From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

Chapter 84 Carl's Push

At 7 minutes and 30 seconds into the game, MaoGe's Tiny's Double Damage rune automatically activated. He called for his two supports to come to the mid lane to prepare for an attack, but Lion and Invoker on the Spirit Stone side were very cautious, and after seeing the blue light flashing on Tiny, they both retreated under their towers.

With the double rune effect about to expire, Tusk got a little carried away and rolled a snowball towards the level 3 Lion, trying to tower dive and kill him. Tiny followed up with an Avalanche and a tree throw, but the damage only brought Lion to low health. After the stun ended, Tusk was stunned by Lion's poke.

Gu Ran's Invoker also timely used an Ice Wall to disrupt the enemy formation. After Lao Fang's Witch Doctor teleported down, his Bouncing Ball and Curse combo brought Tusk to low health. Tusk had no choice but to flee towards Night Stalker's jungle. However, the route was too obvious, and Gu Ran predicted and finished him off with a Skyfire.

Firefly kills Y, earning 192 gold + 150 gold split among 3 heroes.

"This Tusk's first move was a bit too hasty; this wave feels like a suicide attack."

SDN analyzed the behavior of this wave of sea monsters.

"Of course, it can also be understood that he really wanted to help Mao Ge gain an advantage, because the rhythm of Radiant in this game depends a lot on Mao Ge's Tiny. Neither Drow Ranger nor Underlord can bring up the rhythm in the early game, as they both need to farm gold."

So in the early game, Tiny basically relies entirely on his Blink Dagger to maintain his tempo. However, it's unlikely that Tiny will rush Blink Dagger as his first item. The common strategy now is to build a Combo Dagger first to secure gold, and then build Blink Dagger as his second item. Therefore, the timing of his Blink Dagger is crucial.

Radiant will focus on protecting the mid lane, and Night Stalker will also concentrate his attacks on the mid lane.

At 9 minutes and 30 seconds, Tusk, who was TP'd down to defend the tower, was spotted by Lion's vision ward. As soon as he landed, he was hit by Earthshatter, followed by Witch Doctor's Curse and Invoker's Skyfire. Finally, Gu Ran used Rapid Cooldown and a few auto-attacks to finish him off. Kayn also came over. Soul Stone wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to kill someone and take the tower, but Radiant's Drow Ranger also came to defend the tower, so they could only retreat in a sorry state.

However, after the mid-lane skirmish, Lu Chen's werewolf in the bottom lane was farming very well. He wasn't particularly fed because he was being pressured in lane, but he hadn't come to help in these last few waves, and the werewolf's innate abilities allowed him to clear jungle camps very quickly, with Dominator almost within reach.

After several losses in the mid lane, Tianhui realized that they were not strong enough to fight large-scale team fights in the early game, so they did not try to defend the first tower. As a result, at 11 minutes and 30 seconds, the mid tower was destroyed by Gu Ran's Meteor Hammer and Little Fire Spirit, and the gold difference between the two sides reached 2000.

After destroying the enemy's mid tower, the attack from the Soul Stone side became much easier. At 13 minutes, the two supports used Smoke of Deceit to find a jungler named Drow Ranger in the bottom lane snack area. Lion used Earthshatter and Finger of Death, Witch Doctor immediately used his ultimate, followed by Invoker's Skyfire, and Drow Ranger died instantly.

"The burst damage from Lion's ultimate combined with Invoker's Skyfire at this stage of the game is really high. The squishy heroes on the Radiant side will basically die after taking one combo."

Even the commentators shook their heads at the sight of this burst damage, and then suddenly Karl got a new item on the game screen.

"After Invoker secured the kill, we saw that he actually bought a Force Staff! Invoker usually doesn't buy this item. We know that the classic build order for Invoker in this version is Boots of Travel, Meteor Hammer, Magic Crystal, Atos, and Aghanim's Scepter. He generally doesn't buy Force Staff, so this Force Staff seems a bit excessive?"

Chao Ge said he didn't quite understand the logic behind the push-pull strategy, but the chat was flooded with comments like "Just learn it, that's all!" and "Mayka shouldn't be teaching pro players how to build items."

I've used Blink Dagger, you can use Smoke of Deceit to find me and engage.

At 15 minutes, Xiao Xiao got his Blink Dagger. Mao Ge knew that his team's early game rhythm basically depended on him alone, so he didn't even buy a Combo Dagger and went straight for the Blink Dagger. After getting it, he took the two supports and went out with Smoke of Deceit. Tusk moved to the high ground in Night Stalker's main jungle, placed a ward, and just then saw Gu Ran jungling.

So I immediately pinged the point, and Squirrel and Little also came over.

"Damn, Mao's attack was spot-on, catching the enemy mid laner perfectly. Karl seems completely unaware that the enemy has already initiated a smoke gank on him!"

Pig Brother was very nervous; he was afraid that Mao Brother would gain the upper hand.

After clearing his jungle, Gu Ran was walking towards his own base tower when suddenly a Tiny with a Blink Dagger appeared in his face. A combination of Avalanche and Throw sent him flying towards Tusk. Tusk caught the ball and used Walrus Punch to lift Gu Ran into the air again. Gu Ran's health plummeted, and when he was down to only 400, he finally fell from the sky.

He pushed himself into the grove to the left of the tower with a push stick, narrowly dodging the squirrel's sniper rifle. Tusk's snowball chased after him and rolled right in front of him. Before the snowball stun appeared, he released a whirlwind, which blew Tusk out of the snowball into the air. Then, after the stun ended, he immediately retreated.

Teammate Witch Doctor also teleported in time, using Bouncing Ball to eliminate the backline Squirrel and Tiny. After Tusk landed, Gu Ran used a timely Sonic Wave to knock him back, but he himself was blocked from retreat by Tusk's Ice Shard.

The evil lord opened a door and trapped Karl, followed by a rain of fire. Gu Ran stood at the deepest part of the ice shard.

Without panicking, he switched to Ghost Walk and stood invisibly in place. At that moment, his teammates Kayle and Lion's teleports were already in place.

"HG sent four people to try and kill this Kael, but Kael has been hit by a magic wand, so his health is definitely not enough to kill him with just Rain of Fire. The big butt is moving forward to try and kill Kael with auto-attacks, but Lion hits him with a stab!"

As Underlord approached Kael'thas, preparing to attack him, he was stunned by Lion's Earthshatter after a timely teleport. Then, he was hit by Hex, Kael'thas's ultimate, Raptor Dance, and combined with the damage from the mid-lane turret, Underlord died under the turret. Meanwhile, Tusk in the backline, after being knocked back, was hit by Witch Doctor's curse and ultimate, and also fell to the ground and died.

"Holy crap, that Force Staff was crucial! I apologize. I didn't understand Invoker. This Force Staff helped Invoker create crucial space to escape, and his teammates provided timely support, resulting in a double kill on the enemy team."

Chao Ge immediately apologized.

"After this wave, we can see that Soul Stone's economy is already ahead of HG4000. They chose to go straight for Roshan, and with Lycan's Dominator and armor reduction, as well as Witch Doctor's Voodoo Heal, it doesn't seem like they'll have much trouble taking down the Aegis. Kayn had the first Aegis of the Immortal by 16 and a half minutes, Soul Stone's pace is indeed very fast."

At 20 minutes, Kay still had the Immortal Guardian on him, so HG naturally didn't want to fight the Magic Cube with the Soul Stone.

They only sent Sen Haifeixia to hide quietly in the grove next to the Rubik's Cube, hoping to see if they could steal a support character who had been crippled by the Rubik's Cube. However, Zhenhunshi was very disciplined. They cleared the fog and walked to the side of the Rubik's Cube. When they saw the fog break, they knew that there were enemy people in the grove.

After the squirrel was arrested and the magic crystal was taken, the Soul Stone side gained an 800-point economic lead.