Grasping Immortality: Closing Out Games Like Team Immortals

Team Immortals is undisputedly the strongest team in the North American LCS currently, an extremely impressive accomplishment considering their status as a brand-new team with only two of their current roster having worked together recently. Their teamplay and shotcalling capabilities are comparable to those of Cloud 9's Hai "Hai" Lam or Season 5 Fnatic's Bora "Yellowstar" Kim, now playing for Team SoloMid. 

The Immortals have demonstrated great mechanical skill in each role, and utilized those abilities to build an early lead in every game they've played so far. On the first day of the NA LCS, they built a staggering 8k gold lead by 20 minutes in their match against Cloud 9, though the absence of C9's former midlaner-turned jungler-turned support is notable. Against Team Impulse the next day, they snowballed their lead so effectively that they secured the second ever flawless match in NA LCS history. Clearly, they're doing something right.

The biggest recurring pattern in each of Team Immortals' matches is their superb objective control, using their accumulated gold lead to pressure the enemy's lanes. To do that, they predict how the minion waves will flow and interact with each other, pushing and freezing lanes where appropriate to allow them to snowball into packs of a dozen or more color-coded cannon-fodder. The intricacies and interactions of minion waves don't need in-depth explanation, as there's a few simple things to do that will ensure control of the map. 

Look at your map, and flick over to every lane. Look at where each wave is meeting, if one wave has more minions than the other, note the presence of cannon minions or super minion, and make a mental note to yourself where you'll have to be to exploit that wave the most. If an enemy wave is pushing towards your turrets, then intercept it before it enters turret range and grab as much valuable CS as you can. If your wave is pushing into the enemy's base or turret, then meet up with the wave and keep it pushing. Do this by stopping enemies with wave clear from closing enough to destroy the wave, gathering minion aggro for your wave to minimize the damage they take when sieging, and making sure that when they run into an enemy turret, you are there to help push it down. 

You may (or may not) be thinking, "Won't this distract me from getting objectives/pushing other lanes?" Well, it will. That's the purpose of wave control. If the enemy is allowed to push your minions back and crash their waves against your turrets, you'll need to stop that instead of contesting Baron, in most situations. If you have three dozen minions hammering away at an enemy inhibitor turret, then they can't stop your fifth Dragon without sacrificing something worth (arguably) more. 

Once you're directing minions like a puppet master, you can move onto the next stage; the enemy base. The enemy base is always a better target than Dragon or Baron if available, as towers don't respawn (but they do regen!) A good rule of thumb is that if you have a minion wave past the outer turret of a lane, you should focus on taking the inhibitor there rather than a jungle objective. 

That doesn't mean you should completely ignore the Dragon and Baron buffs, as once you've taken down the inhibitors, the enemy team will generally have to group up to clear the waves off of their nexus towers. Since it's fairly difficult to win a fight 5v5 under two powerful nexus turrets, Baron buff and the fifth Dragon buff can both be easy win-conditions, buffing up your minions and forcing the enemy to their knees. Even Rift Herald can provide use in taking the enemy base, as it's simply a Baron buff carried solely by the person who picked it up. 

Following these tips, you'll find that your team will 'throw' considerably less often, and you'll be able to exploit the high LP gains of the early season to climb to your deserved ranking. Good luck, and have fun!

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