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League Strats: Map Pressure

ABlueQuaker·2/10/2015, 10:19:58 AM·1 votes·5,681 views

Introduction Map pressure is a pretty self-explanatory term simply meaning to create pressure on various parts of the map. Pressure is put on the map so that a player or players on the enemy team must alleviate it. This creates a numbers advantage which is beneficial for 3 main reasons:

  1. Teamfights - if a player is forced to alleviate pressure on the map and they don't have teleport, (provided your non TP champions are grouped as 3 or 4 depending on whether or not mid is also running teleport) you will end up with a numbers advantage which should allow you to win a teamfight.
  2. Objectives - if the enemy team does not want to fight with a numbers disadvantage, they are forced to stop contesting the objective and regroup for the next one.
  3. Picks/Skirmishes - if you want to guarantee a numbers advantage, or if you simply don't want to allow a certain champion to be available in a teamfight, the easiest thing to do it pick them off. This can be done by pressuring the map then collapsing on them as they move, isolated in in a small group (2-3 people), to alleviate the map pressure.

3 common ways to create map pressure.

  1. Split Pushing - The simplest and most common way you can create map pressure. Sit in a side lane (Top/Bot) and push as far as your vision control and team coordination allows then simply utilitze your Teleport Summoner Spell when you need to. This should be done on a champion tanky enough, mobile enough or strong enough in duels for it to be inefficient for the enemy team to allocate multiple members to deal with. Do note, though, that if your teammates are not pressuring another area of the map, the enemy team WILL be able to afford to send enough members to swiftly kill you.
  2. Slow Pushing - A slightly less common albeit fairly simple way to create pressure on the map. A player (usually the AD Carry) goes to a side lane (usually bot) and kills only the Siege and Caster minions leaving the melee minions untouched (you can last-hit the melee minions if you make sure they are really low HP beforehand). This will create a so-called 'super wave' of minions strong enough to destroy a full HP turret if left unanswered. This method of creating map pressure can be used alongside a splitpush.
  3. Double Split Pushing - It's as simple as it sounds. A highly mobile mid laner, or one running teleport, and the top laner splitpushes top and bot simultaneously. If the enemy team answers bot, the mid laner can teleport back to the team and take and use the numbers advantage, and if the enemy team answers the top lane push the top laner can teleport back to the team and utilize the numbers advantage.

EDIT 1: With regards to the double split push - it's usually a champion that can win 90% of 1v1 duels once they get a couple of items under their belt (e.g. Yasuo, Zed, Akali). This means that either the enemy team has to send multiple people to answer the push, or risk one of their allies being killed.

EDIT 2: Slow pushing is something that I utilize quite often. Today, for example, my team was down a fair amount of gold and Baron was about to respawn in about a minute so I preemptively started a slow push in the bottom wave all the way back at my (destroyed) inner turret. Since we had a Nidalee for poke as well as Malphite and I (Amumu) for hard engage, we simply pressured them off Baron and prevented anybody from answering the slow push which ended taking the enemy Inner Turret and Inhibitor Turret and we engaged on their split-up team when they backed away to finally stop the slow push.

http://i.gyazo.com/03d7eb01ce4dacd0d600f94707078c0b.png (I was Purple Side)

4 Comments

Leti the Yeti2/10/2015, 10:52:58 AM1 votes

I wish more people knew this most teams simply pressure 1 lane at most and its all just ends up as a stalemate siege at their turret at best worst case, my team fails n dies

Chaos Open2/10/2015, 5:13:57 PM1 votes

More important: the split push is not always a good idea and it is very hard to pull off. I've seen so many games lost because a guy split pushed at the wrong time and with every teamfight being a 4v5 they were quickly beaten.

Here is what you need to split-push:

  1. Everyone needs to be on the same page, don't just decide that "I'm going to split push" while your team is trying to teamfight.
  2. You need the right team comp to split push. You want a team that can constantly keep the enemy team engaged without having to go all-in.
  3. You need the rest of your team to be putting pressure on the correct space. Generally, with a split push you want the team putting pressure on an objective that the enemy team simply cannot abandon.
  4. You want a champ that can easily join the team AND can win a 1v1. So that they have to send a large amount of resources to deal with the split pusher but when they do you can easily join your team and engage the enemy team in a 5v3.
  5. You want the split pushing champ to be able to clear towers quickly. So, a Jax, tryndamere, or a Nasus with teleport make fantastic split pushers. However, even if you send maybe an Akali to start working on their teir 2 turrets, while she can win a 1v1, she can't push towers quickly enough for them to consider her push a threat.(so, they can simply wipe out your team in a 4v5 then go over as a group and kill the Akali)

Watch this video, it gives you a very good example of what kind of scenario a split push would work in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93YMYIXiOIw

Overall, the split push should not be your go-to strategy when behind. There are far better strategies that are much more reliable and easier to pull off.

ccseancc1432/11/2015, 2:26:39 AM1 votes

Talon is the ultimate split pusher. When Im fed I always split push they end up having to send 2 or more due to Talons insane AOE, 2v1's are just as easy as 1v1's.