Why you're awful at invading and how to improve

The invade. The number of times that a game is going to be won or lost by an early teamfight is higher than many people realize; and this can become frustrating because many people do not have a good sense of how to handle these early fights. It is not uncommon to see players who are recklessly entering the opposing jungle when you not only have a composition disadvantage, but also poorly time their jungle entrance.

A great number of people fail to realize that it is not just the composition of a level one fight that will allow you to win, but you also have to successfully position yourself to be in an advantageous position to create the fight. This requires a fair amount of teamwork, and becomes fairly difficult unless your team has very strong communication.

The first thing to look at at the very beginning of the game while deciding whether to invade is naturally your team composition. However, just because your team has a crowd control advantage does not mean it is a good idea to try to start a level one team fight. Especially if these crowd controls are skillshots; a missed skill shot does no damage, and if a skillshot is whiffed then the capacity to engage is dramatically reduced.

It is crucial to not try to engage if you miss an important skillshot. Cho'Gath and Alistar are perfect examples of this; Alistar's Headbutt and Cho'Gaths Rupture are both extremely powerful initiation skills which are able to lock up the entire enemy team long enough for their teammates to put out their damage and gain an advantage. However, both of these skills have their own risk; Rupture is a slow skillshot while Alistar has to be in melee range to be able to knock everyone up.

 

It isn't just how much crowd control you have available at the beginning of an invade, either. Champions that are able to put out extremely high early game damage are also very effective. Someone who can burn a flash, or even better, straight up kill somebody else are very useful in teamfights. This isn't as essential as having a good way of locking up multiple people, but is an excellent amplifier to your teamfighting capacity.

You may not have the greatest initiation, but sometimes have a high enough level of damage is just good enough to work. Ezreal is a good example, as his Q is on such a low cooldown that he can not only check bushes almost for free, but he can also push out a great deal of damage, as well as ramp up his attack speed, making him terrifyingly powerful at level 1.

But just because Ezreal is a good duelist does not mean that you should shove him in to be the first person barreling into the opposing team's jungle. It is never a good decision to send your squishy ranged champions into the fray, first. Someone big and beefy that can take a few extra hits should always be your priority to have in the jungle first; it's better to have your Blitzcrank have to absorb a few cooldowns over the ranged champions that you have to do a bunch of damage

It is also important to think about whom you are invading against, and what you're trying to accomplish with your invade. If you're invading against someone such as Amumu, you can be fairly certain where they're going to start, and can plan accordingly. Knowing where the enemy jungler will starts means it is easy; you know whether you are invading to take buffs to to try to get some early kills.

Typically, best results will have you moving towards a buff or a small camp at around the 1:35 mark; by this point the far laner will have gone back to base and prepared to move into their lane. This often leaves your team with a numbers advantage, allowing for an even safer invade. This is not always the case, and can sometimes backfire, but that still leave the chance of simply starting an even fight.  This timing will also make it so that it their team decides to move and regroup at the other blue on the map, they will lose even more time trying to collect the buffs for their jungler.

 

The junglers most often invaded on are the blue reliant ones; there are some exceptions to this, such as Alistar rarely being invaded on simply due to his sheer power in level one fights. However, invading on less predictable junglers is still doable, it is just important to remain together as a team. If you are against a jungler who is not particularly blue reliant and can start anywhere, it is very im portant that you are aware of your surroundings and make sure that your teammates are all in positions that will allow them to engage in a fight should they have to.

Position is perhaps the most important aspect of invading in the early game. The most common route that teams take is to move through the mid lane, into the river to enter the opposing teams jungle. This gives the enemy team a much lower period of time where they are able to see where the invade is coming from, and is far more likely to result in a successful surprise attack. The fact that the bush by blue buff on blue teams side is curved also lends to this. The curvedness of the bush allows for a team to make a surprise attack due to a lack of vision. This can backfire, though, as you cannot see the other team, either.

However, just at the tip of the curved bushes near midlane, you are able to move far along enough in the bush to see into the entire intersection; this includes the path that leads straight in front of the turret.  Sitting in this path has become a relatively popular spot to watch for invasions due to a perceived safety and lack of opponents vision.  However:

 

There are many variants on the jungle invasion path; you can also move your way through either of the other lanes and try to make a move on the other team from an angle that they likely are not expecting. For example, if you're on the purple team, traveling through bottom lane and entering the jungle through blue teams tri-bush allows you to come straight onto your opponents red buff, while bypassing all vision.

Not only can you make moves on their red buff, but you also may get lucky and catch their bottom laners with their pants down taking golems if you go at the right time.  There is also the possibility that their laners decided to enter their lane through the river, and this would allow for a quick and easy kill.

After the phase where a level one team fight is likely to happen, the next consideration is how to handle the situation afterward. If their team rushes to the unoccupied blue buff once they see that you have made a move on theirs, you have really accomplished very little. This is where warding comes into place.

You want to make sure you can optimize your vision to be aware of their jungler's position for as long as possible; warding up your buffs can make it so that even after you have taken theirs, you can make a move to aggress on the opposing jungler. This can allow for some very early kills, and will quickly help you snowball the game if it ends up working out.

Lastly, don't forget to protect your jungle! Protecting your jungle is not just standing around, waiting to see if someone shows up at your blue buff. You need to make sure as many entrances to your jungle are covered as possible, even if it means throwing wards down early so that you can be aware of where they're going. A team does not have to actually have people in the jungle to be protecting it; knowing where the enemy jungler is planning to travel allows you to make plans and respond as quickly as possible.

There are also a few spots that are more hidden than some people may realize. Keep in mind, the fog of war is not revealed around corners, so some spots are very hidden depending on where your team is coming from.

 

Spots such as this allow you to get an absurd jump on the enemy team without having to restrict yourself to hiding in a bush and hoping that the other team face checks; face checking by just entering the river ends up being just as effective at surprising the opposing team as face checking a bush.

Invasion has become extremely common, but many people still appear to have issues knowing how to handle it. Issues ranging from running straight to the opposing blue and wondering why there was no advantage gained, or being too split off from the team with no ward coverage, many things can go wrong if your invasion is in bad form. So now that you know how to prevent this, enjoy your need invades and many free kills.