The Art of Top

Author:

Diego “Quas” Ruiz

Editor:

John “Pseudonaut” Q.

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Chapter 1 “Bootcamp”
1.1 Introduction ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 9
1.2 Champion Pools ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 10
1.3 Champion Select ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 12
1.4 Level One Gameplay ~ ~ ~ Page 19

Chapter 2 “Keystone Habits”

2.1 Developing Habits ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 23
2.2 Know Your Enemy ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 23
2.3 Awareness ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 26
2.4 Timing Summoners ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 27
2.5 Maintaining Vision ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 29
2.6 Clairvoyance ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 30

Chapter 3 “Laning Phase”

3.1 Small Victories Mindset ~ ~ Page 33
3.2 Timing Aggression ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 34
3.3 Wave Management ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 38
3.4 Roams and Teleports ~ ~ ~ Page 43
3.5 Itemization ~~~~~~~ Page 48

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Chapter 4 “Risk Aversion”
4.1 Respecting Power Spikes ~ ~ Page 51
4.2 Defensive Warding ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 54
4.3 Making Sacrifices ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 57

Chapter 5 “Jungle Synergy”

5.1 To Gank or Not to Gank ~ ~ Page 62
5.2 Executing a Gank ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 65

Chapter 6 “Split Pushing”

6.1 Who? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 71
6.2 What? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 75
6.3 Where, When, and Why? ~ ~ Page 76

Chapter 7 “Teamwork”
7.1 Shot-Calling ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 81
7.2 Objectives ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 84
7.3 Minion Wave Control ~ ~ ~ Page 87
7.4 Team Fights ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 89

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Chapter 8 “Self-Improvement”
8.1 Replay Analysis ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 96
8.2 Dealing with Tilt ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 99
8.3 Mechanics ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 103
8.4 Attitude ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 107
8.5 Adapting to the Meta ~ ~ ~ Page 109

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 About Diego “Quas” Ruiz
I began playing League of Legends at the beginning of Season One from my
hometown of Maracaibo, Venezuela. I already had a basic understanding of the moba-
genre, having played DotA and HoN for a few years beforehand, so the transition into
League of Legends was fairly quick. When I first started, I didn’t have any money to buy
champions, so I made multiple accounts for the free IP Boost, and dedicated each one of
them to a different champion. Each time I made a new account, they matched me with
weaker players; smurfing like this helped me learn how to outplay people, and what the
limits of my champions were. To learn more, I would watch videos of professionals (like
BigfatLP and HotshotGG) and whichever tournaments were being broadcasted.

I became fascinated by the idea of forming a team and competing, so I asked some
of my friends to join a team, and we started competing in some small Latin American
tournaments for $20 RP prizes (which back then, was extremely exciting). As things
became more competitive, I ended up hand-picking more Venezuelan players who were
talented at their roles, and we played in some other North American tournaments, like
Go4LoL, under a team known as Third World Gamers. While playing, I met even more
talented players from North America that were quite enjoyable to play with, and a few
of them ended up joining our team. Up until that point, we only spoke in Spanish, but
the dynamic shifted, and we began communicating in English instead. This would help
me later on when I moved to North America.

The North American servers were far away and the Latin American servers weren’t
up yet, so I would typically play with a ping of about 180. Despite the latency, I still
managed to maintain an impressive win rate in solo queue. Unable to rely on reaction
time, I approached the game in a more analytical manner by spending time theory
crafting, studying VoD's of the scene’s best players, and developing different strategies
for each game I went into (such as picking the best champion for the situation, item
build, etc.). I was focused on addressing my own mistakes, instead of arguing with, or
pointing out the mistakes of others. Eventually, this mindset earned me recognition
within the top 0.01% of players, and a Challenger team in the United States known as
New World Eclipse recruited me, marking the start of my competitive career.

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 Even though I played Mid-lane for the majority of my time on Third World Gamers,
I jumped at the opportunity to play as a Top-laner in North America. Within a few
months, I adapted to the role and gained recognition as an up-and-coming Top-laner.
A few months later, I was picked up by Team Curse (now known as Team Liquid) and
began competing in the LCS. My time there helped me learn about the role and expand
my understanding of the limitations and capabilities of Top-laners in an extremely
competitive environment. With so much experience, I felt it was necessary to share my
knowledge and perspective of Top-lane with the community.

Anyone out there with the drive to improve can read through this book and use it to
climb the ranked ladder. I also urge you to find enjoyment in the competitive aspect of
League of Legends, as this will play a huge part in your success. Many of the players in
Challenger are there because they love the game and enjoy queuing up whenever they
have the chance. Writing The Art of Top has been a great experience, and I hope it helps
you accomplish any goals you set for yourself. Good luck!

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 Chapter 1
Bootcamp
Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water in a cup, it becomes the cup.
You put water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle.
You put water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow, or it can crash.
Be water, my friend.

- Bruce Lee

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 1.1 Introduction
Versatility is the foundation of Top-lane. Your ability to fulfill different roles for
your team, whether that be a tank, threat, or support will ultimately determine
whether you succeed in climbing the ladder, or fall to the grimy depths of Bronze.
Who you’re playing with and who you’re playing against, all affect your decision-
making both in-game, and in Champion Select. Each game requires a unique
approach.

Unlike Mid, Top-lane is considerably longer and thus more susceptible to

ganks, roams, and dives. Over-aggression could easily be punished by smart
junglers, so you must know when to play aggressively, and when to play cautiously.

Top-laners also have a tendency to snowball. One small advantage, coupled

with proper wave control, could spiral into an even greater advantage. With
complete control over Top-lane, you can start to exert massive amounts of pressure
across the entire map, and carry that lead over to mid-game. On the flip side, with
poor decision making (as well as poor wave control), a considerable amount of gold
and experience could be lost, making it quite difficult to recover.

After laning phase, it’s important to find a good balance between grouping and
split-pushing. Grouping often and missing too many minion waves could put you
behind, while missing out on certain fights could snowball the enemy team (since
your team is fighting with less players). Later on, we’ll explain how to find the right
balance, and use your time efficiently.

As you climb the ladder, you will find that some games seem impossible to win,
but with a better understanding of Top-lane, you’ll know what type of plays can turn
the game around, and how to adapt to any situation you encounter.

Remember, “Be water, my friend.”

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 1.2 Champion Pools
Champion pools are essential for long term improvement. You want to have a
diverse champion pool that fulfills different roles for your team. If you already have
one, it’s still important to read through this section; you may find yourself swapping
out a few champions to ensure you have a flexible champion pool. Here are some
ideas to consider when forming (or altering) your current one:

Team Composition
The strength of a team composition is based on how well all five champions
synergize with each other. In Champion Select, you want to give yourself as many
options as possible to build a strong team composition by having roughly four or
five champions to choose from. Your pool should include, at the very least, one
champion from each of the following categories:

Tank ( Maokai, Sion, Malphite )

Tanks build defensively and farm safely throughout laning phase. These heavy
duty front liners offer great utility in team fights and are responsible for engaging,
disengaging, soaking up damage, and protecting carries from threats. If you already
have a team composition with mostly high damage squishies, a tank can fill out the
rest your team composition quite well.

Caster ( Lulu, Vladimir, Ryze )

Casters are often needed to balance out your team’s damage (or include more).
If your team deals mainly physical damage, the opposing team can simply stack
armor and negate a larger portion of incoming damage. Picking a Caster will force
your opponents to build both armor and magic resist, and also prevents your team
from falling off late-game due to the poor scaling of purely physical damage teams.

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 Carry ( Tryndamere, Riven, Fiora, Nasus )
If your team composition lacks damage, you could pick a carry of some sort.
Carries can either split-push or assassinate priority targets in fights. They often look
to snowball during laning phase, or farm up and become massive threats later on.

Bruiser ( Renekton, Darius, Trundle )

Bruisers have a naturally high base damage built into their kit, so they have a
very strong laning phase. They can afford to build somewhat defensively and still
deal a considerable amount of damage. Bruisers usually transition into tanks by late
game, but don’t scale well because they often lack the utility of standard tanks.
Picking them into favorable match-ups makes it easier to abuse your opponent, and
then you can snow-ball during laning phase (and hopefully avoid late-game).

Other Considerations
There are a few other things to consider when deciding which champions to
include in your pool:

Safe Picks
In champion select, you’ll often pick a top-laner before the other team does. A
well rounded champion pool will include one or two "safe picks" that you can pick
blindly into the enemy’s team composition.

When you have no clue what the enemy team plans to pick, it’s better to pick
someone who has a strong laning phase, and isn’t prone to being counter-picked
(like Jayce or Graves). If you don’t want to include a safe pick in your champion
pool, you can try swapping with someone further down in the pick order, but they
might not always own your champion.

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 Individual Mechanics
For those of you with weak mechanics, consider playing champions that are not
mechanically intensive. Picking Vladimir (an easy and straightforward champion)
over Rumble (someone who has a difficult passive and abilities that require solid
positioning), lets you focus on decision making, instead of having to deal with the
skill curve of complex champions.

Counter-picking Meta Champions

Find out who’s strong against the current Meta champions and have one or two
of them in your pool. It could even be an off-meta champion that happens to play
well into certain match-ups. With a favorable matchup, you’ll have an easier time
snowballing, and better chances of winning 1-on-1 fights (and in some cases, 1-on-2
fights).

1.3 Champion Select

With the new Champion Select system, you no longer have to worry about
calling out roles, because you’re automatically put into a primary or secondary role.
However, it’s still important to know which champions your teammates are picking,
so you can build a strong team composition around them.
.
While you will usually be placed Top-lane, when it’s not available, consider
using a Top-lane champion for your other role. Many top laners are viable for
Jungle, Mid, and even Support. Your chances of winning in these positions are
significantly higher if you play a champion you’re comfortable with, instead of an
unfamiliar one. I highly recommend experimenting with champions that you may
have never even considered before.

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 “I’ve played Aatrox mid-lane and crushed mages who
couldn’t deal with my unbeatable sustain. Renekton,
and other bruisers, also rip apart melee mids such as
Yasuo, Fizz, and Zed. Even Sion works in some cases,
especially when your teammates are squishy. A few of
the AP Top-laners, like Rumble, Vladimir, and Kennen
who were initially played Mid, saw more play Top as
the Meta shifted. However, they still work just as well
Mid-lane. For Jungle, I’ve experimented with Maokai,
Jax, Tahm Kench, and Hecarim and had varying degrees of success with them
(keep in mind I’m not the greatest jungler). Support is also flexible – Shen was a
popular pick at worlds last year, and was pretty successful.”

Team Composition
Team compositions are an important part of champion select. Teams that
synergize well with each other can recover from any mishaps during laning phase
through their strong team fighting abilities, and other synergies (sieging, split-
pushing, globals, etc.). By forming a strong team composition, you can still turn the
game around, even if you’re behind.

Picking for a team composition is much easier as fourth or fifth pick (and
sometimes third); anywhere else, and you won’t have enough information to know
what your team needs. If you’re early in the pick order, use a “safe pick” that
protects you from strong counter-picks and lets your team build around you. If
you’re fourth or fifth, then you can determine which of these attributes your team
needs more of:

Crowd Control (Examples: Malphite, Maokai, Zac)

Crowd control is used to peel for carries, initiate team fights, and lock down
priority targets at the right time (if you’re against a Katarina, and your team has no
crowd control, her ultimate will destroy your entire team). If your team lacks a
certain form of CC (such as engage), then Malphite, and other champions with
strong AoE crowd control, are good choices.

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 In general, you want to pick Crowd Control champions for team compositions
that already have plenty of damage. In team fights, you’ll lock down opponents
while your carries dish out damage (without CC, your team will have a difficult time
making picks, which is a huge part of winning team fights before they even start).

Damage and Threat

If your team lacks damage, pick a champion that poses a threat in some way.
Threats could include split-pushers, assassins, bruisers, and even champions with
global ultimates (Gangplank, Shen).

 Split-pushers: Nidalee and Tryndamere

Winning lane with these champions forces the enemy into sending at least
two people to deal with your split-push pressure. In Chapter 6, we talk more
about how you and your team can benefit from this.

 Assassins: Hecarim and Fizz

Both are excellent at diving squishies in the back-line and running over teams
with very little peel.

 Bruisers: Irelia and Olaf

Both have a way to push through CC and charge straight through the front-
line to priority targets in the back; their large health pool and overall
tankiness will help you survive while going kamikaze.

Durability (Examples: Dr. Mundo, Nasus)

Perhaps the opposing team relies heavily on a single type of damage (physical or
magical), or your team is full of squishies. Choosing a tank will let you soak up
damage and give your carries more time to dish out damage in team fights.

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 Area of Effect (Examples: Lissandra, Galio, Rumble)
A few casters (Kennen and Vladimir) are particularly good against teams with
heavy engage and low poke. Teams built to engage will be forced to walk into your
devastating area of effect abilities, or avoid fights altogether.

In general, winning fights is hard without AoE, so you should always consider
taking some if your team doesn’t have any yet. Even if your team already has plenty
of AoE from a champion like Ziggs or Amumu, you could still bring more for some
massive combos.

Counter Picking
Whoever has the more favorable matchup in lane will have an easier time out-
farming and out-pressuring their opponent. In a one-on-one lane, exploiting the
enemy’s weaknesses is often necessary to gain a resource advantage. The greater
your gold lead is after laning phase, the more of an impact you will have in team
fights (compared to the other top-laner).

The next few pages will explain how to abuse certain parts of a champion’s kit
with a counter-pick. The examples should give you an idea of how to come up with
counter-picks on your own.

Ranged Mobile Champions vs. Melee Bruisers

Examples: Kennen vs. Renekton, Lulu vs. Trundle

Renekton, a strong melee champion, is countered by a ranged mobile champion

like Kennen. Not only does Kennen have two long-range harass spells, but he also
has a much greater attack range (these match-ups usually come down to out-
harassing your opponent with auto-attacks). Most of these champions have an on-
hit buff to make their auto-attacks even more powerful (i.e. Lulu Pix).

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 Kennen can continuously harass Renekton, who really has no answer. If
Renekton dashes forward to trade, Kennen simply dashes away with his Lightning
Rush (E) and then continues to harass. Unless a Jungler influences the lane early
on, Kennen will constantly bully Renekton (and any other melee bruiser he faces)
out of lane.

Bruisers vs. All-in Carries

Examples: Renekton vs. Jax, Darius vs. Yasuo

Remember that bruisers tend to have a very strong laning phase, but scale
poorly compared to carries like Yasuo, Riven, and Jax. When you’re playing against
one of these champions as a bruiser, force early trades to deny them farm and
experience; this slows down their scaling and allows you to snow-ball, and hopefully
end games before they reach their power spikes. If both of you go even in farm,
you’ll have a difficult time mid-game when he starts to out-scale you.

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 All-in Carries vs. Ranged Mobile Champions
Examples: Fizz vs. Vladimir, Irelia vs. Kayle

Ranged champions like to win lane by constantly attacking their opponent while
taking as little damage as possible. To counter them, use your superior all-in as a
carry to prevent them from chipping away at your health. All-in champions like Fizz
have strong burst damage and enough mobility to chase a target down. At Level 6,
Fizz can kill almost anyone without defensive items once they’re below 60% health.

Sustained Damage vs. Tanks

Examples: Quinn vs Shen, Ryze vs Malphite

Champions with sustained damage can easily abuse tanks by whittling away at
the their health pools; tanks are great at absorbing large amounts of damage, but
over a long period of time, don’t have the means to win a sustain war (usually by the
end of laning phase a tank has acquired enough sustain to deal with this, but early
on, they’re easy targets). Ryze, for example, is free to harass a tank as much as he
wants - his goal is to farm up, while also creating opportunities to kill his opponent.

Keep in Mind …
Counter picking isn’t a viable option when the other top laner hasn’t revealed
their pick, but there are a few ways to deal with this. One way is to simply pick a
champion that has relatively few counters (“safe picks”). Another option is to swap
with someone farther down the pick order and have a teammate pick for you, after
seeing the other team’s top-laner.

** Don’t forget to swap in champion select! **

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 Picking Based on Other Enemy Champions
When picking a champion, take into consideration other champions besides
their Top-laner. For example, Twisted Fate usually snowballs by using his ultimate
to kill squishy side-lane champions; picking a bruiser like Olaf, who is temporarily
immune to CC with his ultimate, prevents Twisted Fate from feeding off Top-lane
(and in team fights, Olaf can chase down TF, who has no mobility).

Against Kalista or Vayne, two highly mobile marksmen, gap closers and crowd
control are almost a necessity. You wouldn’t choose Olaf, because they’d kite you too
easily. You’re much better off picking Maokai or Nautilus, who both have strong
lockdown abilities to deal with mobile marksmen.

Experiment with your champion pool and determine who has the highest
success rate against certain champions and team compositions; eventually you’ll
develop an innate sense of who to pick in any scenario. Start testing out different
counter-picking strategies in champion select as soon as possible.

Runes
With each new game, your goals throughout laning phase and mid-game will
often change. Whether you want to survive, scale into late game, or simply dominate
your opponent, optimizing your Runes can help you achieve that goal (since
Masteries change quite frequently, there will only be information on Runes in this
book).

For those of you who started a game with the wrong Rune page before, you
know how much they affect your ability to win lane, and impact the game. In the
back of this book, on Page 110, we’ve listed out the most common Runes for Top-
laners, and how to benefit from each of them. The list is quite long, but it’s a great
reference tool for optimizing Rune pages.

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 1.4 Level One Strategies
Being AFK can sometimes cost your team if you’re not there to during an invade
or if they’re caught out and need help. While you’re in loading screen, start to think
about what both teams are capable of doing Level 1. Based on the amount of CC and
damage of each team, consider what your best option is:

Trinket
Placing down your trinket early-on might be useful in some situations, and in
others, may end up costing you an edge in laning phase.

Reasons to place a Level 1 Trinket:

1. To protect one of your jungle entrances from being invaded.

2. To gather information on the enemy jungler. If you’re a strong Level 1

Champion, consider forcing your way into their Jungle and placing a trinket at
whichever camp they’ll most likely start. This helps your laners to stay a bit safer
from ganks.

Reasons not to place a Level 1 Trinket:

1. To protect yourself against aggressive, early-game junglers by saving the Trinket
for laning phase.

2. To let the Yellow Trinket stack up, and then place a second ward deep into the
enemy jungle at 3:00.

3. To have a couple wards saved up. If you need to push and don’t have Flash, you
can place them down, and make it difficult for the enemy Jungler to gank you.

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 Invade
The oldest trick in the book. Gather your teammates and run towards one of the
many jungle entrances littered across the map. Your goal is to force someone to use
their Summoner Spell, or simply kill them. Your chances of doing this are much
greater with CC, but if your team doesn’t have any, it’s still possible to catch out
someone who isn’t paying attention.

Defend
Teams usually invade with a strong Crowd Control spell like Blitzcrank hook or
Morgana bind. To prepare against invades, alert your team, and order them to
defend a specific spot. The other team will usually barrel into your jungle as five, so
stick together. Once they approach, sit tight and surprise them. Your team can
snowball a game by defending well and picking up a few early kills.

Cheese
All hail the mighty cheese strats. For those unfamiliar with the term, it’s a
gimmicky level one strategy that’s risky to pull off, but when it works, can give you
and your teammates an unexpected advantage. I’ve listed out three potential cheese
strategies, but don’t hesitate to experiment with some of your own ideas, as there’s
always room for creativity.

Invading With a Jungler

Place a trinket down at the enemy Jungler’s top-side camp (Gromp for Red side,
Kruggs for Blue Side). As long as they don’t see you ward, you can coordinate an
invade with your Jungler (since most Junglers start bot-side, you Jungler should be
able to take the camp for free and then steal the enemy’s Buff afterwards). If their
Jungler starts top-side, wait for him to start the camp and then move in right before
he finishes it.

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 Soloing a Buff
You can also steal a Buff by yourself if you’re a strong Level 1 champion. Certain
champions like Sion, Olaf, and even Trundle are capable of soloing Red or Blue buff.
To do this, place an early Trinket at whichever Buff you plan to take, and walk away.
Keep an eye out to see if their Jungler is starting top-side; if he isn’t, you can head
over just before it spawns, and take it. Afterwards, recall and Teleport* back to lane.

*Without Teleport, this strategy will take too much time.

Hiding Inside of a Bush

Hide in either the tri-bush or the lane- bushes in Bot-lane with your ADC and
Support. Wait for the enemy Bot-lane to walk up, then jump out and kill them (or at
the very least, force their Summoners). Only use this strategy with Teleport, since
you’ll need it to return to lane as quickly as possible. Teleport to lane afterwards (or
recall if you need to regenerate some health). This works against squishy Supports
when your team has some form of CC and burst damage Level 1.

21
 Chapter 2
Keystone Habits

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 2.1 Developing Habits
In this chapter, we’ll explore five different habits that most players typically
neglect or lack. Note the terminology, “habit” - any action that, after enough
repetition, becomes second nature. Players have a hard time building these habits
for two reasons; for one, they're unaware these habits have such a huge impact on
their performance, and two, they aren't focusing on them often enough to actually
turn them into habits.

Don't try and work on all five at the same time; slowly build your skills up by
focusing on one. Once you feel comfortable with one, move onto the next. If you find
yourself losing focus, keep a list of the habits nearby to remind you what to work on
while you’re waiting in queue.

“I can’t speak highly enough of how important it is to

develop good habits in your play. I’ve seen tons of improvement
out of my play when I’ve sat down and determined where my
leaks were and how they were costing me over and over again.
Once you’ve read through this chapter, it’s important not to get
lazy. Always go into games focusing on these basic tasks ... that
is, if you want to keep your win rate as high as possible.”

2.2 Know Your Enemy

As soon as your opponent appears in lane, click on his character and start
gathering as much information as possible. Analyze whatever info is available, and
use that to determine how to play against him.

23
 Statistics
Take a peek at your opponent’s stats and try determining what his Runes and
Masteries are. By correctly identifying an opponent’s setup, you can make more
informed early-game decisions. For example:

Flat vs. Scaling Resistances

Against flat resistances, your damage is less effective. With scaling resistances,
trading early on is more effective - it’s that simple. Pressure lanes that have scaling
resistances more often’ only trade in optimal situations against flat resistances (we
cover more about timing aggression in Chapter 3).

Weaknesses
Look for weaknesses in their setup. Perhaps you’re playing a physical damage
champion like Poppy and you have a strong AP Jungler like Elise or Gragas. If your
opponent fails to bring any Magic Resist to lane, your Jungler will have an easier
time killing them. Let him know about this, and try to coordinate a few early ganks.

Adjusting Your Skill Order

In some match-ups, you can actually adjust your skill order to counter an
opponent’s build path. For example, if your opponent is building a single type of
resistance (Magic Resist or Armor), and your kit has two different abilities, one that
deals Physical damage and one that deals Magic, you can max the ability that will
deal the most damage (based on your opponent’s build) first.

For example:

Mundo: Q (Magic) vs. E (Physical)

Sion: E (Magic) vs. Q (Physical)
Irelia: W (Stacking Health) vs. E (Magic)

24
 Playing Around Keystones
There are a few ways to play around different keystones for better trades:

Thunderlord’s Decree
Avoid three consecutive hits, unless you’re looking for an extended trade.

Fervor of Battle
Don’t trade for extended periods of time (or all-in) when both sides have the same
amount of health.

Grasp
Try and stay away from your opponent while it’s up. (Not always possible.)

Inventory
At any given moment, you should know exactly what your opponent’s items are.
Whenever he returns to lane, check for any potions and whether or not he recently
completed an item (or still has components).

Sustain
If you return to lane with 4 potions, and the other Top-laner returns to lane with
only 1 potion, you have 450 more health than him; this is a great time to trade
aggressively. In general, you will often play more aggressively with a higher amount
of sustain (while still playing passively when your health needs time to regenerate).

Power Spikes
Actives from certain items are occasionally scarier than their base stats. For
example, if your opponent just finished Hexdrinker, be sure to factor in the
additional 180-230 magic shield (based off his level) when deciding whether or not
to all-in. A huge error top-laners make is all-inning without realizing how strong
their opponent is from a newly acquired item.

25
 2.3 Awareness
Awareness of the mini-map and in-game timer are probably the two most
important skills you could ever work on in League of Legends. Even players who
climb to Diamond still die to ganks and roams simply because they failed to pay
attention at a crucial time; it only takes a few seconds of distraction for someone to
catch you off guard (even when your teammate pings M.I.A.).

In order to build awareness, you need to know what to look for. Often times,
players emphasize the importance of watching the mini-map, but fail to give any
direction on how to do so effectively. Whenever you scan the mini-map (which
should be done about every 3 to 4 seconds), look for each of the following:

Junglers
This includes junglers on both sides. Knowing where Junglers are will help you
determine when to play aggressively, and recognize any gank or dive opportunities.

Roamers
After looking for Junglers, quickly check if a mid-laner or support is missing;
most of the time, mid-laners will roam over, but occasionally a support or AD will
wander over too. You can never be too careful.

Wave Positions
During mid-game, you can often predict where an enemy will be by the positions
of the wave in each lane. If a minion wave is pushing into a turret in an empty lane,
teams will typically send one player over to farm it; this gives your team a chance to
engage, siege a turret, or pressure an objective 4-on-5.

Objective Timers
This includes Baron, Dragon, and Jungle camps. Knowing how much time you
have until Baron or Dragon respawns is critical to preparing for them. Knowing the
Jungle camp timers can also grant you additional protection during laning phase.

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 For example, at 3:00, most Junglers just finished their routes and are looking for
an easy lane to gank; if you haven’t seen their Jungler yet, back off and place down a
trinket for protection.

Developing this habit will take time, but as long as you’re consistently putting
effort into scanning the mini-map and the in-game timer, you’ll eventually ease into
it. In situations where you tunnel vision, or are under a lot of stress, you will remind
yourself to quickly glance down and think of how to play the situation out correctly
(instead of crumbling to the pressure because you’re unsure of what to do).

2.4 Timing Summoners

There’s no beating around the bush; timing Summoner Spells is possibly the
most tedious habit you will need to work on. By keeping track of Summoner Spells,
you can make certain decisions and certain plays which you otherwise wouldn’t. At
higher ELOs, decision making is largely affected by what Summoner Spells each
player has (and without knowing them, you will miss out on many opportunities).

Summoner Spell Base CD 15% CDR 25% CDR

Flash 5:00 4:15 3:45
Teleport* 5:00 (3:20) 4:15 (2:50) 3:45 (2:30)
Heal 4:00 3:25 3:00
Cleanse, Ghost, 3:30 ~3:00 ~2:40
Exhaust, Ignite, Barrier
Smite 1:15 ~1:05 ~0:55

*( ) = Cancelled Teleport

There are two different ways to reduce the cooldown of a Summoner Spell:
15% from Masteries and 10% from Lucidity Boots. The most common cooldown
percentages are 15% and 25%, so we’ve included them in the table, but you can
always hold Tab and hover over the S.S. icon to see the exact cooldown.

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 After your opponent uses an important Summoner Spell, type the full timer into
chat (e.g. “Jayce F 9:20”). If you’re busy last-hitting or fighting, you can type a quick
note. Later on when you have time, look at the timestamp, and let everyone know
when their Summoner Spell will be back up.

Communication
Teammates also benefit by knowing the cooldowns of your Top-laner’s
Summoner Spells. Junglers can coordinate a gank before his Flash is up, and Bot-
lane can play more aggressively if they know no one can Teleport in behind them.

Decision Making
Your positioning, as well as how you use your Summoner Spells, is often
affected by the cooldown of your opponent’s Summoner Spells. Whether or not you
Flash to secure a kill might be based on his Flash; outplaying an opponent is also
much easier when you know their Flash is down.

Team Fights
Knowing the Flash cooldown of a priority target will allow your team to engage
at the right moment (since the priority target can’t escape). They can quickly decide
how hard to commit to a fight, and when they can quickly pick someone off. Your
team should always look for opportunities to kill someone who doesn’t have Flash
when they stray away from their team.

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 2.5 Maintaining Ward Coverage
Your teammates, your friends, and your family have all been begging you to buy
wards. They cry themselves to sleep at night every time you leave base without a
Pink. It’s time to end their pain and suffering once and for all by adhering to this
simple rule of thumb:

1. Try to have one Pink ward placed on the map at all times.

2. If you don’t have one placed, buy another when you return to base (unless it
affects your build path, since the extra 75 gold might delay an item).

Now that green wards are no longer buyable, only Trinkets and Pink wards will
provide you with vision. Trinkets, only lasting 60 seconds, won’t provide you with
sustainable vision, leaving Pink wards as your only option.

Unfortunately, Pinks are visible to enemies, so anyone can swoop by and kill it.
Even though Pinks are easily taken out, having one placed is essential to staying safe
and making plays throughout lane when given the opportunity. Without a Pink, you
won’t have consistent vision or the ability to make aggressive moves without dying
to a possible Jungle gank.

For the meantime, don’t worry about where to place the Pink (covered in future
chapters); just focus on having one placed. Make sure you place it without anyone
noticing, so it stays alive for as long as possible. Shoving the wave in beforehand or
simply warding before returning to lane will throw the majority of players off, and
keep its location a secret.

The two rules aren’t something you have to follow rigorously, but rather a
guideline and mentality that you should follow as closely as possible. Pinks are only
necessary in lane when you’re scared of ganks. In some situations, the Jungler may
not be targeting your lane, and you won’t need to buy any.

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 Pinks are also useful for setting up ganks since they clear out enemy vision. Your
Jungler is also more likely to gank top-lane if he knows there’s no vision to spot him
out. Using a Pink offensively when you have the lead (and protecting it well) is a
very powerful strategy.

2.6 Clairvoyance

“The supposed faculty of perceiving things or events in the future.”

Anticipating scenarios and setting up a plan of action is an invaluable skill to

have. Thinking ahead helps you outplay opponents, fight off tunnel vision, and
avoid baits. Let’s say an opponent is staying in lane to farm one last wave with 20%
health. Is he risking his life to farm, or is he baiting you in? Be aware of what could
happen if you position too far up the lane, and try to consider what could go wrong.
As you can see in the photo below, the Cho’Gath is in grave danger - if he commits to
killing Teemo, Zac will jump in, and turn the situation around

30
 Your decision making improves by taking precautions for any potential threats,
and playing around them. Likewise, opportunities become clearer once you’re fully
aware of your potential damage, and others. You can make a snap call on how to
deal with someone the moment they appear (during a gank, or a pick).

Throughout laning phase, always ask yourself “If I do this, could I die to a gank,
or some other threat?” After a while, you’ll know exactly what your limitations are,
and won’t hesitate to make an aggressive play (or let an opportunity pass when it’s
just too risky).

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 Chapter 3
Laning Phase

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 3.1 Small Victories Mindset
The goal of adopting a “small victories mindset” is to teach you to look for subtle
ways to outplay your opponent, instead of attempting risky or dangerous all-ins.
Over time these plays will add-up, and help you build a sizable lead.

“So what does it mean to adopt a small victories mindset?”

A small victories mindset simply means that throughout laning phase, you wait
for opportunities to present themselves before playing aggressively. This doesn’t
mean to play passively; Top-laners make hundreds upon hundreds of mistakes
every single game, so there will always be opportunities to flip the switch, and
attack. The idea is to time your aggression at the exact moment an opponent makes
a mistake to fully punish their misplay and secure an even greater lead for yourself.

Spectate a few top laners in Bronze and Silver and pay attention to how they
play when ahead; you’ll notice how often they lose their lead by forcing aggressive
plays at inopportune times. Once you climb the ladder and start running into better
players, they’ll punish you for even the tiniest of mistakes. These players understand
the significance of carefully observing their opponent, waiting for them to misplay,
and then heavily punishing them.

“What’s wrong with playing overly-aggressive?”

An aggressive balls-to-the-wall play style has consistency issues. While there are
certain matchups where early aggression is needed, if your plan relies mostly on all-
ins and randomly timed aggression, you’re exposing yourself to ganks that could
snowball your opponent (or the enemy Jungler).

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 At the end of the day, top lane is still an island and you’ll be fighting 1-on-1 for
the majority of the time; whoever has superior laning skills will usually win. Even in
unfavorable match-ups, a small victories mindset will help you stay on par, or even
pull ahead. Your ultimate goal is to develop a high level of critical thinking so you
can optimize your approach to different match-ups, instead of playing aggressively
without taking into consideration other factors (for those of you who are passive
players, this section will help encourage you to take more risks and also prevent
aggressive players from taking advantage of you).

3.2 Timing Aggression

Timing aggression is a matter of spotting weakness in your opponent's play and
punishing it. Once you learn to spot these weaknesses, you can trade knowing that
you’re more likely to come out ahead (either in health or gold). In Chapter 2 we
discussed awareness, which plays a huge role in spotting these weaknesses - if you
don’t pay enough attention to the mini-map, their Jungler may catch you off guard
while you trade during these advantageous situations, so work on that first:

Minion Wave Advantage

When you have a stronger minion wave, you’re guaranteed a slight advantage
while trading. Whenever a player attacks with enemy minions nearby, they
immediately switch focus to that player (ranged minions switch focus immediately -
melee minions have to walk over, so their damage is less threatening). In general,
pick fights when you have more (caster) minions and avoid fights when you have
less.

Ability Cooldowns
When an enemy has recently used one or two abilities (to last hit, shove the
wave, or harass), they are temporarily vulnerable to short trades. Watch your
opponent carefully and get a feel for when they are likely to use an ability; look to
trade immediately afterwards. If you can avoid a 150-200 damage ability each time
you trade, you will eventually out-sustain your opponent.

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 Learn the cooldowns of your opponent’s abilities so you have a better feel for
your window of opportunity to trade (you can find more information on cooldowns
in the League of Legends Wikia).

Baiting Out Abilities

Start by figuring out which abilities in your opponent’s kit you can bait out.
Against long-range skill shots, you can hover outside of the wave so your opponent
has a clear shot, and then sidestep his projectiles. Against AoE spells (Gragas Barrel,
Maokai Q), you can usually walk forward and they’ll throw them out - the trick here
is to move in a random pattern so your opponent can never predict where you’ll be.
It helps if you naturally move in random patterns, because your enemies will have a
difficult time reading you.

Against a defensive ability, such as Fiora’s Riposte, look to force it out before
trading (in this instance, landing a spell on her so she’s forced to use it or take free
damage). Once this ability is down, you can trade or zone until it comes back up.

Health Pool or Sustain Lead

Let’s say you’re in lane with 70% health, and thanks to some clever trades, your
opponent is down to 40% health. Once your opponent is low, continue pressuring by
zoning him from the wave and harassing when possible. Don’t play passively and
allow your opponent to regenerate health! Against an opponent whose mana pool is
running low, you can often push them in without any resistance at all; if they have a
low health pool, your Jungler can even look to dive.

Keeping an opponent in lane while they’re low on mana greatly reduces their
ability to make TP plays elsewhere. They’ll also have a difficult time clearing waves,
farming under turret, and following up on ganks when their Jungler comes, so try to
prevent them from recalling when they’re in this situation.

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 Distant Jungler
Once the other team’s Jungler has been spotted elsewhere, you’re guaranteed to
have a 1-on-1 fight (just remember to check for roams). If no one is around to
blindside you, you can play much more aggressively. Most of the time, you want to
trade when their Jungler is far away and another factor is in your favor, such as a
sustain lead.

Running a Bluff
If it’s been a while since your Jungler has been spotted, your opponent might be
worried he’ll show up soon - use this fear to your advantage and “bluff” your
opponent off the wave in an attempt to deny farm. Bluffing essentially means that
your Jungler isn’t there, but because your opponent doesn’t have complete vision,
will have to react to your aggression seriously.

Note: This doesn't work against reckless and aggressive players, but rather
those who are cautious.

During your next few matches, try to spot when these situations pop up. See for
yourself how easy it is to exploit someone when they’re at a disadvantage. Keep
practicing your aggression in these spots until you’re doing it out of instinct.

Forms of Aggression
There are three different forms of aggression you can use:

➢ Harassing (Short Trades, Extended Trades)

➢ Denying Minions (Zoning)

➢ All-Ins (Diving, Ganks, Outplays)

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 How you play aggressively is just as important as when you play aggressively.
The best option is to kill your opponent (obviously), but this isn’t always a
possibility, and you can still gain a lead through other types of aggression. For
example, harassing reduces an opponent’s health, but denying minions takes it a
step further, and restricts their gold income, delaying certain items.

Think of it as climbing a ladder of aggression; start dodging your opponent’s

skills and winning trades, then move on to denying your opponent both farm and
experience by zoning them with solid wave management. Finally, look for any all-in
and gank opportunities.

You can think about aggression like fishing - you put some juicy bait on the
hook, throw it out in the water, and wait for the fish to bite (not actively forcing
plays, but waiting for an opportunity to present itself). Once a fish chomps down
(becomes greedy and makes a mistake), you can start reeling it in (harassing him)!
Either your fish will break off the hook and swim away (you win the trade and he
retreats), or stay on (and continue to fight in unfavorable circumstances) until he’s
flopping around the boat, breathing for air. At that point, you can go home and
make some nice ceviche.

For now, don’t worry about clever or complicated plays; nail the basics first.
When you’ve mastered applying pressure in those four situations we talked about
(more minions, waiting for cooldowns, fighting with no Jungle pressure, and
fighting with a better health pool) then you can start experimenting with other
methods of winning lane.

Stopping Recalls
Players are sometimes greedy with their recall spots and don’t walk very far
back. Use long-range spells to cancel their recall, or start walking in their direction
and force them to walk away. By delaying their recall, you can deny them farm
(especially if their lane is pushing) and sometimes keep them in lane with low health
for a longer period of time.

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 3.3 Wave Management
During laning phase, there are two different ways to control the wave:

Shoving and Freezing

Each have their own purpose, but the tricky part is knowing when to use one,
over the other. The best way to think about wave management is to first think “What
do I want to achieve?” and then figure out whether shoving, or freezing, will help
you accomplish that.

Shoving
A “shove” is when you push the minion wave using spells and auto-attacks. One
downside to shoving is that you’ll move further up the lane to farm the next wave
(putting yourself in even more danger). Because of this, you should only shove when
you have a good reason to do so - such as:

Recalling
If you plan to recall, shove out the wave and base right away so you don’t lose
any experience or gold. Make sure the enemy has recalled before pushing, or he
could walk back and freeze before you leave (you can use this same strategy too -
hide in a bush and let the enemy push, thinking you’ve backed, then pop out and
freeze it).

Diving
If you’re going to dive, you need to shove the minion wave in. It’s better to slow-
push so you have more minions when the wave reaches the turret (this also gives
you more time to dance around before committing to a dive).

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 Deny Experience / Force Teleport
If your opponent makes a play somewhere else, you need to shove in, and deny
him as much experience as possible while he’s gone (especially if your TP is on
cooldown). You may even force him to use his Teleport to return to lane.

Level One Threat

If you’re afraid the enemy will all-in you at level two (Riven), you should push
just as much as your opponent pushes. Don’t let your opponent reach level two
before you do, or he may try and zone you off the wave.

Harass and Deny Under Turret

If you’re a ranged champion against a melee champion, and can deny more CS
under turret by harassing (instead of freezing in the middle of the lane and zoning),
look to shove the wave in. You leave yourself open to ganks, but as long as you’re
careful (by warding, and reacting quickly to ganks), you will pull ahead in lane.

During the first three minutes of laning phase, it’s very safe to push in to turret
because their Jungler is busy with his first clear. This can help you build a small CS
lead early-on.

Teleport Plays
When looking to make a TP play elsewhere, it’s best to shove out the wave, so
you will get the full experience from it right before you TP. By the time you recall
and return to lane, you should be able to catch the wave at your turret, and avoid
missing too much experience.

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 “How do you deal with someone who shoves?”

1. Ask for a Gank

If you notice your opponent is shoving, but hasn’t warded yet, let your Jungler know
there is an opportunity to gank him.

2. Focus on Last Hitting

Don’t try to harass your opponent when a sizable wave is headed your way. Just
focus on last hitting as best as possible (especially while under turret).

3. Conserve your Health Pool

You’ll have to give up some CS; make sure you kite and evade abilities. Baiting out
abilities will be very helpful - against a Graves you could bait out the Q, and then go
for some CS.

Freezing
A “freeze” is when you hold the minion wave exactly where it is. Freezing is
much easier when you’re ahead, because you can zone your opponent to prevent
him from pushing. If you aren’t strong enough to zone, you’ll find that freezing is
rather difficult (unless your opponent has left lane).

“When is it a good idea to freeze?”

To Setup Ganks
If your Jungler is top-side, and you think your lane is gank-able, freezing will
keep your opponent in place. Communicate with your Jungler there’s an
opportunity for him to gank. Try to freeze the wave somewhere in the middle of lane
or near your turret (so when your Jungler ganks, he doesn’t have to chase your
opponent down the entire lane).

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 To Avoid Ganks
Freezing near your turret makes it much safer to farm. If the wave is pushing in,
try to trim it so that by the time your next wave is there, it will freeze just outside of
turret range. You can also tank the wave as long as your opponent isn’t able to
harass you (one way to reduce minion damage while freezing is to hop in and out of
a bush so that the wave constantly switches between moving and attacking).

To Recall
It’s often better to shove the wave before recalling (to collect all of the gold and
experience), but in some situations, freezing is the better option. Let’s say your
opponent has already recalled; if you don’t think you can shove the wave to turret
before he returns, he may freeze it outside of his turret if he comes back in time
(which will be terrible for you).

If the wave is slow-pushing towards you, it will eventually pile up near your
turret. Instead of shoving, let the wave build up while you shop at base. This will
deny the other top-laner a few minions (and help you to stay even in items).

To Deny Farm
When you hit a power spike (such as an item or level advantage), freeze the
wave, and zone your opponent to deny him farm. Some players mindlessly push,
when it’s sometimes better to freeze (and possibly force an opponent to all-in if he’s
somewhat desperate for gold).

Preventing a Freeze
1. Time your recalls with how the wave is flowing. Avoid recalling when the wave is
slow-pushing towards the enemy’s turret. Instead, try to recall when the wave is
already frozen in place, or shoved into the enemy’s turret.

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2. Always shove out before recalling when you have the chance. If you are unable to
shove, consider leaving the wave as it is (unless it’s slow-pushing towards the
enemy turret). Of course, even if it is slow-pushing, you may be too low on
health/mana anyways, and will have to recall and deal with the consequences
later.

3. When trading, minions will often switch focus to you. If you’re constantly
trading, your wave will eventually push in (unless your opponent is also drawing
aggro). This could be a problem if you push the wave too far and your opponent
decides to freeze the wave and zone you.

Dealing with a Frozen Wave

If your Jungler is nearby, and you’re unable to shove the wave out by yourself,
ask him for help. This is the most simple and effective way to deal with a freeze.
After he helps shove the wave into turret, you’re free to recall and buy.

If your opponent has frozen the wave, he may be doing so because his Jungler is
nearby. Tell your Jungler to look for opportunities to counter-gank (he could hide in
a lane-bush and wait for the enemy Jungler to appear while you push out the wave).
2-on-2 situations, where the enemy Jungler shows up, will often play out in your
favor because you have a bigger wave that deals more damage throughout the fight
(and you also have the element of surprise).

When you’re returning to lane, don’t walk show immediately if your opponent
has already frozen the wave. Instead, place some vision down (anywhere from 1 to 2
yellow trinkets, as well as a Pink ward), and then head to lane. This should give you
enough vision to dodge any ganks while the wave is frozen. This advice also assumes
you’re able to lane against your opponent and continue to farm while the wave is
frozen. Against an opponent who is able to zone you off the wave on their own, don’t
even bother sticking around; consider roaming or Teleporting to other lanes in an
attempt to make something happen.

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 3.4 Roams and Teleports
Roaming is a powerful tool to add to your arsenal (as it’s a great way to snowball
the game). Even though roaming is time consuming, it can be highly rewarding. If
you’re a beginner to Top-lane, it’s best not to worry about roaming at all (you may
waste time, since roaming requires strong awareness). Once you’re confident in your
ability to lane, then you can start to incorporate it into your repertoire of plays.

“So which champions excel at roaming?”

Champions you would roam with:

Renekton, Maokai, Aatrox

… all of these champions push very well and have ways to lock-down a mid-
laner. They also have high base MS, whereas a champion like Nautilus, even though
he pushes lanes quickly, is very, very slow... (Nautilus has 325 MS compared to
Renekton’s 345 MS).

Champions you wouldn’t roam with:

Nasus or Vladimir

… who have no hard CC, and need to focus on farming to make full use of their
scaling. Avoid losing too many minion waves with these late-game scaling
champions.

It’s never too early to start roaming. By the time you reach Level 3 or 4, you’ll
have your CC abilities unlocked, which is all that’s needed for a successful roam.

You should time your roams with the wave...

The bigger the wave you push in before roaming, the more time you’ll have to
pull it off and return to lane. If you can’t push your opponent in, you won’t have the
opportunity to roam (without losing a wave).

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 When you begin building up a wave, see if roaming is an option, so you can
quickly decide what to do after shoving it out. Remember that you only have a
limited amount of time to make things happen while roaming, so stick to one goal:

1. Ganking a Lane

Roam Option One: Top-lane → Mid-lane

(Viable with all top-laners.)

Roam Option Two: Fountain → Mid-lane / Bot-lane

(Viable with, Akali, Sion, Jarvan IV, Lissandra, and champions with similar
mobility in their kit).

When ganking Bot-lane, it’s more likely to succeed if the enemy is pushing up to
turret and playing aggressively. You also need to have a somewhat strong Bot-lane
to deal enough damage (or setup CC), or else the gank will likely fail.

Risk: You may waste time if it fails (TP back immediately, or recall and head
back the old fashioned way; I would advise against helping your team with Dragon
after the gank, or you’ll lose too much farm and will fall behind top).

2. Warding Deep (Pathing)

You can also place deep wards in the enemy’s Jungle to gain more information.
Depending on how much time you have, you could roam Mid-lane after placing a
deep ward, but only if you can return to Top-lane without missing too much (what
“too much” is depends on the game; you might be ahead in lane, and can afford to
apply pressure Mid-lane even if you miss a wave Top).

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Blue Side Roams

Red Side Roams

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 3. Taking Scuttle Crab
Before taking Scuttle Crab, check its base health. If it’s between 800 and 1,000
health, you can kill it relatively quickly. However, a Scuttle Crab with more than
1,000 health will take a long time to kill, and you’ll likely lose out on pressure
elsewhere (sacrificing minions, missing out on gank opportunities, etc.).

A clever strategy is to take Scuttle Crab, return Top-lane to shove the wave in,
and then roam Mid, using the boost from Scuttle Crab to reach your target faster.

Consider how “gank-able” their mid-laner is before roaming…

Are you against an immobile mid-laner like Malzahar, or a mobile one like Ahri?
If Flash is the only form of mobility you need to deal with, it’s always worth ganking;
on the other hand, if their Mid-laner has too much escape, ganking them would be a
huge waste of time.

Some Mid-laners will use their mobility offensively (like Zed’s W, for example).
These types of champions are sometimes easy to gank. If the enemy mid-laner is
playing extremely aggressively, then it may also be wise to try ganking him.

Teleport
When running Teleport, pay special attention to Bot-lane and look for
opportunities to teleport in. In most situations, you shouldn’t Teleport Bot-lane
unless you (or a teammate) are guaranteed a kill. Pay attention to which
Summoners have been used, and how aggressively their Bot-lane is playing. If you
TP in and don’t make anything happen, you will lose a tremendous amount of
pressure Top-lane.

Let’s say your Bot-lane has decent ward coverage, but a Jungler manages to
sneak by. If you were to TP in the second a jungler appears, you could easily scare
him off and buy time for your Bot-lane to run away.

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 Another approach is to actually wait for their Jungler or their Bot-lane to
commit to an engage (such as Alistar Flash-Pulverizing), and then TP in for the kill,
knowing they can’t escape (just like you would with Shen’s ultimate).

Also consider: Can your lane opponent cancel your TP with crowd control?
Against some champions like Nasus, you could Teleport right in front of them and
they wouldn't be able to stop you, but other champions, like Trundle, can cancel
your channel. Either walk into a bush, or walk back into the fog of war to avoid this.
Be aware that if you Teleport in front of them, they may deal quite a bit of damage to
you, which could ruin the whole Teleport play.

Saving Teleport
If your opponent uses TP to return to lane and yours is still up - weigh your
options. Can you save it after the next recall and spare a few minions, or would you
miss an entire wave? If walking back to lane doesn’t put you behind, then save TP.
The next time you see an opportunity to use it Bot-lane, your opponent won’t have
his to counter-TP.

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 3.5 Itemization

Tanks
Tanks often have a very straightforward build path. If you’re laning against
someone who deals physical damage, build armor - if you’re laning against someone
who deals magic damage, build magic resist. Once mid-game rolls around, evaluate
the main source of damage on the enemy team and build against them. Depending
on the Meta, you’ll build the strongest two or three defensive items on every tank
unless there’s a specific item that synergizes with your champion. Other than that,
there’s rarely any variation in build paths for Tanks.

Assassins and Bruisers

You have two different options for the first eight to ten minutes of laning phase
when deciding how to itemize. Depending on how chaotic or calm the lane is, and
how often both sides recall, you can choose to build many small components, or
save up for one big item. Each option has its advantages and disadvantages…

Stacking Doran’s Items

Doran’s items are very efficient for stacking (except for Doran’s Shield since it
has a unique passive). On a first back, you could buy two Doran’s Blades and wait
until your next recall to complete an item. If buying major items early on prevents
you from farming in lane (because they’re too weak compared to the strength of
your opponent), it’s definitely worth it to stack Doran’s instead. Only go for this type
of build on your first or second recall – after that, focus on components and items.

In match-ups where you’ll lose lane no matter what you try to do, it’s better to
build early Doran’s items because they make it easier to trade, and survive all-ins.
Let’s say you’re playing Aatrox into Riven; you could stack Doran’s Blades for the
additional health, as well as a Cloth Armor. Small defensive components like Cloth
Armor or Null Magic Mantle (combined with Doran’s Items) are extremely helpful
in match-ups where your opponent can harass you out of lane quickly.

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 Completing a Major Item First
Avoid stacking items when you’re ahead in lane; wasting too much money on
items that you don’t need, like health potions or an extra Doran’s Blade could
actually put you behind. You might ask yourself:

“How could extra items put me behind?”

Well, power spikes in lane primarily come from completing major items. If you
have a gold lead, but spend it all on smaller items, you’ll have an early advantage,
but delay the power spike that a major item would offer. Using your gold lead to
complete items like Trinity Force or Sunfire Cape lets you put massive amounts of
pressure on the lane if you finish one before your opponent does.

Early Defensive Components

In certain lanes, you have to build one or two defensive components (not items,
just components) to survive until you complete a major item. Champions like Fizz
and Riven are great at punishing those who don’t respect their damage and build
squishy. Against these bullies, an early cloth armor or null magic mantle gives you
just enough durability to survive their early aggression.

If you naturally win lane, and aren’t afraid of early aggression, building an early
defensive component may actually be your best option. When you’re winning lane,
you’ll draw additional attention to your lane. A defensive component will reduce the
risk of dying to a gank, and will often deter junglers from ganking your lane to begin
with (just limit it to one or two components, never more). If you’re snowballing
hard, look to finish your core items as soon as possible, and then build defensively.

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 Chapter 4
Risk Aversion

50
 4.1 Respecting Power Spikes
Dying, in general, causes many issues for Top-laners. Not only does it put you
behind in lane, but it also snowballs the players who killed you, which causes even
more problems for the rest of your team. Avoiding ganks doesn’t just benefit you; it
benefits everyone who might have to deal with a fed Jungler. To avoid this, we’ll
take a look at how to play “risk averse”, which ultimately comes down to respecting
your opponent’s strengths, while still knowing when to play aggressively.

In laning phase, your opponent will sometimes have the advantage from items,
levels, or the amount of help they receive from teammates; facing an opponent head
on when they have a clear advantage over you could spell disaster. Try to play
cautiously … until you’re the one with a clear advantage.

Items
Each time your opponent returns to lane, check his inventory. Knowing whether
you’re stronger or weaker, based on items, will help you make better decisions.
Without knowing what you’re up against, you’re bound to make a wrong move.

Sustain
To deal with being out-sustained (either from life steal, health regeneration,
potions, or spells) adjust your play-style accordingly. You could trade early (and
often) in order to bring an opponent low enough to all-in them (this could range
anywhere from 40-60%, depending on how much damage you deal in a full combo);
then, continue to pressure him before he regenerates enough health to survive your
next all-in attempt. A different strategy would be to avoid trading, and focus entirely
on farming and following up on ganks.

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 First Minor and Major Item
Keep track of when an opponent returns to lane with their first minor item (i.e.
Hexdrinker). Unless you have an equally strong item, respect their strength and
avoid fighting. One side will usually have the advantage until the other side
completes their first item as well.

The most powerful item spikes are from major purchases (3k+ gold items).
Against these items, a single mistake while trading or positioning can (and often
will) result in death. This item could even be defensive, like Sunfire Cape. The
difference in damage or durability between a fully completed item and multiple
components is huge. Knowing power spikes by heart will come from playing many
games and testing the strength of your items against another set of items, over and
over again.

Levels
In terms of strength, levels only play a major role at levels two, and six.
Reaching level two first lets you punish an opponent before he’s two as well, while
level six gives you an advantage in skirmishes and all-ins. Anything beyond that
won’t affect your in-game decision making too much. Remember to pay attention to
how much experience your opponent has throughout laning phase so you can have a
rough estimate of when he will level up (especially for the first two minion waves).

Experience Advantage
In order to benefit from level spikes, you’ll need to soak up more experience
than your opponent. With each level up, your base stats increase slightly. Most
champions gain anywhere from 80 to 90 health per level. Plus, having a level
advantage for the first four levels is even more impactful because you’re not
upgrading spells, you’re unlocking them (two spells are better than one).

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 “How do you reach level two before your opponent?”

To reach level two, you need the entire first wave and a melee minion from the
second one. To hit two before your opponent, either use your abilities to shove the
wave faster, or zone him with your abilities and constantly auto attack the wave
while he’s unable to.

Once two, you have a very short window to attack before your opponent catches
up. As long as he’s level one, you can zone him from last hitting and also deal quite a
bit of damage in a trade. If he manages to reach level two before you (perhaps his
level one spell is better at clearing waves), wait until the wave pushes into to you
and you hit level two (sacrifice last hits until then).

In general, the more you out-trade your opponent, the more opportunities you
have to zone him and widen your experience lead. If you manage to take advantage
of a level two power spike, continue to zone and out-trade him as best you can - if he
burns through health potions, you’ll eventually out-sustain him later on.

Spell Advantage
Understanding the strength of abilities at certain levels will help you plan out
your trades in advance and ultimately keep the match under control. If you find
yourself being beaten by a specific champion more often than not, you’re probably
fighting when they’re stronger, and playing passively when they’re weaker.

Let’s say you’re playing Jax into Renekton (a very strong counter to Jax). Jax
can out-trade Renekton quite hard at levels one and two. Jax players know this and
trade aggressively while they can.

Renekton can out-trade Jax after that however, so trading early helps prevent
Renekton from completely dominating the lane. In tough match-ups, be aware of
when your spells are stronger than your opponent’s, even if it’s only for a few levels.

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 4.2 Defensive Warding
Whether you’re squishy, tanky, or somewhere in between, your chances of
surviving a gank aren’t very high unless you have wards. Without them, a Jungler
can easily walk around and catch you off guard. Since it’s difficult to recover from
ganks, you should prevent them from happening in the first place - that means
placing wards in the right spots, at the right time.

Blue Side Laning Phase Wards

Trinkets
1A: When you’re pushing in, you’ll need to protect yourself from both River
ganks and Tri-bush ganks. If you already warded River with a Pink, it’s better to
place a Trinket at 1A. Alternatively, you can ward slightly below (or at 2A) if you
don’t have a River ward, and expect the lane to reset soon (when the wave resets,
you’ll be positioned in the middle of the lane, and will need coverage from river
instead of tri-bush).

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 1B: If you’re pressuring their turret often, and need additional time to respond
to either a Mid-lane roam or a gank, spot 1B is perfect. Don’t walk into their Jungle
to place this ward; place it from the safety of Baron pit instead. You can also ward
this spot over the Golem wall after pushing in a wave (it’s somewhat safer to do this,
instead of walking straight towards the spot).

Pink Wards
2A: A shallow Pink that helps you keep tight control of Top-lane. By placing a
Pink here, you’re essentially saying you have enough pressure to prevent your
opponent from pushing in (because as soon as you’re pushed in, he can clear the
Pink). Use this in combination with a Trinket in spot 1A.

2B: A River pink gives you much better coverage against ganks and Mid-lane
roams. This is often a much better spot than 2A since your Pink will give you vision
of incoming opponent’s much sooner, and will also help out your Mid-laner as well.

A good time to buy a Pink is on your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd back. After that, you should
try and prioritize items over Pinks, but still buy one when you have enough gold.
Placing your Pink in an area where it will last a long time is very important, as you
may not have enough gold to buy another one later on.

As you place these wards, remember not to do so in front of an enemy. If your

enemies know exactly where your wards are, they can navigate around them, and
take you by surprise. Pinks are especially important to place out of sight, as they
could easily be destroyed by a wandering opponent. Try placing your wards before
entering lane, or right after shoving into turret.

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 Red Side Laning Phase Wards

Trinkets
1A: A very shallow spot for when you’re pushing in; can also be a Pink if you’re
perma-shoving.

1B: A slightly less shallow spot that provides solid vision against Junglers and
Mid-lane roams. This is quite possibly the best spot to place a trinket.

1C: This Jungle ward gives you more time to react to ganks, given their Jungler
doesn’t gank through River. If you spot him at Gromp or Blue buff, it also gives your
team more information to work with.

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 Pink Wards
2A: Defensive Pink spot for roams and ganks coming from your Jungle.

2B: Another defensive Pink spot for your jungle, but this one gives you more
time to react to roams and ganks coming from your Jungle (compared to 2A) and
also helps your Mid-laner.

Even if you have wards down, you’re still vulnerable to ganks (through lane or
weird paths). Have a solid idea of how you’ll escape if (and when) a gank happens.
Take into consideration what crowd control the Jungler has, and how you can work
around that. For example - against a Nunu, do you have enough health to run back
to turret with 30-40% reduced movement speed? Against a Rek’Sai do you have the
mobility to dodge his knock-up, or do you need to compensate by standing farther
back? Against Jarvan IV, is your Flash up to escape his ultimate - or will you trade
kills with their Top-laner when he comes? Play the gank out in your mind, so you’re
ready for anything.

4.3 Making Sacrifices

This section is primarily a discussion on when you should sacrifice certain
resources (minions, turrets, kills), instead of putting yourself in danger and possibly
falling even farther behind. Take a second and think about how many games you've
lost in the past because you were behind, but continued to fight and contest
resources, only to fall further and further behind.

By adopting a passive play-style when there’s little chance of recovery, you can
stop your lane from spiraling out of control and give your teammates a chance to
carry. It’s tempting to make aggressive plays to regain a lead, but there’s no shame
in waiting until your team groups before trying fancy or aggressive plays. Even if
you’re ahead, it’s still important to have a sense of when aggression will cause more
harm than good.

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 Let’s say your opponent is stronger, and his massive wave is pushing into yours.
As a melee champion, you’ll have to give up some last hits if you think you’ll get
chunked too hard. If you attempt to last hit the minions, he could use his wave
advantage to win a trade. As long as you’re soaking up experience, it’s perfectly fine
to give up last hits and farm the ones that stay alive and reach your turret.

“From my experience in LCS, I can say for certain the best

characteristic a Top-laner can have is caution. It’s about
knowing when you’re risking too much, for too little. Greed is
a nasty little devil that tricks you into making reckless
decisions - and it costs you in the long run. Learn how to give
up small things without becoming tilted. Stay focused on the
bigger picture – winning all day, every day.”

Turrets
Some top-laners have incredibly strong AoE abilities and can shove an entire
wave in a matter of seconds. Upon being pushed into turret, watch out for dives
from the enemy mid-laner and of course, their Jungler. If you know they’re coming,
be ready to abandon both the turret, and the wave. Remember that if they’re
roaming, they’re missing just as much farm in their own lanes.

In match-ups where your opponent is pushing in often, it’s often a good idea to
avoid trading aggressively unless your Jungler is coming to gank (as it will make you
an easier target for dives, or just easy to pressure off the turret).

Knowing the limitations of your champion may influence you to stick around
and trade one-for-one when they dive. The alternative to sacrificing a wave is to out
play them, knowing you have the Summoner Spells and ultimate to do it. If you can
at least trade one-for-one and pick up some experience before dying, then you
should stand by turret, and put up a fight.

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 Kills
Ideally, you should know where both Junglers are before starting a trade which
will result in an all-in. If both you and your opponent are trading often, and he’s
staying in lane with low health (low enough to die to an all-in), it’s quite likely that
he’s only staying because his Jungler is nearby. As long as you have vision, continue
to play aggressively, and go for the kill.

Junglers
When a jungler is camping your lane, don’t let the pressure frustrate you; as
long as you stay alive, you’re wasting his time, and giving your team opportunities to
fight without Jungle pressure. Recognize when the enemy Jungler is targeting you
and take precautions while farming (don’t get chunked or go for risky CS).

In the rare (but really advantageous) situation where a Jungler is sitting on your
ward, make the best of it by pretending you don’t know. Position yourself in a
somewhat vulnerable place to maintain his interest, but don’t leave yourself
completely open. As soon as you see him walking away, move up just a bit more.
Most Junglers in solo queue will try to redeem themselves by staying for a few more
moments, but will eventually cut their losses, and walk away.

Make Plays Elsewhere

Desperate times call for desperate measures. If the lane becomes extraordinarily
rough and your Jungler isn’t around to help, you never want to give up too much.
When you can’t even lane without dying to all-ins, or their Jungler is camping you
like there’s no tomorrow - walking into lane just to sacrifice entire waves will slowly
but surely make you useless.

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 Think outside the box and look for other ways to make plays. Is their jungler
weak? Place wards in his Jungle and pressure him while he’s at a camp. Does their
Mid-laner have Flash? Coordinate a gank with your Jungler to force his Flash, or
potentially kill him. Afterwards, stick around to shove in and soak up experience.
The goal is to force the other Top-laner to respond to your pressure.

Part of making plays elsewhere is having TP available; so, when you’re behind,
don’t Teleport back to lane unnecessarily. TP is an important spell for making plays
Bot-lane or Mid-lane, as well as Dragon. Alternatively, you can just group and take
Dragon or coordinate a gank on Bot-lane, then go for Dragon. You’re relying on
roams to put you back in the game which is a desperate, but necessary strategy
when Top-lane is too dangerous.

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 Chapter 5
Jungle Synergy

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 5.1 To Gank or Not To Gank…
Throughout the game, your Jungler will have a hundred different options
available to him (invading, ganking, farming). He needs to know which one will
benefit him the most, and as a Top-laner, you can help him out by telling him
whether or not Top-lane is worth ganking at all (and as you’ll soon find out, there
are some situations where your Jungler should avoid Top).

“So when should my Jungler gank Top?”

Power-spikes are good indicators of when you should ask for a gank …

Level Six
Ultimates give you a huge increase in either damage or utility (and sometimes
both). This applies to your Jungler as well - when he reaches level six, you two can
unleash havoc on your opponent with a well-timed gank.

After Winning an All-in

If you managed to kill your opponent in an all-in situation, and forced out his
Summoners, your Jungler can easily swing by and continue to pressure him. This
often frustrates players and tilts them. It can also draw their Jungler over, which
puts him in a bad 2-on-2 situation if your Jungler is nearby to counter-gank.

First Core Item

With Assassins and Bruisers, your first core item will often give you more
damage (and more kill potential). This doesn’t apply to tanks, because health and
defensive stats don’t help you that much during a gank.

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 When a Wave Builds Up
As your wave builds up, it becomes harder and harder for your opponent to thin
it before it reaches turret. Have your Jungler come over as the wave reaches turret
and pressure their Top-laner off the wave; your opponent will likely walk away and
lose the entire wave (or stick around and risk being dove). This is a feasible option
when you don’t plan to dive, but still want to apply pressure.

When a Wave is Pushing In

When a wave is pushing in, and your opponent continues to farm, he’ll have to
position farther up the lane. The farther away he is from his turret, the more time
you and your Jungler will have to chase him down.

Zero Vision
If your opponent has been constantly playing aggressively and hasn't warded in
a while, his lack of vision could easily be punished by a gank.

“When should my Jungler not gank Top-lane?”

Low Resources
With low mana and health, your ability to help during a gank is severely limited.
Odds are, you’ll likely die and lose more than you gain.

Opponent has a Power Spike

Pay attention to when your opponent has a power spike (one of the ones
mentioned in the previous list). Avoid ganking him during this time, as your
opponent could be strong enough to take both you and your Jungler down.

Lose to Counter-ganks
Against larger minion waves, you’re unlikely to come out ahead if the enemy
Jungler counter-ganks.

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 Passive Opponents
Passive opponents usually avoid trading and maintain a full health pool
throughout laning phase. These types of players will back off to any aggression,
avoid ganks with their Flash, and play passively while it’s down.

Communication
Without communicating, you and your jungler may be on two different pages - a
recipe for disaster. Remember to type your thoughts.

“No flash”
This communicates there’s a possibility to gank and there’s no need to worry
about a Flash. You or your jungler may even use Flash early to secure the kill.

“Has flash”
Your Jungler knows he’s facing someone with Flash. It also gives him an idea of
how far he should chase their Top-laner, and what his expectations should be. If you
type “has flash”, you two can quickly force it out, and then back off afterwards. This
hel[s prevent either of you from chasing too far.

“Dive”
It’s a good idea to type this when you’re pushing in to their turret. Your Jungler
will know you have blood in your eyes, and position himself for a dive.

“Help take turret”

When the enemy’s turret is low and your wave is pushing in, you may not want
to dive (due to any number of reasons). Instead, take their turret or zone your
opponent off the wave.

“Help shove”
Sometimes both Top-laners will stay in lane with low health and mana, but
won’t recall until the other one does. Junglers can help ease this situation.

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 To avoid this scenario, ask your Jungler to help shove the wave so you can recall
without missing any minions. If their Top-laner has to stick around and last-hit, you
can return to lane faster and shove in the wave to deny a few minions.

“Countergank”
When you spot their jungler (or have a strong feeling he’s waiting in a bush) tell
your jungler to counter gank if you believe you two can take on the other two players
(or have some other advantage, such as a larger minion wave).

5.2 Executing a Gank

Aside from communicating with your Jungler, there are a couple of other ways
to give yourself a better chance of killing a Top-laner (or taking his turret – it all
depends on what your goal is).

Wave Control
You can control the wave in two different ways, depending on whether you want
to dive the enemy, or keep him far away from his turret. Typically you won’t plan
this out ahead of time; you’ll look at the position of the wave, and as your jungler
approaches, decide what to do from there:

Dive (Shove)
Let’s say your wave is building up and slowly pushing into the enemy’s turret.
Protect the wave as you’re pushing in (to prevent your opponent from trimming it)
so you have a few minions to tank while you dive (caster minions specifically are
more useful when diving because they deal a decent amount of damage if your
opponent attacks either one of you, and aggro’s the wave under turret).

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 If the dive succeeds, not only will your opponent lose a huge chunk of gold and
experience, his turret will take a good amount of damage and put him in an even
more compromised situation. If your opponent decides to back off, you and your
Jungler can instead focus the turret, and melt it down with the additional help of the
wave.

Freeze (Pull)
If the wave is pushing towards you, or is stalled in the middle of the lane, you
want to induce your opponent to push the wave even further towards your own
turret (known as pulling). Once the wave begins to shove towards your turret, don’t
let it push in all the way. Stand in front of the wave to stop it before then (unless
you’ll take a lot of harass). By freezing the wave, their Top-laner will be in a
vulnerable position if he continues to farm - the farther away he is from his turret,
the more time you and your Jungler will have to kill him.

There’s a few ways to do this - one is to stand in the middle of the wave and bait
the enemy into using AoE abilities to push the wave in. Another is to let your
opponent auto-attack you so your minions attack him, while his minions stay
focused on the wave. (This only works if you don’t auto-attack him back, or else you
pick up aggro too).

Diverting Junglers and Clearing Vision

Pay attention to where your opponent warded based on what path he took to
leave lane, and how long he was gone for. Part of successfully executing a gank is
steering your Jungler away from wards, and of course, clearing them when you have
the chance. Try to get into the habit of pinging them out (once or twice) before your
Jungler walks into them.

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 Against smart opponents, they'll typically ward before entering lane or after
shoving out a wave (to prevent you from seeing where they ward). In this case, you
can use the time you have after shoving a wave (or when you return from base) to
check for Pinks. However, it’s not worth it to spend time clearing Pinks if it means
you miss out on farm.

Play - Style
Before your Jungler ganks, think about how often to trade with your opponent
and how you need to manage your own resources. Don’t fall too low on mana or
health, or else you won’t have any kill potential. Likewise, if you neglect to trade
with your opponent at all, your Jungler will have a difficult time making anything
happen.

When your Jungler finally arrives, try to play similarly to how you’ve been
playing the past minute or two. Any drastic changes in behavior could make it
obvious that your Jungler is closing in.

Lower His Health

This will happen naturally if you’re timing your aggression properly, but
sometimes you will have a passive laner who isn’t interested in trading, or an
opponent who takes relatively little damage. How then, can you trade aggressively,
without alerting your opponent of possible ganks?

One option is to trade poorly - give your opponent easy shots at you, and then
attack him (but don’t put yourself in too much danger). Your opponent can’t resist
an easy opportunity, and will feel obligated to trade. As long as you’re both below
50% or 60% health, your Jungler can make something happen.

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 Keep Him Interested
If your opponent is naturally aggressive, bait him into using his spells on you
when your Jungler is in position. Again, make sure you don’t take free damage, but
at the very least, throw some bait out to keep him interested - just wait for your
Jungler to be close before baiting him in (timing is crucial).

Manage Resources
Health, Mana, and cooldowns are the three main resources you need to
conserve while laning. Your Jungler can’t gank if your Health and Mana are too low.
Likewise, if your ultimate is on cooldown, or you use spells too early, you may not
have enough damage or CC for the gank.

You should also have a clear idea of how the gank will play out. Here are a few
questions to ask yourself, so you don’t make any costly mistakes:

“When will you initiate?”

When playing a champion with guaranteed CC (Pantheon), you will typically
engage when your Jungler is close enough to follow-up. Any earlier, and you won’t
have any more CC to lock someone down when they start to run away.

If your champion doesn’t have any CC, you could start trading before your
Jungler is close to start dealing damage in advance (beware, as this may scare off
some players, ruining the gank).

Remember to spread out your CC abilities during the gank. For example, if
you’re playing Irelia, and your Jungler is Rengar, don’t stun your opponent when
he’s already tethered by an Ebola. Wait until the CC ends, and then use stun. This is
known as “Chaining CC”.

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 “Should you continue chasing, or even dive?”

Many variables come into play - does your opponent have Flash, is their jungler
counter-ganking, will your spells come off cooldown before he reaches turret, do you
and your jungler have enough health to dive? This type of decision comes down to
experience and intuition - follow your gut instinct, and if it ends badly, learn from
your mistakes.

Pings will also help with communication (typing is way too slow in the heat of
the moment). Pinging “On The Way” multiple times while chasing an opponent
down will communicate you want to keep chasing, and potentially dive. Likewise, a
few Danger pings should send the message to stop chasing.

“Who’s tanking turret?”

If you decide to dive, you need to know who tanks first. It could be whoever has
the most health, or whoever can quickly lose turret aggro (champions like Elise or
Lissandra have spells that render them untargetable, causing the turret to switch
focus).

When you have these types of champions on your team, avoid attacking before
the other player has a chance to deal damage (i.e. Elise cocoons and you start using
Rumble’s Flames pitter; the turret would focus you first, and not the player who
landed their CC ability). Turrets focus whoever deals damage, not CC.

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 Chapter 6
Split Pushing

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 6.1 Who?
Split-pushing isn’t for everyone. Some champions lack the basic tools needed to
succeed while split-pushing. Champions that do well usually have the following
characteristics:

 Solid one-on-one dueling potential.

 Mechanics to outplay any 1-v-2 situations.
 No burst or utility in team fights.
 Squishy as a result of building offensively (although some tanks are great at
split-pushing).
 Deal damage within close-range (i.e. Tryndamere). Great for splitting, bad for
team fights.

These types of champions are best when you want to live life on your own terms,
and not rely on your teammates that much. In fact, if your goal in solo queue is to
carry, instead of picking utility champions, split-push champions should be your
priority, since you’ll have better shot at snow-balling or scaling well.

As you climb the ladder, teams become more coordinated during mid-game and
group up to pressure objectives. If you aren’t strong enough before then, you simply
won’t have enough pressure to draw any attention to yourself. Teams will just run
down mid-lane, dive your team 4-on-5 and win the game while you struggle to take
an inhibitor. Your goal is to become a massive threat before then.

As well as being strong in duels, split-push champions need to shove waves

quickly, and deal adequate damage to turrets. You may only have five or six seconds
to deal as much damage as possible to a turret before someone comes rushing over -
if you don’t deal enough damage in that amount of time, your split-push will be
ineffective. If the enemy is going to leave you alone while they finish an objective
(Baron), you have to punish them somehow.

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 Players who take the time to perfect their split-pushing strategy are almost
impossible to deal with. It’s one of the easiest ways to cause inner turmoil amongst
your enemies - become strong enough to take on two people, and the other team
won’t have a clue what to do. Until that point though, you’ll need to practice strong
coordination skills with your team. On some occasions, you’ll need to remind them
to play safely until you’re in position. As you become better at split-pushing, you’ll
realize just how powerful of a strategy it is, and how easy games can be won with it.

Laning Phase Strategy

Most champions won’t apply a lot of pressure until they have at least 1 or 2 of
their core items. If you plan to split-push during mid-game, focus on keeping a high
farm-rate before then (while also looking for low-risk opportunities to snowball).
Here’s a list of generic strategies to use as a split-pusher:

1. If you’re having an easy time pushing out the wave, go for the enemy’s Jungle
camps while waiting for the next minion wave. This is a good way to put yourself
even further ahead without much risk (you should also place some deep wards in
the enemy’s Jungle). It goes without saying that you will need to be careful of
roaming Mid-laners and potential Junglers who don’t appreciate your invades.

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Split-pushing Wards

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2. When you can pressure a first tier turret, look at how the other lanes are shaping
up and take into account who the enemy’s strongest members are. They will
likely send whoever they can to deal with you (including Supports).

“Many games I’ve been able to pressure my lane very hard

when other lanes were winning, or at least even. Knowing
my other lanes could keep their opponents busy, I could
pressure as hard as I wanted to, sometimes pushing all the
way to an inhibitor turret by the 15 minute mark.”

3. Your main focus is still to farm up as much as possible. Dying because you were
greedy for a wave would be a major mistake. You want to gradually pressure the
map (take turrets, roam at opportune time, and kill your lane opponent) while
never putting yourself in a bad situation where you could easily be punished.

4. As a split-pusher, it’s best not to help your team with TP unless it’s an obvious
clean up situation (and you don’t have a huge wave headed towards your turret
that you’d miss). If you’re in a difficult match-up, there’s no shame in being
selfish and saving TP to return as soon as possible (which will allow you to keep
farming). However…

Let’s say you’re playing Tryndamere into Shen and you just finished your first
core item. He’s been stacking armor but hasn’t completed Sunfire or Bami’s Cinder
yet (so he has no pushing power). It would be hard to deny him, and pushing in
waves mindlessly won’t put you ahead. In this situation, you should actually focus
on making TP plays because there is very little potential to take a turret, or pick up a
kill; pay attention to Bot-lane’s Summoner Spells and how hard they’re pressuring.

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 6.2 What?
When you split-push, do you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve?
Without a goal, you can’t make decisions that are in your best interest; even though
your goals will likely change every time you return to lane, it’s better to have
something in mind rather than “splitting because you can”. Here are some of the
most common goals, and a few uncommon ones:

Grow Stronger
After the first-tier turret is down, laning is now considered split-pushing.
Perhaps the other team hasn’t grouped yet, so your only option is to farm. During
this time, you might prioritize jungle camps over kills. Against passive laners, camps
are your only alternative source of gold. If you’re stronger though, by all means, try
and kill your opponent.

Take Objectives
Tier-one and tier-two turrets don’t regenerate health. Any opportunity you have
to deal damage to a turret, take it. Those small bursts of damage add up and give
your team more map pressure. With fewer turrets on the map, opponents have less
room to move around safely (and fewer chances to ward). Your teammates also pick
up a nice global gold bonus from turrets.

Forcing a Response
There are two different options when it comes to forcing a response. You may be
so strong, it takes two people to bring you down. At that point, split-pushing will
draw opponents to you, and opens up opportunities for your team to take objectives
(Turrets, Baron, Inhibitors) for free, or with little resistance. On the other hand, you
may be incredibly behind; after feeding the other Top-laner, he’s likely to win fights
for his team. If you can force him over, and occupy his time by split-pushing, your
team may win four-on-four fights.

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 Shove
If you plan to group with your team, shoving out the wave before grouping will
apply some additional pressure. You secure experience and gold from your wave,
and put the burden of choice on the other top-laner. Does he farm the wave, or
sacrifice it? If he chooses to farm, then your team should have a numbers advantage
when grouped.

Punish the Enemy (Objectives)

Let’s say your whole team died in a freak accident (ok, maybe they went crazy
and dove an Amumu), and you’re the last man standing. The other team starts
Baron - what are your options? You certainly can’t contest, but you might be near
their inhibitor when this happens. Shove the wave and take what you can before the
enemy finishes Baron; this way you’re gaining some sort of advantage while the
enemy is preoccupied (they will likely send one person over, so you only have a
short amount of time to work with).

Counter-Pressure
This is also a decent strategy if you’re splitting and the enemy team is at your
base, taking an inhibitor - can you respond by taking their inhibitor, or do you need
to recall and defend your base? Make sure not to commit to an inhibitor if one of
your Nexus turrets is going to fall in the process.

6.3 Where, When, and Why?

Deciding where to split-push is no easy task. The lane you split-push will affect
how both teams distribute their players around the map - knowing this, you need to
choose a lane that gives you and your team the best chances of securing an objective
(this could be Dragon, Baron, or even a turret). Let’s discuss how to choose certain
lanes over others - keep in mind the following advice is for mid-game (20 to 25
minutes in) and late-game (anything past then). You really can’t split before then,
because your teammates are still laning.

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 Top-lane
Before split-pushing other lanes, you need to destroy the outer turret in your
own lane. Once it’s down, your team gains a decent amount of map pressure. Your
opponents will think twice before making aggressive plays Top-lane, knowing they
don’t have an outer turret to fall back to. If you’re having difficulty taking it, call for
help from a teammate to shove it down. More often than not, one of your teammates
will jump at the opportunity to come into your lane, farm a wave, and gain some
extra gold and experience.

If your opponent has strong wave clear, the enemy jungler has a strong
presence, or you’re just too weak - your goal should be to trade Dragon, or another
turret while grouped. You may lose a turret while gone from lane, but it’s better to
trade objectives than slowly lose them, without taking anything in return. If you’re
behind in lane, and still haven’t taken the turret by the 20 minute mark, your best
bet is to group up and pressure other objectives.

Solo queue players are often very adamant about which lane they farm; Top-
laners farm Top, Mid-laners farm Mid, and Bot-laners farm bottom. If you know
you can win a 1v1 against their Top-laner, stay Top until he switches lanes. You can
use this same logic for other lanes as well - if you can pressure the enemy’s Bot-lane,
head bottom and face their AD.

Dragon is also a good indicator of whether or not you should pressure Top. If
your team wants to contest Dragon, you won’t leave Top completely undefended
(which would happen if you were to help with Dragon).

You may have TP, while your opponent does not (hopefully you’ve been timing
cooldowns of summoners). If you have the ability to Teleport into Dragon, while
your opponent can’t, you have a huge advantage. Keep him occupied and your team
is almost guaranteed to come out ahead if they contest Dragon.

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 Mid-lane
As a top-laner, you’ll typically avoid this lane at all costs. The only situation
where Mid is feasible to pressure is when your team has already secured every single
tier-one and tier-two turret, and want to pressure an inhibitor turret in another
lane. Teams have an extremely difficult time defending two inhibitor turrets at the
same time. To create confusion and chaos, break away from your team and let them
pressure an inhibitor turret as four, while you pressure an inhibitor turret by
yourself. Eventually, the enemy team will make a mistake and let one turret fall.

Bot-lane
Bot-lane is also a great place to pressure when teams begin contesting Baron
(around 25-30 minutes, and onwards). The reasoning for this is similar to why you’d
pressure top-lane while Dragon is up.

You want to give your team the opportunity to control vision near Baron and
contest it, while actively drawing enemies towards your lane. If the enemy misplays
by sending three or more people to deal with you, it’s almost a free Baron for your
team if they’re coordinated enough to take it down (which in solo queue difficult,
but not impossible).

If your team wins a 4-on-4 fight, they can head straight to Baron after. If you’re
split-pushing Top-lane, and your team is around Bot-lane, they have to spend more
time walking to Baron, and may not even consider it an option, depending on health
and respawn timers.

Let’s say you’ve taken both turrets Top-lane, but the enemy has a tight defense
on their inhibitor turret. Instead of putting yourself in danger by pressuring it,
transition into Bot-lane and finish the outer turrets there. When you decide that
splitting Bot-lane is the correct decision, tell your AD to head Top or group Mid. It’s
important to communicate your intentions, so that everyone is on the same page.

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 Timing Pressure
90% of the time, a split-push fails because the split-pusher pressures at the
wrong time. Shoving in waves is perfectly fine, but you have to be very careful about
how you follow that up. There’s only a few times where pressuring a turret after
shoving in is a good idea …

Simultaneous Pressure
Wait for your team to group as four and pressure a turret or an objective. If you
begin pressuring before your team is ready, that gives the other team an opportunity
to send someone to your lane, kill you, and then head back to contest the objective
your team was pressuring. By waiting for your team to draw four enemies over, you
guarantee a 1-on-1 duel, without any surprises. Plus, if other team sends an extra
person over, your team now has a numbers advantage - a win-win either way. When
they do send multiple people over, you can simply hide in a bush, or farm a camp,
while your team takes the free objective.

Dive Potential
If you have the ability to dive your opponent without dying, you can still
pressure if your team isn’t grouped. As long as you have decent vision, and time the
dive well enough, you can get in and out without running into too much trouble.
Be sure to pay very close attention to where enemies are positioned around the map
before diving though.

Free Turret (Tanks)

With massive tanks (like Nasus), you’ll take very little damage against certain
opponents. As long as you have the mobility (or crowd control) to escape, simply
walk up to turret and begin attacking it while the enemy tries to push you away.
Generally, when you're taking a turret, and see enemies come up to defend your
push, even though you can get away with trading 1 for 1 in a 1-on-2 or even 1-on-3
scenario, most of the time it's best to back off and keep a safe distance. Your team
likely won’t react in time and make use of the numbers advantage they have.

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Chapter 7
Teamwork

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 7.1 Shot-calling
Most professional teams only have one to two shot-callers at any given time.
CLG used to designate their Jungler as shot-caller for early-game, and their Support
or Mid-laner for later on. Junglers should coordinate ganks and roams early, and
once teams began grouping, the Support or Mid-laner dictate when to team fight,
and when to contest objectives (they usually have the most DPS and utility).

When mid-game rolls around, do you feel comfortable commanding your

teammates? Could you sleep at night knowing you pinged everyone Mid, only to lose
a big team fight? How would you react to teammates flaming you over bad calls (or
good calls that went bad)? As a shot-caller, you can’t always make the right call, but
League of Legends is a team game, and someone needs to step up, and keep
everyone on the same page. If no one is making calls, you need to be the one to step
up and take control.

You might have a teammate who’s already issuing orders and if you trust them,
there’s no need to overstep their leadership. If everyone is working together, taking
objectives, and sticking to a plan, you’re already doing better than most teams. That
doesn’t mean you should listen to bad calls; when you disagree with someone, then
speak up and voice your disapproval. After all, it’s your LP that’s on the line too!

Lee Sin: “Hey Darius, let’s go stop them.”

Darius: “No way, are you blind?”

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 As a top-laner there are a few things to keep in mind when shot-calling (as it can
be quite discouraging at times):

You’re Learning
You’re going to make bad calls - but you can’t make good calls until you know
how not to make bad calls. Whether you’re organizing a Baron, navigating your
jungler for a gank, or calling for a group, trust in your ability to make a good call and
see it through - use your experience and success to determine whether the call was
good or not, and use that information moving forward.

Objectives
We’ll talk more about how to approach objectives in the next section, but one of
the most important things to keep in mind when making calls for Baron or Dragon
is how quickly and decisively you make the call. Don’t hesitate when you ping it
initially, and if you want to leave, start spamming Retreat Ping. If you want to
continue, keep spamming the objective so your team is on the same page; if half the
team leaves, and the other half stays, your entire team could be wiped out, causing
you to lose the objective, and possibly lose inhibitors (or the game).

Pinging Out Information

Shot-calling isn’t just issuing orders - it can be as simple as feeding information
to your team, and letting them do whatever they want with it. People tend to tunnel
vision, and completely miss a Jungler approaching their lane. Maybe they don’t
realize they’re up against a Shen who could port in, and turn a fight around. Maybe
it’s a 4v5, but the missing player has Teleport, and could flank your entire team! If
you know something, that doesn’t mean your teammates do - feed them as much
information as possible; no one’s ever lost a game because they had too much
information to work with.

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 Receptive Teams and Non-receptive Teams
Shot-calling for a bunch of strangers in solo queue isn’t always easy; some
players have egos, and some could be tilted. Maybe a previous call of yours went
horribly wrong, and any trust they had is long gone. You should still try and guide
your team down the right path for what YOU think should be done. However, if
your team refuses to follow-up and execute your plans, don’t become frustrated -
simply forget about the call and make another one later on. Don’t try and force a
play if your team disagrees - that’s just a recipe for disaster.

Furthermore, if your teammates begin to blame you for a bad call, agree with
what they’re saying and move on. Look at the bigger picture - you’re playing solo
queue to improve, you don’t need to get caught up in petty arguments about who’s
right and who’s wrong.

As you become more familiar with the game, and the capabilities of team
compositions and their power spikes, you’ll recognize exactly what a team is capable
of doing, and what needs to be done to tip the scales in your favor. You’ll become
more confident in your calls, and as a result, your teammates will trust you more
and more.

Gathering Information
If we define shot-calling as “organizing your team’s action” then we can’t neglect
what situation our Jungler and Mid-laner are in. Even though you’re focused on
winning lane, grouping, or whatever else it may be, you should try and pay attention
to what else is going on around the map.

Jungler’s Situation
Is he being invaded? Is he doing a lot of invading? Can you potentially help him
in these situations? Use the time you spend walking back to lane to see if he needs
help with anything. Even though you should be paying attention to what’s going on,
sometimes things go right over our heads.

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 Keep the flow of communication up – your Jungler may return the favor (by
ganking your lane, or pinging out threats).

Mid-laner’s Situation
Is he being camped? Is he dominating? Should you spend time roaming to his
lane to help him recover, or could he potentially roam to your lane? If you notice
he’s ahead, see if he’s willing to gank your lane. If he’s behind, try to figure out if you
can help his lane or not (perhaps ask what Summoner’s his opponent has and look
for roam opportunities).

7.2 Objectives
This section will talk about how to approach objectives throughout the game.
The more you think about capturing these objectives, and the better your strategy is
for taking them, the better chance you (or your team) will secure them. The three
objectives that are most important for closing out games are:

 Baron
 Dragon
 Turrets (and Inhibitors)

Baron
Let’s start with the most important and highly contested objective of all; Baron.
As a Top-laner, there are two different ways to approach this massive beast:

With Teleport
Split-push on the opposite side of the map (Bot-lane), and wait for them to send
2 or 3 people over. Your team can start to pressure Baron with a numbers advantage
while you distract a few players by fighting them or running away (whichever gives
the team more time to finish Baron).

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 Another option is to wait until they send one person to deal with you, and then
have your team stand around Baron. You can then Teleport in to fight with a
numbers advantage. This option works well when you’re laning against someone
without TP. Once your opponent is preoccupied Bot, ping your team to start Baron,
or engage onto the enemy – then quickly Teleport in to help.

Without Teleport
In solo queue, split-pushing and executing this type of coordination can be
difficult (depending on the type of people you’re playing with). Consider grouping
and team fighting near Baron if your team is unable to pressure while you split-
push. Grouping while Teleport is down is usually the better option as well. Split-
pushing against someone with TP could cause trouble if they manage to channel
their Teleport before you stop them.

Sneaking Baron
Once you have enough armor as a tanky Top-laner, consider sneaking Baron
with two or three other teammates. Don’t put yourself at risk if the enemy team is
likely to find out (look for opportunities to start Baron and back out if any enemies
start to head over).

Dragon
Throughout laning phase, Dragon is a great objective to take after successfully
making a TP play Bot (unless it affects your ability to stay even or ahead in farm).
Other than that, you aren’t going to focus on Dragon too much (besides contesting it
with TP when your team takes it and fight breaks out). If your team starts Dragon
without you, let them know if your TP is available (this might affect their decision to
fight or back out while taking it). If your TP isn’t up, the best thing you can do is
pressure the enemy Top-laner so he can’t TP in either.

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 Elder Dragon doesn’t spawn until 35 minutes into the game, which is a
considerable amount of time in solo queue. Once it begins to spawn, treat it just like
Baron (the only difference is that it spawns on the other side of the map). If you had
to choose between taking Baron, and Elder Dragon, you would always take Baron
because its buff is that much stronger.

Turrets
Once mid-game rolls around, make sure both outer turrets in Top and Bot-lane
are down. If they’re still standing, pressure them whenever possible before grouping
for team fights. Once you’ve taken the first and second-tier turret Top-lane, don’t
continue to pressure the inhibitor turret (it’s unlikely you’ll take it on your own).
Instead, switch focus to another lane (consider telling your AD to pressure Mid
while you split-push Bot).

After securing most of the first and second tier turrets, you can begin grouping
for team fights with a gold advantage (seeing as turrets provide global gold). Even if
you’re split-push champion is weak in team fights, the gold lead should help
compensate for it.

In some circumstances, the only way to win is by back-dooring (split-pushing an

inhibitor turret while your team fights 4-on-5), but this should only be used as a last
resort when you’ve exhausted every other option.

Working with Teammates

Solo queue is filled with crazy, reckless teammates. As we mentioned before,
you should only follow-up on their calls if you agree with them. Communication is
also very important when securing objectives - say your team wants to take a 3rd
Dragon, but you’re rather weak and think the best move is to stay Top and farm
(and potentially take turret); let everyone know you’re going to stay Top so your
team can properly adjust.

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 Efficiency
In a game like League of Legends, how efficient you are with your time
determines how much of an impact you have on the game overall. Making smart
decisions often, and without hesitation, will push your lead further and further (and
also help you to close out games as soon as possible). On the other hand, making
poor decisions can cause you to fall behind, and become a burden to your team.

Limit the amount of time you spend at base. It’s important to keep applying
pressure while you still can. The last thing you want to do is recall for a small
purchase when you could be fighting with your team, chunking down a turret, or
farming the enemy’s Jungle.

Another common inefficiency players have, is that they commit to plays that
take a long time to set-up, like camping inside of a bush, or baiting out Baron.
Wasting your time like this will eventually put you behind (you can certainly go for
these plays, but don’t waste time if nothing will come to fruition). Your time could
be spent on guaranteed sources of income, like minions and Jungle camps.

7.3 Minion Wave Control

Every time you recall, glance at the mini-map and look at how the waves are
positioned in each lane. Your job is to figure out which lane to go to, and how you
should manage the wave once you’re there. What’s the purpose of controlling
minion waves, you might ask?

1. To prevent turrets from taking damage.

2. To create pressure in other lanes (without actually being in them).

3. To deny top-laners by pushing their waves in. If they chose to group,

they lose the minion wave. In competitive games, you’ll see many Top-laners
fall behind because of this.

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 4. To collect farm and experience, so the minions don’t go to waste.

Slow Pushing
If two fresh waves collide (when both have 6 minions, and possibly a cannon),
you can slow push the wave by killing just the caster minions (leaving the melee
minions alive). This will slowly build up the wave until it crashes into the enemy’s
turret. When their top-laner sees this huge wave approaching, he’s forced into a
tough decision: Either split from his team to farm the wave, or ignore it and lose the
gold and experience. Meanwhile, you already picked up the gold and experience and
grouped with your team, ready for a fight!

Hard-Shoving
Shoving the entire wave creates immediate pressure. Maybe you need to head
over to Dragon or Baron, or maybe you just want to place some deep wards down.

Whatever it is, hard-shoving will usually draw an opponent towards his lane,
while you carry out your task undisturbed (or take an objective with the numbers
advantage; if no one deals with it, then you’ve still managed to deny a minion wave).

Hard-shoving doesn’t create as much side-lane pressure as slow-pushing does

because the other top-laner can just push it out fairly quickly. However, it does
allow you to pressure an objective immediately, and collect more gold/experience
(since you’re farming the entire wave, instead of leaving the casters alive).

Ignoring Waves Altogether

If there’s a small wave headed towards a turret, you can ignore it if your team is
already grouped, or you need to be somewhere ASAP. When there’s a full-sized wave
on its way, it’s never a good idea to ignore it. The amount of gold and experience you
lose overall (which translates into an item advantage) is simply too much.

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 7.4 Team Fights
Navigating team fights is a crucial part of achieving victory. Winning a team
fight not only gives you and your teammates a huge gold spike, but it often leads to
free objectives (Inhibitors and Baron). Games usually consist of four or five massive
team fights during mid and late-game, so it’s important to know how you, as an
individual, can have the greatest impact on them (which sometimes means ignoring
them completely, and focusing on other objectives).

Is It Time?
First determine whether or not your team is capable of winning a 5-on-5 fight to
begin with. Things to consider would include...

The strength of each teammate.

Some champions need a specific item before they’re able to perform well in
fights (think about Ezreal with Frozen Fist, and Morgana with Hourglass). You
should continue to farm if your team has yet to complete their core items, but
recognize when your team has enough damage to fight. Keep in mind that some
team compositions aren’t reliant on certain items, and can fight whenever they
want.

The health and mana of each teammate is critical as well. Forcing a fight when
someone is low is a great way to handicap your team (awareness plays a huge part in
avoiding this).

Opponents who misposition.

Fights are easily started (and won) by punishing someone that mis-positions
.This is why you often see teams group as 5 while poking; they’re waiting until
someone makes a mistake and walks too far up (leaving him vulnerable to CC).

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 The cooldown of abilities and Summoner Spells.
Make sure whoever is initiating has their ultimate and Flash available. Once he’s
ready, look for an opportunity to engage. If you or someone else has been timing the
enemy’s Summoner Spells, then you can also engage when their carry’s Flash is on
cooldown.

Having a numbers advantage.

After a pick, you could immediately contest an objective (such as Dragon or
Turret) and then force the enemy to walk over while you have the numbers
advantage (5 -on -4). Try and fight before the other player respawns.

Temporary buffs. (Elder Dragon, Baron)

Solo queue teams are usually on point about grouping and taking objectives
after taking Baron or Elder Dragon, but some are disorganized. Whenever a team is
dilly-dallying around, call for a group and use your buff while it lasts.

During a Team Fight

Your goal in team fights will depend on your champion, your team composition,
the enemy’s team composition, and a few other factors. We’ve listed out a few
different strategies, and when it’s a good idea to use them, but keep in mind that
there’s no “correct” way to team fight. How you prioritize one option over the other
is ultimately up to you (and defines your unique style as a top-laner).

Tanking and Keeping Opponents Pre-occupied

As a tank, you want the enemy’s carries to focus you while you move in and out
of their “damage” range (before the fight breaks out). To keep them interested, move
closer every second or two. Kiting will buy your team time to harass, and potentially
land CC on a priority target. After a fight starts, continue to soak up damage by
standing in front of everyone.

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 Let’s say you’re playing Nautilus … after using your ultimate on someone, hook
them in, and then Titan’s Wrath (E) the surrounding area. Afterwards, look at how
the rest of your team is positioning. Are they right behind you following up, or are
they sitting back because of other threats? If they’re right behind you, keep the
front-line moving forward. Otherwise, regroup with your team, instead of sticking
around to smack people for 100 damage per auto-attack. Once your spells are back
up, then you can look to re-engage (in the meantime, peel for teammates).

Peeling
A strategy where you protect carries from assassins, casters, and other threats
that can delete them within a few seconds. If your carry is quite strong, but isn’t able
to dish out damage in fights because he can’t position close enough without being
focused, then sit back and peel for him. Let everyone know you plan to peel so they
don’t commit to any dives on the back-line (if you’re not with them, it probably
won't end well). Take fights slowly and wait for their assassins to overextend (at
which point, you or another teammate can land CC, and catch them out).

General Rule of Thumb: If an enemy is diving your team by himself, it’s often
better to peel for your teammate, and focus him down before focusing the enemy’s
front-line, or diving onto their back-line.

Initiating Fights
More often than not, your primary goal is to find an opening or opportunity to
engage. How you approach these initiations will often depend on what CC your
champion has:

Single-Target CC’ers: Maokai, Renekton

With these champions, you're looking to catch out priority targets when they
misposition. Remember to take it slow; if you don’t see any opportunities, it’s only a
matter of time before someone mis-steps. Make sure your team is nearby to follow
up, or you risk starting a fight without any backup.

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 If both teams have an equal front-line and back-line, you could engage onto a
tank (instead of a carry) if he mispositions. Until then, continue to kite around while
your team pokes.

AoE-CC’ers: Malphite, Sion

With champions that have a quick and dirty AoE engage, simply wait until the
enemy clumps in a group of three or four. It’s ok to engage, even if your team isn’t
right next to you (as long as they’re close enough to follow up within a reasonable
amount of time, you can engage if you see a juicy opportunity). Chaining CC will win
most fights during an engage. For example, when you’re playing as Malphite, and
your Support Alistar combo’s a priority target, use your ultimate to finish him, and
then win the fight with a numbers advantage. With larger groups, this effect is even
more devastating.

Flanking with Teleport

Look for deep wards (or place them down ahead of time). Flanks work well
when your team initiates before the TP, and you swoop in from behind to pick off
carries. If you Teleport to initiate a fight, it isn’t always reliable because your team
might not be able to follow-up (if you spam pings while channeling Teleport, you
might get away with it).

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 Focus Fire
During a fight, try and deal damage to the same opponents that your carries are
focusing. It’s more efficient to lower the number of opponents you’re up against,
instead of their overall health pool. An opponent can have 100 health left, but still
have a huge impact on a team fight by providing utility or damage from afar.

General Mindset
This section is basically a mental check-list to help you think more clearly in
team fights. When a fight breaks out, these thoughts should be running through
your head:

What is your goal?

Peeling, initiating, tanking, flanking, or focusing (and in some cases, a mixture
of two or more).

Who is a priority target?

Get into the habit of holding TAB before a team fight, and check to see who the
biggest threat is (you should be doing this anyways so you know who, and how, to
itemize against them). Let everyone know who they should be focusing first:

Assassins:
Kill them, or CC them when they dive the back-line. If no one lands CC on
certain assassins, like Katarina, they can (and will) rip apart your entire team.

Carries (Marksmen, Casters):

Lock them down and prevent them from dealing damage to anyone else. As a
champion that picks people off before a team fight starts (like Lissandra), you’ll
often wait patiently until someone mispositions.

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 What’s the plan?
Your team composition usually dictates how a fight is won. Once you know the
best strategy for a specific team composition, work out a plan of action with your
team. Let’s say you’re playing Malphite with a mid-lane Annie. As your team starts
to group, say something along the lines of “I will flash R if their Ashe walks close
enough”. Whatever you think should be done in a team fight, type it into chat so
everyone’s on the same page.

What should you do after a team fight?

Part of playing efficiently comes down to quick decision making. Let’s say you
won a fight - that’s great and all, but what’s the next step? When respawn timers are
only 25 to 30 seconds during mid-game, you have a limited amount of time to
decide which objective to take (not to mention the time it takes to walk over to it).

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 Chapter 8
Self-Improvement

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 8.1 Replay Analysis
As an ever improving League of Legends summoner, your long-term goals are to
continuously develop good habits while simultaneously weeding out the bad ones.
Every professional player dedicates a portion of their time to watching replays and
figuring out what needs improvement. Analyzing a few replays every now and then
isn't nearly as time consuming as you might think (plus, the benefits are massive).

To begin improving, you can take one of two approaches:

1. Improve your weaknesses.

With fewer leaks in your gameplay, your overall performance will improve
(better trades, higher CS count, and fewer deaths).

2. Improve your strengths.

Winning strategies like counter-picking and playing the match-up properly,
split-pushing against uncoordinated teams, and one-trick ponying are all ways to
climb the ladder, while improving as a player. Over time, you’ll learn more about
yourself and where your strengths lie. Don’t neglect to use these strengths to
win as many games as possible.

How to Analyze Your Weaknesses

In order to know what you’re doing wrong, you must watch replays of yourself.
Most players don’t do this because Riot hasn’t released a playback system for the
client yet, but there are alternatives:

1. Stream your games on Twitch and watch the broadcasts later; the benefit of
streaming is to know exactly what your thought process was while playing. If
you don’t perform well while streaming, or your computer can’t handle LoL
and Twitch at the same time, then consider …

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 2. … using a replay program instead. This offers much more flexibility for
analysis because you can control the speed of the replay, remove the fog of
war, and skip around to different parts of the game much faster.

Deaths
When you start to analyze replays, begin by looking at your deaths. Almost all of
them will stem from some sort of mistake (not counting the ones where your team
came out ahead, or where you sacrificed yourself for an engage). Because dying sets
you behind so much (especially in laning phase), your number one priority is to
figure out the main cause of your deaths, and then fix it immediately.

Pick three games from your replays (preferably ones with more than 5 deaths)
and write down the main cause of each death (tunnel vision, counter-gank, mis-
position, etc.). This will help you determine what to work on first. Let’s say tunnel
visioning is causing about three deaths per game. That’s a problem you could start
working on right away, and see an immediate improvement in your game.

Mechanics
The term “mechanics” encompasses a wide-range of skills, including:

 Skill Shots, Last Hits, Wave Management

 Mana (and Health) Conservation
 Kiting, Timing Trades
 And many, many, more.

Even mechanics can be analyzed. When I played professionally, I locally

recorded my games and would review them later. I would look at how certain
match-ups went, when I missed farm (but shouldn’t have), and how I was losing
trades. Then I determined what steps were needed to correct those small errors.
This helped me improve my decision making over the long run, and each day I spent
watching replays, I became more familiar with my past performance, and what I
could improve upon.

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 I would adjust my aggression (trade more in certain spots), optimize my Runes
and Masteries, and fine-tune my passive behavior (respecting my opponent at the
right time, but still applying pressure when possible).

You’ll never know where all of your weak spots are by just playing. Farming,
trading, and watching the mini-map are very distracting, and prevent us from
reflecting on our mistakes. While playing, try not to worry about whether or not
you’re making the right decisions throughout the game; instead, focus on winning
(and other things like landing skill shots, avoiding ganks, and finding engages).

After a rough game, a good way to un-tilt yourself is to watch over a replay,
instead of queuing up for another match. Knowing why things went wrong can help
relieve any stress your teammates caused, and doing so also forces you to look at
yourself honestly (blaming the loss on your teammates isn’t a constructive habit).

Learning from Others

Some streamers provide commentary on what their thought process is during
games; these are the best streamers to learn from (in fact, this is exactly what I do
while streaming – www.twitch.tv/quaslol). Even though streams are entertaining,
you should try to keep an analytic mind while watching.

Ask yourself why they make certain plays (you can even ask in Twitch chat too,
depending on how many viewers are watching). When I first started taking solo
queue seriously, it wasn’t until I found TreeEskimo’s stream that I learned about
wave management, and how to come up with a plan while laning. His commentary
helped me to slowly improve, and I ended up climbing the ladder much faster than I
would have otherwise. Even though his plays weren’t flashy, they were still well
thought out, and very effective.

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 I would recommend watching streams that you find both enjoyable and
informative. If they don’t offer commentary, you may need to think for yourself why
they’re making certain plays. Keep in mind that what players do in certain ELOs
may not always work in your ELO. For example, roaming into the enemy jungle in
Masters may be done because both players know they’re stealing a buff. In Bronze,
your team may not have the coordination to pull off a play like that early (and the
enemy team will catch you out while your teammate sits in lane).

In some ELOs, you might not roam into the enemy Jungle (during late-game)
because your Jungler won’t understand why he’s invading in the first place
(consider sticking with a more straightforward approach like grouping as five).

8.2 Dealing with Tilt

Tilt is a very common problem in League, and one that prevents us from
reaching a state of “Flow” (a mental state where you become fully immersed in
whatever activity you are performing; in this case, solo queue). To avoid tilting, I
highly recommend:

1. Taking breaks in between games. Any lingering frustration from your previous
game(s) will quickly disappear within 5-10 minutes. Playing games back-to-back
is a good way to exhaust yourself.

2. Constantly think of your game-plan as the game progresses. Your game-plan

doesn’t have to be complex (during laning phase, it could be as simple as “push
the wave constantly and harass under turret”; after laning phase, it could be
“look for a good opportunity to engage”). As long as you constantly think about
this plan, you will maintain focus on your decision-making, and not the silly
mistakes of others.

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3. Play in an environment with little to no distractions. Make sure you’re ready to
play before queuing (i.e. finish your Hearthstone match). It’s next to impossible
to multi-task effectively unless you’ve been playing for a very long time.

4. Mute teammates who type something negative in chat, or fail to express any real
constructive criticism. Don’t let them suck you into their toxicity like an octopus
would with its powerful suction cups. Avoid arguments at all costs.

5. Understand that you have little to no control over what your teammates do.
Cooperate with them as much as possible; if they want to do Baron or Dragon,
don’t try and rock the boat too much unless it’s an absolutely terrible call. At a
certain point, you might recognize your team is insane. In this case, try to win on
your own terms and break away from the pack.

All of these combined will drastically help you channel your emotional and
mental energy into winning the game (and avoid major tilt).

Other Helpful Ideas

Sometimes we suffer terrible losses where we’re so close to winning, but one
mistake throws the entire game, and we end up losing after 60 minutes of suffering.
Other times you might play extremely well, but despite your efforts, still manage to
lose games back to back. If you’re already tilted, there are a few ways to “un-tilt”
yourself …

Relax Outside of League

I know most people will be reluctant to take this advice, but look into relaxation
techniques like meditation, deep breathing, massages, or walks around the block.
All of these will calm you and give you greater control over your emotions during the
greatest of clown fiestas. I advise you try some of them and see if they help you with
your tilt (people respond differently to certain things).

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 Recognize Why You Tilt
Knowing why you tilt is half the battle; if you can identify the exact source of
your anger and frustration, you will have an easier time processing it:

1. “Never Lucky” Tilt

Trolls, AFK’s, and close losses will make League of Legends seem like an
unwinnable game - you might even feel cursed. Don’t base your self-worth on
results, only your performance. As long as you continue to play your A-game, you
will climb the ladder, given enough time. You just need to ride out the storm; if
you’re playing poorly, then you are either (1) at an ELO where everyone else is better
than you, or (2) you are too tilted to play well (and possibly mentally fatigued).

2. Desperation Tilt
After losing a few games, you might feel the urge to recover ELO by playing
more games. This is just a downward spiral that can cause a buildup of stress if you
continue to lose. To avoid this tilt, take a break after each game, watch replays, and
set a limit for yourself (e.g. “after 3 losses in a row, I’m done”).

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 3. Mistake Tilt
Mistakes are bound to happen. Let’s say you lose an all-in because you missed a
spell; it would be an even bigger mistake to make more mistakes because you’re
already frustrated from that one. It sounds silly when you say it out loud, but many
players are affected by this. Keep in mind that you’re playing the game to improve.
“Without some failure, you can’t learn what’s needed to achieve great success.”

4. Revenge Tilt
You see someone do something silly, and your immediate reaction is to slack off
(your jungler gives a free kill to their top-laner). Many players become frustrated
and start blaming their teammate for a difficult lane, and feed while rationalizing
their behavior as acceptable because their teammate put them in such a bad spot in
the first place (“whatever, he deserves to lose this game”).

Let’s face it - you’re never going to see 99% of the players you meet again. Don’t
sabotage your own ELO by “punishing” others for their mistakes. If a teammate is
playing very badly, it’s likely the other team has someone just as awful; focus on
punishing them instead.

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 8.3 Mechanics
Having strong mechanics doesn’t necessarily come down to reaction time - it’s a
mixture of game-knowledge and execution. Staying calm while you’re playing and
knowing exactly what to look for in certain situations is the key to becoming a better
player (and winning more games).

Last Hitting
Minions are your primary source of income throughout the entire game;
missing them for any reason is unacceptable, and will bring great shame upon your
family. To improve at last-hitting:

1. Pay attention to which minions are being focused by enemy minions.

2. Recognize when a minions is close to dying, and position within auto-attack

range before then.

3. Become familiar with your champion's unique auto-attack animation by

practicing in custom games.

Determine why you’re missing minions in the first place:

 Are you positioning too far away?

Pay more attention to health bars.

 Are you missing uncontested minions?

Practice more in custom games.

 Is your opponent zoning you too much?

Practice timing aggression (refer to Chapter 3) to gain a lead so your
opponent can’t zone you as easily.

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 Trading
While you practice timing aggression, some trades will go horribly wrong. It’s
important to identify why a trade didn’t work to avoid repeating the same mistake in
the future. Here are some great questions to ask when watching replays:

 Did I trade with fewer minions?

 Did I trade while his abilities were up?

 Did I miss my combo?

 Did I have less health before trading?

 Did I trade for too long …

 … and one of his spells came off cooldown?

 Could I have backed off sooner?

General Use of Flash

Here are some tips to squeeze more value out of Flash (as opposed to the usual
defensive Flash to escape death, or the offensive one to secure a kill):

To dodge a specific ability during a gank.

When an enemy ganks your lane, ask yourself if using Flash right away is
necessary, or if you should save it for a specific ability (i.e. Gragas Barrel or Gragas
Flash→Body Slam). When there’s a large wave headed towards your turret, it’s
probably best to Flash immediately so you can continue to farm with full health
(most players won’t dive you at full health).

To dodge a specific ability during an all-in.

Let’s say you're laning against Gnar, and he plans to transform into Mega-Gnar
and slam you into a wall. Wait until he jumps, and then Flash right before he uses
his ultimate. In an all-in, try to dodge the most devastating ability with Flash if it
guarantees you a kill.

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 While running from opponents.
Flash over a nearby wall (instead of out in the open). This forces your opponents
to use their Flash if they want to continue chasing.

To abuse someone who doesn’t have Flash.

Flashing onto someone who doesn’t have flash during a gank (or a pick), before
they can escape will open up more opportunities to pressure objectives and snowball
a game.

Save it for a rainy day.

Don’t waste Flash when it’s likely you’ll die anyways (as simple as this sounds,
many players waste Flash unnecessarily).

Skill Shots (Landing Them)

Hold onto them for as long as possible.

Most people will expect you to use your abilities relatively early on in a skirmish.
When you have a shot, take it - but when you’re uncertain, hold onto it for a second
or two; your opponent may waste time trying to dodge it, allowing you to close the
gap and take an easier shot (this works especially well when forcing someone to
walk along a wall or enclosed pathway, since they can no longer sidestep the ability).

Experiment with Smart Cast and Regular Cast

Some players perform better with one over the other. See what works best for
you.

Sneak them Past a Minion

For projectiles, wait until a minion is about to die, and send your ability flying.
When a minion is positioned in between you and your opponent, it usually gives
him a false sense of security, and may catch him off guard.

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 Notice Patterns
How does your opponent usually dodge skill shots? Let’s say you're playing
Nidalee and he constantly moves up to dodge a spear. Use his natural tendency
against him to land your skill shot with greater accuracy. You can even determine
how he would react to your next skill shot by simply walking forward, and watching
the way he moves. He may unknowingly reveal his tendencies to you!

Skill Shots (Dodging Them)

Move in Irregular Patterns

Never let an opponent think he has you figured out! Move every which way to
keep him guessing - or, dodge one way for a while, and then switch directions.

Know the Cooldowns

For spammable spells, try to have a rough idea of its cooldown (you could even
look it up before a match). The better you know a cooldown, the better your
positioning will be against it. Against Dr. Mundo, he will likely be chucking his
cleaver every four seconds. When his next cleaver is back up, hide behind a minion,
or sit out in the open and bait it him into using it by randomly moving around (most
players will try and use their skill shot as soon as you come into range). After he
uses it, trade with him before its back up.

Know the Range

The best way to dodge a skillshot is to stand near its maximum range, and then
kite back once it's used. This is a great way to burn through your opponent's mana
and also open up a window to strike while their ability is on cooldown. Against long-
range skill shots like Nidalee spear, you can’t sit that far back, but you can move
side-to-side while still staying close enough to farm.

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 Other tips for improving mechanics:

Cancel your auto-attack (and spell) animations.

After auto-attacking or using certain abilities, you can cancel the animation by
right-clicking in any direction. This is especially helpful for chasing down opponents
(and kiting in lane while farming). This is known as “orb-walking”.

Reset your auto-attack when possible.

Some abilities allow you to reset your auto-attack and land more autos in a
shorter amount of time (e.g. Auto → Spell → Auto → Auto). Trundle’s Q and Darius
W both do this.

Never misplace a ward.

Before placing a ward down, your indicator will either turn Green or Blue.
Green indicates the ward will be placed inside of a bush, while Blue indicates it
won’t. This helps you avoid misplacing wards just slightly outside of bushes.

8.4 Attitude
Rule #1: No complaining.
“I keep getting ganked...” (Instead of talking about what’s happened, be
proactive with the situation and take steps to prevent the jungler from ganking you
again, and try to turn the situation into a positive. If their Jungler spends his time
Top, don’t let him kill you; your team can make plays on their side of the map.)

Rule #2: No blaming.

“I lost lane cause my jungler gave him 2 kills...” (this could be true, but you
wouldn’t say it in chat, because there’s no need to defend yourself if you know your
teammates have made a mistake; you only tilt them further by pointing it out).

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 Rule #3: Play seriously.
Even though League of Legends is a game, you should take solo queue seriously.
Avoid reckless behaviors (such as suiciding into a back-line to try and kill an AD) or
split-pushing a lane when your team isn’t even grouped yet (and it’s almost certain
you will die).

What having a positive attitude really means for League of Legends:

Caring for your teammates and their concerns.

Let’s say your AD types “Peel for me and we win game”. You should keep this in
mind while making decisions during a team fight, but trust your own judgment too.
If he’s really fed and you think you can win by protecting him, then by all means
focus on peeling. However, when you see an opportunity to engage or dive, don’t
just pass it up because your AD asked for peel. Krepo once said, “When someone
says something in solo queue, you should only let about 50% of it enter your brain”.
Take what everyone says with a grain of salt.

Giving positive reinforcement after a good play.

Saying “Nice job.” or “Nice kill.” is a great way to keep spirits high.

Creating a light-hearted atmosphere.

Joke around, have a few laughs, and build some good ol’ relationships with your
fellow teammates.

Not spamming pings.

This can put people on massive tilt (or just annoy them). Two to three pings is
usually enough for any situation, and more than that is rarely needed.

Not dwelling on past mistakes.

The best way to forget about what happened (say you misplayed and lost Baron
for the team) is to focus on what you (and everyone else) needs to do next. Try to
talk about what your strategy should be moving forward, instead of arguing.

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 8.5 Adapting to the Meta
Patches, re-works, and new champions are released quite often, affecting both
the Top-lane meta and the strength of various items and objectives. Reading the
patch notes and adjusting your play-style and champion pool will help you stay one
step ahead of the competition:

Play the Strongest Champions

Use the guidelines laid out in Section 1.2 to adjust your champion pool; include
whoever is the strongest in the current Meta (as well as the champions you already
excel at). It’s much more difficult to win games if you play weaker champions, so if
your number one priority is to climb the ladder, stick to solid, “Meta” champions.

Adjust to Item and Champion Buffs / Nerfs

When an item or champion changes, test them out to see if they still work in
certain match-ups and team compositions. If a champion is too weak, you’ll need to
remove them from your pool (if an item is too weak, experiment with a different
build).

Experiment with New Champions

When Aurelion Sol was released, I played about ten games on my smurf to test
out different builds and determined what worked and what didn’t. Afterwards, I
switched to my main and started doing well against Masters and Challengers
because I had both the mechanics, and proper build path down. If I were to play
Aurelion Sol on my main right away, I would probably get destroyed.

When a new champion is released (for Top-lane), or a new champion becomes

“Meta”, take the time to learn how to play them well, even if you’re uncomfortable
with their play-style (i.e. you’re not comfortable playing a Tank against a Carry).
Watch a few streams or look up some guides to help you become more familiar with
them, and potentially learn some things you weren’t even aware of. And most
importantly, have fun!

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Runes

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 Marks
Attack Speed (+1.7)
Tanks and bruisers with naturally high attack damage benefit from
these.

 Early Strength
With a Doran’s Blade, attack speed becomes even more valuable for overall DPS
when auto-attacking often.

 Wave Control
Attack speed allows you to shove minion waves slightly faster, which can come in
handy for the first few waves, when you’re trying to shove an opponent in.

 Last Hitting
Attack speed makes it easier to last hit (especially under turret).

 On-Hit Effects
Champions with on-hit effects benefit from AS since their damage and utility is
heavily tied to the amount of auto attacks they land while trading.

Magic Penetration (+0.87)

Standard marks for Karthus, Vladimir, and Ryze.

 No Auto Attacks
If your caster doesn’t rely on auto attacks (at all) for shoving or trading
(Kennen), then magic pen. marks are the best choice.

 Stacking Penetration
If you’re taking other magic penetration Runes, building Abyssal, or have other
teammates with magic reduction passives (Fiddles, Kayle), then you can stack
these Marks to increase your damage output by a decent amount.

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 Attack Damage (+0.95)
A secondary option for Bruisers that don’t need attack speed (e.g.
Darius, Yorick).

 Maximizing AD Ratios
Attack damage is better for bruisers with multiple AD ratios (unless they need
attack speed to shove waves).

 Last Hitting
It makes it easier to last hit (especially under turret).

Seals
Scaling Armor (+.16/LEVEL)
The breakeven point, compared to flat armor, occurs at Level 6.

 Alternative Health
Run scaling armor when you don’t plan to buy other armor, or have a naturally
high health pool, and possibly shields from your teammates.

 Full AD Teams
Extremely efficient versus heavy AD teams after laning phase.

Scaling Health (+1.33/LEVEL)

By Level 18, a full set is worth 216 health!

 Resistances
Good for champions that have resistances added into their kit …

 1-2 Health Items

… especially when building one or two health items.

 Gold Efficient
Currently the most gold efficient Seals in the game right now.

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 Armor (+1.0)
Rather inefficient; only usable in early defensive scenarios.

 Early Game Safety

Against Tryndamere, Rengar, or Riven, armor seals will help you survive early
all-in shank attempts.

 Snowballing
If you’re looking to snowball, you might have AS Quints or AP Quints
(depending on your champion), so you’ll need the early defensive stats from
these Seals (although most of the time, Scaling Health seals are better).

Glyphs
Magic Resist (+1.34)
Standard Glyphs against Lulu, Ryze, Rumble, and other powerful
casters.

 Efficiency
More efficient than armor runes; consider taking them against an AP Jungler,
even if you’re laning against an AD Top.

 Snowballing
If you’re taking aggressive Quints, you might need to take some defensive Runes
to help win early trades.

Scaling Magic Resist (+.16/LEVEL)

With these, you can forego any magic resist items, since you’ll have
plenty by mid-game.

 Counter Magic-heavy Teams

Against heavy magic teams, using these in conjunction with magic resist Quints
is quite effective when building health items.

 Match-up Dependent
Laning against casters or semi-magic damage champions means flat magic
resist glyphs are better. Whenever you can afford to lane without early magic
resist, use scaling glyphs instead (or scaling CDR); breaks even with flat magic
resist glyphs at Level 8.

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 Scaling CDR (+.09/LEVEL)
For resourceless champions that rely on CDR to spam their spells.
(Riven, Renekton)

 Amazing Value
15% CDR at max level from these alone is incredible.

 Extra CDR
If your champion doesn’t synergize well with items that have CDR, it’s good to
have at least some CDR from your Runes.

 Utility Tanks
Tanks that have low damage late-game (but high utility) benefit from CDR since
they rely on low cooldowns to spam spells in fights. Preferable over AP/LEVEL
glyphs on some mages if magic resist isn’t required for lane.

Quints
Armor (+4.3)
Standard Quints that work well with Scaling Health or Armor Seals.

 More Effective Health

Armor helps you maintain a comfortable health pool; also works well with
Doran’s Shield since a higher health pool is improved with resistances.

 Built Like a Rock

A cost efficient option in AD matchups, and likely a must if their jungler is also
AD.

Ability Power (+4.95)

The best Quintessence option for mages, hands down.

 Stay Safe
These are a squishy option for mages, so try to avoid ganks or all-ins for the first
three or four levels unless you have a pretty clear advantage.

 AP Ratios
If your champion has abilities with good AP ratios and you want to dominate
laning phase, take these.

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 Attack Speed (+4.5%)
AS Quints are usually used when defensive Quints aren’t needed.

 Doran’s Blade
These Quints are best used with a Doran’s Blade start - you can shove waves, and
win early trades (with auto attacks).

 Uncommon
Definitely cost efficient, but it’s often better to use Marks for attack speed and
leave Quints for resistances (unless you’re planning to dominate your lane
extremely early on).

Magic Resist (+4.0)

Perfect for shutting down early-game Casters, especially when
combined with MR Glyphs.

 Glyph Synergy
Potentially fill your glyphs with Magic Resist for a ridiculous +24 MR start
against champions like Rumble and Lissandra (or take scaling CDR glyphs)

Acknowledgements
Alex Vo (Illustrator)
Shayne Fletcher (Graphic Design)
Riot Games (League of Legends)

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