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Diving into Double Teleport

Riot·10/17/2015, 8:49:37 PM·2 votes·20,086 views

Double Teleport has forced a dramatic meta shift at the 2015 World Championship. Teams are creating extra map pressure with mid laners taking Teleport instead of a second combat Summoner Skill. As Worlds has gone on, we are learning the strengths and weaknesses of this strategy, and so we've started asking teams more nuanced questions about when players should have Teleport on their mid and top laners, and what to do to counter the strategy.

Global pressure strategies are not a new meta in League of Legends, even double Teleport specifically. Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño Martínez and Paul "SoaZ" Boyer are often thought of as the original pioneers of this strategy, going back as far as Season 2. Most notably, in Season 3, their combination of Kassadin and Lissandra utilized double Teleport to massive success -- to the extent that Royal Club banned those two champions in all four games the teams played against each other in the Season 3 World Championship Semifinals.

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Going into this year's World Championship, xPeke actually had his doubts about the Teleport meta's relevance in 2015, but eventually came around after trying it out in scrims. "It's interesting, because even I didn't think double Teleport was that good at first," xPeke says. "I thought in mid lane you needed a fighting Summoner like Ignite, or at least Heal, or Cleanse. But the fact that at some point, I started to see these people playing Diana with Teleport and Ekko with Teleport. I was like, 'hmm.... these guys have assassins, they have to kill you to be strong.' But when they have Teleport they don't have to kill you, because they can go to side lanes [to farm] and they have Teleport [to get to team fights.]"

Under Pressure

One such player was LGD Gaming's Wei "GODV" Shen, whom, among other mid laners in China, started using Teleport as their primary Summoner on champions like Diana or Ekko -- foregoing extra kill pressure for better split pushing power later.

"Barely anyone takes the Ignite now," xPeke explains. "So you don't really need Heal, you don't need Barrier, and if they don't have a stun, like Ekko's, you don't really need Cleanse. So I decided to play Teleport on farm champions -- Orianna, on Viktor I tried it sometimes, Anivia -- and it's just good. It allows you to farm. The other guy wants to kill you and you just ignore it, you just farm."

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Okay, so double Teleport is good. But what is it really about double Teleport that makes certain teams think it's worth taking every game? "[The advantage teams have with] double Teleport, basically, is they are going to have higher skirmishing power," Fnatic coach Luis "Deilor" Sevilla says. "Depending on their composition, they're going to be able to [1-3-1] split push better."

For almost two years now, we've seen the versatility that teams have when it comes to global map pressure and objectives when top laners take the Summoner, and having another player bring it to the Rift becomes just a natural extension of the strategy. "I think that the two Teleport meta is really great for the top laner, because usually when someone takes Teleport, the top has it," SKTelecom T1's top laner Gyeong-Hwan "MaRin" Jang says. "But if the mid also has it, the top laner's use of Teleport is much stronger. It's there to enhance the already existing top Teleport meta."

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Of the three teams in the Worlds 2015 Semifinals at the time of this writing, xPeke uses Teleport as his Summoner more than any other mid laner left in the tournament. It becomes interesting to contrast that with Fnatic's mid laner Fabian "Febiven" Diepstraten, who's only used Teleport in one game so far at Worlds 2015 -- in his last game against Edward Gaming.

Victory through Combat Summoners

Fnatic does not believe that the strategy is foolproof, and that teams have not properly understood the innate advantages, and disadvantages, that using double Teleport entails. "Getting Teleport on mages like Viktor or other champions like this, it's not that strong," Deilor explains. "These kind of mages actually need a defensive Summoner Spell normally in team fights."

Deilor points to the recent clash with Edward Gaming for an example of some of the fragility of over-reliance on Teleport and how to overcome it. "So for example, if you have double Teleport, or triple Teleport like [EDG] had in the first game, they're really good in skirmishing but their team fighting is actually bad. So you just have to group and fight 5v5 and you kill them all, because they don't have offensive or defensive Summoners."

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The Fnatic coach also pointed out that a team's composition, particularly as far as team fight power and crowd control is concerned, can determine how effective, or how vulnerable, the double Teleport can be.

"In our second game with Cloud9 [in the Group Stage], Incarnati0n picking Orianna with Teleport in that case was really bad, because he was [against] Elise [jungle] and his opponent was Viktor," Deilor recalls. "So this guy, he's going to die. It's impossible this guy survives against Elise and Shen support."

And recalling that game, Deilor's analysis was spot on, with Nicolaj "Incarnati0n" Jensen having one of his worst games of the tournament, going 1-5-2 and having minimal impact overall.

Holding the line

But if this is true, why do we see xPeke plugging away in the mid lane on champions like Anivia and Orianna with Teleport, regardless of team compositions? "In xPeke's case, if you analyze what he does in the team, basically he just holds mid," Deilor explains. "He wave clears and holds mid. He doesn't do anything in the early game. So for him, the [strategy] is I'm going to stand by my tower and I'm going to last hit all the minions, wave clear, go back to base, and Teleport to the lane. He only goes aggressive when he has his jungler and support around."

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Particularly against teams without premier wave clear, Teleport on a control mage has proven to be a way to keep your Tier 1 tower up. "[xPeke] just wants to be able to wave clear," Deilor reaffirms. "So depending on your composition, if you're playing [with] pressure in the mid lane or you're playing [around your ADC] like Origen does, you're going to have control and you're going to have peeling, defense, wave clear, and be able to stall. It can be good."

Let the Bot Lane Beware

The other consequence of the double Teleport meta has been aggressive bottom lanes being repeatedly punished for their over-extension in engages. Much to the chagrin of aggressive ADC players everywhere, the 2v2 bot lane very often can be anywhere from a 3v3 or 5v5 as early as five minutes into the game.

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In addition to bot lanes, double Teleport has made skirmishes in general unprofitable for teams that cannot match opponents' global pressure. Without two Teleports, teams often find ganks that start in their advantage are quickly reversed when opponents reinforce from across the map. "Double Teleport is kind of famous, nowadays, and against double Teleport the general rule is 'do not skirmish,'" Fnatic ADC Martin "Rekkles" Larsson explains. "Basically, just go for team fights. Because in team fights the Teleports are most likely useless, unless they're used for flanks."

In general though, everyone seems to agree with one thing about this new meta. "The double Teleport strategy is not overpowered," SKT mid laner Sang-hyeok "Faker" Lee says. "It's just another strategy. And I feel like if the mid laner feels like having Teleport that day, that match, that is just how it works. That's the only difference. It's personal preference. It's not an amazing strategy."

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The key to beating it is to abuse your enemies' lack of combat Summoners, and to play around where double Teleport is strong -- in skirmishes and map pressure. But even given the weaknesses of the strategy, thanks to the flexibility it brings, double Teleport is likely here to stay for the remainder of Worlds 2015.

Frank Fields is a Senior Editor for Riot Games Esports Web Content team. Talk to him on Twitter about ordered lists, where your comments will be assimilated into the Matrix. You can also find him in Solo Queue in the Diamond 5 retirement home.

17 Comments

Aitch310/17/2015, 10:23:53 PM4 votes

just remove tp riot. nobody likes the 5 man ganks bot. i personally want winning lane top and mid lane to feel more meaningful and its just not when 1 tp sways the game entirely or people are just tping back to lane when they get forced out. when you think about it having tp makes forcing someone out of lane meaningless, kind of a slap in the face to good players who win lane hard. maybe im missing something tho.. thoughts people?

eL BoKuZeN10/18/2015, 2:41:13 AM3 votes

I don't think nerfing TP would be a great idea. Simply because it provides more impact for hard carrying mid or top laners. Buffing other summoner spells can be a good work around it. Making it a big choice on what summoner you really wanted to pick up. Right now, I'm thinking of additional Gold/XP for kills on ignited enemies. But then Ignite/TP will be having both benefits. that leaves TP denial an option, like TP targeted on wards/minions does not make it invulnerable, just additional hit HP. Or enemy can target the targeted TP to deny the TP and overwrite the TP. That will be so much beneficial for the later champ to TP but will be so late for the fight that he would better cancel it instead.

Balancing will be difficult. it can be played around so much.

LegacyDAP10/18/2015, 12:17:32 AM3 votes

So if TP is getting a nerf then can we nerf ignite and flash too. Because I see flash and ignite more than I see tp.

IcyPepper10/18/2015, 1:45:13 AM2 votes

I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion, but I rather like TP...

Honestly, I wish there were more utility or team-centered summoner spells that were viable. People don't complain about top laners taking ignite, but when a midlaner takes TP people hate it. (And let's not even get into flash. That's at just about 5x more dominant than TP, and unfortunately has to be because of the game being balanced around it. Not putting blame on anyone for that, it just happened).

For decent reasons, I'll give them that. Ignite doesn't have the same impact TP does, they're quite different.

I just wish we had more spells that were viable, not (possibly deliberately?) weak like {{summoner:2}}. Maybe not TP levels of strong, but more utility spells like exhaust and TP are fun over combat spells, but only if they're not overtuned or overpowered. Some variety would be nice, but I doubt we're going to get more summoner spells at this point...

Kaledain10/18/2015, 8:08:16 PM1 votes

I like how they are acting like TP mid and double TP is a new thing (when it really is not)... I guess the pros are finally getting to use that tactic. Been around for a long time same with Shen support. At least we get the pros opinion on why they like to run it.

aítch10/19/2015, 2:59:41 PM1 votes

no one needs to nerf or buff summoner spells It just depends on the champ. That is about it

The Whamboozler10/18/2015, 1:18:12 AM1 votes

I used to get raged at for bringing TP top and mid over ignite. :-(

Stexe10/18/2015, 1:49:10 AM1 votes

I've been saying double (or more) Teleport comps are going to be the meta since the Alpha... Glad to see it finally came out. They definitely need a nerf, but removing it or making it towers only will be a bit too strict. I think just making it not work on wards and increasing the cooldown when not on a tower slightly would go a long way to solving it while still keeping it be an option.

the mana sword10/18/2015, 12:44:28 PM1 votes

FNC Cheated