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The Evolution of the Top Lane: Bridging the gap between the "Island" and the other lanes.

Doctor Dyment·7/17/2015, 8:21:03 PM·1 votes·483 views

Season 5 has been upon us for quite some time, and a lot has changed in the game. New and intricate champions have been created, balance changes have been constant, and the jungle has allowed tanks again. But none of these changes seems to compare to the shifting of focus at the top lane. Now, for those of you who do not know, the top lane has been jokingly referred to as the "Island" by the community and Riot alike since its creation. And with good reason, as most top laners did not even see their teams until near end game. However, the Island has not been as isolated as it once was. Something has changed in this most recent season, something big. What specifically, I do not know. But something has caused the once lonely Island to become more of a post where multiple laners can come and go as they please. In my attempted explanation on this topic, I will split my thoughts below into distinct sections.

The Other Lanes We have already said the top lane is the "Island" but what does that leave the other lanes as? I have specific names and ideals that correspond with the other lanes' personalities and importance. The mid lane, is what I like to call the Dock. This is where the high damage mages battle it out for control of the late game. I have named this area of the Rift the Dock because of the amount of activity that it receives from everyone else. The mid lane is usually frequented by ganks from the jungler, and the occasional roaming support/ADC. Champions are constantly coming and going from this area, and the flow of gold almost never stops. These lanes tend to have the strange ability to move into the gray area of power, meaning that both lane opponents can actually not really get kills on each other, and mostly stay about equal for the entire laning phase. Now the bottom lane, is the Battlefield. You might be able to guess why, but just in case you can't, this lane is almost constantly in danger. Both sides scramble to get even the most minor lead on each other, which more often then not can lead to that group actually falling behind, and the jungler ganks happen quite frequently. Even if both sides strive to do nothing but farm, there will always be at least one time where a support lands a hook, or a jungler ganks, and then both sides fight to see who will come out on top. The flow of gold here tends to go completely one way or the other. This lane will decide if you team will have a large DPS advantage in late game team fights. The Dragon pit and the south side river, are what I like to call the Thunderdome. This area will see immense early game pressure and team fights, as that early game buff's boost is fought over repeatedly. Anything can happen here. A lucky steal can occur, or a crippling missed Smite can happen at any time. This area also seems to see the most skirmishes out of anywhere else on the entire map. Enemies and allies constantly bump into each other here, whether just to ward or to kill the Scuttle Crab. Either way, you can bet on seeing at least one large fight here. Now, the Baron pit and the north side river are the Final Push areas of the map. Now that might sound a bit odd seeing as how the Baron pit is not anywhere near the enemy base, but this area's buff is usually what gives the winning team that last boost they need to destroy the enemy nexus. A number of small scale skirmishes can be fought here, but generally this area remains calm during the early game. Now, you might be asking yourself, "What does this have to do with the top lane becoming less of an isolationist area, and more of an active area of both teams?" I'll explain that eventually.

The Jungles Generally, top lane is by itself for most of the game save for a single person(s) who make appearances every once in a while: the junglers. The junglers traverse all lanes, and depending on what kind of champion they are, can appear at just about any time. For many years, this specific champion has had the soul job of keeping the other lanes happy and ahead of their enemies. And for those same years, they have had a green card to walk into top lane whenever they wanted. Lately however, the jungler is not the only one who seems to visit top lane now and again.

Why Top has Always been an Island Now, ever since the beginning of League, top lane has been dominated by tankier characters. Now there have always been less tanky oddball picks (Nidalee, Teemo, ect.) but it has mostly been tanky characters. From what I have been able to gather through my five years of experience as a Summoner, I can at least partially say that this might be the reason that the top lane has been isolated for so many years. Generally those who move to the top lane are bruisers, who can deal a large amount of damage and be tanky at the same time. This usually mean that ganks quickly turned to failures, as the enemy laner would simply be able to absorb a large amount of the damage dealt and maybe even deal it back while walking back to their tower. And, one recall later, you see that little effect that says that they are teleporting back in with a fresh set of items, health potions, and mana. The risk seemed far to large for how little the reward seemed. Not to mention the fact that unlike the other lanes, many of the top laners would not require only one or two kills to instantly be miles ahead of the competition. This only got worse with the edition of everyone's (least) favorite true damage ulter to fight against, Darius. He became the one true king of 2v1 ganks once he hit level six. Everyone, even the junglers, began to avoid top more and more. Eventually it got to the point where even if Darius wasn't there, the junglers and other laners would completely ignore top all together. The middle and bottom lanes are also much closer to the Dragon, which as explained previously is fought over quite constantly for those early game boosts. The top lane is also the longest out of all the three, allowing much freer movement then say, the mid lane. This also stems from the fact that most top laners have an innate ability to take care of themselves with little to no help from others. It is almost as if the idea of avoiding it to keep the other lanes alive was engraved permanently into memory of many early players. So, why is all that changing?

Conclusion Throughout the history of the League of Legends, the game has gone through many drastic changes. Many new and old builds have risen and fallen and champions have gone from the height of popularity to obscurity. But the Island has remained about the same. Sure new champions came on the scene, but the place always seemed... lonely. And that was the way we up there liked it. But something changed. Now more and more people are coming to top to see what that god damn tri-bush really looks like in person. In fact, ever since the change to the Dragon from just flat gold to a stacking buff, top has started to become more of a central part of the team. The buffs became important enough to the point where it becomes a safer bet to have even the laner farthest away from the Dragon pit to come in and help, as to not risk losing it. In this current meta, victory does not simply favor the team that is stronger, rather it favors better team compositions. This means that not only are top laners having to be smarter in choice on champion selection, but it also means that they have to choose someone who can be the most helpful to the team in a five on five fight. This is especially true in ranked, where if a single component is missing that the enemy might have, you risk defeat. Large team fights are beginning to happen earlier and earlier, meaning that the top laners from both sides need to be there to give their team that extra boost of whatever you bring to the table. (Tankiness, CC, high damage, ect.) Now we who live at the top lane must make a choice. Do we go with the new ways, and join our teams? Or do we bunker down and hold unto our traditions? Whether or not we like it, we have to eventually go with the meta. More and more players have been coming in to this game, and they are beginning to drown out the old veterans. League has become an E-Gaming titan, and people are beginning to see the potential importance that the top lane can play in the early game. We who play by the unwritten code of the top lane must now cast aside our old traditions, or we shall be lost in the ever changing tide of the League of Legends.

4 Comments

AyRe CoNteMpT7/17/2015, 9:02:47 PM1 votes

well, aside from analizing some well known gibberish, you didnt really explain why the toplane isnt an island anymore. yeah because "people come to toplane now". amazing explanation. kinda reminds me of the quality of LCS analysts.

the true reason for why toplane changes is very very simple. the game is extremely complex and what is "meta" right now is by far not the strongest POSSIBLE, its simply the strongest general style of 5on5-teamplay currently evolved. this means, at any given moment in time, the meta can change drastically by one person trying something new and being successfull with it. then people say "hm we could build a strategy around this or include it into our allready existing ones" and so they do.

then, other people try to beat this new thing and if they cant because it needs more time or they are simply not creative enough, they will copy it. and since copying successfull specimen has always been the most promising survival strategy for mammals, we humans have this behaviour deeply engraved in our psyche.

at first, at very first, this is why the lanes are seperated by specific roles:

dragon is at bot side and the control over it is somewhat important in the earlygame, thats why you put two people on the botlane so you have better control over dragon.

midlane is very short so even if you push or get pushed, there is really not much space to kill people, thats why in general, this is a good place for champions with good pushing/waveclearing power because as long as you can mindlessly push, you are pretty safe from everything. also since the towers are so close to eachother, mobility is not neccessarily a thing here. thats why, if you want a waveclear mage without much mobility, this is your lane to go. the second reason is that most mages are rather weak against strong fighters but fighters need space and since midlane gives little space, fighters do not like the midlane very much, which is another plus for mages.

the toplane is very long and its far away from dragon, so you want to put the least amount of attention here or you might lose dragon. since the lane is long, mages without very good seatbelts can have trouble and strong fighter champions thrive because they can unfold all their power and kill pressure here. also, those lanes were easy to snowball with one or two ganks or counterganks, so it was rewarding but also very risky to put attention here.

this lead to the first "big" meta where toplaners had to be very strong fighters that dueled alot in toplane, often snowballed and eventually carried/decided the game.

to beat this meta where you, if you got the weaker toplaner either champion or skillwise, would simply lose, the laneswap was invented. some power was shifted from botlane to give up dragon control to toplane to instead control the enemy fighter, as those fighters usually had big trouble laning 2on1.

to prevent laneswaps from hugely impacting your strategy, more and more champions came into play who actually had no trouble laning 2on1, the very first one was lulu. release-lulu actually was so strong that she even WON 2on1 lanes, and not by a small margin. after she got nerfed, people looked to other champions and found them in more tankyer dudes with better sustain and under-tower-farming capabilities.

now laneswaps started to become more rare again because their effectiveness was diminished, so the tanky dudes had to duke it out in the toplane by themselves. at first, renekton was THE go-to pick against tanks because he was very tanky himself but had a strong earlygame that could deny champions who start out weaker. over time people learned to not let themselves get denied by bruisers so much anymore so renekton was forgotten and replaced with other tanky champions who didnt even try to deny anyone anymore.

thus, the true island was born. now, both champions were tanky without any kill-pressure on eachother and could shrug off and walk away from ganks without much trouble, and even if they died, killing them took so much time and resources that the entire map would open up for the enemy team to apply jungle and objective pressure.

now people start to realize that high damage fighters can ACTUALLY beat tanky dudes pretty good. this isnt a new thing in general, but it was simply just discovered lately by the majority of the community.

now that there are champions in play again who actually have kill and deny pressure on tanks but who can also be killed themselves due to their lack of tankyness and their bigger vulnerability to laneswaps, the toplane starts to shift again and its very interesting to see the outcome.

right now, some people still play tanks and some others allready play fighers again. i truly believe, and also hope, that rather sooner than later we will see a new fighter-top meta where people actually try to deal damage to eachother. not just because its more fun to watch and play, but also because its way more dynamic and allows for alot more strategic aswell as tactical decisions to be made during the game.

well, i hope i could polish your lackluster "analysis" a bit.

Lugg7/18/2015, 7:20:15 AM1 votes

Top lane is an island because dragon is on the bottom side of the map. That means the good junglers are going to focus mid and bot more to control the objective. The thing that gets top involved early game is teleport. This allows you to impact and control the map. That is why champions with sustain do well top, you're on your own most of the time.