Hey everyone. One of the biggest problems we see in lower elos, is that you guys can
be really fed, but you dont use how much gold you have properly. You blame your team that
you couldn't carry when in reality, a higher ranked player with the same amount of gold
than you will easily carry it. The reason for this, is that you don't Int enough. Not
actually int obviously like running it down mid. But you dont limit test. I always tell
players that having a smurf account to limit test on is super important because you obviously
dont want to take big risks in your own games and throw it. The thing is, what's the difference
between trolling and limit testing? Well, thats what were going to cover today, using
a few games from one of my smurfs. Also, these games are part of our Live Smurf Commentaries
series on skill-capped.com where our experts play on smurfs and explain their thought process
in real time. Let's start with a game in gold where I am
playing Diana vs Kassadin. I'm ahead right now with 3 kills 1 death and 94 CS at 11 minutes.
I have my ROa and stinger, meaning Im not giga fed but im stronger than kassadin who
only has a tear. I walk into the lane and clear the minion
wave to shove and pressure. While i'm doing that, my master yi gets killed in the top
river by the enemy kha'zix. And as he dies we see malphite roaming down from top lane
as well. My team starts spam pinging me to back off. Obviously I can't 1v3 them..
Most players would just walk back towards their tower here and wait till it's safe then
back off. To you, that is fine, youre not dying youre pulling some pressure w/e. To
high elo players like myself, its more than that. If I back off and the enemy team sits
in mid, the enemy kassadin can freely push this wave, which gives him multiple options.
It lets him roam, take a free reset, or he can walk out and get vision. All 3 of these
things are not what I want when im winning lane. He should never be able to reset for
free, roam, or get any kind of vision because I'm winning lane so hard.
So what can I do about it? Sometimes theirs nothing you can do, but you wont know unless
you know your champions limits. So, I see that my nautilus is roaming from bot lane
to mid, which would make it a 2v3, and a mid/support might not win vs a jungler mid and top.
But im going to use Q on the entire wave and hit Kassadin with it. Then he starts walking
up to me like this. This means they are definitely about to jump
me from top side. So I dash to the kassadin and chunk him, then start running towards
bot river. Kassadin ults towards my tower thinking thats where Im going to run to, then
all 3 of them start chasing me. I kite towards my nautilus and watch this malphite, flashes
and completely misses his ult. Now, he didn't miss his ult just because hes
a terrible player, he missed it because in his mind, this is a 1v3 free kill for them.
He's not even thinking that I might have more teammates here. Think of it this way, if this
was warded, and they knew nautilus was waiting, malphite obviously would have just walked
up and waited for me and naut to be on top of eachother then ult us both.
But after he misses that, their main form of CC is gone and I have a good feeling we
can win this fight now. I try to go in on kassadin but he backs up out of range until
our ashe hits a really nice arrow on the khazix. I use my Q and ult him to 1 shot him, then
we turn and finish malphite while kassadin ults away.
Alright so its important to understand a few things here. First, I was not 100% sure on
taking this fight. I was 80 or 90% confident it would work out when I was baiting the fight.
Then as soon as Malphite missed his ult I was 100% sure. Even without the ashe arrow
we win this easily. Because I wasn't 100% sure, this was a limit test. By going for
plays like this, you really can learn what your champion can do at different points in
the game. Lets take a look at another, more extreme example.
At this point in the game, I have 9 kills with 156 farm and 16 minutes. Im obviously
very fed. Im split pushing as thats what Diana does very well and the rest of my team really
aren't that strong. But when split pushing, have you ever had that little bit of doubt
that you're not sure how many need to come for you to stop you, or if you can 1v1 someone
thats fed on the enemy team? These are important things to know when split pushing so you know
how much pressure you can pull, or if split pushing is even the right play. if you cant
1v1 them, whats the point? Anyways Im pushing bot, and I see the enemy
malphite ult our ADC, which is the strongest CC ability they have. Keeping track of cooldowns
like this is important. But I jump over the wall to take the enemy
jungle, and kha'zix is there. Because they used malphite Ult, I was fully committed to
trying to 1v5 if the enemy team sent 5 for me. Malphite ends up being in top lane though..
But I jump onto the khazix after I land my Q, he jumps away, then I jump and ult to kill
him and lulu. This isn't limit testing, this was super free theirs no way they kill me.
But what I do next is a different story. I take 1 tower, then keep pushing working
on the next one. The enemy aphelios and kassadin just died, so the other 3 start charging at
me. So, I could just try and flash and run away,
but since Lulu already used her polymorph, I kite until my Q is up and she uses her shield
on someone else, then jump on her. Right before my last passive auto finishes, she ults and
survives, then I flash away and they both use flash to kill me.
Well what did I learn? I cant tower dive them 1v3 without my ult and without my gold spent.
I 1 shot squishies, but without my ult, I can only burst 1 at a time. I had 1600 gold
which is a big deal and would make me much stronger.
For this next clip Im split pushing top this time, my team is
in base, and they have 3 people in top lane defending top tower, malphite, aphelios, and
lulu. This time, my ult is up. Now, bringing 3 people top is great right? Its pulling a
ton of attention towards me. But you all should know from your own games..sometimes thats
not enough. Your team wont take objecties when you're pulling so much pressure.
But because I know my limits, I don't need my team to do anything. I Just dive them,
kill 4, and then start working on their top inhib.
The purpose of this isnt to show you that I can kill low elo players easily, its to
show you that you can do a lot more with the gold that you have most of the time. So if
you have trouble carrying, its time to test some limits.
For this next game, Im playing zed vs Katarina. The enemy leesin is constantly ganking or
hovering mid like this.. And because of his ganks me and Katarina are about equal health.
about 15 seconds later my jungler dies to the enemy lee in our bottom jungle, and me
and katarina are pretty low so I know hes going to want to gank me again.
As I walk up to trade with Katarina, you can see lee-sin ganking me from behind.. I could
just use my W towards my tower, then flash away and live this gank. But just like in
the last game, if I do that, I lose all my pressure in mid and Katarina will push the
wave, crash it, and get a free reset when Im ahead of her.
So, I jump in on Katarina instead, kill her, then level up my ult and use it on Lee to
dodge his Q, and kill him as well. So again, going for a high risk high reward
play, because I know my limits on my champion. and I learned those limits by failing these
1v2s hundreds and thousands of times. Thats going to happen. Its just important to understand
the difference between trolling and limit testing.
Like in the last play, I was close to level 6, I had both summoners, and katarina was
low. I didn't just go in 1v2 and hoped to win it, I had reasons for doing what I did.
Alright guys, I just quickly want to remind you that all of the games featured
in this guide are available to watch on Skill-Capped.com where I commentate my thought process in real
time. We're uploading tons of these every week for each role so you can hear our thought
process as we carry games in elo hell, so you can do the same.
We also have 800 premium guides along with 100 courses that are designed to significantly
increase your skill and fast. You can also see what rank we think you'll get before signing
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a refund. So, what are you waiting for?
Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one!