From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

Chapter 43 The Elimination Rounds Are Approaching

Check out Taobao!

Ember Spirit commanded Little Mordy to unleash magma cannons to bombard Terrorblade. Gu Ran activated Black King Bar and charged forward to deal damage to Terrorblade with a Sleight of Fist and a Solar Flare. Clockwerk hooked Queen of Pain standing in the front row, while Templar Assassin followed up with damage from the back.

At this moment, the health of Tidehunter, Terrorblade, and Queen of Pain was dropping rapidly, but the first to die was Lu Chen's Tidehunter.

TB took six cannon shots to deal damage to the big troll, but because he was standing in the back, he didn't want to activate Black King Bar (BKB). His health had dropped to one-third, and it would be awkward to activate BKB in vain. So he chose to use Hurricane Spear to push himself onto the river to avoid the subsequent cannon damage.

Although XS was dealing damage to Queen of Pain, he kept an eye on Terrorblade's position. After seeing Terrorblade use Hurricane Spear, XS decisively used Blink Dagger to jump next to Terrorblade, activated Black King Bar, and then used Stealth to deliver a fatal blow. Gu Ran followed up with a Shadow Fist.

TB took a hit and his health was reduced to a few hundred. He couldn't fight back against a Templar Assassin who still had Refraction, so he could only retreat. The embarrassing thing was that after he pushed himself into the river, there was no one nearby who could trade blows with him.

"TB! Can Old Chicken's TB survive?! It seems his movement speed is quite fast, TA can't catch up!"

"Just one more step! It looks like I can run!"

The commentator roared, "If we can kill Terrorblade here, the Dire will definitely win!"

"Psionic Trap! Concealed Strike! Holy crap! He's dead!"

XS kills oldchicken and receives 655 gold + 1014 gold, which are split among three heroes.

[XS has become a monstrous killing machine!]

The instant death of Terrorblade directly led to the collapse of Radiant. With no main damage dealers on the opposing side, Gu Ran's Ember Spirit moved like a ghost, nimbly traversing the battlefield and ruthlessly reaping the lives of the remaining few defeated soldiers.

The final team fight ended with Dire trading one for four, and Roshan was also controlled by Dire. Templar Assassin with Aegis pushed down two lanes of Radiant high ground before retreating.

After splitting off two lanes of creeps, the Dire team had a 12,000 gold lead over the opponent. They continued to pick off isolated targets with their creep advantage, and the Radiant team never had another chance to engage in a head-on 5v5 team fight with the Dire team. Finally, at the 55-minute mark, Templar Assassin with the fourth Aegis destroyed the last lane of Radiant's high ground, and then fed the opponent for another 10 minutes.

With the ultimate neutral item, the Dire destroyed the Radiant base in 65 minutes.

Inside Gu Ran's live stream.

"Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!"

"The streamer's reaction was so fast! He flew away instantly through the fog – it was amazing!"

"The streamer held on completely in the early game!"

The comments section was incredibly excited after the comeback, with over a dozen diamond-level fans joining in, thanking Gu Ran profusely.

After thanking everyone for the gifts, Gu Ran switched to a streamer named "Zhu Ge" so everyone could watch the opposing team's replay and have some fun, while he himself went to the team meeting channel to start his own replay.

[Awesome! This turn of events turned things around for us; at one point in the mid-game, it felt like we were about to lose.]

Jiang Xia, who is usually not very talkative, was the first to speak this time, and he seemed to be still immersed in the joy of turning the tide.

[In the early game, Ember Spirit held on for us, but we were at a disadvantage in both the top and bottom lanes.]

Lao Fang gave Gu Ran a thumbs up.

[Actually, the main problem was that our top lane collapsed and we didn't play well. In the bottom lane, your Tidehunter is inherently difficult to play against Terrorblade, but I didn't see that you were that far behind after the laning phase. It feels like you've really mastered your Tidehunter this game.]

Wang Chunyu encouraged Lu Chen.

Lu Chen, behind the screen, scratched his head. Actually, he only managed to hold his own in the laning phase. In the mid-game, he was caught out by the opponent a few times due to carelessness. Fortunately, his team cleaned up the mess for him. If they had lost this game, he would have had to take some of the blame.

However, he also felt that his proficiency with the Murloc Tidehunter was getting higher and higher.

[We chose an early-game composition this game but didn't play it particularly well. However, our handling of the mid-to-late game was excellent. Knowing the opponent's economic advantage, we didn't engage in direct team fights, and we seized opportunities well. We felt we played this Templar Assassin composition very well. Next time, we might consider switching to a different composition.]

Lao Fang summarized the issues related to team rhythm.

[The guys were so cool, those two bursts of Terrorblade were amazing! The skill combos were so smooth. The second burst was a bit of a mistake on the enemy Terrorblade's part, but Gu Ran's fog-breaking escape was crucial for Axe! Lao Wang's timing was also perfect, and his trap damage was spectacular!]

Su Xiaoman praised her team's players' brilliant performance once again.

With today's round-robin match concluded, the online round-robin stage of the Immortal Cup has officially ended. Gu Ran's team finished with a 4-3 record, ranking fourth. In the upcoming knockout stage, they will face the fifth-ranked team from the round-robin stage – Diao Ge's team.

[There's a three-day break, so everyone can relax a bit during these three days. However, we'll still be playing a scrim with the teams from the other half of the bracket every day to maintain our form. Good luck in the playoffs!]

After the meeting, Su Xiaoman and Lao Fang went to analyze the vision and draft strategies of their first-round opponents. Gu Ran returned to the live stream and checked the rankings of the round-robin stage on the Immortal Cup's main page:

YYF team is in first place with a record of six wins and one loss.

Chalice finished second with a record of five wins and two losses.

Maybe is tied for second place with a record of five wins and two losses.

Sora finished fourth with a record of four wins and three losses.

Team ZHOU finished fifth with a record of three wins and four losses.

Team DY finished sixth with a record of two wins and five losses.

Xie Bin's DD team is tied for sixth place with two wins and five losses.

Team ZSMJ finished eighth with one win and six losses.

Although Pig Brother's team lost today, they still won more than they lost in the round-robin tournament overall. The team atmosphere and the atmosphere in the live stream were pretty good. Of course, they still got flamed, but Pig Brother is thick-skinned and not afraid of being flamed. Plus, he is good at avoiding the main issues and quickly calmed down the emotions of the viewers.

However, the atmosphere among the lower-ranked teams was not so harmonious. Team DY was alright; they were mostly recently retired players who knew each other well and had relatively peaceful personalities. If they lost, they would just exchange a few words and that would be the end of it.

The atmosphere on Brother Diao's team is rather tense. After losing the game today, they are seriously reviewing the match. Actually, if it weren't for the live broadcast, everyone could sit down and talk things out. However, it's easy to get carried away during a live broadcast, and sometimes it's hard to admit mistakes in front of the live audience, which can easily lead to arguments.

Fortunately, the current record of the "Diao Ge" team is at least not at the bottom, so although everyone is upset, they can at least be a little more tolerant of each other.

Xie Bin's DD team is a different story. The captain himself is not assertive. Although he can sense the problems, he is not good at controlling the team members. In addition, his score is relatively low, and he can't argue with the other team members. So the review is just a formality.

The team members often take leave to do other things, and since Naige can't control it, he can only play solo queue because he can't participate in training matches.

Team zsmj also does daily debriefings, but the captain isn't good at speaking and often misinterprets things, which upsets the team members. After a while, he ended up being the only one talking during each debriefing, while the teammates just gave a few perfunctory replies or admitted the problems, regardless of whether they were right or wrong. It became a mere formality for the debriefings.

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