Another tactic is the cowardly tower-pushing strategy.

Assuming a slight advantage in all three lanes, and the ability to hold the tower without being pushed, your side selects a strong jungler to suppress the enemy jungler's development and drive the early game. When the enemy reaches level six and prepares to gank across the map, immediately huddle under the tower, preventing them from finding good ganking opportunities, and even if they do, they can't further expand their advantage.

The mid-laner chooses a hero capable of quickly clearing lanes and pushing towers. As soon as the enemy mid-laner flies off, your mid-laner immediately starts pushing the lane and the tower. By the time the enemy mid-laner has supported twice and returned to lane, their mid-tower is already gone.

The mid-tower is strategically important for map control. Once it falls, a large area of the jungle is lost, and the roaming range of the global-flow mid-laner is greatly reduced. At this point, the tower-pushing side quickly switches lanes to continue pushing towers, while the strong jungler invades the jungle to apply pressure, constantly snowballing the advantage.

The FV team is clearly using this strategy, and their hero picks are perfect!

They snatched the enemy's top-lane heroes, preventing them from getting the late-game carry heroes, and chose a bot-lane marksman with an early advantage and the durable Lava Ancient Tree to ensure bot-lane dominance. If ganked, they can just cower under the tower, leaving the enemy with no good options.

While the jungler's Death Scythe isn't the strongest, the opponent chose an even weaker early-game jungler to ensure their mid-to-late-game team fight, guaranteeing that FV controls the early game tempo.

All hero stats and strengths have been repeatedly analyzed by the data analysis team and tested by professional players. Even the small details have been carefully considered.

When the FRY team first-picked Blade Wings, the FV coaching staff already understood their intentions, allowing them to perfectly counter in the Banning Phase!

Many IOI players who don't watch the GPL find FV's picks ridiculous; but almost all GPL players realized FV's upcoming strategy, maxing out their expectations for this match!

...

Unknowingly, the match was already seven minutes in.

FRY was still executing the standard global-flow strategy, setting up protective wards, developing safely in the early game, and waiting for the mid-lane ultimate to become available before looking for opportunities.

FV wasn't in a hurry either, only pretending to invade once or twice, stealing a monster or two, and then ganking the bot-lane on the way, without any success.

Both sides were playing cautiously. There were a few minor skirmishes in the first few minutes, but no kills.

The three official commentators were struggling, forced to repeatedly comment on the players' last-hitting, monster stealing, and lane harassment.

Finally, as both mid-lane heroes reached level six, the commentators perked up instantly!

Blade Wings in the mid-lane of FRY cleared a wave of minions and started moving towards the bot-lane. At this moment, FV's bot-lane was slightly pushed forward, seemingly creating an opportunity!

Blade Wings of FRY spread its wings, each feather a sharp blade. It suddenly took flight, swooping down towards the bot-lane!

But the moment Blade Wings took off, FV's two bot-lane heroes immediately retreated. The Lava Ancient Tree used a control skill to root the enemy marksman, preventing him from following up with damage. By the time Blade Wings arrived at the bot-lane, the two had already retreated under the tower.

FRY reluctantly poked the enemy, but because the marksman couldn't keep up, the damage was severely lacking, posing no threat.

FRY clearly wasn't going to give up. The jungler had already been heading to the bot-lane when Blade Wings reached level 6 and had now arrived, clearly intending to flank and dive the tower in a four-man gank.

However, the two mid-jungle brothers had just entered the bushes when they were hit by a burst of damage from the Death Scythe, who had been lying in ambush.

As they tried to fight back, FV's Death Scythe immediately used both dashes, returning to his own tower.

The three huddled under the tower in perfect formation, safely collecting tower gold.

FRY's marksman reluctantly poked the tower, helpless against the three.

FV's Lava Ancient Tree even deliberately ate a few skills under the tower, lowering his health to give FRY the illusion that they might be able to dive and kill one.

But FRY hesitated again and again, and finally restrained themselves.

A carry in the early game plus two strong men with control, diving the tower four-on-three was still a very risky move. This was the final, and a misstep could lead to a chain reaction, potentially losing the entire game.

FRY had no choice but to give up, stealing a few of FV's jungle monsters to vent their frustration, before returning to their respective lanes.

FRY's Blade Wings could only slowly walk back to the mid-lane, only to see the Explosion Artisan in the mid-lane of FV sauntering away.

Taking a closer look, where was the tower health bar?

The tower health bar was full before they left, how could it be down by a third?

The FRY players were stunned. This support only resulted in stealing a few jungle monsters and using some of FV's skills, but led to losing a wave and a half of minions and a third of the tower health in their mid-lane!

The mid-laner of FV, seeing Blade Wings leave, had no intention of supporting at all, directly using all of his skills on the minions and the tower, continuing until his mana bar was completely empty and Blade Wings returned, before dusting himself off and leaving.

Although the mid-lane tower only lost a third of its health, the FRY players already sensed something was wrong...

...

On the other side, Pei Qian had just finished breakfast.

He wasn't allowed to look at his phone while eating, so he could only go back and continue watching the match after finishing.

Before breakfast, both sides were still deadlocked, and the commentators kept emphasizing that FRY would start launching attacks after reaching level six, and if FV didn't respond well, they might be caught in a trap.

Pei Qian was quite happy to hear this, and went to eat breakfast with anticipation.

But after finishing breakfast and returning to the stream, Pei Qian discovered that the game had only started for less than fifteen minutes, and the economic gap between the two sides had inexplicably widened to 3,000!

The kill score was 1:0, with FRY getting one more kill, but FV had already taken down the enemy's outer towers in the top, mid, and bot lanes.

Relying on the economic advantage of pushing towers in the early game, FV's group of strong men were already ganking FRY's jungle. With the early game advantage marksman, the Death Scythe with both mobility and control, the Lava Ancient Tree with durability and control, plus the vision advantage from the towers and economic lead, FRY had no good options and could only helplessly watch their jungle fall.

FRY's mid-lane Blade Wings could fly, but where could he fly to?

The opponent had an economic advantage, were stronger in early team fights, and had complete vision control. Even if Blade Wings flew over, the teammates couldn't keep up, wouldn't that be like delivering kills from a thousand miles away?

On the other hand, FV's mid-laner leisurely farmed and developed, not caring about kills at all, only towers. As soon as they saw a gap in FRY's defense, they would immediately scurry over and crazily push the tower.

Before they knew it, FRY's mid-lane tier-two tower was almost gone!

FRY was leading 1:0 in kills, but FV's five players were strolling around and invading FRY's jungle. FV could start a team fight at any time, but they couldn't find an opportunity and could only watch helplessly.

The barrage was already exploding.

"What is FRY doing? So cowardly? All the jungle resources are being given away for free? Go fight them, what are you afraid of!"

"I'm going to be sick, is FRY throwing? This is the final, how can they play so ugly!"

"Unbelievable, I thought this final was going to be a clash of the titans, but what are these two sides playing? Even worse than the semi-finals! Are they planning to develop for 40 minutes and then decide the victory with one team fight? Trash, so trash! This watchability can't compare to the GPL!"

"Keyboard warriors, stop spraying. It's not that FRY doesn't want to start a team fight, they'll just be feeding if they engage anyone now! The outer towers are all down, and FV has vision control over the entire jungle. How can you win a team fight like that?"

"FV's mid-lane tool has been farming to clear the minions and push the tower, and his damage can't be ignored now! The control and damage of both sides are not on the same level, how can they fight?"

"FV's 'cowardly demolition flow' is being used perfectly, it's simply flawless! This, this is tactical suppression, IQ suppression!"

In the first game of the final of the Global Finals, the two sides had played for 15 minutes and already had an economic difference of more than 3,000, but the kill score stubbornly remained unchanged at 1:0. That one kill was still obtained by FRY frantically sacrificing the top-lane tower to kill FV's Lava Ancient Tree.

All the economic difference came from towers, last-hitting, and jungle monsters.

This scene was extremely ugly!

If the two sides frequently broke out into team fights and FRY lost, it could be said that FRY's skills were not good enough.

But now, FV hadn't even taken a single kill, relying solely on walking around the map to push towers and eat resources, creating a huge advantage. The gap between the two sides in tactics and IQ was immediately apparent!

...

At the match venue, both Christian and Zhao Xuming looked extremely gloomy.

Christian was the most uncomfortable with the current situation.

FV was running FRY around in circles without taking a single kill, the gap between the two sides in tactics and IQ was clear at a glance, making it difficult to even find excuses.

Moreover, FV used a GOG tactic to break FRY's confident global-flow strategy, which meant that the GPL's tactical level was leading the IOI Global Finals?

Did it mean that GOG's game design philosophy was superior to IOI's?

If the difference in strength between the two teams was in skills, Christian could blame it on FRY, but in the current situation, it could only mean that the balance designers at Finger Games and FRY's coaching team combined were not enough to beat Tengda's tactical team!

Christian himself was an IOI designer, and seeing the current situation, he knew very well that FRY was likely doomed in the first game.

But there was nothing he could do. He was powerless except to watch from the sidelines.

He could only hope that they could quickly adjust their mentality, change their tactical system, and then win back later!

Christian silently sighed. At this moment, he was even more nervous than the FRY players on stage.

Because the final result of this match was very likely to determine whether he could keep his position as the head of IOI in the Greater China region!

Zhao Xuming silently sighed in his heart: "President Pei, could this be your real trump card? Just how high is your understanding of game tactics, that you were able to bring about such a big change in FV, this weak team, in such a short period of time?"