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League of legends season 8 highlights
Hey everyone and welcome. Today we're going to be taking a look at a mid lane matchup
from levels 1-6. We'll all be taking a masterclass through analyzing a game from none-other than
TSM's Bjergsen, playing Ryze against Twisted Fate.
Don't play champions like Ryze or TF? No problem. You're going to learn an amazing wave control
technique that'll keep you safe and score you kills.
And as always, you'll gain a little more knowledge about a number of things which you can apply
to most champions.
As always, let's kick off by practicing matchup analysis to forge a game plan.
Both of these champions are mid range control mages.
So they have similar range, Ryze wins on damage in extended trades because of how many abilities
he can get off in a short amount of time. But TF can go in for short trades with yellow
card that he can win. Both have around even waveclear in the early
game. Both of these champions have high global map
pressure at level 6 with their ultimates And they both have high gank pressure in lane
with their point + click crowd control. The enemy jungler in this game, is Kayn and
Bjergsen's jungler is Rek'Sai. With this information in mind: Here are the
key missions Ryze should be looking to follow. Both champions have point and click CC, so
gank threat is high on both sides.
Bjergsen will want to control the wave on his side of the lane. To both stay safe from
ganks and setup easy ganks for his jungler. He'll look for extended trades where possible
with his damage advantage Later on in the lane, he'll want to push and
harass to deny TF the chance to use his ult. Let's go ahead and get into the game.
So as the lane begins, TF is missing. This gives you immediate knowledge as the mid laner
that the enemy jungler is starting raptors, since TF is likely leashing.
With that information, we can draw a couple of assumptions about the enemy jungler.
If the enemy jungler was a level 2 ganker like Ezreal, Jarvan or Twitch, a level 2 gank
can come from bot side. Otherwise, if you are to get ganked, from this point until 03:20,
we can safely assume it'd come from top side.
As a side note, this 03:20 timer is to account for the jungle camp spawn changes from the
pre-season patch. In previous videos you may have heard us say 03:30.
Either way, this jungler is Kayn, so we don't really need to worry about him super early
on. Anyway, with thoughts about their jungler
aside, let's refocus on Bjergsen's mission 1: Keep the wave on his side of the lane.
If you were the Ryze here, how would you manage the wave achieve this?
Honestly, that's a pretty hard one to answer.
The reason we asked you about it at this point is because it's right now you actually want
to begin the process of getting the wave near his turret.
Bjergsen doesn't want the wave near his tower right now, since junglers need to, well, jungle,
before they can gank.
Bjergsen wants to set-up this up for a standard gank timing of around 3-3:30 minutes.
With that in mind, Bjergsen is going to go ahead and push this wave. The idea here is
that by pushing the first wave, he can obtain lane priority at level 1 and then let the
second wave slow push back to him, into a freezing zone for level 3. Let's take a look.
So wait, how is pushing a strategy at level 1 for Bjergsen, if his waveclear is the same
as TF? What if TF was in-lane? While their waveclear is fairly even, Ryze
has the damage advantage. He can pressure and zone TF at level 1 and get the push anyway.
We'll talk more about that in other lane dailies.
For now, Bjergsen got this push for free. Once TF is back to lane, he has two clear
options that you'll often be faced with when you shove the wave. Harass your opponent under
turret or go get vision.
If you were the Ryze right now, what would you do?
So the correct call here is to go ahead and get vision. Bjergsen is only crashing a very
small wave and Ryze's harass at level 1 just isn't that great under turret due to low range.
It's in windows like this where it's the perfect time to get vision so there's no surprises.
He ends up going for a deep ward at 2:10. We couldn't identify why warding here was
the best choice, since Bjergsen knew Kayn started on raptors, but either way getting
vision was the right choice. But we think placing it top side makes more sense. Let
us know in the comments if you have your own thoughts about this!
Anyway, going back to lane we can see the blue wave is bouncing back towards Bjergsen.
We know this because when you crash your wave into the turret, the incoming enemy waves
will be reinforced more quickly as they arrive to lane and will push.
Also, you'll often find your lane opponent helps out with this by damaging the wave passively.
So what Bjergsen is going to do now is mostly go for last hits let the wave push back to
him. He ends up taking a nice trade with Twisted
Fate just as he comes back to lane. As Ryze, if you kill something with your E it'll spread
his E to nearby targets, so Bjergsen scored the last-hit with E, which he knew would give
him level 2, spread it onto TF and instantly learnt and used his Q. Good stuff.
We'll speed through this section, since it's literally just Bjergsen scoring last hits
until the wave pushes back to him. Alright, so it's at this moment that we can
see clearly what Bjergsen's intentions are when the wave pushes towards him.
There are two ways which he could manage the wave when it nears his tower. He could either
try to freeze it outside or let the wave crash, which will then slow push back to TF.
If you were Bjergsen which strategy would you go for, would you:
A) Freeze the wave outside your turret, or B) Let the wave crash into your turret?
So the best option for Ryze here, is to actually let the wave push all the way to the turret.
This is because to maintain a freeze so early on, it'd cost a ton of mana and be too difficult
to maintain since the waveclear is about even as well.
Bjergsen also considers Ryze's need for an early back to get tear, so spending a bunch
of mana to hold a freeze would make timing a back that doesn't lose a bunch of CS super
awkward.
We asked you this question at this point, because if Bjergsen was to freeze, he'd E
this last hit and start thinning the wave. But he sticks to auto attacks and preserves
mana. As the wave crashes, it's time to focus on
last-hits. When doing this strategy, It's really important you don't miss too many here
and while we are trying to save mana, it's fine to use your abilities on scoring your
last hits as needed. So Bjergsen does just that, scoring his last
hits and as we can see, Rek'Sai is pathing towards mid.
This has been beautifully executed by Bjergsen so far, he's managed to force TF into playing
super pushed up to score CS during the prime time for a jungle gank.
Let's see how this plays out. And there we have it, at 3:30 TF is now dead,
Bjergsen got the first blood assist and he has a bunch of mana left to push the wave.
So, we can see now that his early lane wave management was flawless, he went in with a
plan and executed it and it's paid off. But what if his jungler didn't come?
So Bjergsen would've still went in with the same strategy, because he got to pressure
the lane at level 1 with a push and get the lane to his side by level 3, leaving himself
safe from ganks and able to farm safely.
He didn't freeze to preserve mana, so when he'd have gotten enough gold for a key item,
which for Ryze would usually be tear, he can just push the lane out with his slow push
and remaining mana, back and buy without losing basically any minions.
So by breaking down mission 1, you've now learnt the 3 wave strategy that you can apply
to a number of matchups.
It's great in basically any matchup unless you get heavily out ranged or out wave cleared,
since if you were say against a Vel'Koz or a Xerath, then they'd shove you in harder
than you'd like and harass you under the turret.
But overall this is super solid for the first 3 waves of the lane. Be sure to ping your
jungler for assistance to get the most out of it, otherwise you're still securing a great
back timing. Bjergsen goes ahead and uses his mana bar
to shove the wave before backing, recalls and buys.
Coming back to lane, Bjergsen will now want to be more proactive in pushing and making
sure he doesn't get shoved by TF.
This is because the later on in the game you go, the higher chance there is of your mid
laner roaming and pressuring your team. Even though TF isn't 6 yet, in general, you don't
want to give your opponent free time to do things on the map when you have the ability
to contest it.
So basically, since Bjergsen isn't behind, he can continue to control the lane and start
pressuring. Once shoving he goes for a super deep ward
to get eyes on Kayn if possible, again utilizing his shove to get vision over harass. This
is mostly because Ryze's harass under turret isn't super effective, if you played a champion
like Ziggs or Vel'Koz here, you could argue there was enough vision already laid down
to start harassing. As we look back at the lane, it's time for
Bjergsen to finish this lane off with his last two missions. Start chunking TF out in
trades where possible and constantly shove the wave.
He gets a nice trade onto TF and continues to last hit then shove, let's speed it up.
Now it's this moment right here that is both super impressive and important. When you're
against a high roam pressure champion like TF, 'Sol, Taliyah and Ryze, their biggest
spike is when they have their ultimate. Look how Bjergsen has shoved this wave towards
TF, who's about to get 6 off it, but Bjergsen shoved so is already level 6 and once again
is using his lane pressure to go ahead and ward.
This is completely countering TF's strengths in top korean challenger by using some pretty
simple methods. He is basically deleting Twisted Fate's usefulness from the rift.
He goes into the jungle, wards up for his bot lane so TF can't come down here to ult
without being seen and then returns to lane. Bot side jungle is now illuminated. TF's wave
is bouncing after Bjergsen shoved it, which means TF has to over-extend for last hits
Bjergsen zones TF and executes missions 2 and 3. He takes the extended trade and bullies
TF out of lane. Or wait, TF faked his base which Bjergsen
anticipated. Time for an all-in. Alright, so that was some pretty sweet play
from Bjergsen who truly knows his limits. Somehow, this is actually the first mistake
he made in lane though! He should've actually E W Q'd TF on the port
which would've killed him, as the root would've lasted over twice as long. But he thought
he had enough damage with WQEQ. Anyway, this was an amazing laning phase from him.
Let's get you today's takeaways! When you're in a lane where you're not up
against a hyper wave clear champ, you can use the three wave, wave management technique.
You'll push the first wave to turret, then let it slow push back to your own turret,
leaving your opponent exposed during the first key gank window - while you're safely farming.
Freezing is tempting when doing this, but it is expensive on mana to freeze so early
when you're around even on waveclear, so use your best judgement on whether you can freeze
or not.
There are many wave control techniques in League, but this is a strong one you can always
consider using! In the later levels when you are against a
strong roaming champion, you'll want to try and shove them and pressure them into staying
in lane.
When doing this, you'll often opt to go for vision both to keep you safe while shoving,
but also provide vision of your opponent as they roam. Deep wards are great.
And of course, landing harass onto your opponent is always good, but is another method of preventing
your opponent from going elsewhere and impacting the map.