Welcome to today's episode of Vitals, where we're going to be covering freezing.
Even if you think you know what freezing is, chances are you'll pick something up from
this video.
First we'll talk about what freezing is, then why to do it, how to set it up, maintain it,
and counter an opposing freeze.
We'll wrap up with some cool tricks you use to get a leg up on the competition and end
with a recap of what we've covered to cement in any of the gaps in your learning
So - what IS a freeze?
Many people like to overcomplicate this.
Freezing is when both minion waves meet at a particular point in the lane and neither
wave can push for an extended period of time.
There are a few situations in the game where this happens naturally, like when the minions
first clash.
To freeze means to do something to the wave in order to create the situation we just mentioned,
where the wave isn't moving in one direction or another.
Now we've covered what freezing is.
Before we cover how to freeze, let's talk about why.
I mean, what's the point of freezing anyway?
Think visually about what a freeze does to a lane
Consider yourself on blue side A wave being frozen anywhere in this area between the middle
of the lane and your allied blue turret sets up the situation where two things happen:
First, you're close to the safety of your turret Second, the enemy has to extend past
the meridian of the lane to get to you AND the wave
With the state of the lane in mind, freezing can be used to set up many advantageous scenarios
For example, you can use a freeze to extend an existing lead Since the enemy has to overextend
to get to you, they have one of two bad choices First, they could enter your territory and
have much further to run to their tower If you're ahead, it can be assumed that you'll
win a 1v1 fight against them You can leverage this to either straight up kill them, push
them out of lane, or prevent them from coming to get the minions
They could also decide not to overextend, and instead do something else like get jungle
camps, roam, or twiddle their thumbs at the turret Whatever they're doing, they're losing
exp and gold from the minions dying to the freeze.
If they leave the lane, throw up your MIA ping and kick back in a lawn chair
On the other side of the coin, if you find yourself behind, you can use a freeze to mitigate
your deficit.
While your opponent has to overextend to get to you, you're close to your turret by nature
Think about what you'd want to do if you're ahead - the answer is probably duel and punish
your opponent If you freeze near your turret, they can't
really duel you, and you can decide when to step up from the safety of your turret and
be vulnerable.
The benefit of this is that you can waste a lot of their time, and slow down or even
prevent a snowball from happening.
The last key thing freezing does is shield you from their jungler
The reason is both psychological and strategic If you've ever played jungle, a high health
laner next to their turret is the most unappetizing thing to gank
Strategically speaking, if they do end up coming to your lane, utilizing the turret
can give you a lot of 1v2 potential.
There's a lot of really cool benefits that come along with freezing, but those are the
core benefits.
As you watch our dailies, you'll find even more intricate things you can do.
For now though, it's time to set up a freeze At the start of the game as the minions clash,
there's six on each side.
Each minion wave has the same damage, and the same health, and the same reinforcement
distance from their spawn point.
Left untouched, the waves will stay frozen in the middle of the lane with only a bit
of variance To freeze, you first need the wave to be pushing
towards you.
To put it simply, there needs to be more damage going onto your wave than your wave is putting
out.
When there's an equal number of minions on both sides, all you need to do is let your
opponent hit the wave.
If you want to freeze at the start of the game, just last hit and let the wave come
to you.
Once the wave is where you want it to be in the lane, you need to start doing things to
the wave to keep it in that spot.
The things you have to do change a bit depending on where you want to freeze.
It might sound vague, but it's going to be super simple after you know these facts.
If the freeze you want to go for is at the middle of the lane when the waves have clashed
and there's even minions on both sides, you're done!
That's all you to do.
Or, that would be, if you didn't have enemy laners to worry about.
Even then, what you have to do is pretty simple.
Whenever the enemy champion or champions put damage on the wave, you match that damage
with your own.
They auto, you auto.
But...
what if you want to freeze closer to your turret?
We call this a recessed freeze, because it's in a recessed spot from the middle of the
lane.
It's a bit harder to pull off, but has more rewards.
We've done the boring math, so here's the principle to take away.
As you freeze closer to the turret, you're freezing closer to the spot where your
allied minions spawn.
This is the reason that 6 minion versus 6
minion freezes only work in the middle of the lane and not when the freeze is closer
to your turret.
Allied minions will then take less time to reinforce while enemy minions will take longer.
The solution is easy!
Just have more enemy minions.
The amount of additional enemy minions you'll need to keep the wave frozen increases the
closer you get to where your minions spawn.
Now you know how to freeze.
But what if your opponent freezes?
Freezing is a really strong strategy, and as you climb the ladder more players will
use it against you.
Because of this, your allied minions will replenish faster and have done more damage
by the time the reinforcing enemy minions start to fight.
Here's what that looks like.
The amount of extra enemy minions you need can be anywhere from 1 to 3 depending on how
far your freeze is from the middle of the lane.
If you've ever heard someone say to "thin" the wave, think of this as a way to tell how
much you should be thinning it.
You want to avoid this happening whenever possible, so here's how to stop it.
First, think back to how we'd defend our own freeze.
Matching damage.
Now we're in the position where we're being frozen against.
To counter this we want to overwhelm our opponent with damage on the minion wave.
This will cause an imbalance in the damage being dealt, which will then cause the wave
to be crashed into the turret.
Again, if you're in the position of the freezer, you want to do everything you can to stop
the enemy from doing this.
When you spot someone trying to crash your freeze, pay attention to their ability usage.
If they commit a rotation to push the wave, odds are you have an opening to strike.
Now we've covered what freezing is, why to do it, as well as how to execute it, maintain
it, and counter it.
With that being done, there's also a few tricks you can learn to up your freezing game.
First is voiding minion hits.
This is where you wait for minion autos that would kill an enemy minion you want to last
hit.
After the autos are fired, you finish the minion off at the last second.
Any projectiles in the air won't have done anything.
The point in doing this is that if you've saved the next enemy minion from taking damage
from those autos.
This is especially important to do when there's even minions on both sides, because you want
to do as little damage to the enemy wave as possible.
Sometimes the wave gets pushed to your freezing spot before your allied reinforcements show
up.
When this happens, you can stand at your freezing spot and press S.
This keeps you still without autoattacking, and the minions will use you as a scratching
post instead of suiciding into your turret and causing the lane to be reset.
It's important to note that you'll take damage doing this, so you don't want to do it when
you're super low Being actively damaged and threatened by your opponent Or the wave is
godzilla sized That's about it!
The core part of the video is now over, but stick around for the recap!
You'll retain the concepts better and it will be easier to replicate them in game.
Freezing is where two waves meet and stay in the spot over a long period of time.
Freezing can extend a lead, shore up a deficit, and defend you against ganks while putting
your opponent in a dangerous position.
Setting your freeze up is all about doing less minion damage than your opponent, having
a smaller allied minion wave, and then balancing the damage after the wave is in the right
spot.
The further recessed your freeze is on the map, the more enemy minions you'll need to
maintain it.
Opposite to maintaining a freeze, countering a freeze is all about imbalancing the damage
on the wave with abilities and autos in order to crash it into the turret.
You can make leaner freezes work by voiding projectiles by last hitting at the last second
And you can delay quickly pushed minions by bodyblocking with the S command
That's it for this one.
Let us know in the comment and questions section if there's anything we didn't cover.
Thanks so much for watching, and be sure to tune into Wednesday's daily.