Fountain Hook

TI3: Na'Vi vs. TongFu in the upper bracket

The match took place on day three of The International 2013, in the second round of the upper bracket. Natus Vincere faced China's TongFu; TongFu took game two, so everything came down to game three. Reports on that day of play were published on August 10, 2013.

For the deciding map, Na'Vi picked an unusual pair: Pudge for Dendi and Chen for Puppey. The trick that went down in tournament history was built on the combination of those two heroes.

The series was a best-of-three, so the third map decided which team would stay in the upper bracket and which would drop to the lower one.

How the Pudge and Chen combo worked

Pudge threw Meat Hook and latched onto an enemy hero. At that moment, Chen cast Test of Faith's teleport on his ally and sent him back to their own fountain. The hooked enemy flew along with Pudge and ended up at Na'Vi's fountain, where he died fast.

In its report on the day, PC Gamer called the combo a “3000-range kill button,” also mentioning Force Staff as part of it.

ONE Esports states directly who played which hero: Dendi was on Pudge and Puppey on Chen. PC Gamer's report doesn't mention Puppey in connection with the trick.

The comeback and the lost Aegis

By the 13th minute, Na'Vi were behind, having lost three heroes and a tower. Then the fountain hooks started turning the game around. Sources disagree on who exactly got dragged into the fountain: some say a Gyrocopter with the Aegis, others say Hao, TongFu's richest hero, who lost the Aegis in Na'Vi's base, and others name SanSheng's Visage. There may have been several such hooks.

The game was finally sealed by a wipe of all five TongFu heroes at minute 39. Na'Vi won the series, and Valve soon patched the interaction.

A symbol of inventive Dota

The “Fountain Hook” became the gold standard for creative use of game mechanics: a team found a combination the developers hadn't anticipated and used it at the biggest tournament of the year. It ranks among the top moments in The International history and in Dendi's career: ONE Esports, Hotspawn and Sportskeeda all include it in their roundups of the tournament's best moments.

The meme comes up when someone finds an unexpected combination of abilities or items that later gets patched out. The Pudge and Chen combo from TI3 serves as the go-to example for such cases.

The frame of Pudge at the fountain

The catalog image is a broadcast frame from the game: Pudge labeled Na'Vi.Dendi stands by the fountain, a TongFu hero is next to him, and the Na'Vi emblem is visible on the ground.

The frame shows the result of the trick: an enemy hero has ended up at Na'Vi's fountain, deep in the opponents' territory, next to the team emblem on the ground. The flight across the map itself isn't visible in the shot.

The Na'Vi.Dendi label above the hero shows that Dendi was the one playing Pudge in this frame.

Captions about fountain delivery

These examples are made up for illustration: “When a friend says ‘come by for a minute’ and you end up at a family dinner with his parents”, “Pudge and Chen: fountain delivery, free of charge, no returns”, “TongFu: let's go farm. Dendi: I have other plans.”

The joke fits any situation where someone gets suddenly pulled into hostile territory with no way out.

Captions like these can go with the frame of Pudge at the fountain, either as a TI3 throwback or as a reaction image in chats.