Hey everyone!
Our guides are the BEST OF THE BEST and you don't really need much else to get better.
But, breaking down your own gameplay and learning from it is super important as well.
One of the biggest pain points viewers default to when watching any League guide is that
the situation doesn't apply to them and they have a different issue than the one we're
resolving.
Such as inting teammates, lower elo players, etc.
- This is why team games are less painful than solo games, like starcraft, lose a game
there and there's nobody to blame but yourself.
Look at a replay and you know exactly what to look for and find it much easier to identify
your mistakes.
- In league of legends, it's natural to emphasise on your teammates mistakes instead of your
own, which over-time, makes it hard to tell what you've actually done wrong when you're
finally ready to admit your own mistakes.
We have a psychology course that focuses on a lot of this stuff and in this special guide,
we're going to break down a step by step process of how I as a challenger approach my own gameplay
to identify mistakes with the correct remedy at hand.
The game were going to use is from my Diamond 1 Smurf where im playing Graves mid.
Alright, before getting into the gameplay, let's quickly go over the matchup.
Im playing Graves mid vs Malzahar.
Graves is a ranged AD Bruiser vs Malz a ranged AP control mage.
Graves has more waveclear, and more burst damage, while Malz can win through small poke
trades.
And before we even go any further, don't worry, this video will hardly have anything to do
with Graves, and the concept can be applied to ANY champion.
Now, you might be thinking..what?
Graves mid?
This gets me into one of my first important messages for all of you.
It is very very rare that the champion you pick loses you the game.
What I mean by this is, your gameplay and decision making will always be the case.
I personally play a lot of off meta stuff like Illaoi mid or Vi mid in Challenger, so
if it works there it works anywhere.
Basically, when you're breaking down your game trying to figure out why you lost, your
first thought should never be " we lost because I picked a certain champion".
If you're not good at that champion then its a different story.
But anyways, my missions for this lane are:
Mission 1: Push the wave
Graves has more waveclear, so I want to be pushing for pressure.
Mission 2: Look for burst trades.
After pushing I want to use my burst trade advantage with electrocute to chunk Malz as
much as I can.
Mission 3: Maintain Pressure without Dying.
While pushing, it makes malz have to use his abilities to farm, and gives me constant mid
priority, which is very important in league.
Alright, let's get into the gameplay.
At the start of the game, we have one of those awfully annoying situations that we all experience.
Where the enemy invades your junglers buff and you're not sure what to do.
If you help them, you can die and lose your lane, and if you don't, they might quit the
game or rage or just get really behind.
I head over since we definitely are stronger at level 1, as Lucian, Graves, Senna, and
Teemo, vs Gragas, Malz, Bard and Kaisa.
First, lets see what happens, then we will rewind and break it down.
Alright, so, the first important thing to breaking down your gameplay, IGNORE WHAT YOUR
TEAM DOES.
Do not say well my teammates should have done this ect.
Because even if that's true, winning in solo Q is learning how to play around your teammates
mistakes and to play for yourself.
So with that in mind, before watching this..lets create a list of priorities, that can apply
to almost any situation like this in your own games as well.
First priority, is to stay alive.
This is because minions have met in mid now, and losing early experience can lose the game.
Levels are super important to league, so its not worth for me to go 1v3 like this just
to get 1 kill.
Second Priority is to just make sure Teemo gets the red buff.
For him to get the red buff, we don't even need to kill them, we can just push them off
the red by running at them.
Again, my mistake for going in 1v3.
Then the last on the priority list is kills.
Kills really aren't important here.
The kills come if the enemy overstays, so it's better to just stay alive and protect
the red, and if they greed for it, we kill them.
Alright, so what should I have done?
I want you to think about it first, because I have a good idea on what most of you will
think about first.
10 second pause, play the fight again.
I would have to guess, Most of you are probably thinking to flash the body slam.
This is a natural thing to gravitate towards, because it's the most visually obvious thing
when analyzing gameplay.
With more thought and the knowledge that correct decision making is the key to climbing, micro
plays are much less important than the decision I made to rush into this fight.
Sometimes Micro plays can be the only difference, but it's just so rare.
So, the right play here, is to just realize I can play slower, and more patient.
I don't need to kill anyone, so I can just walk at them since they are running away anyways,
and let my team handle the Kaisa.
Thats why they werent here to help me.
If I play slow, there's no way they can kill me, and then they all get screwed for their
early game.
Gragas is going to start a buff really late with no leash and no health..Malz will miss
CS in mid and have to use his potions already ect.
I know what you might be thinking though, what if they are invading and you lose level
1, and your teammates stick around and try to protect the red buff.
What do you do?
It's easy, think of the priority list.
First priority, stay alive.
If you lose the level 1 fight, go to mid lane, you can't do anything about the red buff.
Alright, let's move on now as I come out of base and head to mid, missing the first few
CS and don't have a potion or any summoners.
As I get to lane, the wave is pushing to me, so I start auto attacking minions to get level
2 and start pushing the other way for mission 1.
While doing this, Teemo comes from top to gank and we just barely miss the kill on Malz.
He has TP though, so he actually doesn't miss much from this.
but since the wave is pushing to me, I'm not going to shove, and am going to let the enemy
wave kill my wave, do deny Malz CS until he Tps.
But since my Teemo is invading the enemy gragas red buff, and I denied some CS already, I
start pushing so I can have priority to help him on the invade.
The most important thing here is to crash the wave on the tower.
This keeps Malz there to farm it, and I don't miss any CS.
I'm free to move where I want.
Since Teemo was invading Gragas red and gragas never showed up, I go to put a ward bot side.
As I do that, gragas shows up invading teemo at blue, so I start heading over.
Just like before, lets see what happens, then break it down.
So, again I try to help my team and I die.
If we rewind though to after I warded bot and teemo was getting invaded..
First, look at top lane.
The wave is pushed into our morde who is 0-2 to the enemy riven.
So Top has full priority right now.
Also, if we look at Teemo, hes level 2 with no mana and less health than gragas, whos
level 3.
So obviously we won't win this fight.
I knew this before going in, and my plan was so act like I was heading over, then kill
the malz in the river since he had no flash.
But because I didn't have ignite, I wasn't even close to killing him fast enough before
Riven and Gragas showed up.
So, what was the right play here?
Think about it yourself first.
So, if we look here right before I left the lane..
The wave was reset.
With us both leaving like this, and our top not having priority, its going to be a 2v3,
where we definitely lose.
But, since I have a waveclear and trading advantage I should have hard pushed mid to
force Malz to stay here and collect the wave, then look to move and potentially fight.
If Malz just ignored the wave and goes to help his jungler, hestrolling and I will get
extremely far ahead anyways.
My job isn't to protect my jungler, its to get myself ahead and carry the game.
Alright, moving on to when I get back to lane after that..
I start pushing the waves again following my gameplan, crashing it on the tower and
getting tower damage.
I know Gragas shouldn't be here right now because he should have to clear his camps
or reset after what just happened.
I just saw Riven recall in top lane, and my bot is on the enemy bot tower so I wouldn't
think Bard could roam right now.
Let's see what happens.
What do you think were the mistakes here?
Just like before, were going to give you some time to think about it.
A lot of players think, well you don't have flash you shouldnt be pushing.
This actually isn't true at all, and is a huge misconception that a lot of players have.
Pushing gives pressure, and pressure wins games.
Against something like Malz before level 6, the kill pressure is very low unless I troll
somewhere.
So, this is actually one of those plays that came down to a small micro mechanic.
I was really greedy with my E, not using it to dodge Bards Q on the minion.
To be fair though, it really didn't seem like that would hit.
But regardless its best to play it safe and just use E, because then I don't get stunned
and easily live.
But, when I say pressure wins games...we can see a small example of why right here.
Because Im pressuring mid so hard, Bard roamed here when he shouldn't have, so my bot lane
is just getting a ton of plates and denying the enemy ADC a lot of farm.
I shouldn't die here, so if I didn't misplay and live, they get nothing and my bot lane
gets a lot.
If we reverse it and I let malz push to me, then he can be the one roaming and might make
a paly somewhere.
Pushing and pressuring without dying is what makes really good mid laners.
Alright guys, hopefully after watching this, you have a much better idea on how to break
down your own gameplay and the mindset behind improving.
But, that's going to be it for this video, we hope you enjoyed, and thanks for watching!