Another Low-Elo Toplane Ranked Game Breakdown

Did one of these awhile back and people seemed to mostly enjoy it, so I'm going to do another one. If you like/dislike something, please leave a comment below - and tell me how I can improve. I know tldr is one thing for me to work on already, but I do that mostly so I can help newer or less skilled players (myself included) THINK about what we are doing, why we do it, and hopefully improve so we don't make the mistakes so much AND see more playmaking opportunities.

1:30 always keep eye on jungle buff lvl 1 for your jungler - helps in case enemy decides to early invade and cheese gank you level 2. Also note if any enemies are late to lane - the jungler PROBABLY started that side - play accordingly.

2:30 - when farming, try to position so illaoi can q you OR the wave -not both - this minimizes her free harass and healing. She will pretty much always start q. Then w or e 2nd - both are valid - depends if you want to look for kills (spirit pull) or just push and basic trading of damage.

2:46 - illaoi gets a great spirit pull on me - barely sneaking it past the incoming minion wave. I immediately pull her to me - doing so makes it hard for her to attack both me AND my spirit; hitting both at the same time maximizes here damage to me. Because I'm darius, stacking up my auto's to proc my passive let's me win most trades, so my goal after pulling her is to walk towards her tower between each auto to maximize my time attacking her and maybe get an early kill. Don't immediately use w upon pulling since pull slows her. When that pull wears off, I w to reset my aa (auto+w) to maximize dps and keep her slowed so I can get off more autos and stack my passive. I chased a bit too long and tanked a ton of minion agro - making the trade more even than it should have been.

3:14 - the jungler could well be top - he could have been there around 2:40, but it's a rammus so his clear is a bit slower this early in the game. Still, I must beware of the potential to end up 1v2 at any time. 3:37 - illaoi misses a spirit pull. This is the only way she wins trades so early in the match - without her e, she's weak. I should immediately force her off the wave and/or look to trade with her. She uses abilities on the wave, doesn't respect my damage, and ends up fighting me with her e still on cd. I flash for one last auto, then back off - knowing my bleed stacks will finish her even if she'd had a potion to pop. Illaoi makes the mistake of burning flash - not realizing she's already dead. If she'd saved it OR flashed before/during my flash, I wouldn't have gotten the last auto and she would live.

3:53 - rammus finally ganks top. Good call since I'm low, but bad because his laner is dead. I assumed he would kill me too since he has red buff, but he fought me in a huge minion wave - taking tons of free damage and my passive was fully stacked. Even so, it takes kiting away once no longer cc'd so I land a perfect q for healing, plus aa+w (auto reset) to kill him and live. He could have easily waited for me to push towards tower, illaoi to tp, and they 2v1 me for a guaranteed kill since I'd be overextended with no flash and low hp. Still, not his fault for overestimating his damage there - anything less than what I did and I would die without killing him.

5:22 - Illaoi pops some pots and barely survives; if she didn't use them until end of fight, she would have died - good job by her; however, she should immediately recall and tp instead of staying top with next-to-zero hp. Staying costs her her life. I again look to pull her in, auto, w to slow, auto, and use q while she's running away before she quite gets beyond my attack range. She ends up using tp to catch the wave after respawning - so why not avoid dying and use the tp anyways? I realize my bot is losing and keep looking for tp plays bot if I can - I know a fed bot out-carries a fed toplaner.

7:30 the wave is pushing to me, I'm 2 levels up, I have way more mobility than illaoi - she needs to leave as soon as she sees me, but she wants to prevent me freezing. I see this and use q to clear wave just like she's doing. This prevents her from easily shoving me under tower. With all my movespeed and levels advantage, I run her down and punish her for staying. 8:30 I should recall and buy, but I want to beat enemy bot lane to first tower. Illaoi hits 6, so I need to be careful because she can beat me in an all-in under her tower. But I get a nice chunk damage to leave her about 1/3 hp and with my passive stacking up. Because of my passive plus mana for ult, I flash in and kill her - not using flash let's her outplay me and probably kill me without me getting a reply kill. I then test out my damage on rammus before backing.

10:30 - tp top to keep up pressure towards first tower. I spot rammus as he runs around the corner and dodge illaoi e. They 3 man gank me - hoping to shut me down since then kog can guaranteed carry. Rammus engages first - which is correct AND illaoi lands her e. By pulling illaoi and kiting away from all 3, I deny them getting extra damage via my spirity from illaoi's e and ult. I also set up for best chance at 3 man q to heal me. Ekko does a beautiful ult to prevent me ulting him and getting resets. I figured I was dead, so I do a poor ult on illaoi, but it's enough to make some of them hesitate in attacking me. Ekko was low and now has no mana, so that was my saving grace this fight. Rammus flashes to taunt me, but since ekko has no mana, they can't finish me off. I again kite sideways to get the healing from my q and pick up 2 kills. Thanks to gragas keeping enemy bot in check, I get first tower. Normally ganking for a losing lane is bad, but in this case it is good since he can get kills back and doesn't need to fear counter-ganks thanks to me pulling rammus and ekko top.

13:00 - is a kog'maw 3 levels down on me supposed to hurt this much? Nerf please. And why is alistar tankier than me even without his ult? I'm an idiot and I cost gragas his life too. I give enemy team a shutdown on me, and feed kog more. Everyone makes boosted plays I guess.

14:30 - this is one proof illaoi was not inting - she LEARNED from her past mistakes and leaves when she sees me instead of staying to get tower damage and ending up dying for it. Good job illaoi. As I've pushed the wave in, I look to steal red buff rather than go for risky tower damage. Away from tower, I can easily 1v2 rammus and illaoi.

16:30 - enemy bot groups with team and gets mid tower - we can't win that fight, so I just flank in case the split or misposition. I then go top to stop ekko splitpush. I trade 2 for 1 with illaoi and ekko - blowing their ults. This buys my team time to get mid tower and a kill. Good job team - you didn't just ff solo and/or sit in your jungle doing nothing.

20:00 keep up the splitpush since we can't 5v5 unless we instantly kill kog. My team should stay as 4 and let me look for tp plays. The enemy goes missing - obviously to stop me splitting top. My team SHOULD force a dragon and push bot, bu they come to me instead. We reset and 21:30 we have a 4-1 split and dragon force. Ali shows top; kog is therefore top. I can leave or... I can bait kog into getting too close and pop him after ali uses his cc on me. This works because I have my passive fully stacked from hitting alistar. Sorry illaoi - a 5 level advantage means I still win even when low hp. And meanwhile, my team has time to free farm and push to secure towers in other lanes - getting us more than forcing 5v5's.

22:45 - is that a kog'maw alone mid with a support who went to ward? I got flash and ult and red buff - r.i.p. adc. A good collapse by my team nets another kill. We could get mid inner OR baron; we are split in our decision, so we don't get as much as we could have. Baron can net more towers than our push mid would, and we coudn't have broken inhib tower, so baron would have been better. Rammus nicely stops our baron even though it costs his life, it's worth. Meanwhile, gragas is turning to fight 2v4 instead of just running. R.I.P. gragas - now they can bait baron or take towers. And did you see that ekko ult baiting gragas into thinking he would get a kill? Nice play by ekko. The enemy team makes a UNIFIED decision - the same we could have made just minutes ago - recognizing baron is better than mid inner tower. Alas, they only killed ONE enemy instead of TWO like we'd done. This let's us stop them doing baron. I clear top - warning team not to engage - so we can have side lane pressure. Speaking of which - our bot wave gets serious damage on the enemy inhib tower. I don't tp to it because I would die to get just the tower and inhib would still be alive. Then the enemy could force baron fight with our strongest member dead. Instead this buys us top inner tower. Seeing the enemy split, i use blastcone to force an advantageous fight. Thresh and fizz follow up for great fight. Gragas zones their adc - letting us easily win and get mid inhib. Sure that cost gragas his life, but that was worth. I tp to ensure we have the minion wave to tank tower. Then instead of looking for nexus towers or kills, we break top inhib tower and LEAVE. Staying would get us aced, gives enemy baron, and tilts people - don't greed.

28:00 - since we all based, the enemy could be rushing baron, so I call for 1 to clear bot, rest mid and ward baron. The enemy was heading there to do just as I called. We could rotate 5 top and pressure the open inhib, but gragas forces mid - costing us a teamfight and our mid inner tower. Never 5v5 in lane where you have supers if you can pressure elsewhere and force enemy to answer. Going top would either give us advantageous fight top while someone cleared our supers mid or give us even fight top and uncontested superminion push mid. I can't stop their push mid, so I get top inhib instead and pull illaoi back. They want me to stay for nexus tower, but I can't kill it and I can get pressure bot instead. This leaves all their inhibs exposed and dead. I ward baron before basing so I can tp if they force.

32:00 - I see tp flank behind enemy in mid. I ping team and go for it. I force out alistar's cc and enemy summoners. Thresh blows flash and nails kog'maw after this - ensuring we win the fight. The enemy had no reason to be so far out of base and rammus farming jungle. Greed for farm, lack of respect for enemy team cost them the fight and the game.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this helps you understand: toplane, darius, illaoi, splitpushing, teamfighting, tp flanks, etc. a little better. Best of luck on the rift.