Practice Like the Pros: What LCS Habits Should You Try to Improve?

Every week, League of Legends pros from around the world take to the Rift to fight for dominance over one another.  They are professional athletes who know League of Legends like no others.  They join up with four teammates and use advanced strategies and tactics to try and end their week with as many wins as possible.  So if these guys are the best of the best, shouldn't you just be able to emulate their actions and perform just as well on the Rift? Well not necessarily, but there are some things that the pros do that can easily be accomplished on your journey to reach Silver or Gold.  These are some habits you should try to get into that will improve your League skill overall.

Image courtesy of umbraz.deviantart.com

Focusing on Creep Score:

This is the easiest strategy to try, but possibly the most difficult to master.  The reason that most professional games don't see early solo lane kills like typical sub-gold lobbies do is because both parties are trying to get as much farm as possible.  Early on, minions give anywhere between 15 and 40 gold (15 gold for caster minions, 20 gold for melee minions, and 40 gold for siege minions).  So if you are giving up farm to poke and wear down your opponent, you are essentially giving up gold.  If you try and perfect your farming, and even just get the first wave perfect that's an extra 105 gold in your pocket.  Also the time of the game impacts how much gold minions are worth, as the longer the game goes, the more gold they're worth.  So even farming well until the mid- game can be important, and give you a large item advantage over your opponent until you are needed for a team fight or your jungler can come to gank, ensuring a kill or the blowing of summoner spells.  "But what about first blood?"  Okay, so this does not mean you should not poke your opponent, and you should let them free farm your hp bar. Poking, put simply, should not be your priority.

If your opponent pushes you, push back, but don't let an entire wave of farm go to waste.  If you really want to be aggressive outside of farming, your jungler can always gank to try and ensure you get some early kills and assists.  Farming is also the best method to come back from behind.  If your opponent gets first blood on you, then chances are you are not going to be able to waltz back into lane and get a kill on them.  So why not farm, get gold in your pocket, and try to match or even pass the item advantage they have over you?  Gold is the key to the early game, and that is why you see such low kill but high CS games.  At 30 minutes, pro ADC's and mid laners can have upwards of 300 farm in their pocket.  You don't have to be that good at farming, but knowing how important it is and prioritizing it is the first step to getting an advantage in lane.

Buying Wards and Using Deep Vision:

Warding should not just be left to supports and junglers.  Each team has 5 members, and each member needs to do the most they can to try and ensure a win for their team.  If every member of the team even just buys one pink ward a game, and puts it in a high priority spot, that is a significant part of the enemy's territory that can be covered.  Yes, junglers and supports do have the easiest time with vision control since they have items that make it easier to place vision.  Imagine however, if every member of the team had a yellow trinket and a pink ward at about 20 minutes.  This means you could use the trinkets to illuminate deep in the enemy jungle and around all their buffs and then some.  It also means pink wards could be placed at both Epic monster camps, and outside of each of the three lanes.  So now do you not only have vision of where ganks could be coming from, but on all the objectives and what is gonig on in the enemy's jungle.

You can see their jungler is towards top lane, so a roam bot would have a better chance of working.  You can see their mid lane and jungle are heading to the Dragon pit, so you know that top will be isolated, and that they you could get the jump on them at Dragon.  It might seem like a waste of gold, and in a sense it is.  If you are trying to get an early advantage in items and don't want to suspend your first large item just to get a pink ward, then that is up to you.  In the laning phase, vision does not have the largest emphasis.  Think for a second, if you knew where most of their team was and where they were positioned, then you could make the move to teamfight somewhere they are not, and then even take several objectives.  You could see that the entire enemy team is gathering bot side for Dragon, so instead of leaving top to back for items, just to stay and force that tower to fall before they can retaliate.  Deep vision can cost, but with the variation of wards, and the incorporation of vision into items for junglers and supports, it only makes sense to take advantage of what you have, and get all the vision control you can.

Image courtesy of Capitaoc.deviantart.com

 The 1/3/1 Split-Push

This strategy is different from the other two on this list, in the sense that the other two can be done without teammate communication.  The 1-3-1 can be, but it is best done with at least two or three others that you can communicate with.  The 1-3-1 refers to a full game split-push, most commonly having three members stay in the mid lane, and two other champions push the side lanes up further.  Now there are more specifics and details to this maneuver than you might think.  Choosing which champions stay mid, and which leave the team can often be the difference between a successful split-push, and a waste of time and resources.  The most in danger bunch is the group of three mid.  While it might be easier to be ganked and caught as a solo pusher, if the enemy team forces a 5v3 mid, they could end up gaining more ground mid than your team can get off of either side lane.  So having 3 champions mid that have forms of disengage and Cc would be the best, while the champions that have the strongest pushing power (and preferably some form of escape) go off to the sides. Your team comp has to have champions that can be potent pushers and have escapes, while having three other champions with disengage and crowd control to hold the enemy team at bay.  A good comp example would be Lee Sin, Tristana, Orianna, Leona, and Nautilus.  Have Tristana and Lee Sin each go to the side lanes.

Since Tristana has more damage, but only one escape, have her pick the lane that is closer to an objective, so she can get in and out quicker.  Have Lee Sin go to the less pushed lane, and make his way from there.  Then Orianna, Leona, and Nautilus can slowly push the mid lane forward, using Orianna's tremendous wave clear, and the strong frontline of nautilus and Leona to keep her safe.  If any danger arises in mid, any of the three ultimates should provide disengage, and if they need it, they could utilize more than one.  Now the trick to a 1-3-1 is knowing when to stop.  The ideal scenario is Lee Sin pushes down the top tower, then rejoins his team mid.  Tristana keeps pushing as far as she can, until enemy champions leave mid to stop her.  Then she backs, or walks around the enemy team to rejoin her team to force down mid, or another objective.  

I hope that you all find these tips effective, and use them to get as many wins as you can!  If you have any questions, concerns or comments, feel free to leave a comment below.  If you want to contact me with more questions or anything else league related, feel free to tweet me @buns_and_roses.  Hope to hear from you guys, and thanks for reading! 

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