From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

The Immortal Cup online round-robin tournament, match 5: Sora vs. DY.

Our Dire team has the following positions: Alchemist (position 1), Pangolier (position 2), Dawnbreaker (position 3), Lion (position 4), and Lich (position 5).

The opposing team is Radiant, with Tiny at position 1, Puck at position 2, Underlord at position 3, Rubick at position 4, and Dark Seer at position 5.

Feng Ge's live stream.

"This Dire lineup is a bit trendy. I remember there was a Alchemist and Pangolier lineup in an international tournament a few days ago. This combination mainly involves Alchemist quickly leveling up Aghanim's Scepter, giving Pangolier an Aghanim's Scepter around the 15-minute mark, and then Pangolier becomes invincible."

Jia Ge expressed optimism about the Dire's lineup.

"I feel like their offlane duos are both very strong. Reinhardt and Lion can deal explosive damage with a triple stab, while Rubick and Underlord can trap the enemy with Fire Rain and then pull them back."

As a veteran of the third position, Feng immediately recognized the strength of the two disadvantageous lane combinations.

As they were talking, Tiny, who had just come online in the bottom lane, was stabbed by the Shadow Demon with Earthshatter, followed by Reinhardt's Starfall and then chased down and attacked, leaving him with very low health and forcing him to retreat into the tower.

"In this lane matchup, Dark Seer can't help Tiny cut off the opponent's damage output; he can only do so after Tiny reaches level two and has Avalanche."

Unfortunately, Ink Masters generally don't learn Insect Technique in the early stages, and the Ink Surge skill requires a delay to take effect.

Little Tiny applied a large healing potion to himself and continued to last-hit minions, but he was immediately impaled by a ground spike from the forest after just one last hit. Then, Reinhardt used a Upper Hammer to close the distance to Little Tiny, followed by Starfall, and Lion added a spell. Before Dark Seer's Ink Surge could detonate, Little Tiny was already dead.

First blood!

[Shikamaru obtains 325 gold + 49 gold for killing LOU and one hero.]

"That poke that Ryan hid in the woods was crucial. Reinhardt also deliberately didn't move around and was very aggressive, which tricked Alou."

No sooner had the commentator finished speaking than good news came from the top lane: Lich had killed Rubick.

"It looks like Rubick made a mistake in positioning, got caught in the acid mist, and was eventually chased down and killed by the Lich."

Three minutes later, during the Lotus Conquest, another kill broke out in the bottom lane. Tiny saw two opponents standing together and immediately used Avalanche to try and disrupt their health. However, as soon as Avalanche ended, he had no more skills to interrupt Reinhardt's Starfall, and was hit by Reinhardt's three close-range attacks. Then Lion followed up with Earthshatter and Bloodshot, and Reinhardt chased and killed Tiny.

"The bot lane is doomed. Although Tiny got a lot of CS, he died twice and the enemy level is too high, so he will get killed again later."

Just as Feng Ge predicted, five minutes in, Reinhardt and Lion took advantage of Tiny's Avalanche cooldown to dive the tower and kill another wave of Dark Seer.

[I've got my ultimate. Let's try to dominate the bottom lane and force the enemy to push into the bottom half of the map so Alchemist can farm alone.]

Gu Ran would come to the bottom lane to help when he had his ultimate, and the enemy Puck could only TP to support, creating a chaotic battle in the bottom lane. This allowed the top laner, Alchemist, to easily 1v1 Doom and farm happily.

Ten minutes into the game, a rune was contested in the mid lane, and both sides amassed large forces. Doom also arrived, and Reinhardt used his ultimate. Although it was just a minor trade of one for one, Alchemist was left without anyone to lane against.

At eleven minutes, Tiny lost a lot of health while protecting the catapult at the bottom lane tower. He was then severely damaged by Lion's ultimate from behind the tower. His teammates rushed to his aid, leading to another small-scale team fight. Alchemist also tanked the damage and finished off the remaining enemies, ultimately allowing Alchemist to obtain Radiance at eleven and a half minutes.

Fifteen minutes into the game, Gu Ran's Rolling Giant received an A-grade item from Alchemist, and he also had Power Treads, Diffusal Blade, and Magic Wand on him, bringing his gold to 11300. At this point, the opponent's Tiny, who had the highest gold, only had 7000 gold.

[Brothers, follow me! Let's control the runes and clear the fog.]

Gu Ran's voice became much stronger after getting Aghanim's Scepter. After securing the river rune at the sixteen-minute mark, he organized the supports to use Smoke of Deceit to search the area below. They caught a Tiny farming in the main jungle. With Aghanim's Scepter, the Tiny's Shield Bash and two Swaggers, combined with Diffusal Blade, provided high damage and reduced mana. At the sixteen-minute mark, almost no one could beat him.

[firefly kills LOU, earning 292 gold + 213 gold, split equally among three heroes]

After eliminating the enemy's carry, they pushed down the bottom lane's first tower, bringing the gold difference between the two sides to 10,000.

In the mid-game, although the Dire's two supports stepped on the enemy's vision wards, Rubick used the stolen Poke to initiate and control them. Then, Dark Seer used Soul Bind, Rubick used Weakening to hit two enemies, Puck followed up with an Illusion Orb to finish them off, and Reinhardt used Black King Bar and Teleport to escape.

However, just a minute later, Gu Ran found another opportunity. He saw a Dark Seer in the jungle, so he used Blink Dagger to get close, and with an Aghanim's Scepter, Shield Bash, and Bluff, the Dark Seer was left with a sliver of health. He then finished him off with a single auto-attack.

This build makes the enemy's support character, with only two or three thousand gold, practically treat them like an ATM, constantly withdrawing money.

In mid-game team fights, the most difficult thing to control for Rolling is his ultimate skill. Even in professional matches, you can often see many funny Rolling plays - driving the vehicle into various gaps in the map and getting stuck, then awkwardly doing nothing in team fights.

But Gu Ran was different. After activating overclocking, he drove the rolling mines in first-person view, feeling that he had complete control over the direction. During team battles, he often performed extremely difficult cross-terrain maneuvers, which earned him unanimous praise from the barrage masters, who called him the "Akina Mountain Car God".

The mid-game tempo was dictated by the Rolling Giant, and once the Alchemist acquired Blink Dagger and Black King Bar, the baton was passed to the Alchemist Warlock. The incredibly farmed Alchemist led the team to Roshan and then pushed high ground with the Aegis. When they reached the high ground, the game was 30 minutes in, and the economic gap between the two sides was 32,000. If the Dire had dragged the game out a little longer, we might have seen a super red light on the economy chart—the kind of scene where five Dire heroes were ranked in the top five.

With such a huge economic gap, the Radiant naturally has little chance; the Dire simply needs to steadily push down the high ground and continuously expand their advantage.

At 32 minutes into the game, Dire pushed down all three lanes of Radiant's high ground and created super creeps, bringing the gold difference between the two sides to 44000. Radiant had no choice but to concede defeat.

"So smooth and fluid, so cool!"

"That was brilliant!"

"A-Soldier Rolling is way too out of the loop, I can't understand it at all!"

The chat in Gu Ran's live stream was incredibly enthusiastic. They all wished that V streamer would reach level 50 so they could play the rolling robot themselves. They could easily rack up kills with just one double combo, giving their side an immense advantage in team fights. Even if they missed a few skills, they could still easily win. It was just too awesome.

Gifts and VIPs were also plentiful. After thanking everyone for the gifts he hadn't seen during the match, Gu Ran set up a Platinum Classroom for his brothers to show them the new features of the latest version before heading to the team's Tencent Meeting room.

We played very well today, mainly because we completely crushed the opponent in the offlane. Our early game strategy was also very clear: we helped the offlane and forced the opponent to keep sending players to fight. As long as Alchemist could farm unstoppably, even if we lost a little, it was still a win.

Once Pangolier gets Aghanim's Scepter, just start clearing the map. A Pangolier with Aghanim's Scepter at 15 minutes, paired with a Diffusal Blade, is just too overpowered.

Lao Fang summarized it directly: because the situation was very favorable throughout the day, there weren't many points that needed to be reviewed.

Now our Alchemist build can be used in competitive matches. In this version, the most profitable unit for quickly leveling up Aghanim's Scepter is Pangolier. Other units like Beastmaster are also good. Alternatively, we can pair it with units that are strong in the late game with Aghanim's Scepter. In this case, Alchemist doesn't need to build Aghanim's Scepter first. Instead, he should build Blink Dagger, Black King Bar, and Assault Cuirass before leveling up.