From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

The Immortal Cup, Day Two, 8 AM.

[Tonight at 3 PM we took on a best-of-three series against Feng's team. I figured since it's the first day, we didn't take on too many scrims. After the game, we can do a little debriefing.]

After replying with "OK" in the team group, Gu Ran started his solo queue journey for the day. He noticed that the number of viewers in the live stream had increased significantly, and there were many comments asking him about the Immortal Cup.

Perhaps because it's the weekend, the enthusiastic viewers who watched the player selection event yesterday saw a player from the Immortal Cup playing solo early this morning, and they all entered the live stream, even starting to discuss which team was stronger and which team could win the championship.

The number of VIPs has exceeded 10,000.

"What do you think the host would say about your team's chances of getting one place?"

Some enthusiastic fans came over to ask Gu Ran.

"It's hard to say what place we'll get in the end, but I feel like we'll probably get crushed in the practice matches first, so everyone should be mentally prepared."

Gu Ran helplessly gave the audience a heads-up: his current skill level is 12,000 in the ranked ladder. Even with the 2,000 bonus from his Grandmaster-level proficiency, he only has 14,000. However, he is facing mid-laners with around 15,000 skill levels, and tonight he is playing against Refuse, a god with 17,000 skill levels. He feels like he is going to get crushed in lane.

With such a large gap, overclocking is unlikely to make up for it; the only hope is to win a perfect team fight later on to turn the tide.

Even if you go straight to overclocking during the laning phase, it only lasts for a maximum of two minutes. In those two minutes, you can only gain a last-hit advantage but can't get a solo kill on the opponent. After overclocking ends, there will be a weakness period, which will cause the advantage you just built to be eroded. In summary, it's not very useful.

Overclocking should only be activated when there are sufficient benefits, and ideally, all enemies in front of you should be dead after activation so that you can have a transition period that requires less operation. Otherwise, you may give up the advantage you just gained due to poor operation.

He had already noted this down in his notebook; it was a summary of his recent solo queue experience.

He played solo until 7 PM, and his live stream remained very popular, consistently ranking in the top three in the Dota 2 section, until he was pushed down when several other big streamers started broadcasting.

As Gu Ran predicted, the scrimmages with Feng Ge's team ended in two brutal defeats. The main reason was that he was always at a disadvantage in the mid lane, and the opposing mid laner was constantly pushing the pace in both the top and bottom lanes, forcing him to teleport to support. By the mid-game, his economy was very low, and he was eventually snowballed to death.

[My bad, this game, every time the mid lane collapses, it drags down both of your lanes.]

At 9 p.m., the five team members and coach Sora gathered at Tencent Meeting. Gu Ran took the initiative to admit his mistakes and took the blame first.

[We definitely can't beat them in the mid lane. We might need to consider that in our draft, especially since their mid laner is Rua Zi, a laning machine. We should give them some easy champions to counter.]

As the draft picker, Lao Fang also stepped forward to take responsibility.

[Yeah, and in the first game, there was a problem with your mechanics two minutes into the top lane fight, and the same thing happened in the second game. You need to pay more attention to the details when getting kills.]

XS also spoke up, saying that they had lane advantages in both games, but that didn't mean there were no problems in the laning phase. He directly pointed out some minor mistakes made by the position 5 player.

Our offlane lane also had laning issues; our coordination wasn't great, and I made some mistakes myself.

Lu Chen took the initiative to admit the problem. In both games, their disadvantage lane was slightly disadvantageous. He felt that Jiang Xia, the fourth position player, was a bit quiet, and there was a slight communication problem between the two.

……

After all the players had raised their questions, captain and coach Sora gave a concluding speech:

If the brothers can find the problems and improve, then this training match will not have been in vain. I will also collect all the opponents' draft strategies and commonly used warding positions. We should have a preliminary summary by the time the first round of the round-robin tournament is over.

I'll discuss with Lao Fang how to improve the draft and vision control. Don't be discouraged if we lose a lot in this round of the group stage; we can still improve in the official matches!

So the five brothers played four training matches in two days, losing more than they won, but by reviewing and summarizing their performances regularly every day, they all felt that they were getting better and better.

----------

Finally, the first round of the Immortal Cup online practice matches began, and Gu Ran and his team faced off against ZSMJ on the first day.

The side selection resulted in our Dire team having the first ban and pick. The opposing team banned a strong carry Druid, then Gu Ran's signature Puck, a position 5 Phoenix for team fights, and an Axe. Our team banned Huskar, Tiny, and Drow Ranger.

Our team immediately picked Doom, while the opposing team picked Storm Spirit.

"I've banned Clockwerk and Vengeful Spirit. Recently, there have been cases of players using position 1 Vengeful Spirit against Doom in international matches, and I'm worried the opponent might pick them."

"no problem."

The opposing team banned Monkey King and picked Senhai Feixia, so it was our turn to keep picking.

"I'm planning to get Bane, and Lao Wang, how about getting you Windranger? I feel like this champion is better suited for your banner, and I've noticed you've been playing it a lot in solo queue lately. Our team might need you to carry the team in the early to mid-game."

"sure."

Our team picked Bane and Windranger, while the enemy team picked Silencer to counter Bane (his ultimate, Silence, can instantly interrupt Bane's Claws), and then immediately picked Ember Spirit.

"Shouldn't we punish them for going straight for Ember Spirit? How about Xiao Gu gives you Venomancer?"

The hero Venomancer is strong in the laning phase but lacks tempo in the mid-game. However, our carry is Windranger, who doesn't farm much. In fact, in the previous few scrims, Gu Ran's mid laner picked tempo heroes but couldn't create any momentum and the game collapsed. So, picking a strong laning hero would at least allow us to pressure the opponent in the laning phase.

Gu Ran understood his teammate's thoughts and nodded in agreement.

Therefore, in the eighteenth move, our side selected the Poison Dragon.

They were still missing a hero for position four. Old Fang asked Xiao Jiang which hero he wanted to pick.

"I think we can pick Shadow Shaman. Since we're targeting Ember Spirit, we should make it impossible for him to play. Also, we're lacking initiation, so let's pick a control-type position 4 who can initiate, like Lion."

So our team picked the Warlock, while the opponent's last pick was Chaos Knight. This hero was slightly buffed in the most recent update, and the opponent probably wanted to test how strong he is now.

The lineup is finalized: Windranger in position 1, Viper in position 2, Doom in position 3, Lion in position 4, and Bane in position 5.

The opponent's lineup consists of Chaos Knight in position 1, Ember Spirit in position 2, Razor in position 3, Kayle in position 4, and Silencer in position 5.

The Radiant side immediately opens with Smoke of Deceit, which is the norm in professional matches. Unlike Pokémon games where there is less strategic planning at the start, in professional matches, both sides start scheming and maneuvering from the very beginning. Whether it's looking for an opportunity to get First Blood, opening Smoke of Deceit to establish vision, scout ahead, or grab gold runes, there are too many things that can be done in the first minute and a half of the game.

In this game, the four players on the Radiant side, except for the one with the Storm Spirit, chose to use Smoke of Deceit to enter the Dire main jungle from the small path next to the Roshan pit on the left. After placing a ward on the uphill slope, they all circled around to the Dire mid-lane Tier 1 tower. They first scouted the gold rune spot in the Dire main jungle and, finding no one there, moved to the gold rune spot in the river.

Meanwhile, the Dire team charged straight down the mid lane. Doom stood outside the enemy turret's vision range to scout the enemy's wards, and he actually found one—the enemy turret hit him, which meant that the enemy had vision of him. This vision was from the ward that Storm Spirit had just placed under his own turret after using Smoke of Deceit.

At this moment, the Dire team was standing near their own tower guarding Doom. XS's Windranger moved closer to the gold rune spot next to Roshan, and just happened to run into four people who were coming through the smoke. He quickly retreated, but was caught off guard by Senhai Feixia's jungle ambush and tethered to a tree. The four big men on the other side walked towards him.

However, the four opponents did not expect that the main force of the Nightshade army was nearby. They did not pay attention to their positioning when chasing, and three of them were impaled by the Demon Wizard's Earthshatter.

"Holy crap, tap three!"

"It seems like the Radiant will have a tough time in this fight."

As the commentator said, the Dire team took the opportunity to surround them. Viper activated his spell orb and spammed Silencer, Windranger woke up and fired a powerful shot at the three of them, and Bane also timely threw a Bloodshot Grenade to slow down the three.

The four Radiant players lost too much health to the AoE damage and were unable to engage in team fights, so they had to run away. In the end, only the Silencer survived, while the others fled in disarray.