Hey everyone.
Most mages in lane struggle against melee champions, whether it's Fizz, Talon, Irelia,
or whatever - it's often easy to get overwhelmed and losing the lane quickly to some unexpected
ignite all-in while they're trying to harass - or getting ganked while they push.
This time, I'll be showing you how to not only dominate a melee champ, but also ruin
the enemy jungler's game at the same time.
To demonstrate this, we'll analyze gameplay where I am playing Leblanc, up against C9
Jensen's Irelia.
Regardless of what mid laners you play, you'll learn concepts that'll help you vs all melee
matchups.
Let's jump into analysis.
Leblanc is an assassin or burst mage vs irelia, who is a bruiser.
They have around equal waveclear, but since leblanc is ranged, the wave control is in
her favor.
Irelia has more consistent damage but leblanc has more burst damage.
So irelia wants to look for trades when leblanc's W is down, hit her with a stun, and chunk
Leblanc hard enough to force her out of lane.
Leblanc on the other hand wants to be looking to harass irelia whenever she goes for CS,
which means she needs to be pushing the lane or the minions will do too much damage to
her.
So lets make a gameplan to play around this.
Mission 1: Push the wave with autos
This will be easy as Leblanc is ranged so if irelia tries to push for whatever reason,
leblanc can just get a ton of free auto attacks on her.
Mission 2: Build up a big wave
This ties in with mission 1, but by pushing with auto attacks, the wave will push slowly
and build up into a big wave.
Mission 3: Harass when irelia goes for CS
Now since there will be a lot of minions on the tower to last hit, we should have plenty
of time to harass.
While also having a big wave to defend us if irelia goes aggressive.
Alright, lets get into the gameplay
As the lane starts, the first thing I need to be thinking about as always is, how do
I start mission 1?
And for this game its simple since its a ranged vs melee matchup I dont have to do anything
crazy to get the push lead as irelia will just last hit with her Q or E to grab CS then
back off.
So with my ranged avantage, I don't need to use any mana to get the push.
I see countless players using mana immediately when they want to push the wave, but there's
no need at level 1, autos will be enough to slowly push and build up my wave.
Anyway, this first bit of harass im going to get onto irelia is very similar to other
melee matchups where both players let the first 3 melee minions get low, then kill them
all with 1 spell.
I know hes going to use his Q or E to get them so im going to use my W to get harass
+ all 3 of the minions at the same time.
You could do the same thing with any AOE spell, TF red card or syndra Q.. etc.
Now im just going to go back to last hitting, since the wave will naturally push towards
Jensen.
Let's take a moment to talk about what your thought process should be when going for a
push.
Most players are naturally worried about getting ganked early if they're pushing right away.
My answer to dealing with this is the same as always: Track the enemy jungler.
In this case, we can see the enemy Kindred ganking top, while my Taliyah is ganking bot
lane.
It's so early into the game that the a buff camp is up on both sides, so they'll likely
stick around splitting the map and invading.
So I should just hug bot side to stay safe.
If kindred didn't show, I'd ward the opposite skuttle to where my jungler is, for best chance
of getting eyes on Kindred and I'd still hug bot side in this case.
Anyway, I know he started with E, which will be his only way to get CS without taking harass,
so once he uses that, I start positioning more aggressive when hes looking to get a
last hit, so if he does go for it I can punish with harass.
I have a 3 minion lead here as the third wave is arriving, and its right infront of her
tower, meaning my big wave will crash on this one, everything is going to plan so far for
mission 2.
I see irelia going for another last hit here, so I poke her a little with Q.
I don't want to use W here because it makes it really easy for her to hit her E, then
she can chunk me.
Which I really dont want when im going to be harassing her on tower.
Note that I'm still playing on the right, near my Taliyah and away from their Kindred
on the left.
We can see Irelia use her E to score CS right here, which is usually going to be my trigger
to go in with my W for harass.
So why do you think I didn't go in for harass this time?
Alright, so what most players don't consider in the moment is where the minion waves are
positioned while trading.
These are new waves that haven't touched yet, so if I go in for a W here, the casters and
cannon will immediately fire onto me and I'd take too much damage.
Whereas if they had touched with the blue wave, most of them would be attacking the
blue wave as I went in, and I'd take less damage.
Anyway, I pull back and get my last hits.
Irelia uses her E to grab these 2 minions, which gives me another window to punish or
zone her off CS.
So since this wave is crashing, I throw a Q on her for 2 reasons, for poke, and so she
knows that if she goes in I will pop my mark on her as well.
Well she goes for the last hit and right before my W hits my Q falls off which makes the trade
not as good as it could have been.
She hits me with her stun but since I have the big wave behind me, if she goes in she
will end up losing this trade.
Im sure youre wondering, if she would lose the trade why not let her jump to you and
bait her?
The answer for that is I know kindred is top side, around our wolves and gromp, so she
could be looking for a mid gank, its pointless to get into a big fight with irelia if my
jungler isnt here to back me up.
I go back to last hitting, while also waiting for my W to come back off CD, since like I
said before, irelias only window to kill leblanc is when her W is down.
The wave is crashing, so this is when I will look for more harass.
She gets too greedy and too close to the wave after she misses her stun, so I hit her with
Q and E and an auto which brings her to 50% health.
It would have been more but she used W for the damage reduction.
This is a huge opening now to punish her because without her W she cant block half of my burst
damage, so she should give up the rest of these minions.
Luckily for me, Jensen gets greedy and goes for the minions even though his W was down,
so I hit him with an auto Q,W and ignite, and he flashes to try and kill me before he
dies but that was also a huge misplay as I wasnt really close to dying.
I want to clear the wave and recall, but kindred shows up ganking me from top side, like I
said she would, and my jungler is right here so I can just kite her over.
I kite her towards my jungler and we start chasing her, but since im really low and I
dont want this wave to freeze, I start focusing on clearing the wave while watching if my
jungler catches kindred or not.
Once she catches her, I move over and help her secure the kill.
This is a great example of how you can win both mid and jungle at the same time if you
are winning lane as the aggressor, but able to do so SAFELY and not dying to ganks in
the process.
While it's true that this is more easily done in range vs melee matchups when you have a
dash, like Leblanc and Lissandra: I'd still be pushing in a similar way even as Orianna,
but I'd be actively warding and playing further back when not harassing.
Even if we didn't score the kill onto the Kindred, I'm still drawing jungle attention
to my lane, leaving my team space to lane gank-free.
Anyway, I have no mana and I really need the wave to push, so I spam ping my jungler to
come help me push the wave, then I recall.
As I get back to lane, I saw irelia head towards bot side, so I drop my pink in the river brush,
then cautiously walk towards our red buff.
Irelia comes out of the brush and hits me with her stun.
I cant take this fight for 2 reasons.
1: My chain is down from last hitting with it under tower when I got back to lane.
And 2: if I use W on her, she can just Q on to me and auto attack me to death, remember
a burst mage like leblanc wins short trades and irelia wins extended trades, since I have
no tower or any back up I need to just let her walk away.
If she used her second Q on to me I would W away from her.
Now I walk back to lane and go back to last hitting.
The wave is pushing to me, but irelia is really low on mana.
If I start pushing the wave towards her, she will recall and make it back in time without
missing too much CS since leblanc has really low waveclear.
So I'm going to freeze instead.
I've gotten my lead from acting on the first 3 missions, now I want to snowball.
With a freeze I can assert my dominance onto the lane by putting her in a really tough
position because she can't push the wave in and reset it with no mana, and if her jungler
comes and my jungler is also there, we win 2v2 really hard.
But, if I got back to lane and the lane was reset, I would have no choice but to push
it into her tower, as shes not going to push at all and it will naturally push to her since
im ranged.
So im just going to last hit and let this wave push to me.
As im doing that irelia looks for a trade, and since shes not on top of her minions I
use Q and W on her, then continue following her since she has no mana and hit her with
a chain + Q.
Now she is in a really bad spot because she just lost a trade hard, and the wave is frozen
leaving her vulnerable to ganks and makes it hard for her to CS without getting punished.
It's easy to jump to the conclusion at this point that you can't do this because your
jungler won't help you out in this way.
Believe me, I often feel like I don't have a jungler too - even in challenger.
If my jungler wasn't matching Kindred, I'd still be contributing to my team though.
I'd be getting less of a lead, but if I can still draw jungle pressure to my lane and
still come out ahead, we have a better chance of winning the early game.
So long as I don't die while doing this.
My junglers sticks around on the pink ward and I go in and land my chain, giving us a
really easy kill.
Then the enemy kindred and morg also shows up, but since I didnt use my ult chain on
irelia, I use it on kindred, making her an easy kill as well.
And then blitz shows up and hooks morg for another kill.
Safe to say, our mid and jungle are super far ahead now.
Lets do a quick recap before closing this one out.
First, I let the wave push and built a big wave while harassing irelia when she went
for CS, while also realizing that kindred was top while my jungler was bottom, which
let me track her early.
Then after a few good trades with irelia she got greedy for CS and gave me my first kill.
Kindred showed up immidiatley after but since I was hugging bot side I kited her towards
my jungler, and we chased her down and killed her as well.
I went into lane knowing I have a range advantage and can bully Irelia if I play smart.
I build a big wave and look for opportunities to harass Irelia, without giving her a chance
to fight back.
When pushing and getting aggressive, you must track the enemy jungler.
I figure out early with consistent minimap awareness that Kindred will be jungling top
side after she showed, while my jungler mirrors bot side.
So I play bot side of the lane and would've warded top had Kindred not shown.
I crash a big wave and eventually score a kill onto Jensen, while drawing jungle pressure
to my lane and got an optimal reset with Kindred dying soon after Jensen.
After I come back to lane, I freeze the lane to starve out Irelia, again drawing jungle
attention to mid and that's all she wrote.
Thanks for watching and we'll catch you next time.