Lesson 1. What Do Minions Do?

Today we’ll discuss:

1. General minion behavior
2. The three main states minion waves
will be in and how you’ll want to play in
them.
In the future, we’ll learn about:
1. Prio
2. Warding/map awareness
3. Wave manipulation/wave
management
What do minions do? Assuming you are
blue side.
* Minion waves flow back and forth
sort of like a pendulum, and in the
same way, so does top prio. Prio is an
entirely different topic we won’t talk
about today.

The wave will start out in the neutral

state.

* When one side, let’s say the blue

side, starts to push into the other, the
blue player will have the advantage in
trades because they have more minions

* Once the blue side minions push into

the red tower, the NEXT wave of red
minions will collide with the blue
minions first, meaning there will be
MORE red minions. This means they
will start pushing into the blue side and
the cycle repeats.
What do minions do? Assuming
you are blue side.

Neutral State:
Even damage from minions, wave
could push either way depending
on who takes prio. You’ll want to
take or give up prio depending on
where the enemy jungler is,
where your jungler is, and
whether or not you can beat your
laner at the moment.
What do minions do? Assuming
you are blue side.

Pushing State: You likely have

more minions on your side. This
means that when you go in for
trades, you will likely win them
because you’ll have more minions
hitting the enemy champion. This
is why you have prio when the
lane is pushing forward. They
can’t step up to fight you or they’ll
lose the trade.

Pulling State: It’s the opposite way

around. The enemy will have
more minions, so you’ll have to
back off and not greed unless you
win the trade 100%. If you’re both
even, you’ll lose the trade to
minion damage.

Laning phase often flows between

these two/three states.
How Freezing Works: In the green
phase, having 1 more minion on
the enemy side will let the enemy
push into you and let you freeze.
In the yellow, you’ll need 2 to 3
more enemy minions to freeze
In the red, you’ll need 4 or more
to set up a solid freeze.
Freezing- Letting the enemy have more minions constantly pushing into yours on your side of the lane
Pros: Denies gold and xp. Attracts enemy jg aggro (in high elo).
Cons: Loses top prio unless you have insane wave clear.
When: Whenever you can. This shit makes the enemy suicidal and puts him many levels behind. If you don’t win the fight, you also want to
freeze near your tower so you can farm safely

Slow Pushing- Killing one or two minions before last hitting. This builds up a massive wave of your own minions worth about 2-3 waves of
minions. Crashing this wave is when you can make plays. Attracts enemy jg aggro too because you’ll be pushing up.
When: When you crash a massive wave, you have enough time to do whatever the fuck you want.
1. You can set up a dive by yourself if you’ve poked down the enemy enough. If not, it sets up a gank for your jungler to dive. If you kill him,
he loses the 2-3 waves you’ve crashed into his tower. This can cause some top laners to afk or run it down.
2. If he’s not low enough to dive, DON’T WASTE TIME JUST WATCHING HIM FARM. Use this as an opportunity to walk into their jg and place
deep wards or invade. Your laner can’t respond even if he sees you since he’s farming the 2-3 waves, and if he wastes time to chase you
then he’s lost his lane.
3. In the mid-late game, when you have enough damage, you can use this as an opportunity to take krugs, scuttle, or gromp. If possible,
gank mid.
4. Most of the time, you’ll be crashing a wave into the enemy tower so you can back and walk back to lane and lose at most 3 minions. If
you’ve crashed a wave into the enemy tower, it’ll bounce back to you by the time you’ve walked back to lane especially with boots. Don’t
waste time and you’ll have an opportunity to freeze the lane and deny more.
5. Setting up a slow push also lets you set up a tp play. You’ll have a lot of time to do things with the tp, and if the enemy laner follows, he’ll
lose the built up wave.

Hard Pushing: Pushing out a wave as fast as you can

When: Gives you less time to do things than a slow push would, but still lets you do things
1. If a play is about to happen on the map, you need to hard push the wave or else you’ll lose a lot of gold and xp.
2. Give you about enough time to do everything above but doesn’t have as much pressure as a slow push because the enemy is losing less
and you might lose more if you take too long.
 How to respond if those tactics are being used on
you

Freezing: If you’re being frozen on near the enemy

tower and you can’t beat them in a fight, your
jungler needs to break the freeze. The jungler will
not help you in low elo (silver-plat). If you can beat
WARD
them, the problem is easily resolved by hard
pushing and resetting the wave. That’ll cause the
wave to bounce back to you and you can set up a
freeze then.
WARD
Slow Push: If you’re full hp and nothing is
happening around the map, let it happen. If you
lose health and get dived while there’s a massive
WARD wave under your tower, your lane is over. Plus, you
will most likely lose if you fight the enemy in a
WARD
massive wave. If something IS happening, match
their push and keep the wave in the middle until
you decide whether you want to freeze or push.
Freezing is safer, but pushing will attract the enemy
jg, which you’ll want if you can confidently 1v2 or if
WARD
your jg is nearby to countergank.
WARD
WARD
WARD
Hard Push: Hard push back so you can match
whatever play the enemy makes or make the first
play. If you’re feeling toxic, you can freeze the wave
WARD as they’re trying to hard push to your tower so they
have to either stay in a frozen lane, lose minions to
the freeze while they make the play, or risk fighting
WARD you near tower to force the crash.

WARD
Macro Plays: Deep push, Splitpushing, Tp plays

Deep pushing- When you’re pushing pretty deep into the enemy team
When: Only if you know you can deal with some harsh ganks and if you can SEE that the
people that can kill you are far away on the minimap. Attracts lots of jg and even mid and
sometimes bot aggro depending on how far up you’re pushing. If nobody comes, then
you’ll be taking towers which wins games.

Splitpushing- basically deep pushing but on the opposite side of objectives

(dragon/baron). Generally mid to late game play that you can make IF you have tp to help
your team if a teamfight breaks out at the opposite side of the map. Splitpushing attracts
aggro and can split the enemy team when fighting for objectives. They need to send at
least one person to stop you or you can push out their whole base. This is especially
effective if you’re a lot weaker than the enemy since they’re sending 1 strong person to
stop you, a weak person. If you’re really strong, they might send 2 or 3, giving your team a
4v3 or 4v2 at the objective, basically guaranteeing a win at the objective.

Tp plays
Never tp to lane after the first tp unless you’re catching 2-3 minion waves with it.
However, only tp when it’s a GUARANTEED win, or else you’ll lose 2-3 minion waves as
well as a teamfight, dooming the game. If you can’t match your laner and he tps, just
farm.