Hey everyone.
It can be scary trying to play a new role with how much their is to learn in this game.
Items, Champions, wave control..all of them are so different for each role.
So we thought we would make a guide for those trying to start playing top lane.
That means were going to be going over the very basics here, starting with the best champions
to play when starting out, and then moving onto some other things like how to control
the wave.
Were going to cover a lot but it will be easier than you think.
But before we get started, heres our question of the day: Who do you think is the most hidden
OP top laner right now?
As in, most wouldnt know they are strong since they dont get played much.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
So to start off, lets talk about the different types of top laners.
The main classes up here are Bruisers and tanks, but sometimes you get some ranged top
laners as well like Ryze or Lucian or Kennen.
The reason why top lane is the lane for bruisers and tanks is..its a really long lane compared
to mid.
Bruisers and tanks need levels to succeed, so they cant go bot lane, and mid is reserved
for mages since its too dangerous fora mage to go top with how long it is.
Bruisers and tanks on the other hand can 1v2 with a big minion wave and can survive ganks.
The ranged top laners arnt played very often right now but if they are, its because they
can bully the bruisers and tanks very easily in lane.
But they have to play around the jungler very well to make it work.
So, bruisers are champions like Irelia, Renekton, Riven, etc.
If we had to give you a good starting bruiser to play, it would definetly be Garen.
Garen is very easy to play and can hard carry games with stridebreaker.
Some examples of tanks would be Ornn, Maokai, or Sion.
And for those interested in playing tanks, a good starting tank is malphite.
He has strong laning, can carry teamfights with his ult, and is overall just a pain to
deal with, especially in low elo.
And lastly for ranged top laners, we would recommend quinn.
Quinn can deal with most bruisers and tanks, can roam with her ult, and scales as hard
as most ADCs so she can really carry.
Now, top lane is known as the counter-pick lane fora reason though, as some matchups
can feel really miserable to play.
For example, Quinn is a really hard counter to renekton because if renekton jumps on her,
she just uses E to create distance and then he cant do anything.
So, you will want to choose 1 to 3 champions to play and learn their matchups.
Then you can hopfully be able to counterpick some lanes and get a free laning phase, or
if you have to blind pick, you can ban your main counter.
With that being said, you can win any lane no matter how bad the matchup below diamond,
as low elo players wont play the matchup right anyways, but it will still make it easier
to have good matchups of course.
Alright, so after you pick some champions to play, you will want to head on over to
u.gg to find their main counters and builds.
We would love to tell you the builds but we cant go over everything in this video.
But u.gg is a great site and you will find everything you need to know there.
As a quick reminder, if you want to improve fast and get the rank you've always wanted
then check out our hyper improvement system at skill-capped.com.
We have professional courses by top players, smurf commentaries where a challenger player
walks you through how to climb out of every rank from iron to diamond, and we upload tons
of new, exclusive guides to our website each week.
In fact, we're so confident you'll improve using our system that if you don't climb at
least 5 divisions while actively using skill-capped you can claim a full refund, so there's no
risk.
What are you waiting for?
check out skill-capped.com, and get the rank you've always wanted, link in the description
below.
Alright, so now that you know what champions you want to play, lets get into laning.
Laning is the most important part of the game, so mastering it can take you very far.
Laning comes down to two main things.
Trading, and wave control.
They go hand in hand, and understanding both are required to win lane.
So lets talk about wave control first.
We cant go over everything, but we can go over the basics to get you started.
For top lane, there is 1 main wave control concept you need to understand right away,
and thats the slow push.
Slowpushing is basically doing exactly what you think.
Pushing slowly.
But the first step is actually getting the push advantage.
Then once you get it, you start last hitting.
By doing this, your minions will start stacking up, giving you a big wave.
Not only do you get a huge wave to help you win trades or survive ganks.
But you will have the experience advantage as well since the enemy will essentially be
2 or 3 waves behind you in terms of experience untill they clear the wave.
So lets look at an example now.
In this game Mcbaze is playing Gwen vs riven.
As laning starts, Riven just stays in the brush while Mcbaze autos the wave a little
bit.
Since she hasnt done any extra damage to the wave, he has the push advantage.
The minions might seem like they are equal, but minion waves are very volatile.
All it takes is one auto difference for a wave to push one way or the other.
So now that he has the push advantage, hes going to keep it, but push slowly.
This means he has to pay attention to any damage Riven does to the wave as well.
If she autos the wave twice, Mcbaze will do the same.
This leads us into the next half of top lane, which is trading.
Playing around the wave is super important.
So for this next trade, Mcbaze has 3 minions to Rivens 2, so he knows he will win the trade
and is ready to contest Riven for this CS.
Thats one of the most fundamental things about any lane.
You should be trading around CS.
Thats what laning phase is at the end of the day, battling for CS.
Its garaunteed gold.
You can win a lane with jsut a CS advantage, you dont necessarily need kills.
So after Mcbaze trades and backs off, we can see he still has a 1 minion advantage.
But its important to note he cant really make use of it just yet.
The waves have to stack up, which will happen soon, and then he will get the level advantage
and big wave that were looking for.
Thats why hes playing a bit safe for now while his Q is down, and Riven has her Q up.
After Riven uses her Q though, the next waves arrive, and we have another very important
part of top lane coming up..which is level 2.
To get level 2, you need 7 minions, so it will be all of the first wave and 1 minion
on the second wave.
Being the first one to level 2 is a big deal, and in low elo, the enemy top wont respect
it.
If you are level 2 its impossible to lose the trade to the enemy top, and you can easily
get kills if you go in at level 2 and catch the enemy top not paying attention.
So, watch how Mcbaze starts playing here as hes 1 minion from level 2, hes positioned
much more aggressive, because he wants to be as close to Riven as possible for when
he levels up.
As he hits level 2, he tries to go in and punish, but Riven respected it and backed
off early.
Then, Riven is going to hit level 2 and use her Q to jump in like this.. which brings
us to our next important concept when it comes to trading.
And thats playing around cooldowns.
Because Riven just used her main cooldown, her Q, Mcbaze knows he can jump in and trade
and have the ability advantage since he has both abilities up.
This makes Riven get scared and use ignite, and since Mcbaze has TP over ignite, and doesnt
have any abilities up, he backs off.
While doing that, Riven flashes in trying to make use of the ignite, but because Mcbaze
won the previous trade so hard, and kited long enough for his abilities to come back
up, he turns and finishes the Riven for first blood.
So, this was only possible because Mcbaze had the push advantage and was slow pushing.
If he wasnt, Riven would hit level 2 first and would have the minion advantage, and mcbaze
would be forced to play safe for the first few levels.
In your own games, if you dont get the push advantage, you need to resspect the enemy
level 2, and let the wave push in.
its ok to give up CS while you do this.
The wave will eventually crash on your tower, then it will start pushing back towards the
enemy laner.
This is when you will start your slowpush and look to play aggressive.
Thats basically how wave control works in top lane.
It slow pushes back and forth, and whoever is pushing and has the big wave, has the advantage
in trades.
But anyways, another thing very very important to any lane really, is recalling.
You have to remember you can have 5000 gold but if its not spent its useless, so you should
be recalling pretty much anytime you get a good chance to and wont lose anything for
it.
A really obvious time is after you kill the enemy laner.
But you want to be able to shove the wave and crash it on the enemy tower first.
This makes it so you dont lose anything while recalling.
A good way to get a good recall timing is using that really important wave control concept
we talked about earlier, slow-pushing.
Most call this a cheater recall.
But its a simple strategy where you slowpush three waves in like we talked about, crash
it on the tower, then immediately recall.
You wont miss anything coming back to lane, and you will have around 400 gold for something
like a long sword or a cloth armor.
This item advantage can be huge so when you walk back to lane, the enemy top will be in
a tricky spot as they will be trying to crash the wave on your tower so they can also recall.
A lot of the time this can lead to a first blood or the enemy top having to use TP so
you get TP advantage.
Speaking of TP.
Lets talk about that now.
A lot of players dont understand exactly when they should TP.
There are 2 kinds of TPS basically, TPing to lane or Tping to make a play on the map.
Its much simpler than you think it is when trying to decide when to use each.
If you are going to lose a lot of minions, you hae to use your TP to get back to lane.
This could be because there is a wave on your tower, or your wave is frozen infront of the
enemy tower and you will miss a wave because of it.
Experience is very important in top lane so you dont want to just "save it for the team".
That brings us to the other kind of TP, tping to make a play on the map.
There is one main rule to follow.
You only TP to make a play if you are going to get kills.
You dont TP to save teammates or anything like that.
If you TP and get nothing, and lose minion waves in top lane, youre basically screwed
when you get back and might just get solo killed a bunch with how much more experience
and gold the enemy top laner will have.
So the best case scenario is..
You slowpush 3 waves into the enemy top tower..
Then see a play where you will definetly pick up a kill or two.
Then you can recall and get back to top as the enemy top is finishing crashing the wave
on your tower.
And remember, if you want to improve fast and get the rank you've always wanted then
check out skill-capped.com, Link in the description below.
Alright guys, thats going to bring us to the end of this video.
This should be enough to get you started in top lane for any champion you want to play.
Most of low elo doesnt even know these concepts so if you get these down you will climb quickly
when starting out.
But we hope this helps, we hope you enjoyed the video, and we will see you in the next
one!