Minutes 0-5: the source matters more than the total
Mark last hits, forced movement and lost lane time. Two heroes can reach minute five with similar gold while one preserved consumables and lane control and the other traded a full wave for a one-off kill.
Do not force a universal price onto every second. Build a causal record: which income was repeatable, which was accidental and what the team gave up elsewhere on the map.
Minutes 5-12: an acceleration purchase needs an address
Name the resource before buying acceleration: safe waves, camps and time before a required fight. Without space, a growth item competes directly with power the team needs now.
Patch 7.41e raised Hand of Midas attack speed from 35 to 40. That adds combat utility on relevant heroes, but it does not automatically change Transmute cash and does not make the item correct in every map state.
Minutes 12-16: timing ends at conversion
Record purchase, delivery, teleport and the first position where the item is actually used. Gold on the courier or an item carried on the wrong side of the map has not yet pressured the next objective.
Name the expected conversion after completion: tower, Roshan, Tormentor, control of a dangerous lane or a protected farming interval. Without a destination, the timing review is incomplete.
Minutes 16-20: combine growth, objective and risk
At minute twenty, compare the next component, liquid gold and the nearest team objective. A component matters when its power arrives and converts in time. Held gold matters when it preserves a real buyback or another urgent response.
Change one decision in the replay, not the whole match. Test an item two minutes earlier, one skipped greed component or preserved liquidity before Roshan. A good counterfactual reveals the condition that flips the answer.
Replace the baseline with your inputs and get an answer for your scenario.
Data note. Every numeric example is a transparent baseline scenario. It is not presented as official publisher data and can be recalculated in the linked tool.