From a normal pro player to a world famous Anti-Mage player. The story of B-god, BurNing, Anti-mage

Anti-mage is one of the strongest carry among all heroes, with the ability to push out waves quickly, escape, initiate and burst. It seems as though there’s nothing stopping Anti-mage from winning the game. The only down side of Anti-mage is it’s early game. With only 2 armour and 660HP, Anti-mage is considerably weak at lane and any harassment will ultimately delay his farm. Without a considerable amount of farm, Anti-mage will be rendered useless.

Teams have always been trying to stop/ delay Anti-mage’s farm as much as possible so that he won’t get his items so early in the game. Pressure has always been part of Anti-mage life, and many players are unable to handle these pressures applied by the opponent forces, making Anti-mage absolutely useless in the game.

There are, however, one player that is able to farm incredibly fast despite being heavily harassed. His name is Xu Zhi Lei “BurNing”, better known as B-god, crowned as the best Anti-mage player in China, and possibly the best in the world too. China had witness BurNing’s Anti-mage as early as Dota 1 era, where it gained the attention of Icefrog that he gave Anti-mage an alternative name ‘BurNing’ to honour him.

DARER VS TEAM DK

It wasn’t until 2012 that the world first witness the legendary Anti-mage of BurNing. In a match against Darer in The International 2012 Loser Bracket Quarter Final, BurNing then was with team DK, picks up Anti-mage on the 3rd pick and it proves to be the winning pick. BurNing picks up Battlefury, Manta Style and Power Threads within 21 mins of the game, and if that’s not insane enough, he still has 2100 gold in his bank for his next big item. When the game ends, he clock up a total of 278 last hits in 28 minutes and his net worth is 8k higher than the next most farmed hero.

INVICTUS GAMING VS TEAM DK

Following that, BurNing and his team DK go up against the eventual International 2012 Champion, Invictus Gaming. BurNing’s Anti-mage had a lot of pressure on his shoulder this game as he will have to fight Ferrari_430 Queen Of Pain, YYF’s Chaos Knight as well as Zhou’s Morphling. Despite the early pressure being applied to BurNing by Chaos Knight and Morphling, BurNing continues to show why he is the best Anti-mage in the world. He went on to dismantle Invictus Gaming. Invictus Gaming looked as if they don’t stand a chance against Team DK and ultimately called GG.

ALLIANCE VS TEAM DK

Fast forward to 2013, we see BurNing’s legendary Anti-mage up against the undefeated giant, the Alliance. It was a battle between Alliance’s Loda and DK’s BurNing, to find out who is better at farming. DK eventually prevails with BurNing crushing S4’s Dragon Knight, Akke’s Chen and AdmiralBulldog’s signature Nature’s Prophet at the Roshan pit. DK went up to Alliance’s base prepped, with both Aegis and cheese in the hands of DK, it started with an amazing vacuum from ROTK, catching multiple heroes. However, an immediate song of the siren by EGM's Naga stopped all movements from Team DK with the exception of BurNing’s Anti-mage. At that time, it seems like all hope have been lost for Team DK as all 5 heroes of Alliance started beating BurNing down following Loda’s Abyssal Blade stun. BurNing health continues to drop quickly, stirring up excitement among the crowds, it was at this moment that Naga’s song ended. DK members woke up together and jumped in to rescue BurNing, Mekansm was immediately popped by rOtK and roar onto Loda by Super. The team fight immediately ended with Alliance losing everybody with the exception of Akke’s Chen standing in the back line. With that, Team DK forces Alliance to buyback on 3 heroes but even then, it was not enough to stop DK from getting Mega creeps. By then, it was almost impossible for Alliance to come back in the game as BurNing is already incredibly big at this point of the game. This resulted in Alliance losing their first ever game in The International 2013.

SECRET VS INVICTUS GAMING

BurNing strikes again, this time up against Team Secret at The International 2015, with his then team Invictus Gaming. What was once impossible was made possible by BurNing Anti-mage. Team Secret was having a huge gold lead against Invictus Gaming and they are losing team fight after team fight, it just seems impossible to win for the side of Invictus Gaming. However, one wrong move from Team Secret was all BurNing needed to come back in the game. Team Secret was confident that they could go high ground and take rax from Invictus Gaming, they forcefully enter the base of Invictus Gaming, only to be stopped by BurNing’s mana void which took out both S4’s Storm Spirit and Arteezy’s Shadow Fiend. This fight gave BurNing and his team lots of gold, and to make things even worse, Secret didn’t even get any rax from that push. After that, BurNing’s Anti-mage came online and there’s no way Secret could stop that man anymore. Eventually, Secret is forced to call gg even though they were the one in control of the entire game up till the high ground push.

There’s absolutely no limit to where BurNing’s Anti-mage can go, and this is the reason why teams ban Anti-mage against him.