Has anyone had success with experimental strategies in the pre-season?

TBakes·Dec 17, 2015·1 votes·932 views

It is my understanding that part of the pre-season changes were made in hopes of developing new strategies that break away from the meta. I feel like my games still consist of a fighter/tank top, mage/assassin mid, fighter/tank jungle, and marksmen + support bot. I figured with the marksmen update, slight jungle adjustments, change in sightstone and trinkets, and the introduction of Rift Herald that I would run into more non-meta strategies.

Are others still experiencing the same old strategies? Have you tried or been part of an experimental strategy that obviously failed or succeeded? If you could try a new strategy in the pre-season, what would it be?

For example, I really expected more duo top lanes to take an early Rift Herald before Dragon.

19 Comments

KINGAESTHETICDec 17, 20155 votes

yea the rift herald is a fail

TBakesDec 17, 20151 votes

From what I understand, the damage is too high for most to risk it. I was imagining something like a Caitlyn-Alistar duo going top, zoning out the enemy top laner, taking Rift Herald with the jungle pretty early, and sieging the tower. But I haven't seen anything like that. I think it can work. I'm interested to see how the LCS responds to it.

DreadlocksDec 17, 20153 votes

Right now, towers are worth far more than dragon or rift herald, so until that changes, LCS will continue to do what they're doing.

TBakesDec 17, 20151 votes

Also, I'm surprised there aren't more duo jungle comps. I feel like Marksmen are strong enough to lane alone (if they play safe, of course). You have one jungle build the vision smite item, and the other build whichever he/she wants (maybe Cinderhulk). You have constant gank pressure and the Marksmen bot lane gets extra experience.

TheCeeJayDec 17, 20152 votes

Not really a "strategy" really but I've found that jungle Leona is actually pretty strong right now, so when I play with friends I've been picking it. She's obviously not one of the strongest junglers, but she's stronger than she used to be in the jungle.

We've been experimenting with a team comp that is just very high CC teams. Nothing too groundbreaking though, we still have a traditional mid laner, just one who has nice CC in their kit. Same for top and support (Taric + Leona is just rude). ADC doesn't matter a whole lot because the CC they have is mostly snares, while nice doesn't end up mattering a whole lot late game so we let the ADC be whoever they want.

Pasta Help DeskDec 17, 20152 votes

You want a Strong 5 man team comp.

Top: Aatrox Mid: Anivia Jungle: Zac ADC: Kalista Support: Zilean

If you get even the slightest lead early in the game, it will be impossible for the enemy team to make a comeback!

TBakesDec 17, 20151 votes

Meteos was playing Zac pretty well at the All-Star tournament, which I was surprised made an appearance.

However, I have not seen Aatrox yet. I would be interested to see how he does against other top laners right now.

I also tried a Zilean game recently and did not really enjoy it. He just seems too squishy for pretty much the whole game that he becomes underwhelming. His new passive is okay. I liked helping my teammates level up.

DryditchDec 17, 20152 votes

Aatrox is among the few champions who can shit all over Illaoi when played intelligently. Maxing his W first enables him to just heal back her poke off a minion and her tentacles. It's a pretty nice matchup.

Pasta Help DeskDec 17, 20152 votes

Aatrox has some strong matches in the top lane but he isn't a safe pick. I've seen more Aatrox jungle lately than I have top.

Zilean however is one of my favorite champions in the game to play. I play him more mid though. I enjoy playing Zil alot. Yes he is squishy but I love it when someone like a Yi or Fizz tries to run up to me and instagib me. It never works. There are just so many ways to use his bombs.

Malphite is about to engage a team fight? Throw a bomb on his those damages will be huge.

Annie just used tibbers but is walking really far away? Throw a bomb on tibbers so when he comes back to Annie, KABOOM goes the bomb.

Is the enemy team trying to come contest baron or dragon? Block the jungle exits off with a bomb. Make them fear getting stunned by you for getting to close!

I think the funniest set of kills I ever got with zil was about 3 weeks ago. We had a team fight mid and the enemy team was retreating. Thresh flashed over the wall and threw out a lantern at the same time to save his ADC. I threw a bomb on the ADC right as they were taking the lantern. About 2 seconds later I get a little announcement saying I got a triple kill. Was pretty epic and funny.

TBakesDec 17, 20151 votes

At the beginning of pre-season I was actually finding success with Leona jungle too. I think it is a direct consequence of the Marksmen update. She scales well with armor, and she brings heavy CC. Her E-Q is great for early ganks. It is mostly her inability to clear early that hinders her, so if you cannot get a couple of early assists then she stays under-leveled.

RalanrDec 17, 20152 votes

Some friends and I tried duo mid (by taking a support for the midlaner). But we ended up facing a pre-made and we weren't using voice communication.

Like any solo laner vs a duo, they outlevel them if they don't get fully killed. We forced the person to farm under their tower, but their jungler gave them a good edge. Surprisingly the solo bot did not do bad (Just put down a support who can mid, we used Morgana and it worked fabulously).

Duo mid also gives a problem for the jungler. The lanes that will need your attention the most (the single ones) are on opposite sides of the map. So you need to be very mobile. A Bard jungler could work well with this though.

Idk. I haven't seen many people go for the herald buff. I'm unranked so that's probably why. I have seen a few friends mage jungle ( Lissandra specifically) to interesting levels of success.

Edit: I've also done support Sion and item 3930 Sion to reasonable and hilarious effect.

TBakesDec 17, 20151 votes

So you tried taking a mage+poke support mid? I could see it working against certain enemies, especially the more snow-balling mid-laners.

I also remember a Rioter talking about how he was using Bard jungle a lot in the pre-season because he works well with one of the new keystone masteries. I still like Bard support, but haven't tried jungle.

I could see the thought behind Lissandra jungle. However, like most mages that I have tried, the jungle does so much damage to them early that I generally feel useless until later levels. I would really like to see mages like Karthus in the jungle again.

I've had varying success with Sion support. He is a solid tank with decent CC, so he makes use of the Relic Shield. I have not tried him in pre-season though. I never really liked jungle with him. He is a bit slow and his CC is easy to dodge, which makes ganks hard for me. Maybe I'm just not doing it right XD

RalanrDec 17, 20152 votes

The trick to ganking is his ult. Pre-6 I haven't had good ganks without my teammates setting it up or the enemy over extending. Post 6 you can have really great ganks.

The best thing I've learned about Sion's ult is that it doesn't need a good distance to be effective. Ulting point blank in a teamfight can turn it around quickly.

TBakesDec 17, 20151 votes

Yeah, I agree. I guess I see the game as a bit faster paced right now, so inability to gank early holds me back. Then again, I don't jungle too often.

DreadlocksDec 17, 20152 votes

I've seen support ezreal be pretty damn good...

TBakesDec 17, 20151 votes

I definitely haven't seen anything like that. I'm assuming he just helps as a poke support who builds Frost Queen's Claim?

DreadlocksDec 17, 20151 votes

Yeah its dominated the 2x's ive seen it. Even out did the enemy brand support which was kind of shocking lol. I think my friend said he saw QTpie and Gosu doing it.