Hey everyone! Top lane is the lane of counterpicks, where some matchups can just feel unplayable.
We have all been there. But in low elo, matchups will very rarely mean much since they will
be making so many mistakes that you can take advantage. One matchup that doesnt fit this
rule though is Irelia vs Yorick, an Irelia player can be drooling on their keyboard and
playing with a guitar hero controller and still win that matchup. If you play yorick,
Im sure you already know to ban Irelia. But anyways, the example Im going to be using
today is where I pick Illaoi vs Jayce in gold. This is a very very hard matchup for Illaoi,
as all ranged matchups are, but through 1 simple mistake Jayce makes, I stomp the lane
in about 5 minutes. So, lets briefly talk about how the matchup
is supposed to go for each champion, so you can see the differences.
Jayce is a ranged champion essentially, and Illaoi is melee. Because of this, Jayce should
be looking for a cheater recall or just a 3 wave slowpush. This means jayce wants to
get the push advantage, which is extremely easy since Illaoi shouldnt be able to walk
up to auto the wave at level 1... But then once he has the push, he will slowly push
untill 3 waves are stacked, then crash it on the tower. If Illaoi walks up for CS while
hes doing this, she should take a bunch of poke, but a good Illaoi will grab whatever
CS she can with Q while staying safe. Once the wave is crashed, Jayce can recall and
buy a long sword and control ward, then walk back to lane without having to use TP.
Illaoi will take a while to grab the CS under tower and it will slowpush back to Jyace.
Because he should have the health and item advantage, Illaoi will be in a rough spot
trying to get the wave in and would most likely have to TP, so jayce would have the TP advantage
as well. So, thats how the matchup is supposed to go,
and it works this way for most ranged vs melee, or even melee vs melee depending on who wins
levels 1 and 2. If you win level 1 and 2 you would be doing the same thing Jayce does.
Now lets get into some gameplay and see what Jayce does wrong.
As I walk into lane, Im going to be doing exactly what I said, Im just playing safe
knowing I really cant walk up to the wave at level 1 without taking damage. But something
I notice right away is..Jayce didnt leash. And if we look at the minimap at bot lane,
their botlane isnt on themap yet, meaning Nidalee definetly started blue. This will
be important in a bit. But this is something you should be doing
every game. Like if I saw jayce and bot didnt leash, the enemy jungler probably started
raptors and will clear red side first. You need to know where they started every game
so you can ward properly. Alright, now that these 3 minions are getting
low, I want to use my Q to grab them all and remain safe, but Im going to position myself
at an angle where i can hit them all and hit Jayce with my Q. This is as efficient as it
gets when it comes to cooldown usage, poke and CSing at the same time.
After that Im backing up pretty far right away, Jayce can actually just run at me here
and bully me untill my next wave arrives, and thats exactly what would happen in high
elo.. But luckily he doesnt take advantage of this window.
After that, these next 2 CS are getting low, so Im going to grab them with my Q as well.
I couldnt go for an efficent angle where I hit the CS and Jayce this time because then
I would be really overextended and he could look for an all-in.
Now the next wave arrives, and before we go any further, look at the waves now.
You should see a big problem here. If you remember what Jayce should be doing right
now..he should be slowpushing 3 waves in. But I have 1 more minion than him.. Because
of this I knew right here I won the lane. He doesnt realize the #1 most important thing
he needs to do to win this lane is to push. So, Im going to walk up and grab one last
hit with an auto. I can auto it this time because Im extremely safe now. If jayce tried
to jump on me here I just hit the minion and get level 2 while hes still level 1, and beat
him down. Sadly Illaoi isnt a champion with an insane
level 2 like Irelia or Jax or Darius. If I was one of them I could just run at him and
force his flash here. But since I dont have that luxury, I just ue my Q to grab these
2 CS and hit Jayce, being extremely efficient once again.
After that, because I know Nidalee started bot, and Im pushing, I want to drop a ward.
But because I see one melee minion about to die, I make a mistake and drop a lazy ward
here in river. I should have killed this last melee minion, then walked over and warded
tribrush. I return to the wave now, constantly moving
to make sure Im not an easy target for Jayces E Q combo, then angle myself the same way
as before to hit him and grab this minion with Q.
So, notice how even though I have the push advantage, Im still prepared to give up a
last hit like this ranged minion here. This is because if I walk up that far Im still
vulnerable. But by pushing, it means Jayce cant bully me at all. If I stand in my wave
and he jumps on me I can auto attack him to death. Basically I have full control over
the lane. I will hit level 3 firest, crash a wave first, recall first.. I will get all
of these advantages and he wont because he didnt push at the start even when he didnt
have to leash. Also, I brought ghost instead of TP, which
would make his gameplan even more efficient. If I took a lot of damage while he pushes
3 waves in, I wouldnt even be able to TP back to lane and would have to take a terrible
recall as there would be no way I could crash the wave on his tower before resetting.
But anyways, Im one minion from level 3 now, so as soon as I grab it, I start walking at
him from this angle, because Im cutting him off. I know he cant beat me while one level
down even though my champion is basically a cannon minion with summoner spells at this
point in the game. Hes obviously trying to juke my E, but because
of my level advantage, Im fine to just hit him with W and autos first while he jukes
himself out, and once he starts running..then I will use E. I use Q and miss so hard I hit
the moon, but then I see Nidalee show up late because of my bad ward earlier..
As soon as she shows and throws her spear, I just flash away since it would be hard to
dodge it when I didnt expect her to be there. Jayce flashes after me, but since Nidalee
is kind of far away, I use E on Jayce, and this next tip is Illaoi specific, but when
I pull the ghost watch how I move. If I just run away towards my tower, they can run me
down, but by running up like this, Im forcing Jayce to run through the tentacle slap if
he wants to chase me. As Jayce starts to run away, my next threat
is nidalee spear so thats what Im paying attention to..and waiting for my W to come up so I can
finish off that ghost. Once its dead, I know Jayce is completely
out of the fight but Nidalee can still kill me, so I walk into the brush to drop vision
of me and use Q, then walk to the next brush ready for her next spear.
Now I know Im completely safe for now since she cant see me, and Im just waiting for cooldowns.
Once my E is up, I go for Nidalee since shes not standing behind any minions, and as soon
as it lands I know I win this 100% as long as I dont eat a spear. So I click to the side
to pre-emptively dodge..and since she doesnt throw it yet I start damaging the spirit.
Im moving constantly inbetween autos and abilities waiting for her next spear untill she finally
throws it, then I dodge and finish the spirit. Now Im clearly on the offensive, especially
with my minion army with me.. so I W to the minion for a small gap closer and to finish
the wave off so my minions can start moving forward. Then I hit Jayce with Q to get him
a bit lower. I want to dive jayce right away, but my corruption
potion damage on him is ticking, so I have to wait a second for it to fall off before
I go in. And while doing that, this Nidalee dies to a tentacle slap.
After that, its as simple as pressing W and clicking Jayce. I dont have to do anything
else and Illaoi will finish him for me.. Now I would just clear the wave and recall,
but because its low elo I wanted to try and bait jayce when he Tped in since I had a wave,
2 level lead, and 2 tentacles set up. Sadly he didnt take the bait, so I back off and
recall. I go to a pretty safe spot to recall because if he stopped it I would be in a bad
spot considering I dont have TP. When I get back to lane, the wave is pushing
to me, but this time thats a very bad thing for Jayce since I have double buffs and a
huge gold lead. So I just go in right away using my double buffs to get a super nice
trade. Now I drop my control ward in the river since
I know I can defend it easily.. Then grab a few CS before moving up to look
for an E onto the jayce for more pressure. As I walk at him I can easily read his dodge
pattern, he keeps dodging up, so I throw it like this and it lands..
Once it lands hes completely screwed, he has no potions, no health, and the wave is pushing
to me. So I just back off and hold the freeze for a bit.. He recalled so hes just losing
so much gold and experience the lane is completely over..
But to put the nail in the coffin, when he gets back, I thin the wave out using my tentacle
set-up, then clear one minion infront of me so I can throw E..land it.. and was hoping
Jayce would jump in with his melee form here since I had low health and a huge wave killing
me, but since he didnt I just ult.. I focus the ghost first to slow him and get
tentacles spawning, then jump in with W and Q to finish him off.
Now he is level 5 to my level 7, the wave is pushing to me so I can freeze it still
and recall, and I have a 3 kill lead, all because he didnt push at level 1. If he did,
none of this would have been possible and I would have 0 kill pressure on him untill
at level 5. Alright guys, so as you can see, even in bad
matchups, they are winnable if you can abuse the mistakes low elo players are constantly
making. But thats going to bring us to the end of this one, we hope you
enjoyed, and thanks for watching!