From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

The first round of bidding officially began, and the image of the first bidder appeared on the big screen—

On screen, Ice Spirit's ultimate ability flew from the Radiant base toward Shadow Fiend who was pushing the mid-lane tier 2 tower. Just as the ultimate was about to hit, Shadow Fiend was lifted up by Telekinesis, then took Rubick's Weakening Stream, and died instantly from the stolen Shadow Rage, Lina's Light Strike Array, and God's Devastate.

The Radiant's Spectre used her ultimate to provide vision, and the Dire's Gyrocopter used his Black King Bar to clear the Radiant Spectre's illusions and kill the Radiant Clockwerk. The Dire's Phoenix transformed into an egg to protect their formation, and the moment it slammed down, Rubick used his skill steal—stealing a skill that was theoretically impossible to steal: Supernova.

Rubick then used Blink Dagger to jump onto the face of Gyrocopter and Phoenix, taking some of Gyrocopter's rocket barrage. When his health dropped to half, he released Supernova - the egg was right in front of Gyrocopter. Gyrocopter tried to attack the egg but was stunned by Lina's Light Strike Array. When he woke up, he realized he couldn't destroy the egg and had to retreat.

After Rubick's egg was smashed down, he stole Nightmare from the opposing Bane. He continued to chase with Blink Dagger, and when he saw Gyrocopter, he used Nightmare to keep him in place. The opposing Io quickly connected and replaced Gyrocopter with himself to become the target of Nightmare. Just as Gyrocopter was about to leave, Rubick used Telekinesis to lift him back and then connected with Lina's Light Strike Array. In the end, both Gyrocopter and Io died here.

"This Rubick instantly killed Shadow Fiend and controlled the plane, successfully leading the team to a comeback from the brink of defeat through brilliant maneuvers. He is our first bidder today, with a starting price of 400,000. Please place your bids."

In the Immortal Cup auctions, it's common practice not to reveal the player's ID, but instead to use a memorable moment of the player. Of course, this was no problem for the eight captains present; they all knew who was playing Rubick and were now considering how much to bid.

The BBC presenter had already prepared the auction gavel, and he struck the table to officially begin the auction.

Xie Bin DD was the first to show his whiteboard, which read 410,000. He only added 10,000 to see if he could snag a chicken at a lower price.

[The King of Subtle Actions]

[Clown.jpg]

[You idiot, didn't you recognize who it was?]

The chat in Brother Nai's live stream was incredibly popular.

"Bin God, Xie Bin DD has bid 41, is there anyone else going up the bid?"

Maybe they'll just raise their paddle—60!

"Oh, our May Queen has raised the price to 600,000 right away! Our first item has already reached 600,000. Is there anyone else who wants to raise the price? May Queen's high bid means this contestant might be really good."

Next, Brother Feng, Brother Jia, and Brother Diao all raised their paddles, and the price climbed all the way up to 66, which was raised by Brother Diao.

"The current price is 660,000. So what's the fundamental difference between 660,000 and 670,000? Just adding 10,000 might be enough to take this legendary player away. Are you captains really not going to reconsider?"

The host was giving a long speech when Charles suddenly stepped in and raised an 80 figure.

"Oh! Our Captain Chalice has jumped straight to 80, that's incredibly impressive! Now, I have another question for everyone: what's the fundamental difference between 80 and 81? Are there any other captains who want to raise their bids?"

"80 per time..."

"80 million twice..."

80, sold!

"Congratulations to Captain Charles for acquiring this legendary player for 800,000! Now we can reveal his identity: he is our legendary position 4 player—Xu Linsen, FYGOD!"

"Okay, so we've now connected with FYGOD online. Let's interview him."

The screen then switched to two small windows.

"Hello FYGOD, how do you feel about being bought by your former teammate Charles for 800,000 today? Another former teammate of yours said he would bid 1.3 million for you, but stopped at around 600,000. Do you have anything to say about that?"

Behind Sen Ge in the picture is a huge image of a phoenix.

"Hmm, not bad. I have a lot of faith in Cha Zhujing's business acumen. As for Baldy, just wait to be slaughtered by us."

The host couldn't help but laugh after hearing this.

"Okay, then I wish Brother Sen's team good luck in the match, thank you Brother Sen!"

The following contestants also made their entrances in memorable moments—

The second contestant's entrance was accompanied by a classic song, "All Time Low," along with a picture of a troll warrior. He was fiercely contested by DY and several other team captains, and was finally won by DY for 88. Little Gaozu was finally able to team up with Gaozu again.

The third contestant had two scenes: one showed an alchemist with six armor points standing on the enemy's high ground, and the other showed an invincible PA fiercely battling an enemy Earthshaker—he was eventually bought by Charles for 32.

The fourth player's image was of a mountain, and then a Water Spirit with Manta Style, Linken's Sphere, and Black King Bar (BKB) – embarrassingly, no one bid when it came time to put the order in, and he went unsold. It just goes to show that prejudice in people's hearts is indeed a huge mountain.

The fifth contestant's video featured a very cool Invoker using Skyfire to destroy the enemy fountain without vision, which happened to kill a low-health enemy hero who was teleporting back to base. Unfortunately, no one bid for it, and the auction failed.

The sixth contestant had no visuals, only the text "Give me Spectre, or I'll cut off my hand!"—in the end, he was auctioned off to YYF for 100,000.

Subsequent players didn't showcase any memorable moments; instead, they appeared simply as IDs and photos. Ultimately, sora acquired Shikamaru for 10, as there were too many strong players in the position four, and no one competed with her. YYF won redpanda for 35.

Next comes the second round, the blind auction bidding stage. This stage is even more exciting than the first round because you can only bid once. If you bid too little, someone else will snatch it up, and if you bid too much, you will be unable to compete with others later.

The first player's screen shows his team pushing the enemy's high ground. Suddenly, the enemy Magnus jumps down with his Blink Dagger, trying to throw the enemy back, but his teammate Rubick catches him with Telekinesis, cutting off the Magnus.

"This scene should be familiar to everyone. It's also a Rubick user. We're using a blind auction method, and you only have one chance to bid. Each captain must think carefully about what price to bid. You have thirty seconds to write your bid on your whiteboard."

The atmosphere was very tense. This player is also a legendary position 4 player and a two-time TI runner-up. The price of Sen Ge's transaction was 800,000. So how much can this player get?

Thirty seconds later, everyone held up their whiteboards—

sora: 50, Maybe: 60, YYF: 65, Xie Bin DD: 68, ZHOU: 70, ZSMJ: 71, DY: 72

"Then let's congratulate DY on successfully bidding against our XinQ, who is also his former teammate. This auction was incredibly competitive; everyone except Charles submitted a bid, and the three highest bids were all 10,000 apart. In the end, our captain DY won by a margin of 10,000. Captain DY, was this within your expectations?"

DY adjusted his glasses and answered slowly and deliberately.

"Well, I guess I overthought it. Everyone's target price was around 700,000, and since Zixing is my old teammate, I added a little more. I didn't expect to bet 10,000. It was just a coincidence."