You promised a top lane tutorial, but you're just using Worlds as material for your videos?

Chapter 359 Summer Season Playoffs Final Four Revealed
The first playoff match of the LPL Summer Split kicked off at 8 PM on August 22nd.

IG will face off against OMG.

The winner of this match will face WE the following day.

It's still a long time before the scrim match scheduled by Dgc starts, so Zhou Dian plans to watch the match for a while.

Zhou Dian mainly came to see TheShy's performance.

Because in today's BO5, IG started TheShy in the top lane.

Before the match, Zhou Dian could have predicted that IG would have no problem winning this BO5.

After all, IG showed an extremely strong performance after entering the second round of group matches.

In their last five regular season games, IG achieved a record of four wins and one loss.

All four of their wins were by a score of 2-0.

The only match they lost was a narrow 1-2 defeat to EDG, the top team in Group A.

If IG hadn't had such a large gap in performance with WE in the early stages, they would have been in a much better position.

They almost overtook WE and finished second in Group A in the final stages of the regular season.

Zhou Dian is indeed optimistic that IG will win today's first best-of-five playoff game.

Unexpectedly, IG won so easily, sweeping OMG 3-0 in three straight games.

Moreover, all three games were decisive victories, with each game lasting shorter than the last.

OMG has never lasted more than 30 minutes in a single game.

However, TheShy's performance in these three games was mediocre, and his form seemed strange.

It may still be somewhat constrained by this meta where tank top laners are the mainstream.

In these three games, TheShy's performance seemed somewhat detached from his teammates.

Facing OMG's top laner, Xiyang, he couldn't even gain an advantage.

In particular, in the third game, IG destroyed OMG's base crystal in just 22 minutes.

But even in this overwhelming game, TheShy's top lane Jarvan IV had a score of 0-5.

The performance was indeed unsatisfactory!
IG's ability to easily defeat OMG is mainly due to their dominant performance in the mid and bot lanes, which they consistently crushed.

In particular, IG's ADC West continued his incredible performance from last week.

He used three small cannons and won three consecutive rounds, securing the MVP in the first and third games.

It's clear that Xihuang is having a blast today; his Tristana jumped into the fountain and killed someone in the very first game.

IG fans were thrilled by the match, and West's performance had them exclaiming:

"Who is Jack Hot Dance? I don't know him. I only want the Western Emperor!"

After watching IG's match, Zhou Dian thought that if TheShy was still in this state tomorrow, then it seemed like they wouldn't have much of a chance against WE.

Even though WE's recent performance has been very poor.

If Xihuang were to face WE's bot lane, they wouldn't be able to perform like they did today.

If WE targets Rookie in the mid lane, the game will be much easier.

Speaking of the mid lane, Corki mid lane emerged as a dark horse in the latter half of the Summer Split regular season and became increasingly dominant.

Anyway, the hero Corki has become a key player in the mid lane in matches right now.

The playoffs in the Korean LCK have reached the finals, judging from the LCK matches and the recent matches of the LPL itself.

The plane's carry potential in the late game is too strong; its damage is simply outrageous.

If you give your opponent a free pass, then you should be prepared to end the game in the mid-game.

LGD's head coach, Dgc, already has some ideas on how to "shoot down planes" (a strategy involving aircraft).

He plans to test it out in the training match later.

The best-of-five series between IG and OMG ended before 5 PM.
Therefore, the other match in the first round of the playoffs, the BO5 between NB and Snake, was moved up to 4 PM.

There was still quite a while before the scheduled practice match time with Dgc.

However, Zhou Dian had lost interest in watching the upcoming BO5 match.

While NB isn't considered very strong, Snake Esports has been even worse this year.

The Snakes were able to make it to the playoffs only because of the contrast with their competitors in Group A.

So this BO5, like the previous IG match, was also largely a foregone conclusion.

So, Zhou Dian started a ranked game on the Korean server.

After queuing up, I immediately picked Fiora, who had just been slightly buffed, and got ready to start hacking away.

And today's second LPL playoff game did not surprise Zhou Dian.

Like IG, NB defeated their opponent with a score of 3-0.

Although each game lasted more than 30 minutes, it didn't have the same explosive entertainment value as IG.

However, NB maintained firm control of the game's pace throughout, and Snakes had virtually no chances.

The first day of the playoffs has come to an end.

Two consecutive 3-0 victories.

After these two best-of-five matches in the first round of the LPL Summer Playoffs, it wasn't even dark outside yet.

The audience who went to watch the game felt that the game was not very enjoyable.

The gap in strength between the bottom three teams in Groups A and B of the regular season and the top three teams is indeed too large.

Both fourth-placed teams were thrashed 3-0 by the third-placed teams.

The date is August 23rd, which is the second day of the LPL Summer Playoffs.

The second round of the playoffs has begun.

Due to the tight schedule, two playoff games were played today as well.

First, there was the BO5 between WE and IG, and then the BO5 between RNG and NB.

In the first match, although IG's regular season ranking was lower than WE's.

However, there are actually more viewers who are optimistic about IG.

After all, IG's regular season record was only one win less than WE's.

In terms of recent form, IG is clearly stronger than WE.

Of course, these things are uncertain.

Maybe in the short five days between the end of the regular season and the second round of the playoffs, WE will have recovered from their poor form of the past month!
As it turns out, WE did indeed improve their previous poor performance in just a few days.

Although it hasn't been adjusted to its best yet, it's significantly better than before.

However, IG ultimately prevailed 3-2 against WE, advancing to the playoffs semifinals.

In this BO5, TheShy, who performed rather poorly yesterday, was on fire today.

WE's top laner 957 was no match for him.

TheShy had highlights in almost every game of this BO5 series, truly living up to his reputation as a genius top laner.

In fact, IG was able to have a strong performance in the final stage of the regular season.

A large part of the reason is that the IG coaching staff has finally settled on a stable starting lineup.

TheShy and Duke will no longer be rotated in the top lane.

Instead, they directly put the S6 champion top laner on the bench, allowing TheShy to secure his position as IG's starting top laner.

This decision directly helped IG advance to the semifinals of the Summer Split playoffs.

As for WE, who lost to IG, they no longer have a chance to directly qualify for the S7 World Championship.

Now you can go home and prepare for the qualifying rounds.

With their points from finishing as runners-up in the Spring Split, WE is guaranteed a spot in the gauntlet.

Following the BO5 match between IG and WE, the BO5 knockout stage between RNG and NB began at 6 PM.

The winner will advance to the playoffs semifinals and secure the last spot in the Summer Split semifinals.

Since Uzi recovered from his injury and returned from the Intercontinental Cup, RNG has been on a very strong upward trajectory.

In addition, the version is advantageous.

RNG has now surpassed EDG, the top team in Group A, and become the second favorite to win the Summer Split championship, second only to LGD.

However, compared to winning the Summer Split championship.

RNG fans are even more eager to see RNG appear at the S7 World Championship held in their home country this year.

After all, LGD's undefeated record in the regular season was too eye-catching.

It will be very difficult to snatch the Summer Split championship from LGD!
Moreover, let's not even talk about LGD, who finished first in the regular season.

After RNG won today, their opponent in the semifinals will be EDG.

EDG's final regular season record was first in Group A and second in the LPL.

In fact, EDG's performance throughout the summer split regular season was somewhat similar to that of RNG.

EDG did not perform well at the start of the Summer Split.

They didn't play well in the first few matches of the Intercontinental Cup.

However, after defeating Samsung in the Intercontinental Cup finals, EDG seems to have finally figured it out.

After returning from Taiwan, EDG won all their subsequent inter-group matches, except for the one where they narrowly lost to LGD 1-2.

And they basically won every BO3 match with a score of 2-0.

As a result, EDG quickly took the top spot in Group A and gradually widened the gap in performance between them and WE, who were in second place.

So, let alone ultimately defeating LGD.

RNG fans don't have much confidence in their next opponent, EDG.

In contrast, there can only be one champion in the Summer Split.

There are three spots for the LPL region to qualify for the S7 World Championship.

Striving to qualify for the S7 World Championship held on home soil seems to be a more realistic goal.

Of course, we should also try our best to win the LPL Summer Split championship.

After all, in addition to the championship honor itself, the Summer Split champion can also directly qualify for the S7 World Championship as the number one seed.

RNG's opponent in today's round of 6 is NB, the third-place team in Group B.

Although NB finished third in Group B after the regular season.

However, their record is significantly worse than that of LGD and RNG, who are the first and second place teams in Group B.

There's one thing worth mentioning about the NB team.

That is, during the Summer Split, their number of first-team players was the largest among the twelve participating teams in the LPL Summer Split.

They have at least one substitute for each position, and some positions even have more than one.

The most outrageous thing is that every one of their substitutes has played in the regular season.

During this year's LPL Summer Split, a total of eleven players from the NB team played at least one game in the regular season.

Besides Swift's solid position in the jungle, who played in over 90% of NB's games during the Summer Split regular season,

The substitutes in other positions have played at least ten or so games, and some have even played twenty or so.

I don't know how much their coach likes to rotate players and is obsessed with the combinations of players.

The NB team did not perform well at the beginning of the regular season of this summer split, with more losses than wins.

At that time, their main bottom laners, Lin Weixiang and Liu Qingsong, made many mistakes in the game, often squandering a great opportunity.

Lin Weixiang, especially in the AD position, often inexplicably feeds kills to the enemy team.

After a three-game losing streak, the NB head coach finally lost his temper and substituted Lin Weixiang and Liu Qingsong.

They switched to a bot lane duo consisting of two well-known trash-talkers from the Chinese server: Death's Declaration and Doomsday.

Unexpectedly, this change had a surprisingly good effect.

After switching to Death's Declaration and Cataclysm, NB went on a winning streak of four out of five games, quickly moving up to third place in Group B.

The only game they lost was against the then-incredibly hot EDG team.

It's a pity that Death's Declaration himself wasn't very good; after playing a few good games, he quickly lost his edge.

And it's the kind of situation where you pull them all the way to the bottom, and there's no way to save them.

Just like two years ago, when he had just returned from North America and was with the VG team, he performed the same way.

So the head coach replaced him with the bottom lane duo of Lin Weixiang and Liu Qingsong, and they have been used ever since without any changes.

After spending some time on the bench, Lin Weixiang has improved his habit of giving others opportunities during matches.

After returning to the starting lineup, NB performed quite well, maintaining their third place in Group B during the regular season and advancing to the playoffs.

NB's opponent in the first round of the playoffs is the Snakes, who finished fourth in Group A.

Although Snake made it to the playoffs, they only won a paltry five best-of-three matches throughout the regular season. Their ability to enter the playoffs was entirely due to the contrast with their competitors in Group A.

Nobody thought Snakes had a chance of beating NB.

With everyone optimistic about NB, NB lived up to expectations.

In yesterday's first round of the playoffs, they swept the Snake team 3-0 to advance to the playoffs' top six.

In today's match between RNG and NB, which was a top-six final, most people would definitely favor RNG to advance.

However, considering NB's decent regular season record, and especially with the momentum from yesterday's sweep of the Snakes, they still have a strong record.

Most people also believe that NB can definitely win one or two games against RNG in this BO5.

Some even believe that NB might pull off an upset and eliminate RNG, advancing to the playoff semifinals.

However, the result of the match told these people that there was no upset in this BO5.

RNG swept NB 3-0.

In the first two games of the BO5 series, the two sides were fairly evenly matched.

However, RNG, with their superior attention to detail, steadily won the first two games.

After falling behind 0-2, the NB players lost their composure.

The third game quickly collapsed. In just 24 minutes, the base was destroyed by RNG, resulting in a 0-3 defeat.

When Zhou Dian saw that NB was down 0-2, he stopped watching the game, closed the live stream, and started playing solo queue on the Korean server.

With RNG defeating NB 3-0, the four semifinalists of the LPL Summer Playoffs have been determined.

They are LGD, EDG, RNG, and IG.
The playoff semifinals will begin two days after the six-into-four series concludes.

The two semi-final matches were scheduled to be played on the same day.

Because the Intercontinental Cup takes up more than ten days, the schedule for this LPL Summer Split is extremely tight.

Before the final match is decided, there are two matches a day, and the intervals between matches are also very short.

This will undoubtedly put the tactical reserves and adaptability of each team in the playoffs to a considerable test.

A rich tactical repertoire naturally requires players to have a deeper hero pool to support it.

The tight schedule also poses a significant challenge to the players' energy and stamina.

At this point, the extra few days of rest for EDG and LGD, who are the top teams in their respective groups (A and B) and will start directly from the playoff semifinals, will be truly beneficial.

LGD team base.

After IG defeated WE 3-2, Dgc led the coaching staff to quickly study IG.

In contrast, the EDG coaching staff had already been studying how to play against RNG in the semifinals.

RNG lived up to EDG's expectations and easily advanced to the semifinals.

(End of this chapter)