Is there any point to split pushing in low elo?
Seems like there's little point to it now. Teleport has been a staple summoner spell in top lane for a while now, and recently mid laners have been starting to use it too. Add to that the fact that there are so few viable split pushers, and it becomes apparent that the tactic is dead. It's entirely possible that I'm just not doing it right, and if that's the case I'd like to know why. The way I see it, it's extremely rare to have a good split pushing opportunity in low elo; no one wards, people are roaming around the jungle aimlessly after lane phase, no one is forcing objectives down, etc. Thus, a split pusher is put at huge risk if they don't have a 100% reliable escape mechanism.
Even the most slow-witted of teams will recognize the fact that "Hey, there's a guy pushing bot lane and the rest of his team is around mid. Let's teamfight!" In these cases, there are two possibilities: either your team miraculously wins a 4v5 and does something with their advantage, or your team loses the fight, leading to the loss of at least 1 tower, usually more. In the latter case, if you don't reply with at least 1 taken tower of your own, your split pushing tactic has failed, since the enemy team can just back and stop you. It's common sense that 4 people can push harder than 1 person alone, so when the enemy team notices your absence and decides to siege mid, there's not much good that can come of split pushing.
While I realize that this somewhat boils down to team comp (e.g. a team with Anivia, Varus, and Thresh will be much more equipped to deal with a sieging enemy team than one composed of Swain, Twitch, and Blitzcrank), a split push is only successful when it either distracts the enemy team long enough for your own team to take objectives elsewhere (almost impossible to coordinate in solo queue) or it nets you more objectives than the enemy team takes when they force a fight (rare, since as I mentioned previously, 4 people can push much harder than 1 alone). Let us not forget as well that even if your comp is made for split pushing, the stars need to align in such a way so that your team is sufficiently ahead to not instantly lose any fights they happen to get into. You can beg and plead all you want, but at the end of the day you can't force your team to play safe, ward, not be reckless, not get caught out, etc.
If I'm a champion, such as Shaco or Teemo or Heimer, whose sole purpose come mid game is to split push, what can I do if my team refuses to do these things? Continuing to split push would result in the loss of an inhibitor much quicker than I could take even 1 tower. All the enemy team needs to do is group mid, and eventually someone will make a boneheaded engage that ends in a 50/50 shot of your team getting destroyed or the enemy team getting destroyed.
All in all, split pushing seems very risky, no matter what the situation. It's not even about getting caught; it's about the 4v5 situation you instantly put on your team. When is it an appropriate time to split push? And what if you're playing a champion like those mentioned above who can ONLY split push later into the game? Keep in mind this advice goes to a silver player, so tailor your answers to that elo. I don't care how split pushing works in diamond; I want to know how best to do it down here in the boondocks.
