From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

With the eight teams formed, the host connected with each team leader to discuss their thoughts on today's auction results. Almost all the team leaders expressed satisfaction, though it was unclear whether they were genuinely satisfied or just putting on an act.

Regardless, the lineups are now locked in. Over the next month, these eight teams will go through four stages: group practice matches, group round-robin matches, online elimination matches, and offline elimination matches, to compete for the sole championship trophy.

The host then began by explaining the detailed rules for the four stages:

"The first week is an online practice match, with eight teams playing a best-of-one round-robin format. Each team plays one match per day. Each victory in the practice match will bring the team a prize of 1000 yuan. In addition to the practice matches, each team can also freely take on training matches with other teams."

"The second stage is an online round-robin tournament, where eight teams play a best-of-one round-robin format, ranked according to their win order. The online knockout stage is where the team ranked first in the group stage plays the eighth-ranked team, the second-ranked team plays the seventh-ranked team, the third-ranked team plays the sixth-ranked team, and the fourth-ranked team plays the fifth-ranked team."

"The knockout stage is a classic double-elimination format. Except for the finals, which are best-of-five, all other stages are best-of-three. The remaining four teams in the online stage will advance to the offline knockout stage, which means the winners' bracket will play two rounds and the losers' bracket will play two rounds."

"The offline knockout stage consists of four matches: the loser's bracket semi-finals, the winner's bracket finals, the loser's bracket finals, and the grand finals."

"Wishing every team the best of luck in achieving results they desire! That concludes our program for today. The first stage of the Immortal Cup's round-robin practice matches will officially begin in two days. See you there, everyone!"

The auction concluded successfully, and the streamers began organizing their teams to prepare for the next round of competition.

Su Xiaoman quickly added the WeChat accounts of several members of her team, creating a six-person WeChat group. To liven things up, she sent an anime emoji with the caption...

Ciallo～(∠・ω<)⌒★

In the blink of an eye, several Ciallo emojis appeared in the group chat, all featuring cute anime girls tilting their heads and making a peace sign.

[Hey guys, our team is officially formed today. The organizers need us to submit a team name, but there's no rush, we can submit it within two days. Feel free to share your thoughts.]

Su Xiaoman wanted to have everyone discuss the team name "Breaking the Ice" first, and then bring up the subsequent team training and such.

Gu Ran sent a name directly:

【Dawn of Fire】

After posting it, he suddenly felt that his name was a bit cringey. He wanted to incorporate his ID into his name, but a name like "Firefly" was too obvious, so he changed it to something related to fire.

"What kind of behavior is Chihaya Aine?" he internally criticized himself.

[So... you watch Dragon Raja too?]

[So... you watch Dragon Raja too?]

...

After receiving one reply, a line of repeating responses immediately followed, indicating that everyone had read the novel.

As the oldest player in the team, Lao Fang was actually quite pessimistic when he was first selected, because there was only one strong player in the team, XS. The third and fourth positions were said to have around 14,000 MMR, while the second position only had less than 12,000 MMR. He felt like the worst player among the eight teams.

But seeing these young people joking around, his mood inexplicably improved. He even came up with a funny name for it, "One Brother Dragging Four," but he decided not to post it because it might be detrimental to unity.

Or you could say: "Do you even have the ability to fight me?"

This is clearly Lu Chen's comment; his ID is Huaqiang, so he obviously likes this character a lot.

Why not call this melon "guarantee ripeness"?

【666】

[Hua Qiang is so talented!]

Even Jiang Xia, who was usually quiet, was caught up in the atmosphere and suggested a name: [Konoha Village].

[Shikamaru-kun, I know you love Konoha, but I heard that Origins was also called Konoha Village for a while. Won't that upset the older generation?]

Congratulations to Xiao Jiang on securing a VIP seat at the bottom of the river!

Just as everyone was enthusiastically discussing things like Uzumaki Yaoren and Shimura Ryuzo, XS also suggested a name:

Let's just call it the "Great Alliance of Love and Unity Under Heaven and Earth."

[Welcome, Great Love Immortal!]

It's you! Ryu Guan-il!

A cold wind blows through the desolate valley, cicadas sing through spring and autumn as the young man returns!

So XS naturally joined the group chat, and Su Xiaoman couldn't help but smile like an aunt as she looked at the screen. She felt that the atmosphere in her team was very good.

She didn't interrupt, waiting until everyone had expressed their opinions before summarizing:

[I can see that you guys are all incredibly skilled. It's okay, we don't necessarily have to decide on a team name today. We can discuss it again in the next couple of days. Right now, there's something more important: when do we start training, and when is everyone available?]

Gu Ran: [I have plenty of free time this month and will follow the organization's arrangements.]

Obey organizational arrangements

[Obey organizational arrangements] *3

The five team members don't seem to have any special plans recently, which makes scheduling training matches easier.

【I'll head over to the team captain's group chat to start training later. It's getting late, so I'll probably do it tomorrow afternoon or evening. Is that okay with everyone?】

No problem. *5

Su Xiaoman inexplicably felt like she was a homeroom teacher.

[How about we all introduce ourselves briefly? After all, we're having a practice match tomorrow, so it's important for everyone to get to know each other.]

After the initial discussion about the team name, the five team members discovered that there were many like-minded people in the team. The atmosphere was great, and there was no awkwardness like being called on by the teacher to introduce yourself at the beginning of the semester.

[I'm XS, you can call me Lao Wang. I play position 1, and my hero pool mainly consists of traditional cores. I don't play fighting cores much, but I can also play non-traditional heroes like Beastmaster and Necrophos in position 1. I usually practice ranked in my spare time, so we can queue together. My main account is currently at 16890 MMR.]

【tql】*3

[I'm bowing down to the big boss, we're all low-score players]

After everyone admired XS's MMR, it was Gu Ran's turn to introduce himself.

[I'm Firefly, you can call me Xiao Gu. I play position 2, and my current MMR is 11950, which is probably the worst mid laner in this Immortal Cup... but I've been improving a lot lately. A couple of weeks ago I only had 10,000 MMR, so I hope I'm not dragging everyone down. I also stream solo queue every morning at 8 AM. My hero pool basically includes all the common mid laners, but my signature heroes are Storm Spirit, Puck, Invoker, and Pangolier.]

Gu Ran knew his score was low, so he could only report his growth rate to stabilize morale. If he were shameless, he could also say that he had a wide range of special skills, since he had actually triggered overclocking for all heroes in the past few days. At this moment, he could hold his own against opponents with a score of 13,000 to 4,000.

[Gu is really good. I made a promise with him that we'd go to the TI qualifiers together once he reaches 15,000 MMR. I've occasionally watched him play ranked matches and he goes toe-to-toe with mid laners who have around 13,000 MMR.]

He was also very strong when I played against him in the last competition; he completely outplayed me.

Lu Chen and Jiang Xia both spoke up for Gu Ran, which boosted the team's confidence.

[I'm Huaqiang, you can call me Xiao Lu or Huaqiang, it's fine. I've had a lot of free time lately. I'm pretty bad at playing position 3, I'm only really good with a few signature heroes. I can play other common heroes, but not very well. I've been practicing the strong heroes of the current patch, trying to master a few more signature heroes.]

[I'm Shikamaru, you can call me Xiao Jiang. I mainly play position 4. Although I'm in college, I'm usually free after 4 PM. I can play almost any position 4, I don't have any special skills. I like to watch hero picks based on counter-picks.]

After the two introduced themselves, it was the last team member's turn. Su Xiaoman, who often watched the games, actually knew this team member; he was also a veteran professional player.

[I'm Oldfang, you can call me Lao Fang. I've been a professional player for ten years, but I haven't achieved much. I can't compare to our carry players. I hope I can help Lao Wang out, I'm a fan of Lao Wang too. I can basically play all five positions as well, and I've also worked as a drafter for a few years, so I can give you some ideas on drafting.]