight up OG's high ground like mad dogs!

OG tried their best, with all five players attacking desperately, but they couldn't bring down the two players' health. Instead, they were completely slaughtered by the Blood Demon and the Little Elf!

30 minutes later, the OG base exploded precisely on schedule.

2-0! Match point secured!

The OG members were so badly beaten that they were in a daze as they stood up and headed backstage.

They were confused and helpless, not knowing what to do next.

They banned six key players, but instead of limiting Ilex, they made him lose faster and more miserably!

They've completely lost their way of playing.

Do they still have a chance of winning?

Beside them, the excited QG members sang and danced, rushing past them with smiles of excitement on their faces, a stark contrast to the collective SM-like expressions on OG's faces.

The people at QG couldn't be clearer right now.

They were already thinking about how to continue dominating their opponents in the third game.

"Judging from their expressions just now, they're completely stunned." Chen Dongqing licked his lips and said with a smile, "Next round, I want to go big."

"Hmm?" Hachi raised an eyebrow and asked, "What's so big about it? Is there something even bigger than you, a little elf?"

Chen Dongqing's smile was slightly sinister: "Of course."

Soon, both contestants took to the stage for the third time.

At this point, it's clear that Io has been banned by OG—OG will probably never forget the hero Io.

But in this third round, Chen Dongqing will continue to tear open their wounds!

This time, Chen Dongqing once again gave up the right to pick heroes to his teammates, allowing them to continue locking in the two tempo heroes, Earthshaker and Bloodseeker.

Chen Dongqing was confident that his hero would never be banned by the opposing team.

It wasn't until the very last move that Chen Dongqing finally revealed his true intentions!

"You can't take my candle!"

Mibo, locked on!

(End of this chapter)