From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

At 4:30 PM, the final match of the loser's bracket between Brothers and HG officially began. The entire Zhenhunshi team stopped what they were doing and started watching their final opponent's last match.

HG is Radiant, position 1 Tiny, position 2 Sniper, position 3 Timbersaw, position 4 Lion, position 5 Ancient Apparition.

Brothers夜魇，1号位影魔、2号位火猫、3号位滚滚、4号位拉比克、5号位大树。

Looking at their lineups, Brothers continues their consistent strategy of snowballing their advantage in the early to mid-game. HG's lineup, on the other hand, leans more towards the late game, with Sniper, Tiny, and Ancient Apparition all being excellent at defending high ground.

This game will depend on whether Brothers can snowball their advantage and end the match, or whether HG can rely on their resilience in the late game to make a comeback.

At the 60-minute mark, Brothers held a massive advantage of 4 gold and 6 experience. However, HG's high ground, with its Sniper, Tiny, and Ancient Apparition, was incredibly difficult to push. They attempted several pushes but failed to take down the last lane.

If this drags on, it feels like Brothers are in trouble. In the later stages of the game, Ember Spirit and Pummel will be less effective, especially Pummel.

Meanwhile, the enemy's three core heroes all have a presence in the late game, and with Ice Spirit, if the game drags on, he can get a Crystal Scepter in the fountain and use his ultimate every twenty seconds, making him a utility hero for his ultimate.

If Shadow Fiend gets hit by a single lucky draw, he'll be instantly killed by Tiny or Timbersaw's damage output. And once Shadow Fiend, their main damage dealer, is gone, the remaining four members' damage output becomes too low.

Su Xiaoman's expression was solemn. In her opinion, HG had already won half the battle. Even if they were forced to deploy super minions, they could still turn the tide, not to mention that they were only behind in economy and still had one lane of barracks left.

Brothers still lack experience. Their winning games haven't dragged on this long, and they may not have faced such resilient opponents. Furthermore, their lack of experience in closing out matches gave their opponents opportunities, and now they're basically finished.

As Su Xiaoman said, the game dragged on until 90 minutes. When Brothers pushed high ground with the Aegis, HG's Lion used a crucial Impale to knock up four people. Being controlled by four people at the same time at this point was devastating. Tiny, Timbersaw, and Sniper's output was too high, and HG was wiped out.

After losing that team fight, they couldn't beat HG anymore. HG could push high ground much more easily than they could; Ice Spirit could spam its ultimate, and if it hit Shadow Fiend, killing him instantly, Brothers would have no damage output. This illustrates the difference in late-game capabilities between the two teams and their respective lineups.

The live chat was initially filled with cheers for Brothers, but now everyone fell silent, suggesting that there were far more viewers supporting Brothers than HG.

At the moment the Brothers' base exploded, Gu Ran stood up and stretched:

Alright, guys, now it's our turn.

At this moment, the comment section of the final match of the loser's bracket on the Perfect World eSports app has exploded. When the match was about fifty minutes in, many viewers were already opening champagne in the comment section to celebrate the Brothers team's advancement to the finals. But now they all look like clowns.

Then they started to hold each Brothers member accountable, saying things like the position 1 building a Divine Rapier and giving it to the enemy was a huge mistake, the position 2 had no responsibility to build Blade Mail and Scythe of Vyse and wouldn't deal any damage, the position 3 didn't build a Refresher Orb early and couldn't finish off the enemy when they should have, and the position 3 didn't build a defensive item early and ended up getting killed.

The position 4 player ended up with a Heart of Tarrasque, but didn't build a Pipe of Insight or anything, and just randomly placed a Banner of Valor. The position 5 player didn't see that other heroes build Blade Mail and Aghanim's Scepter in the late game to help teammates initiate and absorb damage, but instead just built a Refresher Orb to follow up with skills, which was completely useless…

It's safe to say that in such a long game, it's incredibly frustrating for the losing team's fans, and they naturally vent their anger on the players, regardless of whether it's justified or not—they just hurl insults. Of course, HG's fans are very happy, able to enjoy the comments section while engaging in some online banter.

At this moment, Gu Ran's moderator and top editor, Lin Yiming, was also lying on the sofa, watching the comments section with great interest. Opposite the sofa was an 80-inch super-large screen, which was his special screen for watching the game. On the coffee table were cola, potato chips, two boxes of Pocky, and a large plate of washed grapes.

His real "command center" is on his desk to the right. On the computer desk to the left, there is screen recording software to ensure that commentary streams from multiple platforms are recorded simultaneously—including the main stage stream, YYF's observer stream, Chao Ge and Zhu Ge's Mao-style commentary stream, and SDN's tactical analysis stream.

These screen recordings can later be edited into multiple commentary perspectives and included in his final match highlights.

The computer on the right has Premiere Pro open. The timeline is empty, the media library is set up, and the categories are neatly labeled—"BP", "Lanking Phase", "Team Fights", "Key Moments", "Post-Match Interviews".

Outside the window, the lights of Puxi stretched out in a golden grid against the night sky, and occasionally a cruise ship would pass by on the river, its lights leaving long trails of light on the dark water. He lived alone in the apartment, but he didn't feel lonely.

He glanced at his phone; the fan group had already exploded—some were posting pre-match predictions, some were posting tonight's viewing package (instant noodles and ham sausage), and most were endlessly repeating "Zhen Hun Shi cheers!" He also added several messages to the list.

When I came to my senses, I saw on the big screen that my team's draft picks and bans had already ended:

HG's first team was Radiant, with Kayn in position 1, Beastmaster in position 2, Bristleback in position 3, Xayah in position 4, and Shadow Demon in position 5.

On the Dire side of Soulstone, the lineup is: Alchemist in position 1, Queen of Pain in position 2, Orc in position 3, Clockwerk in position 4, and Dark Seer in position 5.

This lineup gives us two opportunities. If the enemy isn't strong in the laning phase and we crush them, we can quickly upgrade Queen of Pain to Aghanim's Scepter and then push them down early. Of course, this scenario is less likely, given their strong early-game fighting ability.

If we don't gain an advantage in the early to mid-game, we'll face the opponent's power spike. Once Kayn gets Desolator and Beastmaster gets Blink Dagger, they'll definitely launch a push. At that point, even if Queen of Pain has Aghanim's Scepter, it might not be easy for us to win. So we can continue to stall for a while.

Once the Alchemist has fed our Beastmaster to his second Aghanim's Scepter, or even after he gets a Black King Bar (BKB), our power spike will begin. Their mid-to-late game strength is simply inferior to ours; Beastmaster becomes less powerful as the game progresses, and with the Alchemist, he's quite easy to take down.

While selecting heroes, Gu Ran discussed the strategy with his teammates. At the start of the game, they banned two of the opponent's signature heroes for position 1: Windranger and Tiny.

Mao Ge, Venomancer, Sniper, and Puck were all banned. It's fair to say that the opposing team didn't get to play their signature heroes, and they weren't very familiar with this strategy, giving them an advantage in terms of team composition.

As the match began, HG was indeed different from the other scrim teams; at least during the laning phase, the two sides were basically evenly matched.