Hey everyone.
We all know how frusturating it can be to be counterpicked in top lane.
Some of the matchups can feel completely unplayable.
But, the thing is, in low elo, matchups are not played even close to properly as the players
are missing so many fundamentals of the game.
basically, matchups dont matter at all in low elo.
To show you what I mean, were going to break down a few games of traditonal counter picks,
and show how they are played in low elo and high elo so you can see the differences.
In one of the games, its going to be of my own POV while smurfing in gold, where I smash
a counterpick extremely hard using game fundamentals.
So, with that being said, lets jump in to our first matchup.
For our first low elo game, were in plat 4 with a Renekton vs Riven.
This is a very traditonal matchup with Renekton being very hard to beat for Riven players.
The matchup only got harder for Riven when Riot buffed Renektons W to destroy sheilds
as well.
But lets see how this game goes..
So, right off the bat we have a huge issue.
But, im not going to tell you what it is just yet.
Lets test your game knowledge.
Somone is making a big mistake in these 10 or so seconds.
Who is it and what is the mistake?
5 second pause Riven is misplaying the level 1 very wrong
here.
Rivens level 1 is a lot stronger than renektons because Riven can cancel her autos with her
Q. Basically she has a huge extended trade advantage.
On top of this, Renekton is very weak without fury, so if she goes in at level 1 renekton
cant even use an empowered Q.
But by playing back and doing nothing, Renekton can freely auto attack and get fury.
This also means Renekton will be pushing and will hit level 2 first.
If Riven doesnt respect that, she can easily lose the matchup here.
but lets keep going.
Renekton hits Riven with Q, and collects his first 3 CS.
Then when Riven walks up for her own last hits, she tries to trade back with Renekton
a little, but its too late.
Renekton has way more minions so she should just grab her CS safetly and avoid trading.
Then Renekton gets enough fury for his empowered Q because of Rivens misplayed level 1, and
he hits Riven with it when she goes for this minion, healing a lot and poking her some
more.
At this point, Rivens first wave is cleared so Renekton is pretty much guaranteed to get
level 2 first.
Riven should just stand back and let the wave crash and play for the rebound wave.
It will slow push back to Renekton and Riven will hit level 4 first.
But, something fascinating is about to happen, that we see in low elo all the time.
First, lets watch what happens, then break it down.
So, who griefed here?
Somone made a big misplay.
5 second pause The truth is, they both griefed this.
Renekton is 1 minion from level 2, so Riven should never go to trade here.
Renekton trolled by not punishing it.
He should have just killed that 1 minion and killed Riven for jumping in when he was that
close to level 2.
Another thing I want you to see here though, is how much more damage Riven does at level
1 with her Q auto Q auto Q auto combo.
She was trading into the enemy minion wave and still won it very hard.
But like I said before, its way too late to be looking for that.
Anyways, after that Renekton hits level 2, dashes in and hits Riven with Q, and clears
the minion wave.
Then as the wave is cleared, Riven actually walks up like this, and Renekton backs off.
Another extremely troll play that happens in low elo very often because it goes unpunished.
Riven cant trade at all with Renekton, shes a level down and he has 7 minions here to
back him up.
Renekton should be taking this trade everytime but just walks away and doesnt punish.
Riven was trying to tank the minion wave and maybe freeze?
Im not sure but its extremely troll as she takes a bunch of damage.
But Renekton notices and goes to cut her off, getting even more health from her for free.
What happens next is going to be a direct result of how Riven played the early levels.
Renekton is going to go into his own jungle and kill the enemy yi invading.
Now, in league you have to understand how to break down your gameplay so you know how
to improve.
You dont want to have "Results based review" which is basically only thinking something
is wrong based off the result.
You want to be looking at actual issues, and then see the result of it.
So here, Riven should be trading at level 1, and have control of the wave.
Then, she would be the one pushing and crashing the third wave on the tower.
Riven would then be the one going into the enemy jungle and assisting her jungler, while
Renekton has to catch the big wave on the tower.
This should happen regardless of what the yi does.
But because Riven didnt play the matchup properly, she paid in lane with a lot of health and
paid in terms of lane prio as she couldnt leave her lane here.
Anyways, as Renekton gets back to lane, we can see how Riven is level 3 now.
This is what I was talking about earlier.
After messing up her lane she should slowpush and play for the rebound wave where she gets
the level advantage.
She actually hits level 4 here after killing that minion.
And if we pause... think about this.
In what world should Riven be clicking backwards at all here.
Shes level 4 to a level 2 Renekton and she has a huge wave with her.
She should be punishing Renekton for taking this greedy route back to lane.
The double buffs dont matter at all.
And now were going to see the result of that huge mistake she just made.
She should have forced Renekton to let the wave crash with her 2 level lead, then she
could reset.
But she let Renekotn hold it so the wave doesnt crash..
He holds the freeze for a little until Riven tries to come back and break it..but now he
has healed up from red buff and is level 3 with a full fury bar.
So now Renekton is going to all-in using his fury and red buff, and he gets another kill
from cutting her off and nocturne showing up to assist.
Alright so you can see how nothing that happened here, had ANYTHING to do with the matchup.
Both players made extremely fundamental errors, but Riven made more of them.
She actually didnt make a single correct play.
But before we move on to the high elo vod of this matchup..
Im going to cover all the bases.
I do not want to see comments saying the following stupid things: "I know this is plat but that
riven is trash and shes not playing like a plat player.
" Yes she is, and the blatant truth is youre making equally trash mistakes every single
game.
Next one: "This is just jung diff" If you think that and didnt actually learn from what
I just taught, then good luck!
And last: "This must be NA Plat because EUW plat is much better" its not NA or EUW plat
but thats irrelevant because EUW and NA plat are the same.
Its high elo thats different between them.
Now lets get started here with the high elo replay of this matchup, in EUW masters.
I want you to notice right off the bat how different level 1 is.
You can see that both players know how this will go if they scrap at level 1.
Renekton is showing a lot of respect, not walking up at all, and Riven is postured very
aggressively, knowing if Renekton walks up too far she can jump in and win the trade.
What is this going to do?
Exactly what we talked about earlier.
Give control of the lane to Riven for the first 3 waves at least, becuase she will have
the push advantage.
Renekton cant walk up to the wave without being punished so he has to let this happen.
Now THAT is matchup knowledge.
Those are the kind of things that determine who wins matchups.
But like I said this is a Renekton favored matchup and we will see why very shortly.
With Rivens Q being down, Renekton will quickly walk up and grab a few CS, then back off again
while Riven zones him away.
When Riven uses Q again, Renekton takes the time to walk up and use his Q and try to build
up some fury before Riven Q comes up again.
As soon as Riven hits level 2, she jumps in and pops Renekton boneplating, and he turns
to trade back with the fury he got earlier knowing Riven used all of her Qs to gap close.
Now Renekton will let the wave crash, which is what the Riven should have done, but if
you remember, she was just tanking the wave for no reason.
Riven is going to brute force her way to level 3 though by using her Q on CS, which I believe
is a huge misplay, but it started before this and is kind of pointless for this video to
go over it.
But basically she needed to crash the third wave, and not the second.
That would give her level 3 and not a bad wave state like it is now.
Anyways we can 2x speed untill here since they dont trade at all.
But a river fight is happening.
Renekton flashes in and they kill volibear.
Renekton doesnt get the kill though so its fine for Riven at this point.
They both head back to lane, and Riven gets a cute little trade in here where Renekton
couldnt trade back because of cooldowns.
But now were about to see why this matchup is Renekton favored.
Riven decides to get aggressive here and dashes in.
But Renekton uses his 50 fury W to drop the sheild entirely, chunk her hard, and disengage.
But, the wave is slowpushing to Riven at tihs point, so she could back off and recall.
She decided not too though which lets Renekton auto some minions for level 4 and build up
fury again.
Riven tries to engage knowing her abilities have lower cooldowns, so Renekton E would
be down.
But becuase hes level 4 he would have killed her here even without leesin.
Renekton outbursts Riven in almost any trade so she has to play for extended fights using
her Q resets and Renektons long cooldowns.
So, you can see how different this was compared to the low elo Renekton vs Riven.
This was much more matchup oriented, and the biggest fundamental error was Riven crashing
the second wave instead of the third.
Alright for this next game, were using one of my own Vods where Im playing Irelia vs
Jax, another matchup where its pretty well known that Jax can be difficult to beat for
Irelia.
But Im going to use simple fundamentals to beat the jax easily.
Before laning starts though, I have to leash.
I make sure not to leash too long, because my level 1 is strong and I dont want to give
control of the lane to Jax.
Now, just like the Riven vs Renekton matchup, even though Irelia loses generally, she wins
level 1 if her passive is stacked.
If not, jax wins with counterstrike.
So, I want to stack up my passive but dont want to spam too much since I have a dorans
blade and not corrupting pot.
I dont use Q for these early ones and just auto them whle I wait for the next wave to
get here.
But then as Jax walks up to hit my ranged minions, I use my Q to grab this backline
CS, walk away from him, and prepare to use my Q on that other ranged one, but notice
Jax is standing near it, so I just walk away.
Then when he approaches me, I use Q to that next minion to get another passive stack and
keep kiting him.
He makes a big mistake here and used his E too early.
Now, I say this in most videos.
But in low elo, in 99% of games I win lane in the first 3 levels.
This is why.
You guys make crucial errors every time and a high elo player will punish it.
So Jax just made his first big mistake, now I will punish accordingly.
With Jax E down, I know Im free to hit minions and keep stacking passive, and quickly hit
level 2.
Then, because Im a scrub I miss my E, but its also because I cant even remember the
last time I played this champ...
Either way I miss E so I cant punish, but I keep stacking passive.
He hits level 2 now and gets aggressive, but I basically ignore him and use autos and Q
to stack up my passive fully.
Jax uses E to try and stun, so I just Q away to a minion, which doesnt reset my Q but it
dodges Jax`s important ability, so now if we trade autos I win very hard.
We do exactly that after he jumps on me, and with those autos it keeps my passive up long
enough for my stun to come off cooldown.
I quickly land stun and auto him, then as soon as Q comes up, jump to him and finish
him with autos, saving my last Q incase he flashes.
So, the mistakes he made were fundamental errors just like with the Riven in plat from
earlier.
He used E too early which let me hit level 2 first.
He didnt respect my level 2 spike which should have got him killed earlier than this.
But then when I had the push advantage he walked up to grab a last hit not knowing my
E cooldown.
He was trading auto attacks with me when my passive was up, you get the point.
And if you think that one kill wasnt enough to say the lane is over..
I end up killing him multiple more times, many of them under tower because of how hard
I snowball.
But as you can see guys, matchups in low elo are irrelevent.
Its always fundamental errors that will be the reason why you lose a lane.
So dont focus too ahrd on matchups and just get the fundamentals down, then you will see
how many lanes you can win.
Alright guys thats going to brig us
to the end of this one.
we hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for watching!