When to Most Effectively Transition From Laning to Teamfighting Phase

Everyone knows that there comes a time during your league game in which you transition from the laning phase into the teamfighting phase, but what many don't know is the ideal time to transition. 

Let me start by explaining the three phases of the game.

Early Game:

In the early game phase, all the towers are up, and each individual player focuses on CSing and surviving ganks. Teamfights are not a big portion of this phase. During the early game all the towers are up, there is little roaming, and most people just focus on getting to 6 where the real magic happens.

Mid Game:

Mid game is usually around the 15-20 minute mark when some, if not all, of the outer turrets have fallen. Roams often happen during this period of time. In the mid game, the teamfighting group starts to form; for instance, a top laner might teleport bot while the mid laner simply walks down there all to meet the jungler for a 5-man gank. Once this is all over you will most likely take dragon as a team. This is just one example of infinite things that could happen that begin your roam as a group. 

Late Game:

Late game consists mostly of teamfighting. Each team will group in a single lane and push for objectives, whether or not it be for kills, towers, or baron. There is hardly ever any laning in the late game phase, except if you consider split-pushing to be laning. The late game is dictated by long death timers and buffs from across the map.

 

Obviously, your team should transition from laning phase to teamfighting phase once the laning phase no longer provides as many benefits as teamfighting. This time normally comes once the outer turrets are down because it makes laning very dangerous; this is because it is a long, sometimes dark run from the middle of your lane back to your inner turret. Now, you might be thinking, why not just place wards? Well, as it is definitely a good idea to place wards for your team, it can get to be quite expensive to place sufficient wards to be able to see every route that comes to you; this is another reason why you might want to start grouping up.

Overall, timing of grouping up can make or break a game. If you group too early, you run the risk of not being strong enough to take objectives as a team, allowing a time slot for the enemies to do so instead; however, if you group too late, you are giving the enemies more time to catch up if you possess an advantage by not pushing your own. If your team is ahead, teamfighting should normally pan out in your favor, and this is why it is a great idea to sometimes disregard laning, as difficult as the decision may be, and shoot for an even bigger objective: the game. 

Now, we all know that a ever-so-increasing part of the game revolves around vision control. And ward placement is constantly changing during each individual phase. In the early game, wards are more centered around your lane and keeping yourself safe, whereas in the mid and late game, wards are most often placed for the use of the team, keeping vision of objectives and the enemy team.

On each back in the mid-late game, aim to get one or two green wards and a pink, granted you have the space. However, each role buys a different amount of wards. Personally, the jungler, top laner, and mid laner follow the protocol i just listed, the support should buy a sightstone (again, this is situational), and the adc/marksman should buy maybe a little less, just so that they can focus on their core items. 

I would like to wrap up by speaking a bit about team comps. Sometimes, your team compostion will consist of assasins, stealths, and high-mobility champions that all come together to create a pick comp. These comps are not necessarily the full-on teamfighting type of team, and excel more at quick skirmishes, therefore transitioning to full-on teamfighting phase is not their best option. For them, a roamy laning phase is better. However there are champions and comps that excel at teamfighting such as orianna, ziggs, amumu, morgana, etc. who normally like to get their teamfights going early and push their champions natural strengths.

Thank you for taking the time to read my second article, and as always, please leave any comments you have below. I will read each and every one of them and take them into consideration for my next article!