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

Chapter 496 It's just so-so, his Ryze still can't beat me!
"I think Brother Li needs a man's shoulder to lean on right now," PDD chuckled. "And who else can step up and stand by him?"

"That person is on the bench."

"Blank, you're not up yet!"

When the phrase "on the bench" was uttered, several people in the commentary booth couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"To be honest, it will be very, very difficult for SKT to turn this around!" Miller concluded the discussion.

At this moment, the Baron's Might buff for the dragon appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Up to 5700!

In other words, during the two-minute duration of the Baron buff, LGD had a 5700 gold lead over SKT.

This baron's strength is quite high.

After returning to base, Gnar, who had reached the peak of the week, immediately pulled out an entire Adaptive Helmet.

With the addition of the Black Cleaver and Randuin's Omen, Gnar's core three-item set is complete.

Meanwhile, the Storm Sword on Imp's Xayah transformed directly into the Infinity Blade.

With Xayah already having three critical strike items, and with Janna's support and protection, her teamfight damage output at this point can only be described as exaggerated.

Even with Faker's Ryze in a very unfavorable situation, he still managed to build Archangel's Staff, so he now has three items.

However, Ryze is an AP champion after all, so he doesn't benefit from the Ardent Censer buff.

As an ADC whose damage output mainly relies on basic attacks, Xayah benefits more from Ardent Censer-equipped support characters the better her items are.

Moreover, PYL's Janna in this game didn't even buy a pair of boots; all her gold went into building support items, and now she has three items.

Two of them are an incense burner and a redemption.

With a Janna by his side, plus Xayah's ultimate, Imp doesn't even know how he's going to die in team fights!
“To unleash that kind of Baron’s power is basically a devastating difference!” PDD said.

"Yes!" Remember nodded. "Through their use of the Baron buff just now, we can see that in terms of strategy, this LGD team is really no less capable than SKT!"

"And speaking of Huni's Yasuo, what's going to happen to him now?" PDD chuckled. "You can't beat Zhou Shen's Gnar in split pushing, and you're even worse in team fights. How are you supposed to play?"

"Right now, Yasuo can only defend the tower," Miller added as a final blow.

Meanwhile, the observer switched the game screen to the top lane, where Gnar was leading a large wave of minions and approaching SKT's top lane inhibitor tower.

Yasuo stood under the high ground tower, waiting for the minion wave to push into the tower, not daring to go out at all.

At 27 minutes into the game, the dragon has spawned; it's a fire dragon.

Zhou Dian's Gnar was pushing the top lane, Xayah and Janna were pushing the mid lane, while Jarvan IV and Malzahar were fighting the Infernal Dragon.

A few seconds later, LGD's mid and jungle players took down the Infernal Dragon and then chose to recall.

Then the other three LGD players also returned to base.

Actually, none of the LGD players had much gold, so the main reason for returning to base was to replenish their control wards.

There's less than a minute and a half until the next dragon spawns; it's time to plan ahead.

Although LGD's chances of winning are now extremely high, they can only truly say "it's in the bag" if they successfully secure the next Baron Nashor.

At this moment, on the equipment bar below the large screen, both Xayah and Ryze simultaneously gained a Mercury's Treads.

As the two players with the best economy on the field, Xayah's Mercury's Treads essentially eliminated SKT's last hope of taking her down.

Ryze's Mercury Sash seems more like a last resort.

In the next minute, Zhou Dian's Gnar was pushing the bottom lane.

While the other four LGD players pushed the top and middle lanes, they filled the entire upper jungle of SKT with control wards.

Make sure the upcoming Baron Nashor is safe and sound.

At 28 minutes and 50 seconds into the game, with 20 seconds left before Baron Nashor spawns, Faker's Ryze activated his ultimate and led his teammates to his own red buff area, attempting a desperate gamble.

However, no one from LGD was caught.

With LGD completely controlling the field of vision, it's incredibly difficult to catch them in a one-on-one situation!
At 29 minutes and 10 seconds into the game, the second Baron Nashor spawned, along with SKT's Red Buff.

Of course, the red buff was eaten by imp's Xayah as soon as it refreshed.

At this moment, Zhou Dian's Gnar, after accumulating a large wave of minions in the bottom lane, began to push forward.

Meanwhile, the other nine players in this game are all concentrated in the upper jungle of the red team.

Yasuo defended the top lane, while the other eight players engaged in a 4v4 battle, testing and probing each other in SKT's red buff area.

But as Gnar pushed the minion wave to SKT's bottom lane inhibitor turret, SKT started to panic.

Next to SKT's F6, Bang's Varus threw the Corruption Chain (R) at Xayah as soon as he saw her.

As a result, Xayah easily dodged it with her ultimate move.

It's essentially a trade of ultimate abilities between the two AD carries.

For imp, dodging Varus's ultimate with Xayah's ultimate was a piece of cake.

Bang was well aware of this.

But now SKT is desperate to break the deadlock, and he can't afford to think about much else.

Once Varus unleashes his ultimate ability, it's LGD's turn.

The prince used his EQ combo to proc Gragas's E skill, and then used his ultimate to slam Gragas into the box.

Peanut made a quick dash; he couldn't afford to die at this moment.

However, Gnar somehow ended up in the mid lane instead of the bottom lane.

Zhou Dian's two waves of foot support in this game had a somewhat prophetic feel to them.

Gnar, who suddenly appeared from SKT's blue buff area, slowed down Gragas with the active effect of Randuin's Omen.

Then, relying on the slow effect of the Q skill and the speed boost from the three passive rings of the W skill, he chased after the Gragas and spammed attacks.

The barrel was used to unleash its ultimate ability, which Gnar dodged with Flash.

Gnar chased the barrel until it only had 300 health left, at which point Gnar grew larger!
When it comes to sticking to someone, Gnar is nowhere near as good as Nar.

Since Gnar's Q skill failed to hit Gragas, it means that Gragas escaped during the chase.

However, while Gnar was chasing Gragas, the other four members of LGD had already headed straight for the Baron pit.

As Zhou Dian abandoned his pursuit of Gragas and turned back to regroup with his teammates, imp's Xayah had already fired her Featherblade towards Baron.

Xayah and Jarvan IV were attacking Baron Nashor, while the other three members of LGD were positioned vertically in the river to block SKT from defending Baron Nashor.

Malzahar with Rylai's Crystal Scepter is incredibly useful in situations like this.

SKT lacked vision around the Baron pit and had no idea about the Baron's current health.

Faker's Ryze had no choice but to use his ultimate to scout the Baron pit and send Gragas there to steal the Baron.

The Warp Jump (R) revealed the vision of Baron Nashor, showing that Baron Nashor still had over 3,000 health and was still a bit short of the Smite threshold.

With only a few hundred health points left, Peanut didn't dare get on the vehicle.

In that case, SKT will have no choice but to give up their second Baron Nashor in this game.

And along with that, the victory in this game was also surrendered.

At 30 minutes and 08 seconds into the game, with the Prince's Smite, LGD secured their second Baron Nashor of the match. With Baron Nashor secured, LGD began chasing down SKT.

Wei Shen's Malzahar caught Yasuo nearby, but Yasuo had already built a Quicksilver Sash.

With the Mercury's Treads activated, Yasuo broke free from Malzahar's ultimate's pressure and retreated towards the mid lane with his teammates.

LGD players relentlessly pursued, with imp's Xayah taking the lead.

But Faker's Ryze suddenly stopped after escaping into the river bush on the left side of the mid lane.

There was a ward from SKT in the bush. When Xayah caught up, Ryze immediately unleashed a combo on her.

Xayah used her Mercury's Treads to break Ryze's rune imprisonment (W) and retreated, while Janna also shielded Xayah.

But Faker was quite persistent; after Ryze used WEQ to accelerate, he chased after him all by himself.

In front of all five LGD players, Ryze hit Xayah with an EQ combo, directly combining it with Janna's shield, leaving Xayah with only a little over 200 health.

PYL was so startled he almost used his ultimate ability on Janna, but thankfully he managed to hold back.

Although LGD didn't have any ultimate abilities except for Janna, that's why Faker dared to step forward and deal damage to Xayah.

But that was the end of it; he could only cripple Xia, and couldn't do anything more.

Ryze turned around and retreated with his teammates.

Janna used Redemption on the spot to heal Xayah, who was low on health, and Jarvan IV, who was fighting the dragon and had half health left.

At this moment, in LGD's team voice chat, after giving his teammates Redemption, PYL muttered, "Damn, this Faker is too scary. He dares to come up and fight head-on!"

"So-so, his Ryze still can't beat me!" Wei Shen chuckled.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Dian was speechless.

GodV, you don't really think that LGD winning this game against SKT means you've won against Faker, do you?
If Wei Shen had been able to keep an eye on Ryze in the early game, he wouldn't have had such a frustrating time playing Gnar.

Why is Eimy's Prince having such a hard time in the jungle?

"Alright, alright!" Zhou Dian reminded them, "Let's hurry back to town to resupply and prepare to end this game!"

After all, this was the S-series finals, and Zhou Dian was under a lot of pressure.

He doesn't want his teammates to make even the slightest mistake.

Since several key abilities were still on cooldown, LGD did not pursue the attack further.

They chased the enemy down the river to the middle lane and then stopped. The group returned to their base under their first tower to recall.

"In that case, LGD has successfully taken down this Baron, and their chances of winning this game are extremely high!" Miller's voice was filled with undisguised excitement.

If this weren't in the official commentary booth, Miller would probably have excitedly roared, "This game is in the bag!"

"This wave... LGD wants to end the game. Malzahar has already taken the Sorcery Elixir." Remember added.

"And with this lineup, we can definitely win the game at this point!" PDD nodded.

"I think the most commendable thing is that when LGD was about to finish the game, everyone went back to base and bought several control wards. The control wards in the blue side's fountain shop were basically sold out, and they were extremely hard to find!"

Miller continued, "I think very few teams have this kind of discipline and execution. LGD can do these things, so I think their chances of beating SKT today are very high!"

Back to the game.

After LGD replenished their equipment and came out of the fountain, Zhou Dian's Gnar went to push the top lane, while the other four grouped up and pushed the mid lane.

In the mid lane, imp's Xayah was still at the forefront, pushing the minion wave to the ruins of SKT's second mid tower. Suddenly, Xayah turned right and entered SKT's jungle.

imp wanted to use the time while waiting for his teammates to catch up to clear a group of three wolves.

However, as soon as Xia turned the corner, she discovered a barrel in the Three Wolves camp returning to town.

Xayah immediately activated Deadly Feather Robe (W) and unleashed a barrage of auto attacks on Gragas.

The barrel's health was dropping rapidly, which terrified Peanut.

Even after clearly using his E to escape over the wall, Gragas turned back and threw his ultimate at Xayah, blasting her away, as if only then could he feel at ease.

This is naturally a good thing for LGD.

Gragas used his ultimate, leaving SKT without a crucial initiation skill.

This means that LGD will be much safer when they go to SKT's high ground later.

After Gragas escaped, Xayah returned to the mid lane from SKT's jungle, joined up with her own mid, jungle, and support, and together they pushed towards SKT's mid lane high ground with the minion wave.

Faker's Ryze was still dealing with the minion wave in the bottom lane, while SKT chose to give up the mid lane inhibitor.

At this point, it's the right thing to do to release one path first.

Since we can't defend it anyway, we might as well take advantage of LGD breaking through one of the high ground lanes to deal with the other two lanes in advance.

At 31 minutes and 27 seconds into the game, Ryze pushed the bottom lane minion wave to LGD's second bottom tower and then returned to his own fountain.

Meanwhile, SKT's mid-lane inhibitor tower was destroyed by four LGD players.

Zhou Dian's Gnar recalled from the top lane and then went straight to the bottom lane to deal with the minion wave brought by Ryze.

Five seconds later, LGD's four players took down SKT's mid-lane crystal.

Then the four of them retreated immediately and turned to the upper road.

It's still the same seemingly basic yet flawless Dragon buff strategy.

After LGD left the mid lane, the SKT players grouped up and pushed the mid lane minion wave out.

At 32 minutes into the game, Malzahar was already pushing the top lane.

LGD's bot lane duo went to the top lane via the river, but were caught by SKT.

Yasuo, Varus, and Lulu chased into the river, and Bang's Varus hurriedly threw out the Chains of Corruption (R).

However, this time Varus' ultimate didn't even force Xayah to use her ultimate.

Because the ultimate skill was slightly too short, it couldn't hit Xayah at all.

At the same time, Ryze activated his ultimate and arrived in the upper river, where the rune imprisonment was once again broken by the Quicksilver Sash.

SKT tried many times in this game, but they just couldn't kill Xayah.

At this moment, everyone on SKT realized one thing: today's LGD is almost a completely different team from the LGD they faced in the group stage!

"If I remember correctly, Bang hasn't succeeded in any of his group buys so far today," PDD said.

"They've basically all dodged it." Miller nodded. "Either they get in and lose the team fight, it's one of those two scenarios."

At this moment, Malzahar had already pushed the minion wave to SKT's top lane inhibitor tower, and Jarvan IV, Xayah, and Janna were heading towards their mid laner.

Meanwhile, Zhou Dian's Gnar pushed the minion wave to SKT's bottom lane inhibitor tower.

The minion waves on the top and bottom lanes are progressing at almost the same pace.

This may seem insignificant, but it actually puts a great strain on the team's coordination and cooperation.

At 32 minutes and 40 seconds into the game, LGD's four players whittled down SKT's top lane inhibitor turret and then destroyed the top lane crystal.

The Baron buff still had a full minute left!

(End of this chapter)