League of Legends Guide: Dominate Lane by Using the Cheater Recall
By Josh Tyler
Continue to learn about the cheater recall in this League of Legends guide.
What is the Advantage of a Cheater Recall?
The first, and most obvious, advantage of the cheater recall is that doing so will allow you to get back to lane with an extra item. If you CSed the first three waves properly, you should have between 400 and 500 gold, enough to buy another starting item, potions, boots, and/or wards, depending on what is most advantageous in your matchup.
Getting a second Doran’s Blade (for health, damage, and lifesteal) or Doran’s Ring (for health and mana regen) can easily swing the lane in your favor and make the lane unplayable for your opponent. You can also buy something like boots, cloth armor, or a Doran’s Shield to help you sustain through a particularly difficult lane, as well as control wards or health potions for a safe lane phase.
Ideally, you will also heavily trade with your opponent before recalling, leaving them at less than full health and/or mana before your recall. If you take damage in return, though, it is not consequential since you will heal up in the fountain. So you return to lane not only with an item advantage, but also an HP and mana advantage.
“But why doesn’t the opponent just match your recall?” you may ask.
Well, initially, he cannot because you’ve pushed a cannon minion plus that large wave you were building up into his tower. Once he clears that, however, the wave will be pushing against him (towards your tower), enabling you to set up a freeze. So yes, he can clear that initial minion push, and get the wave safely out of the tower’s range, but if he chooses to recall he will start losing a lot of the gold and experience as his large wave kills your minion wave quickly.
He is thus left with two undesireable options: stay in lane to make sure his large wave gets to your tower (thus facing an opponent with a health and item advantage) or recall and return to lane being down in gold and experience.
If your opponent laner has teleport, he can always recall and teleport back to his wave to prevent you from freezing while still keeping HP and item parity with you. The problem is he now is down a Summoner Spell to you, since you did not teleport back to lane. No matter what, he loses.