Adventures of Top-Lane Karma volume 1.
Note: at my
bestworsttypical day playing League of Legends I'm a Silver III player who tends to go Jungle more than anything. I know Top Karma isn't anything new or risque but I fell in love with poor, weak Karma a long time ago and never really found her a consistently viable mid-laner. In the interest of expanding my top-lanerbase to include more AP-based champions I decided to start practicing up my Karma. This is her story.
**Matchup: Dr. Mundo. **
Not expecting much harassment early-on from either Mundo or the enemy Xin Zhao — who I guessed I could avoid with appropriate use of (W) Focused Resolve — I started the game with a Doran's Ring and health potions. Early on it became apparent that Dr. Mundo wouldn't have a high kill potential on me and landing consistent (Q) Inner Flames kept him at fairly low health even with his defensive Rejuvenation Beads and Potions start. I tried to apply Karma's W anytime I saw Xin Zhao in other lanes. While I was unable to score a kill on Dr. Mundo in no small part due to his heavy health regen I was able to push him to tower, forcing him to miss CS and keep his lane pressured. A gank from Xin Zhao was effective in burning my Flash, but Dr. Mundo burned both his Flash and Ignite while my empowered (W) and (E) Inspire was enough to keep me alive and recall to my nexus.
My first buy was a Chalice of Harmony and I had enough for two wards and several health potions. My goal was to continue zoning Mundo away from last hits and using my (E) to soak the damage from his Infected Cleaver. Good warding and Empowered (Q) allowed me to keep Dr. Mundo pushed to Tower while I remained safe from Xin Zhao's roaming and I took the first Tower before I completed Athene's Unholy Grail.
The Mid-Game
My goal in the mid-game was to split-push and provide constant pressure towards the top of the map. I felt that I could escape any ganks without much concern and my teammates were slightly ahead in their lanes—our Annie was defeating their Orianna but the latter had picked up a couple kills on our Varus/Nidale, who were losing in CS badly to their Jinx/Nami. Our Jarvan IV had done a good job securing objectives and we took the first two Dragons of the game uncontested.
My build order was an Athene's Unholy Grail, Basic Boots, Morellonomicon — which I took to help counter Dr. Mundo's (R) Sadism — Sorcerer's Shoes, Rylia's Crystal Scepter. In hindsight I should have skipped the Morellonomicon; even at that point of the game their Mundo was roaming extensively and I wasn't often challenged in lane. Having the Health and Passive Slow of the Rylia's would have kept me alive in the one successful gank they did pull off, though my abilities lowered Dr. Mundo and Xin Zhao enough for Annie to secure a Double Kill as she roamed top following the Xin Zhao. The death was my fault as I remained in lane even after my wards fell.
We began to pull away in this phase as the enemy team was not given the opportunity for the team-fighting they would have preferred. Skirmishes in the mid lane consistently left several of them dead as Jarvan IV was able to trap enemies for Annie's burst and my and Nidale's pursuit potential secured us several kills we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Ultimately we took a slim lead into this stage and exited with a commanding one.
The Late Game
I feel like Karma's mid-late game is a real strength, and once I completed my Rabadon's Deathcap I was able to chunk out the opposing carries in teamfights. I continued to make my goal to split-push top lane, roaming to mid-lane while my teammates secured Dragon and successfully picked Jinx several times in bot lane. Ultimately the lead we gained in mid-game allowed us to assert our will on any objectives we chose, and our heavy poke kept them from engaging on us in an effective manner: my empowered (Q), Nidale's (Q) Javelin Toss, and Varus's (Q) Piercing Arrow kept them from being able to protect their tower and Jarvan IV and Annie's potential Crowd-Control punished them the few times they sought to force fights.
We rotated lanes and pushed down to destroy inhibitors with the final, deciding fight coming on their side of Top-Jungle as we warded and baited Baron Nashor. A clean Ace allowed us to destroy every objective on the map and push in for the final kill. My second death came after the fight as we stayed to destroy the inhibitor.
Impact of Karma on the Game.
I first-picked my role top and I don't think the enemy expected the lanes to come out the way that they did: likely they expected Nidale to head top where Mundo could have had a much better time dealing with her lesser harassment early on. I effectively shut Mundo away from his Gold Flow and ended up +100 in CS from him.
In the mid-game I was able to effectively split push and safely draw attention from the enemy jungler and mid-laner. While I didn't get kills in this period I was able to pressure the map and take objectives while still showing up to provide support in other lanes.
Late-game I dealt sustained damage with primarily Empowered (Q)s and helped create picks by roaming from top lane behind the enemy and securing kills with my (W). My (E) helped to serve primarilly to speed me to fights and my Annie and Nidale through to chase down kills, though it also helped keep Jarvan IV alive several times as he tanked aggression during skirmishes.
Final Score (Game Length: 42:33) 6-2-11, 251 CS, 14.9k Gold.
Enemy Top Lane (Dr. Mundo) 2-5-1, 154 CS, 8.8k Gold.
MVP (Annie) 14-3-11, 186 CS, 16.4k Gold.
