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

Chapter 507 The Limitations of Data, LGD's Steady Defense!
The observer's perspective shifted, and the screen switched to LGD's blue zone.

After taking down LGD's second top tower, the Troll Warlord went into LGD's blue buff area and started taking the blue buff.

As the troll devoured LGD's blue buff, directly above it, across the river, the grapes had already destroyed the Rift Herald.

SKT's top and jungle players have already tried their best to make up for the mistakes made by the mid and bot laners.

The less you lose, the better.

At this moment, the large screen at the scene showed a replay of the battle that had just taken place in the bottom lane.

After the replay, the camera switched back, and both sides had swapped lanes in the mid and bottom lanes.

The bot lane duo goes to mid, and the mid laner goes to bot lane to push the lane.

Even on the road, Zhou Dian will still suffer.

After LGD destroyed the two towers in the middle and bottom lanes, SKT's economic lead was less than 1,000 gold.

In the top lane alone, Cho'Gath was more than a thousand gold behind Trundle.

In other words, excluding the top lane, SKT's economy in other positions is currently lagging behind LGD.

Having lost their advantage, SKT is certainly not willing to just peacefully develop with LGD from now on.

Because SKT's lineup is actually harder to fight in team fights compared to LGD's lineup.

They will inevitably try to get back on track.

The key to SKT's next wave of momentum lies in the Herald's Eye on Gragas.

Ideally, we would find an opportunity in the mid lane to directly kill LGD's bot lane duo.

Then Gragas releases Rift Herald, SKT groups up and pushes, directly taking down LGD's two outer mid-lane turrets.

Of course, LGD also knows that SKT definitely wants to use this Rift Herald to create momentum.

Therefore, both imp and PYL were extremely careful in defending the mid lane, always staying on the side with vision, and absolutely not giving SKT any chance to gank.

Actually, SKT has another way to handle this situation.

That means letting Huni's troll carry the lane.

Of course, I'm not talking about ordinary lead training here, but the kind where you single-mindedly lead without ever joining a group.

The current advantage of the Troll Warlord in a single lane is enough to support SKT in doing so.

This was a common approach SKT used in the past to handle situations where they were at a disadvantage or in an even position.

However, after Huni was completely outplayed by Zhou Dian in the first two games of the finals, even though Huni had a huge advantage with Trundle in this game, SKT did not dare to put all their hopes on Trundle.

Trolls definitely need to push lanes.

But that's about managing the side lane minions properly; it won't allow Huni to recklessly push to the very end.

Therefore, SKT still needs to help Bang's Tristana develop quickly.

After the lane swap phase began, Faker was consciously giving Tristana more resources.

After all, he was playing a support-oriented mid-lane Karma, so consuming so much gold was pointless.

This is reflected in the item panel as Karma's CS (creep score) being gradually surpassed by Malzahar's.

In fact, from any perspective, Faker's Karma has completely dominated GodV's Malzahar so far, except for failing to secure a solo kill in his lane.

But now Malzahar is dozens of CS ahead of Karma and has almost single-handedly destroyed Karma's mid-lane tower.

On the surface, it seems as if Malzahar had blown up Karma.

Where can you go to reason with this?
The match continued, with SKT constantly trying to find an opportunity in the mid lane.

However, LGD never revealed any weaknesses, making it difficult for SKT to find an opportunity.

With 16 minutes remaining in the game, the second dragon of the match had already spawned.

It's a water dragon.

The two sides began to engage in some playful fighting around the small dragon.

If you can't find an opportunity in the mid lane, you can try using the dragon to find an opportunity in the river.

However, LGD didn't actually have a strong desire to contest this dragon.

It's the attitude of "fight if you can, and let it go if you can't."

Eimy's Sejuani came to the river to place a ward, but ran into SKT's mid and jungle duo, so he quickly retreated.

Gragas throws a rolling barrel (Q) at Sejuani's feet, then explodes.

However, Sejuani had her passive "Pigskin" active, so she didn't benefit from Gragas's Q skill's slow.

Then the barrel is thrown directly out of the exploding barrel (R).

Since Sejuani was not affected by the slow effect, Gragas' ultimate was not thrown back in front of Sejuani, but instead to her side and slightly in front.

Sejuani wasn't blasted back by Gragas' ultimate; instead, she was blasted to the side of the wall and barely moved.

However, Faker's Karma had already closed in and landed an RQ on Sejuani, taking away nearly a third of her health.

Karma's RQ really hurt, even though Karma didn't go for a pure AP build this game.

Karma used her RQ to slow Sejuani, then immediately chained Sejuani with her W skill.

Without hesitation, Eimy turned around and used Ice Prison (R) to freeze the barrel.

Meanwhile, PYL, who was standing nearby, used Lulu's ultimate on Sejuani and then ran off in another direction without looking back.

Sejuani still had more than half a bar of health left, and Lulu immediately used her ultimate, which shows that LGD's handling of the unexpected situation was absolutely impeccable.

Faced with the suddenly enlarged Sejuani, SKT's mid and jungle duo instantly lost interest in chasing and immediately turned around to fight the dragon.

Without their jungler and support's ultimate abilities, LGD didn't even bother to look at the dragon anymore, letting SKT fight it as they pleased!
At 16 minutes and 40 seconds into the game, SKT secured their second dragon of the match, a water dragon.

Then the five SKT players went their separate ways.

Yes, just to be on the safe side, SKT actually called over Huni's Trundle when they were fighting for this dragon.

While the troll went to the dragon, Zhou Dian's Cho'Gath farmed up rapidly in the top lane.

With this back and forth, the gap between the giant worm and the troll has been narrowed considerably.

SKT's mid-game strategy is slowly eroding their top laner's advantage.

If it were LGD, it would be Zhou Dian playing this Troll.

In that case, the other four members of LGD would definitely not call Zhou Dian back, and they might even give up the dragon to the opponent.

The back-and-forth movement of a small dragon was enough for the troll, with its overwhelming advantage, to take down an additional defensive tower.

"SKT took down that water dragon," Remember said.

"LGD isn't in a hurry right now. They've built up their 1-3-1 formation. Right now, they're trying to get Zhou Shen's Cho'Gath to develop while also trying to get Bang's Tristana to develop."

"But I think LGD is definitely the one who benefits more from this exchange!"

"Yes, look how calmly LGD is playing now!" Miller added.

"And to be honest, even if this game goes into the mid-to-late game, our two carries, combined with the tankiness of our front line, are definitely not weaker than SKT's."

After taking down the Water Dragon, Huni's Trundle went to the bottom lane to push, while the rest of SKT recalled to base.

After returning to the fountain, Xiaopao crafted the electric blade, and his combat power was initially formed.

Bang's chosen item build in this game was to first build a B.F. Sword, and then immediately upgrade it to a Statikk Shiv.

The advantage of doing this is that combat strength can be formed more quickly.

With similar economy, the combat power of a combination of Statikk Shiv and B.F. Sword is far greater than that of a naked Infinity Edge. Meanwhile, Faker's Karma has also built Ardent Censer, now possessing both Chalice of Harmony and Ardent Censer.

Because Karma is playing a solo lane, she is now three levels higher than Lulu and has an extra item in gold.

Both being Ardent Censer monsters, Karma's buff to AD carries is far stronger than Lulu's at this point.

With the Rift Herald on Gragas running out of time, SKT wanted to take advantage of the fact that their mid laner and AD carry had just completed their key items, and then use the Rift Herald to create a momentum surge.

If the middle lane doesn't work, then try another lane!

Emerging from the spring again, Bang's little cannon headed straight for the road.

At this moment, a set of data popped up in the upper right corner of the large screen, to the left of the troll's portrait.

Specifically, in this World Championship, Huni's average gold lead over his opponent at 15 minutes was 2131.

This is an extremely exaggerated statistic!
However, in today's final, Huni's average economic lead over 15 minutes was only 120 gold across the three games.

This was despite Huni having a huge early-game advantage with Troll Warlord.

According to Zhou Dian's own estimate, by the 15-minute mark, his Cho'Gath was probably at least 2,000 gold behind the Troll Warlord.

"A lead of over 2,000 gold over the opponent every 15 minutes? Huni's stats are just too outrageous!" PDD said immediately after seeing the data.

"But even with Huni's incredible performance, he was completely outmatched by Zhou Shen in the first two games, which everyone witnessed. So, what I'm trying to say, you all understand, right?"

Although this week's top-ranked Cho'Gath suffered a terrible defeat.

But this didn't stop PDD from praising Zhou Dian's performance in the first two games.

Back to the game, SKT had four players in the top half of the map, while Huni's Trundle headed straight for the bottom lane, pushing the minion wave to LGD's bottom tower.

On LGD's side, the lane where the Troll Warlord is located can only be filled by the worst-farmed Cho'Gath, which can also serve as a "trade" for him.

At this moment, the giant bug had just returned home and acquired Righteous Glory, then emerged from the fountain and headed straight for the bottom lane.

The game has been going on for 17 minutes and 30 seconds, and the big bug has only just acquired his first completed item of the game, which is the relatively cheap Righteous Glory.

However, the big bug also has a small Thornmail and cloth boots.

In addition, the ultimate skill has already stacked all six layers that can be stacked by eating minions and jungle monsters.

At this point, the giant bug's tankiness is still quite reliable.

Of course, the troll's ultimate ability is still incredibly effective against Cho'Gath's tankiness, no matter how much Cho'Gath has farmed up.

The observer camera cuts to LGD's next turret, which has less than a third of its health remaining.

With just one wave of minions and no one defending, the Troll can take down a tower.

Subsequently, LGD's bottom lane tower was destroyed by Trundle.

At this moment, the equipment panel directly below the large screen on site switched to the personal economy panel.

The troll had over 8300 gold at this point, the highest in the game.

Faker's Karma, who is ahead of the second-ranked player, has a whopping 1700 gold.

The big bug's economy is similar to that of both junglers, with less than 5600 gold.

In the top lane, Cho'Gath is 2800 gold behind Trundle.

You can't blame Zhou Dian for that; there was really nothing he could do.

This is precisely because Zhou Dian selected tank heroes quite a few times during this World Championship.

Therefore, in terms of the average 15-minute lead in gold against their lane opponent, Zhou Dian's statistic is not as good as Huni's in the top lane.

Huni's data gives him a commanding lead over the second-place team.

And it's not just in the top lane, it's in all other positions.

This has nothing to do with the individual skill of the players, but rather with the tactics that SKT often employs.

It's as if everyone can see that Zhou Dian is stronger than Huni, in every aspect.

However, in this statistic, Zhou Dian is not as good as Huni.

This is the limitation of data itself; data only has meaning when discussed in the context of actual matches.

Looking at data in isolation, detached from the game, often fails to reveal the true situation.

At this moment, in the LPL commentary booth.

"In other matchups, the two centers aren't actually that far apart," Remember said.

“Yes!” Miller nodded. “SKT still has an advantage in the top lane this game.”

"For SKT, all their advantages are now concentrated in the top lane, and Huni will have to take on the task of carrying the team this game."

"Because Faker is just playing Sona in this game, there's very little he can do!"

“Yes, SKT is going to focus on split pushing this game, while we’re going to focus on team fights,” PDD added.

"Of course, a very important point now is whether the big bug can withstand the pressure of the troll pushing the lane!"

"Even if the man playing Cho'Gath is ID ZHOU, let's be honest, Cho'Gath is really unplayable against Troll Warlord, especially with such a large economic disadvantage."

At this point, the OB camera switches to the LGD red zone.

After pushing the minion wave to LGD's second bottom tower, Huni's Troll Warlord moved upwards into LGD's red buff area and destroyed LGD's red buff.

After Zhou Dian's Cho'Gath cleared the minion wave at the second turret, he also arrived at the red buff camp.

But it was too late; the red buff had already been destroyed by the troll.

Unfortunately, we were a little too slow. Otherwise, if the giant bug had its ultimate ability, it would definitely have been able to snatch the red buff from the troll's mouth.

Now, Troll Warlord is starting to dominate in split pushing.

LGD could only put more pressure on SKT from the front, constantly pushing the mid lane minions to threaten SKT's second mid tower, forcing SKT's scorers to come and defend the second mid tower.

Whether it's the first or second tower, the tower in the middle lane is much more important than the towers on the side lanes.

If we can defend, we should try our best to defend.

Unlike the outer towers on the flanks, which can sometimes be given away without much hesitation.

On SKT's side, Karma, Gragas, and Leona returned to defend the mid-lane second turret.

Upon returning, Blank immediately destroyed the Herald's Eye in front of his own second turret, releasing the Rift Herald.

This isn't a good choice, but the duration of Vanguard's Eye is almost up, and it would be a waste if we didn't use it soon.

LGD's defense against the Rift Herald was undoubtedly very effective.

If you place the Herald like this, the most you can do is take down LGD's mid tower once.

SKT has no way to use the Rift Herald to create momentum.

The Rift Herald was released, and SKT's mid, jungle, and support trio escorted the minion wave and the Herald forward.

They need to make sure the Rift Herald can land that hit.

Meanwhile, the troll was almost at the mid lane, while the trinket was on its way.

SKT doesn't seem satisfied with just hitting the turret once, given that Rift Herald was released at the last minute.

SKT seems to be trying to use all five players and the Rift Herald to forcefully push down LGD's mid-lane tower.

However, on LGD's side, Malzahar, Sejuani, Varus, and Lulu were already waiting in front of their own base's Tier 1 tower.

(End of this chapter)