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

Chapter 408: New things keep appearing on the first day of the group stage!
On the second day after arriving in Jiangcheng, LGD began serious training matches.

LGD has a match with a European team today.

After all, there isn't much match data to refer to regarding the 7.18 version used in this World Championship, and everyone is still figuring it out.

Although the qualifying rounds also used version 7.18.

But frankly, the qualifying rounds aren't very useful for reference.

You can take a look, but don't take it too seriously.

The teams that made it out of the play-in stage, except for FB, were far too weak compared to the other wildcard teams. They simply ignored the meta and won easily.

The remaining matches between wildcard teams are just a bunch of weak teams fighting each other, and are not worth referring to.

The only thing that's certain right now is that an ultimate overpowered champion, Kalista, was released in patch 7.18.

Once the group stage begins, the champion Kalista will likely not be available for any play.

In the few days leading up to the group stage, LGD planned to experiment with several heroes that were performing well in casual games.

This is why Dgc first arranged a practice match with a European team.

Many European and North American athletes may lack in raw skill, but they have a lot of tricks up their sleeves and often come up with surprisingly effective moves.

Playing a few practice matches with them might help me discover some heroes I hadn't noticed before.

In addition, the three LPL teams participating in the S7 World Championship have maintained communication with each other.

The three teams continued to share their new discoveries and understandings of the World Championship version.

After all, this is the World Championship held on home soil, and all LPL viewers have an unprecedented desire for LPL to achieve good results in this World Championship.

Therefore, the LPL teams are more united than ever before.

Unlike previous World Championships, where teams from the same region were wary of each other.

During this period, Dgc has actually been somewhat worried.

Since the release of version 7.18 a few days ago, the focus of the version seems to be shifting more and more towards the bot lane.

One obvious point is that in casual games and in the qualifying rounds a few days ago, the frequency of soft supports appearing is getting higher and higher, while the frequency of hard supports appearing is getting lower and lower.

The combination of soft furnishings and an incense burner further accentuates its strength.

Kalista has become so overpowered because of these factors.

Because this AD carry can protect his own fragile support champion.

Of course, Dgc doesn't lack confidence in his own bot lane duo.

However, he was well aware that LGD's strongest point was still their top laner, Zhou Dian.

The version changes have actually naturally narrowed the gap between the top laners of different teams.

To be honest, this is somewhat disadvantageous for LGD.

As for the mid lane and jungle positions, no matter how the version changes, the influence of the mid and jungle on the game situation is inherent.

October 4th, the day before the start of the S7 World Championship main event.

After playing several practice matches in the days leading up to the group stage, Dgc felt a little more at ease.

It seems that the entire LGD team is still in good form.

The newly practiced heroes performed well in the training matches, and the skill level of using older heroes from previous versions has not declined.

The group stage officially kicks off tomorrow, the 5th.

October 5th marks the official start of the S7 World Championship group stage.

Each group consists of four teams. After six BO1 matches in a double round-robin format within the group, the top two teams in each group advance to the quarterfinals.

When ranking teams in a group, teams with the same record are ranked first by their head-to-head record.

If the head-to-head record is tied, a tiebreaker will be held to determine the ranking.

Today's six matches are from three groups: Group A, Group B, and Group C. Each group will have two best-of-one (BO1) matches.

Group D has a bye today and no matches.

Of the four teams that advanced from the play-in stage, C9 was placed in Group A, the same group as LGD.

FNC has been placed in Group B, which has no LPL teams.

The Turkish team FB from the wildcard region has been placed in Group C, the same group as RNG.

WE was placed in Group D.

After the opening ceremony, the group stage of the S7 World Championship began.

The opening match of the main tournament was a Group C match between RNG and FB.

The organizers' intentions are quite clear from the arrangement of this opening match.

Even though LGD is the LPL region's number one seed in this World Championship.

However, as an all-Chinese team, RNG has such a "golden brand" that its popularity in the LPL is even slightly higher than that of LGD.

For the sake of popularity and traffic, the official organizers arranged for RNG to play the first opening match.

Moreover, RNG's opponent today is a team from the wildcard region.

The first match was scheduled for RNG, which was obviously to ensure that the LPL teams would win the opening match and make sure that the LPL audience would have a good time.

Of course, LGD's performance in today's match against AHQ should be relatively stable.

But nowhere is as reliable as RNG playing against wildcard teams.

RNG will play their opening match, while LGD's match will be their last match of the day.

LPL teams participated at both the beginning and end of the first day of competition.

The venue for today's group stage match in Jiangcheng was packed, with most of the spectators there to support LPL teams.

Of course, besides our own LPL commentators, there were also commentators present.

Commentary booths were also arranged for commentators from several major regions, including Europe and America, and LCK.

The commentators for RNG's opening match were Jide, Su Xiaoyan, and Haokai.

Haokai usually commentates on LCK matches, so viewers who frequently watch LPL may not be very familiar with him.

He has a nickname, "Oxygen Cylinder".

This person gets a little out of breath when talking continuously during team battles.

During intense team battles, his voice would even crack, sounding as if he was about to run out of breath.

Those who like his commentary style will find his commentary very passionate.

Those who don't like him will find his shouting and yelling a bit harsh.

However, as a former professional player, Haokai's expertise in game content is quite good among commentators.

At 3 PM, the group stage BO1 match between RNG and FB started on time.

Since it was the opening match, both sides opted for a relatively conventional and conservative lineup.

They didn't use any strange or unusual killer moves; they just relied on sheer strength to fight.

However, there is still a significant gap in overall strength between the two teams.

Under these circumstances, RNG won the opening match steadily and without making any mistakes throughout.

Although the match lasted nearly forty minutes, RNG had a firm grip on the game from the ten-minute mark.

With the meta shifting more towards the bottom lane, an increase in overall game length is inevitable.

But no matter what, with the first tower mechanic still in place, the game won't be like it used to be when lane swaps were common.

Back when the meta revolved around lane swapping and macro play, professional League of Legends matches were incredibly long and tedious.

A typical example is the S6 season matches, which often started at 40 or 50 minutes.

Now all three lanes are in a proper laning phase, greatly increasing the chances of breaking the deadlock in the early to mid-game.

After RNG's match, the next match in Group C will be another game.

G2 vs. SSG. The number one seed from the European region and the third seed from Korea, these two are considered RNG's biggest rivals for advancing from the group stage.

All the audience and commentators thought this would be a clash of titans.

The result was that G2 got completely crushed.

Samsung defeated G2 in just 27 minutes.

For Samsung, the most famous "bladder team" in the LCK league, their matches often last forty or fifty minutes.

The match lasted only 27 minutes, which was incredibly short.

Of course, it might also be due to reasons related to business plans.

In the very first game, G2 Esports pulled off a surprise, opting for Alistar support instead of the Ardent Censer-dominant enchanter support that had long dominated the bot lane.

Then I picked Ivern as a jungler and had Daisy build Ardent Censer to be the Ardent Censer monster.

As a result, Xiaoju's jungler was paired with a mid-lane Corki, and G2's mid and jungle were completely ruined in the early game.

Crown's Taliyah completely dominated Perkz in their lane matchup, and then he roamed the entire map.

The content of this match wasn't very informative, but it did make people aware of a support hero that might be very important in upcoming matches.

In professional matches, the support role is different from that in casual games. The support role has a heavy workload in vision control and initiating team fights, and even needs to control the pace of the game.

This is also why hard supports were the mainstream in the past.

But now the bottom lane is full of soft supports who provide healing and shields, which has actually overturned the previous gaming habits of many support players.

In this game, Samsung's support player CoreJJ pulled out a Taric item, which surprised many players.

Gem is actually a tanky support, but he has both healing and shields and can build Ardent Censer.

Many coaches and players believe that this hero still has great potential for development.

After RNG finishes their two matches in Group C, their group will play two matches in Group B.

The first match was a best-of-one (BO1) between LZ and IMT.

IMT is the second seed from the North American region, and LPL viewers are generally unfamiliar with this team.

However, there is one person who is relatively familiar to them, namely their top laner Flame.

Flame is a Korean player, nicknamed "Princess," and he is indeed quite handsome.

Flame used to play for LGD and also represented LGD at the S5 World Championship.

The team IMT has a nickname: "The Avengers".

Including top laner Flame, the other players on this team were all discarded players from previous teams.

This group of people formed a team this year and made it to the World Championship as the second seed from North America, which is quite inspiring.

However, today's stage is destined not to belong to this "Avengers".

Because in this match they are facing the LCK's number one seed, Longzhu Gaming, a favorite to win this World Championship.

Throughout the match, it felt like Longzhu was superior to IMT in every aspect, and Longzhu made no mistakes at all.

Dragon Ball won the match in 30 minutes.

From IMT's perspective, the entire match gave off a severe sense of powerlessness.

Viewers around the world felt that, as expected of LCK's number one seed, they were indeed very strong.

After this match, half of the six BO1 matches on the first day of the group stage have been completed.

According to the old tradition of the LPL, the commentators should be changed for the second half after the first half ends.

The commentary for the last three games today will be provided by my longtime partner, Wawa Miller.

When the entire LGD team boarded the bus to the competition venue, the second match of Group B, which was also the fourth BO1 match of the day, had just started.

The two teams facing off are FNC and the Vietnamese team GAM.

With nothing to do in the car, Zhou Dian took out his phone and watched the live broadcast of the match.

The general public felt that the upcoming match was not of much value.

Given that one of the opponents was only the third seed from the European region, and the other was from the wildcard region, it's hard to say how strong they were.

But Zhou Dian always felt that the Vietnamese might come up with some tricks.

Although he personally believed that FNC was stronger and would win.

But he also knows that in BO1 matches, sometimes unconventional tactics are more effective than raw skill.

FNC could easily suffer a major setback today.

As expected, the two teams with the lowest level of competition on the first day of the S7 World Championship actually delivered the most exciting and entertaining match so far.

When GAM picked Kassadin and Nocturne for the mid and jungle, Zhou Dian felt that this game was going to be tough.

At the time, GAM was an extremely rare team that revolved around the jungler.

They were already playing jungle carry long before the jungle carry meta arrived.

In their own Vietnamese league, the entire team often protects Levi, the jungler, when he plays.

However, the level of the Vietnamese league is too low, and GAM can easily dominate, so it's not very relevant to the overall picture.

But today, this group of Vietnamese players showcased their unique understanding of the game to a global audience at the World Championship.

The red team, GAM, grouped up at the start and placed vision in both the upper and lower rivers.

Then, as the jungle monsters were about to respawn, top laner Galio and jungler Nocturne stood in front of the F6 camp.

The jungle monsters respawned, and Galio started helping Nightmare clear the F6 camp.

It's normal and common for the top laner to help the jungler open the F6 camp at the start of the game.

However, if the observer tilts the camera up slightly, they will find that GAM's bot lane duo is attacking their own red buff.

The audience was a little confused!
It's quite normal for the jungler to start with the F6 camp, and for the bot lane to simultaneously help the jungler reduce the red buff to low health.

It's just a typical jungler's dominant start!
The problem is that GAM is on the red side.

At this moment, GAM's top, bottom, jungle, and support players were all in the top jungle.

What is this for?
Some quick-thinking viewers have already noticed something.

Is this a lane swap at the start of the game?

However, the problem is that since the end of Season 6, with the addition of mechanisms such as the first tower kill, the previously mainstream lane swapping strategy at the start of the game has become obsolete.

By Season 7, almost no teams were switching lanes at the start of the game.

It's rare to see a lane swap at the start of a game even in a hundred matches.

Sure enough, after GAM's bot lane duo reduced the red buff to a sliver of health, they headed straight for the top lane.

The Nightmare, who had just finished clearing F6, came over and took the red buff with a single strike.

FNC's top laner Maokai suddenly spotted Lulu and Tristana together and was caught off guard, getting reduced to a sliver of health and forced to recall at level one.

Meanwhile, GAM's top laner Galio was still not online, and instead followed Nocturne to help him farm jungle camps.

In just 2 minutes and 40 seconds, Nightmare had already reached level four.

Both top laners were still pitifully at level one.

After clearing the lower jungle, Nightmare and Galio arrived at their own bottom tower.

Since FNC's bot lane has no wave control, a large wave of minions is about to enter GAM's bot tower.

Within just two minutes, Nightmare was devouring both jungle monsters and lane minions.

FNC responded quickly, knowing they couldn't let Nightmare comfortably farm the minion wave, and immediately called for their mid and jungle to dive the tower.

After a large wave of minions pushed into the bottom lane tower, FNC's mid and jungle arrived.

A four-man gank on two opponents.

(End of this chapter)