League of Legends: 3 Questions that Will Help You Win Any Lane
By Josh Tyler
Putting It Into Practice
Depending on your matchup, you should fit into one of eight lane scenarios. Depending on the lane set-up, your path to winning lane will be very different, so let’s walk through each of them and give some examples.
If you out-push, win all-ins, and have the range advantage…
Congratulations, you’ve basically won lane already. All you really have to do is shove the enemy under their tower, poke them down with your range advantage, and all-in them once they’re low enough.
A common example of this sort of matchup would be something like Illaoi or Heimerdinger into Nasus in the top lane. Nasus is extremely vulnerable to all-ins before Level 6, and with their range/push advantage both Heimer and Illaoi can whittle him down under tower. The only vulnerability in this type of lane is that you’ll be over-extended and at risk for jungle ganks, so make sure you’re either warding or poking down the enemy enough that you can win a 2v1.
If you out-push and win-all ins…
In this case, you want to use your push advantage only to thin the enemy’s minion wave so you can get it to bounce back to your tower, exposing them to a gank which you win with all-ins, or just shove the enemy under tower and dive them.
An example of this could be a bot lane of Vayne/Brand against Kog’Maw/Janna. Both of the opponent champions have long-range abilities that can easily harass you, but they don’t clear waves well and are susceptible to your all-in based on the layering of crowd control you have.
If you out-push and have the range advantage…
In this case, you can either push the wave and harass your opponent under tower or, if you’re particularly scared of the all-in (for instance, if you don’t have Flash), hold the wave close to your tower with your strong wave clear and harass when you can. In this lane, since you don’t win the all-in, you’re probably facing an assassin or fighter, so you win lane simply by getting farm and outscaling.
Xerath into Talon would be an example of this matchup. Talon ideally wants to roam around the map and pick up kills, so ideally you want to shove him under tower to prevent that. However, if Talon can just all-in and kill you, you’re better of playing back and shoving waves any time Talon tries to roam, forcing him to miss CS as the wave hits his tower.
If you win all-ins and have the range advantage…
This lane is pretty simple, you poke down the enemy enough that you can take the all-in. This is also a prime lane that your jungler should be looking to gank, as the opponent is probably going to spend most of the game pushing into yur tower. Since the enemy will be low and over-extended, all you have to do is wait and take the all-in with jungle help.
A matchup that would fit this mold could be something like Zed into Cassiopeia. With the combination of his Living Shadow and Shuriken, Zed can easily out-range Cassiopeia’s threat range, but she has the superior waveclear and push. Zed can all-in Cassiopeia herself pre-6 if he gets her low enough, post-6 if he can avoid her ultimate stun and Miyasma, and any time if he gets jungle assistance.