From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

Congratulations to Team Soulstone for sweeping HG 3-0 and securing the only ticket to TI for the Chinese region!

Back at the base, the five players of the Soul Stone team weren't as excited as when they won the Immortal Cup. In fact, they had basically anticipated the outcome of the game by the 50-minute mark, and after winning the match, they simply gave each other a relaxed high-five to celebrate.

After a brief interview with Lao Fang on the main stage, everyone gathered at Tencent Meeting.

[You guys were awesome! You shattered HG's shell in that final head-on attack, great job!]

Su Xiaoman is still abroad, but you can tell from her voice that she is very excited.

[Our draft picks were very good in all three games of the finals, mainly thanks to our captain's stats.]

Mr. Fang expressed his sincere gratitude.

[Captain is awesome!] *4

[It's mainly because the guys played well. By the way, now that we've made it to TI, we need to catch up in our training. There aren't enough strong teams in China. Should we go to Europe to train for a while?]

Su Xiaoman brought up this idea at the right time. In fact, they had discussed this issue during training and everyone had basically agreed at that time. However, since they had not yet obtained the tickets, they did not discuss it in detail. Now, the topic has been brought up again.

I think it's absolutely necessary. Many of our tactics are imitations of strong European teams, and tactics that work against weaker teams may not be effective against stronger ones. Only by constantly playing against strong teams can we improve.

Gu Ran was the first to express his support, and the other brothers also said they had no problem with it.

[For those of you who don't have passports, you should get one now. We'll apply for visas together!]

[By the way, we should celebrate since we won the competition. There's a comic convention in two weeks, and my friend who borrowed our space wanted to cosplay for it. Since we were using her space, I agreed to go with her. She wanted to cosplay as characters from "The King's Avatar." What do you guys think?]

The brothers of Zhenhun Stone have indeed all watched The King's Avatar. Although none of the brothers except Lao Wang have ever done cosplay, they are not opposed to it.

No problem! I've already decided which character I want to cosplay!

Lu Chen was the first to respond, and everyone else agreed, so the matter was decided happily.

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Two weeks later, when Su Xiaoman arrived at the base, she was carrying a heavy suitcase. Inside, besides her usual change of clothes and her ever-present laptop, was a cosplay outfit she had just received. Today was the day they had agreed to go to the comic convention.

It was eight o'clock in the morning. Su Xiaoman took out her access card from her bag. The card reader made a very soft click, and the door lock opened. She lifted her suitcase over the threshold, quietly closed the door, and took off her shoes to put on slippers. The aroma of freshly made soy milk wafted from the dining room on the first floor. Several sets of used bowls and chopsticks were still on the table, indicating that the five brothers had already finished breakfast and gone upstairs.

She carried her suitcase upstairs. Just as she reached the corner of the stairs on the second floor, she heard a familiar voice—Lu Chen's booming voice came from the e-sports area, yelling something like "follow, follow, follow," which she could hear even through the door. She peeked out; behind the glass sliding door, five people were doing their usual morning exercises on a five-seater bench, no one noticing her. She pulled back out, tiptoed upstairs, and continued towards her room on the third floor.

Her room was at the end of the corridor on the third floor; it was a converted guest room from the original party venue.

Back in her room, she took out her clothes one by one and spread them out on the bed. She checked each item—outerwear, contact lenses, shoes, wig, headwear—no damage from shipping, no color difference, the boot zippers were smooth, and the wig's hairnet had just the right amount of elasticity.

After changing, she stood in front of the full-length mirror in the room and turned around.

The hem of the robe brushed lightly against her ankles, while the waist belt tightened the loose, casual feel of the uniform into a neat, straight line.

After changing my clothes and putting on makeup, I was just about to head out when I casually scrolled through my phone and saw a video—"An Introduction to All Teams Participating in This Year's TI"

It turns out that the TI qualifiers in all major regions have just ended today, and the rosters have all been released!

Now that she was interested, since the team members were still practicing, she sat on the bed and started watching videos, partly out of interest and partly to learn about the opponents they would face this year.

[Hello everyone, this is Jiejie, welcome to underground DOTA!]

The 16 teams for this year's TI have been officially announced! Let's take a look at which teams they are!

In the Southeast Asian region, there is only one team that qualified through the qualifiers – OG. Some people may be wondering why our old friend OG went to Southeast Asia. It turns out that a long time ago, they moved their entire DOTA2 division from Europe to Southeast Asia and signed a high-performing Southeast Asian team, Aureus.

Later, in this year's TI qualifiers, they successfully defeated many strong opponents and in the finals defeated the team led by Champagne God 23savage to win a ticket to this year's TI.

If you look closely at the roster, you'll find that they are actually a reorganized team from Boom, the team that surprisingly eliminated Sprite at TI11.

Later, their original offlaner nikko was kicked from the team due to frequent lateness to training and not playing ranked matches during holidays, which caused internal conflicts. They were replaced by a more familiar player – Old Tokyo, who formed the current roster.

[GamerLegion, from the North American region, has had a rough year, suffering numerous first-round exits in various T1-level tournaments and undergoing frequent roster changes. They've ultimately become the current GL team led by carry player Ghost. They dominated the qualifiers, but the North American region is notoriously competitive, and with Ghost on their roster, they seem poised to become good brothers with us Chinese this year.]

[South America only has one team qualifying from the qualifiers – LGD. You heard right, this team was originally HEROIC, but was recently acquired by the Chinese club LGD. The team members are all South American, but the club is Chinese. I wonder if, if they win the championship, viewers will consider it a Chinese NOTA championship this year? However, considering LGD's history of being a runner-up, I can only say the chances are slim.]

[The European region boasts the best results and the most teams, with a total of eleven: Team Falcons, Team Liquid, Tundra Esports, Aurora Gaming, BoomBoys, Team Yandex, Team Spirit, Team Vision, HULIGANI, Nigma Galaxy, and Yellow Submarine. There are too many teams to list individually. A video will be released before TI detailing their achievements and strategies this year, so stay tuned.]

[In the Chinese region, there are two teams. Yes, you heard right. Because a European team recently had a serious conflict between the players and the club over salaries, and the team split into two factions due to discord and refused to play together anymore, their direct invite spot this year was passed on to the next team, which happened to be our HG team!]

The other team is Team Soul Booster, who swept HG through the qualifiers to qualify. You can call them Team TSB.

HG has actually been relegated to TI, which is great news for CNDOTA. Su Xiaoman happily retweeted the post and then spent some time online to confirm the authenticity of the news.