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Confidence in lane.

Tatsumi Oga·8/13/2015, 5:47:28 AM·6 votes·1,288 views

I've never seen anyone write about or talk about this but its something that can pretty heavily affect game play. Recently i played a game as swain mid. I was laning against a Veigar who at level 1 let me chase him to his tower to avoid getting E'd, for the entirety of the laning phase he got roughly 1/3 of the cs because whenever he would try to cs i would chase him back to his tower. By the time the game ended Veigar had 2/3 my cs and was 0/7, he wasn't able to recover from his laning phase so he had to farm instead of team fighting. After the game i started thinking about what happened in lane. At level one he had three options when i tried to harass him, he could fully engag and attack back, run and q-aa me back, or run as far as i'd chase him. His choice made a clear impression on how he felt against me in lane, for some reason he thought he was weaker than me. Because of this all i had to do was act aggressive and harass consistently, easy lane won. Even if i didn't get many kills denying a Veigar his farm and getting free farm yourself is an easy way to win lane. Looking back on the situation though if he had chosen either of the first options my actions towards him would have been significantly different. Had Veigar faced me and fought back it would have shown that he wasn't afraid of me, that I wouldn't have tried to push him around in lane. Even if he didn't think he could have won, pretending not to be afraid would have changed how i reacted to him.
TL;DR If you act afraid of your lane opponent they'll notice this and abuse you for it. If you act confident, even if you aren't, they'll respond accordingly. What do you guys think about this?

8 Comments

arcinex8/13/2015, 7:56:13 PM2 votes

Someone getting rekt in lane because they are learning a champion? Nothing new here to see.

redniwediS8/13/2015, 5:54:02 AM1 votes

As a top lane Garen main I abuse this all the time. I actively attempt to intimidate my opponent during the lane phase so I can push top lane further than I would normally risk it afterward.

People would easily go top to stop someone who is overextending, but if that guy is intimidating they will try to group to do it instead, draining their map presence elsewhere.

AstroFerrari 8/13/2015, 6:44:09 AM1 votes

I just played against a Yasuo top lane who totally demolished me as Riven but I honestly didn't know how to respond to him and he was just a better player than me I feel.

Chatillon8/13/2015, 12:22:38 PM1 votes

i had a game ass fizz v yaswag and i was chicken lvl one because i took q instead of w because misclicks. That set the tone for the entire lane.......

Mecha MaIphite8/13/2015, 12:31:04 PM1 votes

Even your own general mentality affects it. I used to be a team player, giving my allies kills and everything, because not only was I practicing with friends who were better than me, I thought the "carry mentality" was making me toxic. After I re-adopted that mentality, I've been doing much better solo and in 5s. Granted I tend to get frustrated a lot which was what I was trying to avoid, but the confidence/ego boost has actually helped me play better.

illusydara8/13/2015, 3:19:32 PM1 votes

I play Leona a lot. You can get people to back off your partner/control where the badguys are just by acting like you're going to run at them. Sometimes it saves lives.