Kill Lanes: Come With Me if You Want to Win

Why a Kill Lane?

Gaining gold and experience bottom lane generally happens through farming minions or picking up kills and assists on the enemy champions. Perhaps the most typical approach to the bottom lane is the standard pairing of AD carry and support, playing passively to increase the creep score of the carry for more of an impact on the game mid to late term.

Although this is the most common approach, what about champions with high levels of early-game dominance? Running a kill lane instead of a farming one allows players to take advantage of high early damage and usually some form of crowd control. This tactic, if successful, can deprive the enemy of necessary gold and experience while feeding your own team. While aggressive and high-risk, an effecive kill lane can reap high rewards as well.

 

How to Run a Successful Kill Lane:

Selecting Champions:

The champions who tend to succeed the most in a kill lane often have crowd control abilities and more damage output than a standard support would. Some potential laning partners for an AD carry in this situation are Leona, Nautilus, Volibear, Blitzcrank, Singed, Cho’Gath, Alistar, Amumu, Sejuani, Sion, Jax, and Jarvan. Of course, this list is not limited here, as there are many other champions who could stand up well.

The two most important factors as the kill-support, however, are crowd control and damage output. Some natural or built health, armor, and magic resist also help the kill-support to push through the lane to land their skills on the enemy carry without being punished too hard.

While traditional supports such as Janna have a fair amount of crowd control, their damage output separates them from the group of champions who fit into a kill lane. If you have a champion that you’re comfortable with that satisfies the two main qualifications, then a kill lane might work for you.

Kill Support: Strong crowd control, preferably damage and/or tankiness.

              

Most ranged AD carries slide easily into this lane composition. The crowd control and damage of the kill-support allows the carry to more fully utilize their damage, making the burst difficult to counter. Different carries bring different values to the lane due to their respective skill sets. Ashe, for example, brings additional slows and a potential stun to the lane, while Caitlyn provides a long range, gap closer, and small stun. Other carries, such as Miss Fortune, strengthen the lane’s early phase with fairly high base damage numbers.

Carries: High base damage, possibly additional crowd control.  

            

 

Early Game Play:

Bring wards. A lot of kill lane champions may start out with a Doran’s item, or not want to sacrifice the early health pots, but if you can give those up be sure to bring a ward. If not, grab them on your first trip back to base and continue buying them at least as long as you are pushing the lane. By nature a kill lane has an aggressive play style, which creates a dangerous situation for ganks from the enemy jungler. While wards are always a good idea in lane, it becomes particularly helpful in avoiding three versus two situations.

 

Farming:

While a kill lane stresses the importance of feeding off the enemy team, this doesn’t mean that farm should be ignored altogether. Often times, a kill lane can end up earning your team’s carry more farm than the enemy if they are pushed out of lane enough. This is a good tactic to adopt if you consistently chip away at the enemy’s health, but aren’t getting kill fed. Use the time they need to go back to base to get a head start on farming. Otherwise, try to take advantage of all the chances you get to kill the enemy instead of prioritizing farm.

 

Strategy:

A major key to successfully killing the enemy is catching either champion out of position. Out of position can mean a number of different things, but as a whole it usually happens when an enemy champion is separated from their team or overextended. Taking advantage of superior positioning can give a significant edge to the fight, as it usually provides a favorable two versus one fight until the other laning champion can get within helpful range. Certain champions such as Nautilus, Blitzcrank, Volibear, and Singed, can force these advantages to some extent through their pulls.

In short, make use of your lane’s superior damage and crowd control to kill the enemy or push them out of lane as much as possible. If you don't utilize the composition you brought to the table, then you will likely get out farmed and out built.

"What if my Lane is Struggling?"
If your kill lane is struggling, several actions lend themselves well to turning your game around.

1) A well-executed gank.
A good gank can help reset the score in the lane, and hopefully win kills for your team. At the very least, the jungler's presence can help push an aggressive match-up away from you and your laning partner.

2) A change of strategy.
If you find that you aren't getting fed on kills and are falling behind or feeding, try to adopt a more passive play style. Ultimately, this isn't ideal because champions suitable for kill lanes usually don't scale as well into late game as their farm-centered opponents if they aren't getting fed. Despite this, it is almost always better to play defensively and avoid excessive deaths.

3) Into the jungle.
If struggling, you may find yourself lacking both gold and experience in compared to your adversaries. If you aren't getting pressured very hard, but find you are unable to get kills or push the enemy out of lane effectively, then one member of the lane may wish to spend a bit of time in the jungle.

If one member of the lane can hold the tower without too much risk, the other is free to leave lane in favor of a bit of jungling. This of course benefits both lane members in the farming area. Be sure to only clear camps your jungler isn't likely to get to (for example: clearing double golems while the jungler ganks top lane), or even try to counter jungle if the enemy team is well-accounted for.

 

After Pushing Down the Tower:

A successful kill lane usually ends up pushing the enemy tower down fairly early. As a result, you may find it more difficult to get farm without pushing too far into lane. Use this to your advantage. Begin roaming to other lanes – namely mid – where you can hopefully secure another kill or two, and likely push down mid tower before the enemy has time to respond. This should bring you to a fairly strong mid game where your team can begin team fighting, hopefully with a significant advantage in both builds and turrets.

Overall:
Don't ever feel too locked into one strategy. Try to work around your lane's strengths and weaknesses while playing off of your opponents'. A kill lane can be strong, but a skilled jungler may be able to shut one down just as easily. Try to follow these basic rules, and a success could easily lead to a fed carry and a win for your team.