During an elimination best-of-one match during the Dota 2 International, the player perspective caught the moment where a team (and their opponents) realized their mistake.
Making a mistake is one thing, but doing so in front of a huge crowd of people is another. What’s worse is when that mistake affects the one game you need to win to stay in a tournament with over $30 million on the line.
In the first lower bracket matchup of the main event of this year’s Dota 2 International, Royal Never Give Up took on Alliance in a best-of-one match for survival. Win one game and you’re on to the next round, and no more best-of-ones. Lose this one, and you’re out.
- Read more: How to watch The International 2019
Unfortunately for Alliance, their first mistake came during the draft. As their reserve timer ran out they sought to ban Gyrocopter, but ended up picking him for themselves. The good news is that picking a hero is indeed one way to prevent the other team from using it, but the bad news is that Gyrocopter was not who Alliance wanted to round out their team.
At first glance, no one on commentary seemed to notice that this was a blunder. They regarded it as an unusual pick that even might have gotten into RNG’s head, noticing one RNG player who put his hands up to his head.
But if you watch the clip from the player’s perspective, you’ll see that that’s not the case at all…
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Yeah. So that happened. Aydin ‘iNSaNiA’ Sarkoh made the pick, and very quickly recognized that he had not banned Gyrocopter, but had instead picked it for his own team. To make matters worse, RNG immediately realized that Alliance had made a mistake, declaring “they’re goners now.”
Despite the mispick, Alliance kept their cool, assuring their captain that Gyrocopter wasn’t that bad of a pick, and they could make the hero work with their team composition. “Then it’s fine, we’re good,” says one of his teammates immediately after the pick.
Now, Alliance would go on to lose this game, but they were by no means “goners.” They played a close back-and-forth game against RNG and maintained a lead throughout most of it, but a devastating teamfight loss after 40 minutes brought four of their five players down, allowing RNG to push through tier 4 towers to prompt a GG call from Alliance.
Despite the loss and the unfortunate mistake that preempted it, Alliance had a very strong showing during TI9, and many members of the community wish for the team to stay together going forward. And half a million dollars and a vacation in China is nothing to sneeze at for consolation.