Day 1 of The International 2022 Main Event came to an end with an epic best-of-one battle between Entity and Royal Never Give Up that kept everyone glued to the screens for 107 minutes.
What looked at the end of the draft like a quick game, as Entity went for a zoo line-up with Visage and Lycan against Royal Never Give Up’s Terrorblade, turned into the most intense game of the day and one that broke many records.
Unfortunately, RNG were not able to bring the whole team on the stage in Suntec Arena. It was just Yap "xNova" Jian Wei on the stage surrounded by four teddy bears trying to keep his spirits up, while his four teammates had to play from the quarantine hotel rooms.
Royal Never Give Up
vs
Entity
Despite having the push power on their side, Entity failed to execute their strategy in the early to mid-game stage, which allowed RNG to punish them and build a small lead. Nonetheless, with the carry Lycan unable to take the towers as fast as he wanted, the game turned into a farm fest, both team looking to get their cores as big as possible.
At the 30-minute mark TB and Lycan were dead even in terms of net worth and the fights were scarce as both teams avoided each other for nearly 20 minutes.
Despite all the farm accumulated by both teams, what made the difference for Entity was the decision to transition their position 4 Tiny to a true core and once he had a BkB and a Daedalus ready, the team was ready to fight with him in the front lines, finding the initiations, the tosses and the ability to destroy RNG with the Tree Volley.
But, although RNG clearly could not take any fights, they excelled at defending the high ground courtesy of their Earthshaker, Leshrac and Underlord, stopping the creep waves in front of the towers and melting them down. The game turned into a true base defense.
It was only at the 90 mark when RNG decided to make use of the Underlord portal to try and end the game in one single attempt, but after two tries they realized that they can’t afford to risk any base race shenanigans.
The game passed the 100-minute mark with RNG cornered in their base, but still able to hold against an Entity with two Divine Rapiers on their position 5 Ancient Apparition and a rapier on the position 4 Tiny.
The gold difference went at 131,036 in Entity’s favour at minute 98, but that didn’t matter anymore. A single team fight was changing the balance by 40k gold and all that mattered were the buybacks and who was the more patient.
Despite team wiping Entity around the 100 minute mark, RNG still couldn’t end the game as they buy back came out in an instant and seven minutes later the madness ended with a heartbreaking defeat for the Chinese team, who despite playing with four players experiencing heavy COVID symptoms, they lived to their name and didn’t give up on their TI dream until the Throne was really taken down.
Anyone who missed the action live, we highly recommend watching the VOD as Entity and RNG set new records and delivered an insane Dota 2 game in their battle for survival at TI11.
