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League of Learning #5

Taric on Top·10/3/2015, 10:34:54 PM·2 votes·637 views

So, you first picked Darius.

DO NOT PANIC. Balls, I told you to relax. Your teammates will set you up for succe- Oh.

There has been a lot of talk on the analyst desk the past two days about setting your blind pick top laner up for success. What does that look like at the professional level? Here is one way we have seen teams do it in the past:

1. Five-man invade into the enemy blue side jungle. Drop some deep wards to scout the lane swap. Stick around afterwards. 2. Send the ADC/Support to the side lane closest to your teammates. Fast push the lane into the turret. 3. Clear the enemy blue side jungle. Give the top laner the small jungle creeps. Rejoin your adc/support at the turret. Push. 4. Leave your top laner isolated once the turret gets to 5% health. Let the turret whittle down your minion wave. Last hit the turret at 0-1 minions. Have your support/jungle/adc place trinket wards in river and tri-brush. 5. Send your top laner back to base. With the small jungle creeps and local turret gold, they can begin their build path. 6. Support and top lane walk back to the now-frozen lane. Have your jungler farm your red side jungle next, in case the enemy tries to fast push/dive. 4v3 > 4v1.

Congratulations! Your juggernaut has survived to level three, has vision, teleport, and backup nearby.

We certainly saw the spring split come up with clever counter-measures to this strategy. That said, make the enemy counter you; don't weaken your first pick on your own. If a champion choice is first pick-worthy, the team needs to attempt to play around it. A first pick does not make that champion invincible until fifteen minutes.

Except for Taric.

3 Comments

TurquoiseYoshi10/3/2015, 10:45:21 PM1 votes

Or maybe don't first pick Darius when he has such an overplayed counter. I dunno just an idea.

Partholonian10/3/2015, 11:44:05 PM1 votes

The reason it worked for C9 is that Balls isn't usually the main threat for their team anyway. So the opponents throw all their time and attention into keeping Darius down and, hey look, we have Azir and Tristana blowing up turrets all over the place, and now Darius has turret gold even though you successfully screwed with his ability to farm.

Zhugan10/4/2015, 6:34:46 AM1 votes

Darius is seriously overrated in this meta. Of all the juggernauts he is the most kite-able. (MAYBE Morde competes with that, but Morde actually has incentive to build slows and should always have someone with him to proc his W.)

That said, C9 is doing well because so many teams came into this tournament with their focus in the order of top>mid>bot. C9 is coming from a perspective of mid=bot>top, and they are crushing people with that thought process. Juggernauts are seriously overrated, and the other top laners are, broad strokes, weaker than juggernauts on the whole. Which means that mid and bot should be the main focus.

An equally good example was how Fnatic lost to AHQ. Both teams decided to throw their eggs into the top lane basket, and the damage that Fnatic did to themselves there (combined with letting the Jinx get big because of no focus on shutting her down) more or less guaranteed that Fnatic lost if that Baron push didn't give them the win.

Another equally good example was how Origen beat TSM. TSM put their eggs into the win top lane basket, and Origen put their eggs into the mid/bot lane pressure basket. TSM started out decently, but they lost global pressure to Origen because of that strat. Which, in the long run, led to Niels/Xpeke being big and Soaz being relevant through global gold/objectives.

Seriously, a lot of people came into worlds talking about how good Chinese and Korean top lanes were and how that was gonna win games for them, but a lot of the best western players are bot and the west is playing around that fact. Its why C9/CLG/OG have done as well as they have, and its even how FNC won their first game AND lost their second. It is also at least a part of why TSM/H2K are 1-4 between the two of them.

Because Bot/Mid are far more important in this meta than top lane, and teams that are reliant on that top lane carry and basically sacrifice their bot to make that happen are more or less asking to get beat by teams that do the opposite.