Using Your Flash Creatively

When choosing between your Summoners in a game of League, there's rarely a game where you won't take "Flash". The Summoner works when you want to play aggressively or defensively. It gives a champion with no dashes a way to open or close the gap quickly. It can help you jump terrain and get over those pesky walls that litter the map. It has become a vital part of the game's integral game play where you as a player need to understand your capabilities with the Summoner's cooldown. This light article will discuss a handful of champions and how they can use their flash to boost their capabilities and mechanics. 

Now if you have the right timing, on a few champions you can use the Summoner with a champion's ability to surprise your enemy. Alistar for example, you can use it alongside his W ability, "Headbutt" to extend the distance in which you can reach an opponent to combine it with his "Pulverize" ability. It's now easier for him to engage with that, especially in 6.3 where they made Alistar's combo of the 2 abilities a lot easier to hit. With Poppy as well, you can flash mid animation of her "Heroic Charge" and change the destination in which you push the enemy. These next champions extend upon this idea and the sections demonstrate the mechanics in action.

Fizz

Fizz, the mobile assassin who can catch you from a range and use his access to multiple dashes to deplete a foe's health bar. He can be played in either the top lane, jungle or mid lane position. His combination of invulnerability and what appears to be appear an unlimited amount of dashes, makes him a slipperyy opponent to face. The Flash mechanic we're discussing on Fizz is the Playful/Trickster Flash trick. 

Playful/Trickster is a 2 part ability. The first jumps Fizz onto a stick in which he dashes a short distance and becomes invulnerable for 0.75 seconds. Its second animation jumps Fizz back onto the ground, dashing a small distance and dealing damage in a small AOE in which the landing area slows. With Flash, you can extend the landing animation's distance. After Fizz is on his stick and you are readying yourself to jump down to the ground, in the animation of going down, use your Flash in the direction you want to go to create the desired effect. It's really good for catching those enemies who Flash away from you to avoid the burst. Following them with the unexpected Flash Trickster can create great assassinations if done correctly.

The video below demonstrates what we're discussing and how the mechanic helps Fizz get the kill even after his prey has Flashed away to hopefully live. Fizz had the mechanics to make sure that didn't happen.

Credit to KingNaqHD

Gragas

With his return to the jungle with the buffs in 6.3, it's a good time to discuss some mechanics available to Gragas. Gragas is the large brawler of the game who can cause a lot of anarchy with his abilities due to the varied elements of crowd control in his kit. He can work to initiate a fight or disengage an oncoming team from his allies. Gragas's particular interesting mechanic when combined with Flash comes from his E, "Body Slam".

Body Slam is a dash that sends Gragas in a direction, dealing AOE damage on collision with an enemy unit and stunning them for 1 second. This helps him close the gap and get his targets primed for the other elements of crowd control in his kit like "Explosive Cask". Now the distance you can travel with the dash isn't that far, so sometimes your enemies can easily adjust their position to move out the way. With Flash, you can both increase the distance you travel while making the after effect CC instantaneous. Like with Fizz, you do this by Flashing mid-animation of the Body Slam. Practice is needed to master this as the window for it to work is small but with proper understanding it is easily repeatable. 

Utilising this can help you put unexpecting enemies out of position quickly. Previously Team Liquid's jungler, IWDominate demonstrates it's execution and great effects in this pro game against Team Impulse. 

Credit to League of Highlights

Kassadin

Kassadin is one of the most balanced places he's been in since the champion was first created. With basically 100% ban rate in all regions through the early seasons and a drop and rise in his play in the later ones, Kassadin is OK right now. Kassadin is the late game scaling AP assassin who has access to a large amount of blinks. Kassadins aim to get through their early game power lull that evolves into a monster late game that can jump in and out on the opposing back line. 

Kassadin's R ability, "Riftwalk" is the Flash mechanic in question in here. While having to some of the most blinks in the game in one kit, they are dependent on his control of mana due to their increasing cost per cast. So you need to make every blink count for something, that being either aggressive or defensive. His Flash helps accomplish this by combining it with the Riftwalk blink to double the distance. By Flashing straight after the Riftwalk blink, you continue the distance that the blink goes. When he does this, he deals the damage on arrival and quickly appears in the faces of confused enemies, who are wondering how you've just jumped a distance not plausible by his kit alone. 

Our EU veteran Froggen (now in NA I know) in this video gives us a quick explanation to describe how the Flash works with Kassadin's RiftWalk. 

Credit to Nebu

Sejuani

Sejuani has fallen out of the meta a bit right now as we've seen Cinderhulk be nerfed throughout the patches. Her main attribute as a champion comes from her being a front line tank who can initiate fights from a close to medium distance. Sejuani has a basic Flash mechanic with her kit but helps her initiate fights easily as she gets in a closer proximity faster. 

Sejuani's mechanic to learn comes in when combined with her Q ability "Arctic Assault". The ability dashes her forward, knocking enemy champions up on collision. This is the first part to her bread and butter combo for playing in team fights. Using Arctic Assault on multiple enemies, then using her "Glacial Prison" to lock and stun all the foes she's pummeling. Coupled with Flash, she can both close the gap and change the direction of her original pathing to surprise and jump her enemies. In a similar method to the champions before, you achieve this by Flashing in the right time frame of the animation Sejuani goes through when casting Arctic Assault. 

핵부리's video demonstrates how you use the Flash and the amazing effect it has on the opposing team.

Credit to 핵부리

Shen

If you haven't played or watched a game of League in a while, you won't know of Shen's recent kit update. While this is true and I would definitely advise you to have a look, his Flash taunt hasn't been touched but we'll still have a look in to how it works and why it's so important to Shen's engage. 

Shen's "Shadow Dash" combines itself with Flash really well as the ability doesn't collide and stop when hitting an enemy. Shen will dash in a targeted direction, taunting all enemy champions he goes through for 1.5 seconds. As Shen will always jump the entire distance of where you cast it and has no collision effects like Sejuani or Gragas, using Flash in mid-animation of this spell can potentially catch a lot of foes. Shen can catch an unexpecting ADC or mid laner and force them to deal with him.

The video below demonstrates how Shen can change the Shadow Dash's direction with the mid-Flash animation to catch an enemy who didn't see him coming.

Credit to LOLCHAN2

Vi

Vi, the girl with the big gloves who can punch an enemy to oblivion. Vi's one of those one dimensional champions who aim to get on a champion and destroy them quickly with her single target lock down and AD steroids. Flash only helps her get off that damage and here's why.

Vi's Q, "Vault Breaker", dashes her in a targeted direction that collides with opponents, knocking enemy champions back. A lot her damage comes in this ability as it's a high amount of burst when itemised with armour penetration and AD amps. The combination of Vi with her Flash helps her jump opponents from a large distance and pick a champion down. Vi's one of the easier champions to get the trick to work as she has a charge up time in the cast. After the charge up and you have sent Vi forward, you need to use the Flash Summoner in the middle of that animation to achieve that extended range the flash brings.

The below video shows how Vi gets from one side of the middle lane to the other by timing the Flash correctly with Vault Breaker to catch her opponent escaping.  

Credit to JacobSnakeUp

This is only a teaser of the inventive methods in which you can use your Flash. Have a look on the internet and then practice what you see. The little tricks that you learn on champions can help you achieve higher and better things. I hope you enjoyed the article and I will see you guys on the Rift.

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