League of Legends: 3 Questions that Will Help You Win Any Lane

When approaching a lane matchup in League of Legends, these three questions will allow you to understand how to win the lane.

Skillcapped is a fantastic resource, with hundreds of informational videos on their Youtube channel. In watching some of their videos on trading and how to win lane, I realized that they often tend to build their advice on three basic premises. Although the questions are obvious from watching just a few of their League of Legends guides, I realized that there doesn’t appear to be a video that specifically lays these concepts out.

I have been applying these questions when entering games and it has helped me improve a lot. For those who don’t have the time to watch a bunch of Youtube videos, these are the three questions that can help you understand how to win every lane.

1. Do I Have a Range Advantage?

Obviously, a ranged champion has this advantage of a melee champion, but there are other factors that can give you a range advantage to win a lane. For instance, although Darius is a melee champion and Teemo is a ranged champion, Teemo only has an auto-attack range of 500. Darius, on the other hand, has a range Apprehend, his pull, which is 535. This means that if Teemo walks up to auto Darius, he’s actually at a range disadvantage because Darius can pull him in.

You might not know all the ranges on your abilities and auto-attacks, but you should think through what tools your champion has that might give you a range advantage, at least in some cases. If so, try to use that to your advantage, like Darius looking to use that Apprehend every time Teemo walks up to trade with him.

2. Do I Win an All-In?

This is the biggest question when playing as, or facing against, an assassin champion, as they typically thrive in an all-in fight. Whether you win an all-in fight changes within a matchup during the game based on health, mana, items, and what skills are on cooldown.

For instance, in the Darius versus Teemo matchup, Darius usually wins the all-in if he pulls in Teemo, right? Well, yes, unless Teemo properly uses his blind to prevent Darius from applying stacks of his passive. If Teemo plays around brush, if he’s been putting Mushrooms in his retreat path, or if he has Flash up, Teemo can win an all-in. As Darius, you have to constantly be evaluating whether you’re in a situation where, if an all-in happened right now, would you win?

3. Can I Out-Push the Enemy?

Being able to out-push the enemy is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, pushing your wave puts you on the aggressive, preventing your opponent from being able to easily trade as they have more minions to deal with than you. On the other hand, pushing leaves you exposed to a gank.

However, having the push advantage is generally a good thing to have even if you don’t use it. If I’m Ziggs and I know I can push the wave faster than Talon, I know that I can easily just play back and avoid the all-in, then easily shove the wave any time he tries to roam, causing him to lose CS. Or, I can push the wave and keep him at his tower, preventing him from roaming or going for that all-in.

Pushing the wave not only makes an all-in harder from your opponent, it also gives you the chance to roam yourself, allows you to get chip damage on the tower, and allows you to quickly have the minion advantage, which helps you win trades.