From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

"We are the champions!"

"Awesome!"

"Too spicy!"

The team's YY voice chat channel was buzzing with excitement.

Gu Ran was a bit flustered. He had just finished praising his teammate when he saw a plane appear on the live stream screen. He had to immediately close the YY voice chat to thank the gift. Then he heard his teammates praising him on YY, so he needed to open YY again to exchange compliments. At that moment, he saw that a boss had opened a diamond-level fan account...

The number of VIPs in the live stream exceeded five thousand, and the number of diamond fans had already reached more than twenty, something he couldn't have imagined just a few days ago.

With the help of the moderators, his fan group was successfully established, and it felt great to see blessings in the group every day after the game.

Just as he was inviting new fans to the group one by one, Su Xiaoman's voice rang out in YY.

"Today seems to be HG's last group stage match. Anyone want to watch it together later?"

This time, both Gu Ran and Lu Chen accepted Su Xiaoman's invitation.

------------

After all the Pokémon matches ended today, the three of them reunited on YY (a Chinese voice chat platform).

"I just calculated the points. HG must win this game to have a chance to advance to the next round in the tiebreaker, otherwise they're out of the running."

Su Xiaoman opened Liquid Wiki and checked HG's qualification situation, which was worrying.

"Are we going to have to use the classic scoring method again?"

"The feeling is gone, there's no need to watch HG get humiliated."

"Who are we going to play? HEROIC? The South American team should be able to beat them, right?"

The chat has generally lost faith in HG, which is understandable. So far this year, there have been six or seven T1-level tournaments. At the beginning, HG could still make it into the top eight, but recently they have basically been eliminated in the first round, unable to even make it into the knockout stage.

Gu Ran and Lu Chen both fell silent. They had watched every single one of HG's matches, so they knew their chances of winning were slim, but saying it now would seem like they were diminishing their own prestige and boosting the enemy's morale.

At the start of the match, HG chose a teamfight lineup that relied heavily on ultimate abilities: Tiny in position 1, Storm Spirit in position 2, Dawnbreaker in position 3, Keeper of the Light in position 4, and Phoenix in position 5.

The opponent has a fast-paced, ganking lineup: position 1 Prophet, position 2 Ember Spirit, position 3 Axe, position 4 Senhai Feixia, and position 5 Clockwerk.

During the laning phase, HG's mid lane was evenly matched, while both top and bottom lanes were at a disadvantage. Heroic's Prophet teleported to the bottom lane at eight minutes to support Axe, killing HG's carry Tiny and then taking down the first tower. At ten minutes, the enemy's two supports roamed to the mid lane, and Storm Spirit was killed. Phoenix used its ultimate to transform into an egg but couldn't save it, and the mid tower was also taken down.

Then the opponent switched to the top lane and destroyed three of our first towers in twelve minutes, bringing the gold difference to four thousand. Next, Axe with Blink Dagger pressured the team, and whenever Prophet had the chance, he would fly over to join the fight. HG was pressured throughout the entire game with little hope, and the gold difference gradually widened, ultimately leading to their defeat.

"HG seems to have lost their confidence after being beaten, and they failed to seize several opportunities in the mid-game."

Sora's tone carried a hint of disappointment.

"Losing too much will cause this; when you're playing, you only think about not making mistakes, but you can't win this game by only thinking about saving your weapon."

Lu Chen also commented that the HG players' performance was exactly the same as when he was on a losing streak in ranked matches. They built a lot of defensive items, didn't dare to initiate team fights and only dared to rely on their teammates, and then the opponent would initiate the fight. Their reaction to save teammates was also a beat too slow.

After the match, the chat in several live streams was filled with pessimistic comments. Gu Ran's live stream was slightly better, but the chat was filled with a different kind of comments:

"I feel like if HG had replaced their mid laner with a streamer, they would have won much earlier."

"With such amazing skills, when will this streamer go pro and save CNDOTA?"

"Please, streamer, go pro. Oh no, I'll do anything."

Although most of it was in jest, Gu Ran felt a warmth in his heart after reading it, and something else began to quietly grow inside him—who didn't dream of TI when they were young? Two years of streaming had shown Gu Ran the gap between himself and the real masters, but now it seemed that the distance between him and them was slowly shrinking.

Who knows?

[Everyone stand up! A stunningly powerful barrage of comments, worth 500 shark fins, has been unleashed!]

[When are you going to go pro, streamer?]

You can ignore the previous comments, but Gu Ran has to respond now, since the boss sent such a big SC.

"Let me score 15,000 points."

Gu Ran's current MMR is only 10390. At present, most top professional mid laners have a MMR of over 16,000, and many have a MMR of over 17,000. A MMR of 15,000 is considered to be among the lowest MMRs for professional players.

User sora has become a diamond fan of the streamer.

User Huaqiang has become a diamond fan of the streamer.

[The user... has become a diamond fan of the streamer]

……

Nearly ten diamond fans in a row left Gu Ran a little bewildered. He couldn't quite understand what was going on. He had only set a goal for himself, so why was he receiving so much support? He wanted to say something, but he felt a little choked up, and the words of gratitude he was used to saying were hard to say.

"come on!"

"come on!"

"Keep it up, streamer!"

As countless encouraging comments scrolled by, Gu Ran suddenly felt a stinging sensation in his eyes, as if sand had gotten into them. He rubbed his eyes—for the first time in his life, he experienced the feeling of being anticipated by so many people.

He was determined to reach 15,000 points no matter what, so he could see what the stage he had longed for was like!

"Go for it, Ran-ge! How about we team up and go to the TI qualifiers?"

Lu Chen spoke up at this moment. His MMR was currently 15,100, which was barely enough to play professionally. However, there was only one official club in China, HG. Their offlaner was in his prime, and Lu Chen was unwilling to sit on the bench. So, although he had long wanted to play professionally, he had never had the opportunity.

Gu Ran only has a little over 10,000 points, but in his opinion, Gu Ran has great potential. This sounds absurd. Gu Ran has been streaming for two years and is 25 or 26 years old, which is not considered a young player. But he just feels that if this person works hard, he might be able to compete with those top mid laners on the international stage.

Perhaps it was because he had watched too many clips of that "one-hit wonder" show these past few days. The clips included Gu Ran's amazing plays, and there were a few scenes where he honestly asked himself if he could even do those kinds of plays.

DOTA2 is a team game, but at crucial moments, a game can be ended by some people's brilliant plays. He felt that Gu Ran could be that kind of player.

"Okay, Brother Chen."

Gu Ran readily agreed. A player with 15,000 points on the ladder was willing to team up with him, and given his current skill level, it was impossible for him to refuse.

"Don't forget about me! Even though my score is low, I can be your data analyst!"

Su Xiaoman felt the atmosphere was great, like a young hero setting his sights on the future, and a legend was about to begin. She wanted to participate too.

"That's fantastic! Sora's analysis and drafting skills are practically professional-level. I need to work hard to climb the ranks so you guys don't have to wait too long!"

As soon as Gu Ran finished speaking, he opened DOTA2, ready to start solo queue. There were still four months until this year's TI qualifiers, and he wondered if he would have enough time to reach 15,000 points.