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How is 2 vs 1 at top lane fair? I'm really annoyed..

elin990·8/19/2017, 12:59:49 PM·23 votes·8,709 views

First of all, I am new to the game ( playing for a month ) and I don't know much about it.

I mostly play top lane champions, like Garen, Riven, Teemo, Olaf.

Lately I've been noticing that in about 5 out of 10 matches, I stand alone at top, against two enemies (PVP blind pick). I tell my team i'm a noob and i can't beat two enemies on my own, but they usually don't help me much and flame me at the end of the game that I suck. Only when stuff gets really bad ( I die a lot) they help.

I don't get how this is fair. When I notice that it's 2 vs 1 at the start of the game, i ask people for help at top. But no respond. how am i supposed to beat 2 enemies as a noob? I'm level 25, couple of days ago i was playing at Garen top ALONE against two enemies and one of them was a Teemo from level 30. What the hell?

55 Comments

Mecha MaIphite8/19/2017, 1:08:08 PM45 votes

Usually you just don't fight them. You play safe, hug tower when necessary, and farm what you can. If you think they'll dive you, build defensive (though people probably won't be coordinated enough to pull off a proper dive).

For farming under tower, you let the tower hit a full health melee minion twice, then you hit it for the gold. For ranged minions, you need to hit it once, let the tower hit it, then hit it again. Once you have some more damage, you can just let the tower hit the ranged minions once before hitting it again. Don't be afraid to use abilities to help you farm under tower, especially for cannon minions and especially for the manaless champions. Don't get too greedy for minions when you're not near your tower though; it's not worth losing half your health for a bit of gold.

Eventually, they won't be as strong as you, because you'll be a higher level because of solo exp, and if you farm well, you'll have more gold than any one of them. Once you get better teammates, your team will also be ahead because they have a jungler who can gank and secure objectives.

Bârd8/19/2017, 2:13:26 PM9 votes

2v1 top means that YOU have a hard lane, but it means that everybody else on your team has an easier time.

It means that either the enemy team has no jungler (meaning no map pressure), or they have a 2v1 botlane.

As for how you are supposed to beat a 2v1 lane, you aren't. You don't win lane 2v1 by killing them, you do it by not dying.

If both of them are farming, that means that you will usually end up with more gold than either of them by the time lane phase ends as long as you farm decently and don't die.

Look up some videos on wave management and learn to CS under tower.

The thing with 2v1's is that you only ever run into them in four situations.

  • Featured Gamemodes
  • Low level play (Nobody has smite)
  • Salty players ("WTF I CALLED TOP")
  • LCS (Lane Swap).

You don't run into the situation much, just know it enough to survive when it happens.

notice me Sin pi8/19/2017, 8:04:33 PM6 votes

TL; DR: Give up on ur current champions and play other champions that can farm relatively easily 1vs2 until ur lv30, and you should expect to see 1vs1 top laning from that point on.

the current meta is shaped according to the 1 top, 1 jungle, 1 mid, 2 bot team comp, and it is not true for your case.

There are 3 ways to deal with 1vs2 laning phase:

  1. just farm up on gold and/OR EXP until you are stronger than your opposing laners without dying.
  2. Have your jungler cover for you
  3. dont play melee champions

I am guessing that you probably cant even farm properly in 1vs2 situation, in which case it would be up to your jungler to do something about it. But then your jungler is probably retarded, so... you just simply avoid melee champions to farm up in 1vs2 situation, as you would be very dependent on ally jungler's or midlaner's help. If you are just lv25, ur teammates are probably retards without a brain and you will not receive any help from them early game.

Oh wait, you see those youtube videos where a Riven Riven goes 1vs5 and gets a pentakill? That guy is lv30 and has access to all runes and masteries unlike a lv25 like you. Plus, that was not a clip from laning phase either, which is when you would have no items, unlike the Riven who had 4 core items in the clip. And the 4 core items are not going to happen for you if u are laning 1vs2.

Annie Annie is a good example of non-standard champion to use at top lane in your case:

  1. Her ranged Q helps with safe early game farming a lot at 0 mana cost.
  2. She does both CC(crowd control) and damage, so she is not as dependent on teammates to get things done; at lv25, ur teammates are retards as u can probably telll by now and playing team-dependent champions is NOT A GOOD IDEA.
  3. Her ratios make her scale very heavily with items, which is something that you'd want if you are going to only farm during laning phase Other champions like Gangplank Gangplank, Syndra Syndra, Orianna Orianna, and maybe Galio Galio that can farm without going in melee range are also good for 1vs2 laning i cant say about galio being useful after farming however, when his abilities are generally team-dependent and you have retards on ur team
The0nlyLordREM8/19/2017, 3:17:46 PM4 votes

Just dont die and you did your job, if your team flames they are the retards so ignore them. When its 2v1 top it means the enemy doesnt have a jungler. A good jungler will be lvl 6 at 6 min taking both jungles uncontested and then its game won. Just dont get low and dont die and you did your job.

SanKakU8/19/2017, 8:13:57 PM4 votes

Just let your team's jungle farm away and secure dragons and you'll have an advantage with the dragon buffs in the mid/late game.

Spoofghoul8/19/2017, 6:03:14 PM3 votes

First tip Learn to farm under the turret

Melee: 2 tower hits 1 hit from you Ranged: 1 hit from you then tower hit then 1 hit from you

This is important for getting enough gold, if you can get over 50% of the minions you should have more gold then any of your 2 opponents individually has.

However don't be greedy it's not worth losing half your health over a cannon minion ever!

Second tip Try to soak as much XP as possible by staying with XP Soaking range Range for minions is 1400 as far as i am aware. Which is about as far as a max distance Sion E or Varus Q

As the solo laner you get 100% of total XP so you will level up faster

The average value of a level up in terms of power is worth over 500 gold ofc there are the level 6 spikes and other differences between champions which might make that value even greater.

Third tip Get sustain and defense, and build according to your needs

This includes taking the Teleport summoner spell since you might have to back more often and you do not want them to kill your tower or lose too much XP

You will want to assess your sustain needs and the risk of an all in or tower dive attempt from your enemies and build accordingly

Because you might be farming with abilities more often and therefore run out of mana it can be useful to get some extra mana, thus grabbing a dorans ring on your first back can be useful even though you went to lane with a dorans shield or sword

Building that extra starter item or corrupting potion can help you last longer

If both of them do physical damage get some early armor if it's mixed you might want to consider going for health, and for magic damage you can get magic resistance

Consider your first item carefully, there are many items which can help you deal with the 2v1 scenario, i will give you a few examples

item 3512 Will help you push and hold lane at no resource cost, it even provides sustain and resistances However there are more benefits to be found in their component pieces

item 2053 item 1057 both are relatively cheap defensive choices Raptors cloak even let's you get back to lane faster with the movement boosts near structures which will also help you avoid poke by dodging it or make you more slippery during dives It even grants health regeneration for some sustain

Both components also have component items item 1006 item 1029 item 1033 which means that every time you go back to base you can pick up another piece of the final item even if you don't have much gold when you go back

Another fantastic item is item 3010 as it gives bulk & sustain

Other things to consider are how fast you can get back to lane when you have to back more often

item 3117 item 3009 item 2053 item 3742 summoner 12 summoner 6 can all help with that

Other things to consider

You won't need offense, not only is it unlikely that you will succeed 1v2 at least not in the laning phase, but you will gain offensive power from out leveling them anyway

One strategy used in high level play is a perfect example of this, sometimes when one of the laners gets an early kill from a gank or a play, the first thing they buy is a defensive item, usually just a cheap component piece like item 1057 or they grab defensive boots What happens is that they are ahead in XP, they have the damage to kill their opponent because that is how they got that first kill in the first place but what the defensive item does is make it impossible for their opponent to kill them. it will also help out trade. It's a matter of eliminating risks

What your jungler can do to help you is gank other lanes and snowball these instead. Or counter jungle and bully the enemy jungler out of his jungle. In that case you win as long as you hold your own because you are technically ahead of either lane opponent and should be able to easily 1v1 either of them.

This means they cannot help the other lanes/jungler without you getting a massive advantage by either killing your opponent or zoning the remaining guy out of lane.

There are things you can do as a 2 man lane to mitigate gold/xp loss by using support items like item 3302 or letting one guy have most if not all of the gold similar to how botlane is played Roaming and stealing jungle camps can help mitigate xp loss Those are things to watch out for but you shouldn't encounter that much at level 25

Specific cases of synergy

And finally there is a lot of ''hidden'' synergy between certain items as well as champion kits etc you can use this to your advantage to get additional value out of your kit or out of items

I have used this today myself to get me out of a tough spot as i got camped really hard early on in a tough match up

I bought item 1039 item 3028 on my mid lane Sion to get myself back into the game

Essentially what happened is my enemy lane swapped after hammering me down letting me face their botlane so they could get them ahead too and keep me down even further

I bought those items during that back and i ended up out pressuring my 2 opponents

You see i what happened is that item 3028 gives the harmony passive which makes mana regen hp regen, item 1039 gives 150% mana regen in jungle area so as soon as i stepped 2 feet out of lane into the nearest jungle entrance i gained massive amounts of sustain I could even use one of my aoe spells over the wall on the jungle camp to leech 25hp per creep hit

Essentially i gained the sustain of 4x item 1006 + item 2032 from the synergy between these items :S and they where both components i needed for other items i was going to build so i gained over 1000 gold worth of value for free

I could simply run to the minion wave blast it with all my spells and run back to Jungle entrance hit the camp and fully sustain myself

I even managed to poke the enemy Ashe and Karma out of lane and their team had to come help them took them 3 people to keep me in check while i was quite a bit behind not 2 minutes before that :S

Fütanari8/19/2017, 8:25:29 PM2 votes

That is how under 30 is. wait till you hit 30 when everyone has sum spells and there will ALWAYS be a jger.

Elwynn ƒ8/19/2017, 2:00:46 PM2 votes

Hiya! I'm new to the game too (level 12) and I made a post about this myself xD and I got a few answers, but the main thing ive learnt by playing versus it, you don't have to kill your laner, to win your lane. I got that mostly from Heros of the Storm, since that's a game I play quite a lot. as long as you soak the exp for yourself and try and get yourself some gold you should be fine^^ you wont ever really be able to beat them so don't try to :v atleast I'm never able to beat 2 people.

Linason8/19/2017, 3:31:40 PM2 votes

everyone here gave you good advice. I suggest using it. I can't offer much assistance on this matter due to the fact that I mainly go bot lane. Sometimes I'll go mid lane but regardless. I have, also, dealt with going solo on the bot lane but I usually manage to kick some major booty (well I don't always kick some major booty but I do enough damage.) I've noticed that when you ask for help, though, when you're soloing a lane yourself that your team mates don't pay attention to you because they assume you know what you're doing. You're still learning and you can't be upset with yourself because you did/do warn them ahead of the game that you're still new. Don't let this hinder you, though, because in no time you might just be really great at soloing the top lane. Although I do have a suggestion... try finding a champion that suits you. It might take some time but eventually you'll find one or two champs that you can play and win with quite well and you'll be able to play them top lane solo. I also suggest trying to play against bots, but that's just my opinion. If you'd like to play a few games with someone, I'd be more than happy to do as such. Just shoot me a PM and I'll let you know my summoner name on there.

Faustavian8/19/2017, 4:09:16 PM2 votes

Cry. But nah, that kind of gameplay sucks to fight, especially without help. Go down the Resolve tree if you can, taking > > < > < >on the way down, that should help a ton with your sustain, and honestly, try to hug your tower and stay safe. You play Garen and you know that you play passively, stay under tower, Q W to farm if you need to and run back under to heal up. Try to farm under tower if possible. Teemo should be easier. Be the lil bish he was meant to be and Do the same thing as garen, except you can CS safer and easier. Olaf, same as garen. Max Q and farm under tower, throwing out axes to poke them if they get too close and try to poke you under tower. Riven? E is your best friend. Max the first 3/4 levels of E before Q, so that you can deal with their poke a lot easier.

For everyone here though, Start item 1054 and then either a item 2053 or item 3211 depending on what damage type you're fighting. (Health regen and Defenses make passivity a breeze.) @Shuyin178 explained the dynamics you'll be fighting pretty well, but forgot to mention. You can entirely skip farming that first wave IF YOU NEED TO. and it will automatically push under your tower to farm, since if they try to freeze it, they either need to skip it as well, or concede to you probably being the biggest, most cowardly bish they've ever fought. And you're going to love it, because it works.

*for shts and giggle, check out Skywilliam's "Playing like a bitch: X" series.

Sohleks8/19/2017, 7:54:56 PM2 votes

They will probably auto push since they're probably also new like you and you can farm under tower. This is good because trying to zone you out for 5-10 minutes is the proper and cruel way to play it. Even a little tug is all you need to start the "pull"

If they can harass you with ranged spells under tower take regen stuff item 1054 item 2031 When they do that they're pretty susceptible to ganks if you can endure enough to be useful. Ganks might not come in newbie world though

item 3047 Ninja Tabi is the best armor item in the game. Best 1000g defense and 45 movement speed makes fighting and fleeing much easier than most people realize

When they hit you with an auto they pull aggro from your allied minions. This means they don't fight the other minions for a moment and it starts to push to your tower. It can be beneficial to take ONE auto at times. When I play ranged I make sure my trade really counts for this reason. Abilities do not trigger aggro. Just regular attacks.

On the bright side if you hit 30 I think you might not see that meta as much

Chaos Milk Tea8/19/2017, 11:51:14 PM2 votes

  1. Your jungler should be ganking to relieve pressure. If they dont its often their fault you get pushed out of lane.

  2. Some champions can handle a 2v1 matchup if they have built in healing amd some range. Morgana and Vladimir are two such champions.

  3. Prioritize defense/tank items (doran's shield) in these situations. If you dont die amd actually get farm, you will out level them due to sharing the exp. A champion like Garen has excellent health regeneration and will eventually be able to back off from fights, heal up, and go back to farming.

  4. The summoner spell Teleport makes it easier to go back and forth from base and lane.

WinTheWarOnPants8/20/2017, 2:11:13 AM2 votes

1v2 is the free-est top lane of your life honestly. It's just about not trying to win early and letting your champ out-scale. The only way you can lose a 2v1 top is if you feed or call for help. Contrary to popular belief, calling your jg is one of the worst things you can do in a 1v2 since they will have a huge advantage early cause they are

  1. together(while you and your jg are split) , and
  2. almost always have a HP and stat advantage since they are getting more gold and are poking you down for free. Also, your jg will almost never be full hp either. If you call your jg and you both die then you pretty much have no chance of winning anymore. getting a double kill will give them a huge boost in exp/gold that will offset the solo exp and let them dominate you harder and for more time than they otherwise would have. If you just sit back and play safe you will out-scale both of them pretty quick and/or they will almost always get too greedy trying to poke you and leave themselves open to an easy kill for you. Obviously there are ways to make 2v1 tops work(hard pressure to secure kills and roaming to other lanes), but virtually no one will do that at your lvl.
The Deckowner8/20/2017, 6:04:19 AM2 votes

Don't contest wave, sit at tower, faem.

rip john shelby8/20/2017, 7:14:07 AM2 votes

Play Illaoi and 1v2 them

elin9908/20/2017, 12:12:14 PM1 votes

Thank you for all the advice ! it is much appreciated.

TeemoXNidalee8/19/2017, 2:24:46 PM1 votes

Use a long range waveclear champion.

ForeverLaxx8/19/2017, 1:47:42 PM1 votes

Part of your issue is that you prefer champions that aren't great at dealing with multiple opponents at a low level with the possible exception of Garen. If your team is unwilling to help, then you need to play safe and make sure you avoid as much death as possible. Only get a last-hit when you feel you can do so without getting killed and don't hang around your tower if you're around/under 50% because you're an easy dive target.

I know it's not that relevant to today's League, but back when I first started playing being able to 1v2 the top-lane was important and influenced the kinds of champions picked for that lane. For OG League, that was usually Nasus due to his inbuilt life-steal, Q spam for last-hits (and free bonus damage) and emergency wave-clear with Spirit Fire. He was also risky to gank because his ult granted extra health and Wither is just painful to fight against.

He probably wouldn't work nearly as well today as he did back then, but if you expect to face 1v2 lanes often you may want to consider picking top-lane champions that are better equipped to deal with it. Trundle may be a decent option, as he heals for free for everything that dies around him in a rather large radius, has an ability that helps last-hit if you need the boost, and his pillar makes diving him more difficult thanks to the slow and terrain it creates. Basically, you want to look for champions that have decent sustain in-kit who have an ability or two that helps them farm and makes them difficult to attack directly.

SirTeemoMushroom8/19/2017, 1:31:03 PM1 votes

Worship Teemo , and you will tilt your opponents hard .

DaNinad8/19/2017, 9:07:02 PM1 votes

Play a ranged top laner just for the early levels

PePsiLemoNN8/19/2017, 10:10:20 PM1 votes

If your jungler isn't 3 years old that's basically a free win for you

LordGeovanni8/19/2017, 10:21:21 PM1 votes

pre level 20 2 top is the meta because you dont have the masteries and runes nessicary to jungle and not die immediately. if the next guy on your team doesnt come up nothing you can do about it. its fair

RespectPlus8/19/2017, 10:40:24 PM1 votes

2 top laners is pretty common before level 30, because low level people usually dont want to be a jungler after you hit lvl 30 you'll be fine

DragonShea8/19/2017, 10:48:31 PM1 votes

blind pick is mostly for noob's People with better skill play on draft. But when that happens, it's either teamwork or bust. If no one can co-operate then you are bonded to have a shit game. the best way to deal with this is either roam or hug your tower.

MagicalDemons8/19/2017, 11:24:32 PM1 votes

the games a mess pre 30. Don't worry you'll hit level 30 eventually.

Nunya Bezwacks8/20/2017, 1:03:08 PM1 votes

People could have gave you a far simpler answer as to how its not a problem being the tower is an equalizer and there is two of them fighting for gold and splitting XP You should have more gold then either of them and you will level faster it should take maybe 5 minutes before you can fight them and win if you start to lose run to the tower kids at your level see low health enemies and they turn into sharks that smell blood and will blindly charge you under tower more then half the time. 2v1 isn't hard and there's a reason 2 top is never done. Asking for help is a dumb way to act about it because your giving away the advantage they are spoon feeding you.

Kallian8/20/2017, 12:07:18 AM1 votes

sorry to op but i love these new player posts... i saw one a few weeks ago praising rito for making mf and this is the wholesome content i look for

ZaneShadow8/20/2017, 9:56:10 AM1 votes

Sorry to hear that! Ya if the enemy is doing that it's probably safer to stay under tower, even if it's not initially as fun. You'll eventually out level them by a decent amount and you+jungle will have way more gold. About 20-25 minutes you'll smash the enemy team so hard you can enjoy the easy kills.

There's a reason it's not Meta to send two top, but it's going to take practice to survive against it. Good luck and hope you don't deal with it too much

Joseraph8/20/2017, 2:51:10 AM1 votes

Literally avoid top before you hit level 15~. Some champions can 2v1 lane (Mordekaiser, Gangplank, Illaoi) But only if you're good at them. LoL is a shitapalooza until you hit level 30 and even then people still suck all the way up to Plat. I've actually seen no improvement from my teamates at all from Bronze to Silver, and my Gold buddies tell me its more or less the same there.

I Main Swain8/20/2017, 3:28:19 AM1 votes

im surprised youre seeing it that often at level 25, by the time i hit that point it was relatively uncommon to see a duo top. my advice, just play super safe and you'll out level them, try to farm as much as you can (they'll have to split the gold between the two of them). if you can keep from dying or getting zoned, you pretty much win.

Falcon Of Death8/20/2017, 4:20:57 AM1 votes

it sucks for you, but makes it easy for the rest of your team. The enemy team is handicapping themselves by having 2 top. Guaranteed free win if that happened in ranked (and you didnt die to them 20 times)

IamBILGE8/20/2017, 5:00:21 AM1 votes

People are inflexible and want to stick to their plan, regardless of how obsolete it is.

LexLutheran878/19/2017, 4:30:55 PM1 votes

Try Illioi, or other safe wave clear champs. Play passive under tower, and watch how you out level with solo xp. As others have said, the jungle on your team will have a huge unmatched advantage against other team. Just play passive.

Leaf on Bush8/19/2017, 2:54:40 PM1 votes

You win this by playing defensive. Double top usually happens when there is no jungler on the enemy team (for example because he didn't unlock smite yet). But having no jungler is a huge disadvantage for them and an adavantage for your team because:

  • they share gold and exp top
  • you get all the gold/exp for yourelf
  • you and your jungler will outlevel the double top
  • your team gets more overall gold and exp from jungle
  • your lanes get help form the jungler
  • you probably get dragons for free and herald too
  • if there is ever a contested baron / dragon you have the smite and will probably get it

All you need to do is stay under your tower pick up the farm, try to survive and wait for an opportunity.

If your jungler ganks and you are level 6 while your opponents are 4/5 you can kill them easily and at one point you might even be able to 1 v 2 them.

We have junglers since at one point it justturned out to be much stronger. So having a jungler became normal. But since then there have been a lot of jungle changes that made jungle very powerful and pretty much mandatory.

It's not just better to have a jungler, it's almost a free win and a must.

The jungle meta is even enforced if you go into normal or ranked draft. Somebody will get assinged to the jungle, either because he wants or because he got filled.

Synnx78/19/2017, 7:19:11 PM1 votes

Welcome to League of Cancer fun

Cowseed8/19/2017, 7:33:50 PM1 votes

Being 'fair' isn't the problem hear. Just you being matched with unfriendly and unempathetic people. Just go bot or mid if it keeps happening. They are most likely smurfs that know that the meta is one top and a jungler so they don't even bother helping you because your team is gonna scale better with levels than the other team. So really it's unfair to the other team because if all you do is farm and play safe because with a few ganks you could probably 2v1.

Oelyk8/19/2017, 7:45:22 PM1 votes

I would say that it sucks, but thats kinda how toplane works. Learning how too accept your weakness and interact as little as possible while trying to not become useless via farming is important, some champs make the same amount of pressure early as a 2v1 like renekton.