Isn't red side inherently more favored to win?

Snowman Arc··2 votes·1,092 views

In the current patch, a lot of early game attention is given to the bottom lane, because it's easier to pick up kills and push for the first tower gold. That's pretty much undeniable. In LCS, or in high elo streams, you can see it all the time, insane pressure botside with the junglers, mid laners and top laners TPing in. Therefore, we can safely assume that this meta is bot-centric. Being on blue side's bottom lane, it means that you must ward at least two places at any given moment; the river bush and the tri-bush, whereas red side only need to worry about river bush, since there are not many other junglers that can gank through the frog tribush, since they have to take tower aggro first.

With those in mind, we have to assume that ganking as a red side jungler is much easier. Even if they tribush is warded as blue side, and you are pushing, if the jungler paths from the tribush, you are probably already too late to escape, since there is no time to back off to the tower. On the other hand, even if you push as red side, the blue jungler can only be as far behind you as the river (and not the tower), so it means that an escape is much more possible.

Also, considering that most junglers benefit from start blue buff (CDR, mana regen) whereas red buff only offers some bonus damage, getting a leash from your duo lane as a red side blue buff starter can be achieved, meaning a faster and healthier clear, which then transitions into faster ganks and better snowball potential. Another important thing is since AD junglers seems to dominate this patch, it's better to receive help doing the armor / negative-MR camps, which includes the starting blue buff and then soloing the red buff which has negative armour values, as you can kill the red buff way faster without receiving any help, adding to the snowball effect. On the opposite side, if the blue side Lee Sin starts with a leash at his red, then transitioning over to get his blue will take him more time.

Also, seeing as red buff is more important for ganking, since it applies slows with autoattacks, it's better to get it right before you start ganking (so don't start with it most of the time).

With all these in mind, it seems that the early game for junglers and bottom lane is heavily favored towards the red side. Easier warding routine, easier jungling pathing, easier ganks, which all result into faster snowball, which is the reason why most game are decided before the 10 minute mark anyway.

Now, I haven't seen any graphs with winrates for each starting side, or if it only applies for specific elo brackets or specific champions, but it seems as a general consessus that red side should be having an inherent advantage. Thoughts?

9 Comments

Handy Sandy 1 votes

Now that you say it, I kinda notice it in a lot of my games.

Lauchmelder1 votes

Blue is favored. Their jungler can do red, then gank bot. If you don't ward tribush he'll move from there to a lane Bush and do a lane gank.

xWaters1 votes

It is harder to gank Blue Side though isn't it?

Snowman Arc1 votes

As a red side jungler, you can path below the dragon pit into their tri bush and getting right behind them. Even if they see you, you are already in their faces.

what you deserve1 votes

if you play junglers who can gank at level 2 then you can easily get a double off of bot while playing blue side Shaco Evelynn

SNSD Sunnny1 votes

what are you smoking, blue side bot is much harder to gank than red side...

blue side wins way more often even when red side has mmr advantage.

Dolasaur1 votes

Blue side is favored to an extent, according to Riot. I don't remember the exact reason, but it had nothing to do with jungle. I think it was largely camera view. Like if you're red side and your character is centered, the angle of the camera means you'll see more behind you (on the safe side) and less in front of you (the side where the enemies are). Something like that. That's actually the reason the camera angle changed when they moved to the new Summoner's Rift map a few years back, to make it closer to top-down.

Also, Zac doesn't like that you think he needs to take tower agro to gank bot from the red side tri bush :(

Snowman Arc1 votes

Based on camera view, there are places that the camera favors. For example, blue side's bottom lane, between first and second tower, you can watch a longer lane or something, since the length is bigger than the width.

JavelinJoe1 votes

I can land far more blitz hooks on blue side than on red solely because of this.

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