The End Times: Funnel Strategy
I was in a normal game (in every sense of the word), or so i thought. I played top, and was waiting for game to load, when i noticed opponent team had no smite. Instead of a jungler, there was Taric with Heal and Exhaust. As the game started, i knew it would be a duo top, so i said to my jungler not to waste time on 2v2s, and instead focus the other lanes where he'd have an advantage. We also agreed that the jungle was all his, but also that top side enemy jungle would be risky.
As game started i faced a Jax with flash and ignite along with Taric. I immediately remembered a video i've seen about something new that boosters are using, called "funnel" or something. Here is the link of the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgE4eY7s78M I didn't pay too much attention however, as i thought it would be a usual case of someone who had forgot smite (probably Jax i thought), or of someone who couldn't jungle and they decided to play duo top. Alas, i was wrong. Jax and Taric were very aggressive and coordinated in lane, often attempting to dive, hitting me hard. But it was not just the lane pressure. Our top jungle and theirs, were also invaded by them, always going together. After 10 mins, they started ganking mid as well.
At this point (about 12+ min in) Jax was about 2 levels up, with more farm and items than anyone. From that moment we were only delaying our defeat. It was the first game ever, i didn't worried about opponent adc or Mid laner's ulti. All i had in my mind were Jax and Taric.
Witnessing the Funnel Strategy firsthand,i realised two things:
- There was now a new way to play, which would amplify your game play a lot.
- It does not feel like the game you know. It's hard to make you understand this, but imagine that your team and 3 players from the opponents, were all afk for 5 or 6 minutes. Then when you logged in, you had to face 2 guys, one of which was farming all this time, having more levels and items. It's crazy good.
In the links are the latest games of the two players.
(1) In the 1st picture, are the games of Taric. https://ibb.co/np6af9
(2) Do you remember when i wrote that "this new strategy amplifies your game play"? That's to put it mildly. In the 2nd picture are the previous games of the same player. The last game from the previous image, and the top game of this one, is the same game. I left it so you can see the immediate difference when using this strategy. https://ibb.co/gkp6np
(3) In the 3rd picture are the games of Jax, with the couple bottom games being his normal performance, and all the rest his performance under funneling. https://ibb.co/e0xRnp
The difference between the strategy described in the video i linked, is they both played top from the begging, pushing aggressively and then going to jungle when they could clear camps (Also he was playing Jax instead of Yi, and was using Demolish).
I'd like to close saying, they are playing this on normals, who really cares? However, i'm afraid that this new method, is a potential threat to the game. It can be used in ranked. I'm hearing it already has. Problem is, I don't see an easy way around it in solo queue. But regardless, it was a rare (for now) opportunity to witness this system, and.. idk. What are your thoughts about it? Is this a problem for higher elo? Is it only working up to a level? Will Riot address it or is it just a meta we will eventually learn to deal with?
