Split Pushing in Solo Queue

Everyone has experienced it at least once: that frustrating player who plays their split push perfectly, taking towers and picking up tactical kills or even luring you to their lane so their team can take objectives while they escape.

Split pushing has a strong advantage as a solo queue tactic, its strength comes from pressing the smallest advantage and turning it into an advantage for the entire team. There are three primary ways that split pushing is beneficial to your team, when done correctly:

 

1. Turrets

Turrets are a source of global gold that when taken will reward your team with a small gold bonus, as well as an additional gold bonus to whoever aided in the Turret’s destruction. Their destruction also allows you to take more control of the map. With an outer turret down, a strong split pusher has access to the enemy jungle for even more additional gold.

 

2. Shutting down an opponent

To split push effectively you have to be able to defeat your opponent in a 1v1 engage. When I say beat, I do not necessarily mean kill. Beating an opponent can simply be forcing them to leave their lane. Split pushing is not about afk farming but seizing a constant stream of advantages for your team. By effectively and repeatedly beating your lane opponent in engages and trades, you force them to fall further behind, making them less useful than you might be in the event you are dragged into a team fight. There’s a high likelihood your opponent may also tilt under the pressure.

 

3. Generating solo pressure and alleviating the pressure for your team

As you begin to snowball your lane, you will immediately begin to attract the attention of other lanes. If you deal with this attention correctly and with proper ward coverage you can manipulate this into a lot of wasted time for the enemy. While they are wasting time trying to deal with the pressure you are creating, your team mates will have a numerical advantage that they can convert into pressure of their own or more gold for the team. One such example is the jungler wasting time to try to stop you, which means that he is too far away to prevent a team dragon kill.

 

With these advantages in mind, it’s clear to see how split pushing is a powerful tactic, however, it does have its weaknesses:

1. If you fail to generate enough pressure, your team can find themselves on the wrong end of a 5v4 and in the case of solo queue they are also likely to be disgruntled with you.

2. If you cannot successfully beat your opponent in a 1v1, you are essentially in a glorified farm lane and will achieve very little if they are able to farm under the tower.

3. Inhibitor turrets now regenerate. This increases the commitment required to bring the tower down in certain scenarios. It’s often advised to just go work on a different lane once you reach the inhibitor turret, unless you’re certain you can take it down.

4. Solo Queue Syndrome applies: if your team doesn't understand what you are doing or doesn't see the benefits of what you are doing, it can cause conflicts and flames.

5. It has a minor degree of team dependence. If there are four people top chasing you down, it requires your team to group and seize objectives. Sometimes they won’t and this can be a frustrating scenario.

Champions who are strong split pushers are generally highly mobile, they have a sizeable movement speed increase or a method that they can use to escape over terrain. Ideally this method is on a fairly low cooldown so it can be used frequently. These champions have to be able to deal damage and most of them also have a method to turn disadvantageous fights in their favour granting them the ability to 1v1, 1v2 and even in the rarest scenarios 1v3.

 

For sake of an example, let's  look at one particularly strong split pusher: Tryndamere. Passive critical chance gives him the opportunity to create openings almost as soon as the game starts and his high snowball potential means he needs very little to force his opponent on the back foot.

His Q paired with life steal offers him an endless source of sustain that he can use in reckless trading that most champions could not get away with often coming out on top. His W allows him to stick to an opponent and reduce their attack damage which also reduces their trading power. This ability is incredible at generating an opening out of a single mistake. His E has the ability to clear terrain as well as its cooldown being lowered every time he critically strikes, it puts out reasonable damage and the more experienced Tryndamere players will use it to secure a kill and escape at the same time. His ultimate makes diving easy and relatively low risk, it also allows him to turn fights into his favour, sometimes taking out one, two or even three targets before falling.

 

And he can take one of these in no time at all

Tryndamere is not the only champion who is a capable split pusher but I find him a perfect example as he has the kit I feel the most powerful split pushers need. Moreover he’s able to convert his split pushing advantages into team fighting ones, as his high snowball potential means a Tryndamere that is ahead can decimate a back line.

With these facts in mind, it becomes clear to see how split pushing works, what its advantages are and where its weaknesses lie. From the example given it’s easy to see a particularly strong split pushing champion and also recognise those that might be weaker at it. This in turn can help you establish your own set of priorities when in game.

Nothing is set in stone and things can change on a whim, so you should never go in locked down on split pushing but it’s also worth not overlooking it if the perfect opportunity arises.

Hope you enjoyed reading and good luck out on the Rift.