Thirty-Six Stratagems

I recently saw a post about applying a couple principles from the Art of War to League, and replying to a reply about how that's absurd because League is just a game, I referenced a few of the Thirty-Six Stratagems and how they could also be applied to League.

It amused me, so I thought I'd make a post applying as many as I could. It might give people some new ideas, or at least a fresh approach on the game.

WARNING: THIS WILL BE A LONG POST.

• 「瞞天過海」 Cross the sea without the emperor's knowledge This means masking your true goals by using a fake goal as a distraction. The original post I saw was applying this through the use of deceiving All Chat. More commonly, anytime you bait someone at Dragon or Baron, you're doing this.

• 「圍魏救趙」 Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao This is imperative when the enemy is overleveled and pushing hard. It's the split push tactic, only I'd take it a step further. Send two good pushers and a tank to attack the most pushed enemy lane. Push with speed. Give them something they can't ignore. The goal with this tactic isn't to claim victory from defeat, but to get the enemy to back off. If you make two or three of them B, you've done your job and can get out.

• 「借刀殺人」 Kill with a borrowed sword This means using the strength of another to attack when your own strength is insufficient. ADCs who are struggling on farm mid game would do well to consider this. Contribute, but don't engage. Consider using any CC you might have to support from the back lines and let your jungler or top get the kill. The gold you make from the assist is preferable to giving the enemy gold by engaging when you're underlevel.

• 「以逸待勞」 Wait at leisure while the enemy labors Encourage your opponent to wear themselves out, then strike when they're low. Act like you're going to take Dragon while your team waits in a nearby bush. When they spot you on their ward they'll come after you, and you can leave. Let them think they've chased you off. "Oh, might as well take drag while we're here," they'll think. Let them get it about halfway down, then your team strikes, starting with the champ with the lowest health. A more classic example is a tank pulling all the CC onto himself before his team engages with a purpose.

• 「趁火打劫/趁火打劫」 Loot a burning house When your opponents start showing signs of excessive toxicity to one another, strike hard and strike fast. Group up as soon as you see them start bickering back and forth in All Chat, and start pushing. Take every engagement except those where a fed champ is present without hesitation.

• 「聲東擊西」 Make a sound in the east, then strike west Classic split push, except you'll want to have the rest of the team actively pushing the opposite lane rather than just hanging around base. Further, if your team has the levels and the items for it, let three or four take Baron while the rest lightly and carefully clear lanes. Usually if someone is visual on a team's minimap, they won't suspect a Baron.

• 「無中生有」 Create something from nothing This is simply lying. It's making the opponent believe something exists when it doesn't. A couple examples. Say the opponent is going for Dragon but you don't have Smite up. Have the jungler skirt around near Dragon like he's looking to steal anyway. This will either make their whole team push Dragon hard, or will pull some damage away to keep him back. In either case a move may present itself. In laning, you might do this by moving into a bush for a brief moment to make the enemy believe you've warded it when you have no wards. If the opponents communicate, it could keep ganks off of you for a while from that route.

• 「明修棧道,暗渡陳倉」 Openly repair the gallery roads, but sneak through the passage of Chencang This means tricking the enemy with an obvious move that will take a long time, then surprising him with a shortcut. It's similar to "Make a sound in the east, then strike west", but instead of simple misinformation, you're making a hard bait. Have your whole team push an unpushed lane while your Yi slips through the jungle to take Dragon or an inhibitor.

• 「隔岸觀火」 Watch the fires burning across the river This is a pretty classic objective steal. Let your opponents whittle down Baron or Dragon, then swoop in and steal it, and possibly get a kill or two while you're at it.

• 「笑裏藏刀」 Hide a knife behind a smile This means charming the enemy to weaken their resolve against you. Subconsciously, many players who are flattered by opponents will actively target the more irritating opponents. For example, if your top has been toxic to the other team in his fed state and you've had nothing but praise for them as ADC, a lot of opponents will subconsciously go for your top before you in teamfights.

• 「李代桃僵」 Sacrifice the plum tree to preserve the peach tree This is a case where you sacrifice one objective to sustain a long-term strategy. When a tank dives so the rest of his team can get out alive, or when you let the other team have Dragon so you can get a couple towers, you're doing this.

• 「順手牽羊」 Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat Be prepared to take any opportunity for even the smallest gains. Getting even two or three shots on the enemy's turret while he's fed and off ganking another lane can make all the difference in the long term. Taking the time to kill minions under turret while you're being pushed will eventually turn the turret's aggression onto the champs. Nip at the enemy jungler's heels without hard engaging him, even if you can't kill him outright. This applies to your jungler as well as an ADC who's fleeing a gank. The lower his health, the less he can gank and the more difficult it'll be for him to farm.

• 「打草驚蛇」 Stomp the grass to scare the snake Do something out of the ordinary with the goal of making the enemy act in a way they hadn't planned to. Drop a high-damage AoE in the bush when you think the enemy might be there. Run over a Teemo shroom and Hourglass as soon as he reveals himself. Leap onto the enemy with Flash at the ready and see if they attack or run. If they run, you'll know they're not confident about engaging you. Toss a Pantheon ult on a lane that's getting pushed just to chase them off. This can also be reversed to mean, don't do anything rushed or unmeasured that gives away your position too early.

• 「借屍還魂」 Take a corpse to resurrect the soul Sounds morbid, but what it means is reviving an old technology or method that most people have put aside. For example, you might build several Warmogs, which was done before the day of unique passives, simply for the core health, and use that health to push towers late game with no minions whatsoever. Or one I like to do... Bring back AP Yi. Give him a Thornmail, wait until the enemy has exhausted hard CC, then Alpha Strike into the middle of them and W.

• 「調虎離山」 Lure the tiger off its mountain lair Simply put, it's things like drawing enemies out of their jungle or away from their tower to engage them. Never engage a team with an advantageous position, unless of course you're HORRIBLY overlevel.

• 「欲擒故縱」 In order to capture, one must let loose The Art of War also states this by saying, "Always give an enemy a clear escape route." Our default mindset for a 3v1 gank is to utterly cut off all methods of escape as quickly as possible, but I've seen numerous times where that'll make the opponent go "Welp, nowhere to go. Might as well fight." With nothing to lose, he goes hard for your squishiest champ and often gets one or even two kills. This is what we'd call "worth", perhaps, but it's preferable to win the engagement with your team intact. Try instead to give him a clear escape route that your most mobile champ eventually shuts off from the jungle, steering him back towards you. Don't let him escape, but always let him see a light at the end of the tunnel.

• 「拋磚引玉」 Tossing out a brick to get a jade gem This means luring the opponent with false gains. Let them think your tower is wide open and then ambush them when they come to take it. Let them think you went B and once they've pushed, jump out of the bush with your jungler. Lie in wait for the opposing jungler to take your red, then steal it with Smite and jump on him while he's wounded.

• 「擒賊擒王」 Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief If a team is getting carried by one fed champ, they often tend to rely on that champion too much. By targeting that champion specifically with everything you have, you might be able to start getting kills on them. The other team's morale will start to slip, especially if he's the arrogant type who blames them for his recent string of deaths. More importantly, their strongest asset is out of teamfights early on. It's generally a good idea to target those with high mastery levels in the champ they're playing as well, as people will often expect great things from them right from the start.

• 「釜底抽薪」 Remove the firewood from under the pot The previous example could also be applied here, but similarly, blocking a big ult with Yasuo's wall or Braum's shield, or denying a Yasuo ult by stunning him mid-ult, are other good examples. The key principle here is to take out the opponent's strongest asset and take the wind out of their sails.

• 「渾水摸魚」 Disturb the water and catch a fish Send the opponent into disarray. By having tanky champs jump in and CC their CC, you'll create a situation where the opposing formation will fall apart and squishies will be easier to pick off. A Panth ult while the enemy is trying to take Dragon or Baron can also do this, if your team is nearby. This spectacular move may well get most of the team focused on getting rid of you. Waste their time, draw them away, and your team can steal the objective and/or pick off those who stray too far.

• 「金蟬脱殼」 Slough off the cicada's golden shell Escape the enemy with misdirection. As Shaco, place a box in a bush you're about to run into, then as soon as you enter, Q the other way. As LeBlanc, double Distortion from a bush over a far wall, and when you break line of sight, Distortion back to your original spot. The idea is to escape by leaving obvious trails along a path you're not taking.

• 「關門捉賊」 Shut the door to catch the thief As tempting as it is to leap on two enemies who are out too far out with everything you have, plan these engagements carefully. Make sure someone, rather than fighting, is running interference in the most obvious route where reinforcements might come. Make sure someone is one step ahead of the enemy to cut off any dash or Flash attempts.

• 「遠交近攻」 Befriend a distant state and strike a neighboring one In League, this might be construed as pushing your minions down and already pushed lane, then focusing your champion push on less pushed lanes. The closer the tower you're attacking, the easier it is for you to get teammates in and yourself out if things get messy. It's best to let your minions whittle down pushed lanes while you attack closer objectives when the balance of power between teams is more or less equal. Even moreso if you're ahead on kills.

• 「假道伐虢」 Obtain safe passage to conquer the state of Guo This one is difficult to parse in a League context because your teammates never become your opponents and vice versa, though you might consider this to be the classic strategy of positioning so that Dragon helps you take out the opposing team, and then turning around and finishing Dragon off. Or helping the opponent weaken Dragon, stealing it, then turning on them. The essence of this strategy is to work together to take down a common foe, then use the resources you gained to turn on your previous ally.

• 「偷梁換柱」 Replace the beams with rotten timbers Disrupt the enemy's methods. Don't play by the rules they're used to following. Rather than stun the ADC, stun the support and attack the ADC with impunity. Choose a support with a ton of damage and use it to wear down the opposing lane for your ADC to get the kill. Bring Lucian, Miss Fortune, Tristana or AD Nidalee top and harass from afar, getting out of harm's way whenever your bulky top lane opponent goes to lock you down.

• 「指桑罵槐」 Point at the mulberry tree while cursing the locust tree Use indirect methods to deal with those you can't directly engage. Push the opposing top laner back with any ranged damage you have so the jungler can't go in for the gank. Or just the good old "Hi Lee Sin" when you suspect a gank is waiting in a bush will sometimes make the jungler leave.

• 「假痴不癲」 Feign madness but keep your balance Do things that make the other team think you're stupid. Try to gank by just running in when they're not pushed at all. Let them catch you trying to solo dragon at level 3, but don't engage. Try and deliberately fail to counterjungle on a couple of occasions, but don't fail to the point where you die. Deliberately miss skillshots and AoEs. Misuse your CC a little. Later in the game, when everyone thinks you're terrible, start playing your best. You'll be less likely to be focused at that point.

• 「上屋抽梯」 Remove the ladder when the enemy has ascended the roof The good old tactic of baiting them into a tower dive or baiting at Dragon. Make them fight you as well as the map.

• 「樹上開花」 Deck the tree with false blossoms Taken from my previous reply: Any time you charge up a Vi Q or have Rammus Powerball into a bush towards the enemy just to back them off, you do this.

• 「反客為主」 Make the host and the guest exchange roles In a League context, this might better be applied by changing the roles your champion plays. Build Thornmail on an ADC to get the edge in every mid game duel. Have Sejuani build AP. Have Nidalee go pure tank and make the enemy waste precious minutes during team fights chasing her. If you're up against an AP top laner, build MR before damage.

• 「美人計」 The beauty trap This one is almost impossible to apply to League of Legends.

• 「空城計」 The empty fort strategy From my previous reply: I've found myself, as a mobile champ like Shaco or LeBlanc, warding the enemy away from dragon while my team is fighting it by roaming their jungle and acting like I'm trying to bait them into an ambush. If you do something like that? This is the stratagem you're using.

• 「反間計」 Let the enemy's own spy sow discord in the enemy camp While this can't be applied literally to League, it does bring up a facet of the Art of War which states to give your enemy false information through his own spies. In this case, if you know the enemy has warded a location, send three champs across the ward in one direction, then slip around to hit another. Bait them at Dragon. Use the enemy's wards against them.

• 「苦肉計」 Inflict injury on oneself to win the enemy's trust If you're confident you can do so (say, if you have a Sona), go hard and let the opponent get you low. Run and let them chase after you, then heal or the like at the perfect moment and spring an ambush or drop fight-swinging CC on them.

• 「連環計」 Chain stratagems In general, you should try to use several different tactics simultaneously to make it difficult for the other team to divine what you're trying to do. The drawback is that if any one strategy fails, the whole ploy fails.

• 「走為上策」 If all else fails, retreat This is League of Legends 101 once you've served your term in Bronze. It's basic, it's concise, it speaks for itself and it's extremely true. Do. Not. Overstay. If what you're doing isn't working, don't keep pursuing it. Get out and look for another angle later.