The power of split pushing

I played a really hard game in flex last night, and wanted to share my experience (specifically for all those people who always blame their splitter for not being with the team).

I was playing top Lane as maokai against a tryndamere. I was BIG. I don't mean 17/0 full ap big, but rather I got a few solo kills in Lane, a few good early-mid game skirmishes, and was basically an unkillable force as full tank maokai.

Our team steadily grew a healthy gold lead. My allies weren't stomping, but they were relatively even. You'd think with a great teamfight champion like maokai, we'd have an easy win. Tryndamere played an excellent split game though, and the game went to 46 minutes instead of ending in 20-30. I managed to win, but the whole time felt like if I made a single mistake I'd lose the game. BTW I finished 8/1/19 and that one death mistake gave them an inhibitor - a second death surely would have lost us the game.

So what was the problem? Teams: Them (blue): tryndamere, Lee, Annie, Ashe, Nami Us (red): maokai, Jarvan, zed, Kai'sa, Pyke

Zed was duo with Pyke and wanted ADC but was filled top (I swapped with him bc ADC wouldn't). Enemy tryndamere and Annie were clearly duo, possibly others.

Any time I tried to group with my team, tryndamere immediately started pushing towers and the enemy team hard disengaged. Despite how big I was (and having a j4) we couldn't force a fight and take a clean win into an end. Zed often did zed things killing Annie/Nami with ult but dying in turn. Jarvan seemed too hesitant to go in with zed dead (zed having lots of kills and deaths, appearing to be most of our damage since Kai'sa was behind). Kaisa kept wanting to recall to stop tryndamere, and Pyke didn't bring enough damage by himself.

After one or two such missed chances to just end it, tryndamere had cleared our inners and another miss would mean an inhibitor - so despite being tanky enough to 1v5 for ages I was forced to sit in Lane and babysit tryndamere. My team SHOULD have still won the 4v4 (AND I had tp while trynd had ignite), but they never seemed to want to do anything. Zed kept going for assassination trades, while blaming Kai'sa for being weak (which honestly she wasn't bad, he was just mad that she didn't give him ADC). Even after zed trading for Annie they should have been able to win the 3v3, but they never tried to push down a tower.

I'd occasionally call teammates over to kill trynd (I still beat him 1v1, but as full tank it wasn't fast enough to actually kill him, he'd just spin away and I'd w after him and get dragged 3/4 of the way across the map before giving up the chase (sometimes getting his ult at least) because if his team collapsed and killed me we'd lose). In the 2v1s he'd almost always kill my ally during his ult before I finished him (peel as much as I could, he just stuck to them too well). However, those trades were ultimately worth, with trynd dead I'd be able to group with the team and get Baron/inhibs/elder, and ultimately that's what won us the game - trading Kaisa for trynd in a 2v1 then me just walking into their base and locking down their team and ending.

Honestly though - with the gold lead we had (14k by the end) the game had no business going that long. Tryndamere, by denying maokai from teamfights, single handedly gave his team 15+ minutes of opportunities for me to make a mistake and lose the game. If I died, tryndamere could kill my whole team since I wasn't there to peel.

So next time someone is splitting - at least ask yourself if it's creating pressure and helping you catch up. Then disengage fights instead of extending 4v5. Give your opponent's chances to make mistakes - because honestly that game statistically should have been a stomp and yet it was one of my hardest earned wins ever.

(And yes, I know it was largely only difficult because my team didn't play the 4v4 or 3v3 well; but that's solo queue for you).