From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

The Immortal Cup online knockout stage officially begins today. From the knockout stage onwards, there will also be hosts and commentators on the main stage. Today's commentators are Yuno and Kaze Reminiscence.

Viewers can freely choose how to watch the game, whether it's watching the main stage directly, watching the players' first-person perspective, or watching their favorite commentators. With multiple ways to watch the game, there's bound to be one that suits the majority of viewers, which is one of the reasons for the high popularity of the Immortal Cup.

You can even hear the players' team voice chat during crucial team fights, which is top-secret information that can only be heard in True Sight a year later at TI.

The main stage currently has an audience of over 50,000.

This elimination match is between Team Sora and Team Taige.

The lineups for both sides are finalized. Gu Ran's team is Dire, with Tiny as the carry, Sniper as the mid, Timbersaw as the offlaner, Rubick as the support, and Witch Doctor as the position 5.

On the Radiant side, the lineup is: Luna in position 1, Monkey King in position 2, Doom in position 3, Kayle in position 4, and Lich in position 5.

The host became interested when he saw that several heroes who had hardly appeared in the round-robin tournament appeared in the first game.

"In this game, Diao's Luna and XS's Tiny are actually their signature heroes, but what's up with Jiao's Monkey King in the mid lane? And Firefly's Sniper on the other side is also something I've never seen before."

Another commentator chimed in:

"In this game, Jiao Ge picked Monkey King on his 23rd pick, and then the opponent immediately picked Sniper to counter him. Jiao Ge feels a bit dangerous this game. Although Monkey King has an advantage against most melee mid laners, he still has a hard time against the lane bully Sniper."

As the commentators were talking, both sides had already collected two gold runes at the start of the game, but Jiang An's Lich made a positioning mistake and was stuck by the Sniper's shotgun, and Rubick used a slingshot to come back and kill him.

First blood!

Firefly kills Destiny, earning 296 gold coins + 84 gold coins which are split among three heroes.

"The Musketeer got a perfect start, needing a Bracer right from the start. Monkey King is in trouble."

The main stage screen focused on the mid lane matchup, but before the Sniper reached level 3, Monkey King wasn't at a significant disadvantage, with a 50/50 split in last hits.

Suddenly the scene shifted to the bottom lane, where Lich made a positioning mistake and was lifted into Timbersaw's face by Rubick. A Death Whirlwind followed by a few auto-attacks finished him off. Meanwhile, Diao's Luna chased Rubick, attempting a one-for-one trade, all the way to the tower. With Moonlight's cooldown almost ready, she could kill Rubick—

However, Rubick planted a tree right behind Luna, causing her to lose vision and preventing her from casting Moonlight.

"That Rubick play was pretty impressive."

The host couldn't help but praise it, and the live chat was flooded with "666" comments.

Five minutes into the game, Monkey King went to the top lane to provide support and took down Old Fang's position 5 Witch Doctor. He couldn't beat the Sniper in the mid lane, but he helped open up some opportunities for the side lanes by actively roaming.

Although the Lich in the bottom lane was killed once, Timbersaw still had a hard time against Luna. At eight minutes, the level six Luna found an opportunity when the support went to help control the rune in the mid lane, and used her ultimate to solo kill Lu Chen's Timbersaw. There was also a chaotic fight for the rune in the mid lane, and in the end, Monkey King and the support Lich traded one for one.

After Gu Ran's musket killed Da Sheng, he immediately pushed down the enemy's middle tower, which already had very little health left.

After that, the two sides traded blows, and at the eleven-minute mark, the kill score was 8:5, with the Radiant side having a 1000 gold lead.

Main stage of the competition:

"Let's take a look at this. Jiao Ge and Jiang An used Smoke of Deceit to gank the top lane against a Tiny jungler. This Tiny is indeed very fed, having never been ganked before. However, what they don't know is that they've already been scanned by Dire!"

"This scan is incredibly detailed. I wonder if Tiny did it himself? Did he sense someone coming to capture him? On the Dire side, the Sniper and Witch Doctor also activated Smoke of Deceit and went to meet him. Tiny deliberately baited them, and Monkey King went in as expected!"

"Rubic is here too. The Lich was lifted up. Luckily, Jiao saw the situation was bad and jumped out of the tree to escape. It's okay that only one Lich died in this wave."

One minute later, Radiant's Senhai Feixia placed a ward between the first and second towers in the Dire mid lane and saw Gu Ran's Sniper preparing to move from the first mid tower towards the triangle area. Diao Ge's Luna rushed over from the main jungle and took down the Sniper with her ultimate and Squirrel's crowd control.

"Brother Diao's Luna is still pretty cool; he can create a rhythm as soon as his ultimate skill is off cooldown."

In Xie Bin's (DD) live stream, Nai Ge (奶哥) praised Diao Ge (钓哥).

However, a minute later, the Radiant Monkey King and Squirrel were hiding in the woods to the left of the Dire's Tier 1 tower, facing Luna and Lich. The four brothers were preparing to find an opportunity to kill the Timbersaw who was farming under the tower, but they didn't expect Tiny and Witch Doctor to use Smoke of Deceit and teleport to their backs. XS's Tiny saw them and used Avalanche to stun the two, then threw the Lich behind them onto Luna. The Witch Doctor followed up with Bouncing Ball, Curse, and then used his ultimate on the spot.

The Radiant's position 1-5 melted instantly.

"The early game was really back and forth, and the current economic difference is less than a thousand."

The host on the main stage made a comment.

Two minutes later, Timbersaw was caught again in the bottom lane. Under the combined ultimates of Lich and Luna, Timbersaw's high armor couldn't withstand it.

"The Radiant's economy is now a thousand points ahead. It feels like they've given away too many lumberjacks. The situation is slowly tilting in the Radiant's favor."

One minute later, the Dire team's in-game voice chat said:

[I've used Shadow Blade, I'll just use Smoke of Deceit and fight them directly. Their core heroes are in their power spike before they get Black King Bars, and since they like to fight, let's go all out against them.]

Gu Ran, along with two support heroes, used Smoke of Deceit to invade the Radiant triangle area from the Roshan pit in the river. Tiny used Shadow Blade to flank from the right side of the enemy's Tier 1 tower. At that moment, Radiant's Eleventh Elder Titan was farming Ancients. Little Squirrel was on guard at the smoke-breaking position when he ran into three big guys who had used Smoke of Deceit and was killed instantly.

Seeing that there was no battlefield in the triangle area, Xiao Xiao, in stealth mode, passed between the first and second towers on the opposite side and arrived at the location of the experience shrine. Then, as he walked deeper, he encountered Doom, who had just run away. He was preparing to farm two small neutral camps here.

[The end of the world is happening here, anyone want to join me?]

I'll be there soon!

After receiving the response from the old witch doctor, Xiaoxiao squatted down next to Doomsday and waited for a while. When the witch doctor arrived, he used Avalanche, and after the stun ended, he threw it on the spot. The witch doctor then cursed and followed up with a big move, and Doomsday was killed by the damage.

Meanwhile, the Timbersaw in the mid lane found an opportunity to cut down Monkey King from the tree, and Rubick and Sniper followed up with damage, taking down Monkey King as well.

"This first wave of Shadow Blade attacks directly killed the Radiant's two core heroes and a support hero. The Dire's offensive is also quite fierce."

"It seems they're not ready to give up yet. Xiao Xiao spotted Luna outside their own bottom lane tower and immediately teleported to the bottom tower to activate Shadow Blade and search for her."

"Fortunately, Luna didn't greedily farm jungle monsters after clearing the lane, otherwise she would have been caught."

The commentator was worried for Brother Diao.

[The enemy team is farming Doom and Luna now. They can't beat us without BKB. Let's check the rune spots; it looks like they might be coming. It's been a while since Diao's Luna used her ultimate.]

With twenty minutes left in the game, Gu Ran's musketeer was standing in the grove next to the mid tower, with the witch doctor nearby. The lumberjack went first, and just as he reached the river, he saw the squirrel on the other side break through the fog.

XS's Tiny immediately teleported to his own tower, and Timbersaw used a Sawtooth Spin to spin Timbersaw in the face. Radiant thought Timbersaw was alone, and Diao's Luna was the first to rush up and use her ultimate to kill Timbersaw again, but she didn't expect Tiny to have already activated Shadow Blade and quietly walked up to him.

Landslide!

With two quick slaps and the subsequent burst of fire from Gu Ran's musket, Luna was instantly left with very low health. Then, she was thrown into the air and landed dead.

"Don't kill Snapper Brother (╥﹏╥)Don't kill Snapper Brother°°・(＞_<)・°Don't kill Snapper Brother (≧∀≦)ゞ"

"Don't kill Snapper Brother (╥﹏╥)Don't kill Snapper Brother°°・(＞_<)・°Don't kill Snapper Brother (≧∀≦)ゞ"

In Eye Brother's live stream, seeing that Brother Diao really wanted to do something for the team but gave away his Eye, he could only cry out in grief to mourn Brother Diao's kind heart.