Hey everyone.
A few weeks back we did the Caps Limit Testing guide which focused on how he pushes the limits
of the game to both improve and get great results specifically during the laning phase.
This guide will be just like that 1, but for the mid and late game instead.
Let's not waste any time and get right into it.
Our first example is going to be applicable for most champions, but especially control
mages.
Let's begin by first looking at the champions in question.
Caps is playing Cassiopeia, and here's the 5 enemy champions.
Take a moment to memorize the compositions and think about a general game plan you might
make based on them.
On to the game, we'll notice that the game state is fairly even with Caps doing fairly
well for himself.
This has him in a position to carry, and thus he's bot lane trying to provide some split
push pressure.
As he does, we get a *very* valuable piece of information.
Based on what you know, what do you think is the valuable piece of information here?
3 sec pause Some of you might have the initial thought,
"oh, Akali isn't here and she's the main threat."
This is around the line of thinking we need to be aware of, but we want you to focus on
the enemy team composition as a whole this time.
Yes, we've spotted Akali and Lee sin on the minimap now, knowing that they can't be bottom.
This means that the remaining 3 champions on the enemy team that *could* be here are
what we'll be classifying as "Run At You" champions.
Basically, champions that have to literally run in a straight line towards you to deal
damage or do anything.
You may have concerns that Wukong wouldn't classify as one, seeing as he can be so tricky,
but any champion like him, Irelia or Xin Zhao that have to run at you and then dash in a
straight line towards you can also be classified as a "Run At You" champion.
Okay, so what isn't a "Run At You" Champion?
Basically, any champion that can get on top of you or lock you down very unpredictably.
For example, Vi and Malphite can engage on you from an entire screen away.
Or assassins like Talon, Rengar and Kha'zix can use their stealth and mobility to easily
set up flanks on you.
Anything that can reliably get on top of you and is difficult to space out is not considered
a "Run At You" champion.
Lets not keep you in suspense from what happened any longer.
Let's first watch the fight, then break it down.
Okay, so he smurfed on them, but he did so by abusing the fact that they're all really
predictable run at you characters.
Here's how you can apply this to your own games.
Remember that the main way that these champions can move and reposition to threaten you is
only by running towards you.
Since their movement is really easy to predict, you then only have one goal.
You never want to allow everyone you're fighting against to focus you at the same time.
To achieve this we'll be abusing the uncoordinated nature of solo queue to de-synchronize your
opponents.
What you want to do is wiggle back and forth in front of them to bait some people to go
in and some to retreat.
This is where mechanics come into play, so if you're sluggish in your movement then this
isn't even possible and you should definitely be in the practice tool.
By throwing out some abilities and baiting some people in, maybe their formation begins
to look a bit like this.
The goal here is to get an isolated person, usually the one in front, and have a mini
1vs1 against them.
Then, that person retreats, and someone got baited into trying to help them, now you have
a 1v1 against that player, and so on.
The idea is simple, execution maybe not so much.
Let's watch Caps do it in slow motion and break it down.
The engagement begins by chunking Wukong quite a bit before MF and Lulu were there yet
But as Lulu arrives, Caps obviously has to run away while he get polymorphed.
This puts him in an awkward position.
Both Lulu and Miss Fortune are in range threatening to deal damage or CC him at the moment.
So Caps turns to deal damage.
Miss Fortune has to be afraid of his ultimate, so she kites back.
This is perfect, as this allows Caps to reposition and get out of range of multiple threats at
the same time.
Now no one is in range to hit him anymore.
Here's where the baiting comes in.
Running forward would just allow all 3 members to turn on him and threaten him at the same
time.
So instead he kites away, allowing the incoordination of solo queue to take place.
Wukong thinking the fight is over turns around to run away, while MF keeps chasing.
This means that Caps can turn on her for a mini 1v1, until she herself starts running
away.
This bait made Wukong feel like he needed to help, which once again puts him in range
of Caps for another mini 1v1 At this point, they're all so low from all
the brief 1v1's that Caps can just hard commit because Wukong's dash is so obvious to play
around.
They're all baited into his ultimate and quickly disposed of.
Playing this fight again in real time shows you just how exceptional he is at doing this.
This is *not* easy to do, and only possible by constantly limit testing proper spacing
against these types of champions.
This is super important to learn, so that you can hard carry games, specifically as
Control Mages.
They *excel* at punishing Run At You champions.
Their abilities are much easier to hit when champions are running into them, and have
tons of crowd control to keep people off themselves.
Alright, on to our next example.
Instead of mechanics this time we'll be focusing more on *when* you should be limit testing.
This game Caps is on Ryze, and has been playing the whole game fairly aggressively.
Take a look at a couple of his deaths and see if you can spot a common trend among them
that was also true of the previous Cassiopeia example.
If you noticed that he's playing extremely aggressively on the map, always near the enemy
towers, then you're right on the money.
This isn't because you want to fight near enemy towers, but rather what it says about
the map state when you are near enemy towers.
What's going on is that when you've shoved the wave into the enemy tower, you've eliminated
all sources of farm for you to take.
You may have likely also taken enemy jungle camps, due to your shove advantage.
The most important thing to remember about both kills and deaths is not the 300 gold
you receive or give, but rather what is gained or lost as a result of them.
If you die in the middle of the map, then there's so many things your opponent can take
off of your death.
They can push your towers, they can rotate to dragon easily, Baron etc.
If you die near enemy towers, they have to fix their side waves, they don't have time
to push, and you'll likely re-spawn by the time the wave reaches your tower, so you don't
even miss any farm.
Nothing exemplifies this as much as this next example.
As he pushes top, his team begins dying before he's even in position to pressure a tower.
This is a *classic* solo queue situation, where your teammates absolutely *have to*
fight regardless of what's going on.
He finishes taking Krugs, and realizing that it's a super weak move to recall and defend,
he instead cuts off the minion wave so that the enemy team can't push anyways.
Then, he takes everything.
Wolves, Blue, Gromp and makes his way to the bottom minions to push that out as well.
This is a *perfect* situation to limit test.
He just took EVERYTHING.
As Ryze, he could very easily ult away the second he sees Sett here, but why would he
If you're playing to learn you may as well go for this potential play, since there's
literally nothing to lose.
And because he wins the fight, since he was the one shoving, the waves are already in
position for his team.
Now they're the ones able to capitalize and take the bot lane inhibitor.
Despite his *whole* team dying, Caps' great macro knowledge and decision to take a risky
fight he could have avoided put his team right back into the driver's seat.
Okay, our next topic isn't so much a teachable concept, but rather a mindset you should have
when approaching team fights as assassin-esque champions
To properly understand we first have to discuss what a tank's role is in a team fight.
When a fight occurs, it is a tank's job to go in and create space for his teammates to
do damage.
Ideally, they outlast the enemy front line so their team can come out on top.
So, why is this information relevant for mid lane?
Well, as we said, tanking and front-lining isn't really about soaking damage, so much
as it is about giving your teammates space and time to deal damage.
Let's give you an example to make this a bit clearer.
Imagine a split up fight.
On one side you have a Maokai tanking 4 enemies.
On the other, an Akali is zoning Maokai's 4 teammates by just sitting in her shroud.
In this specific case, they can't just walk past her, or she messes them up pretty badly.
Not only that but they have no AoE spells to punish her for sitting in her W. So the
question is, who is the better tank in this situation?
Obviously, Akali.
She is allowing her teammates to do free damage to Maokai, while taking none in return.
Let's look at a real game example.
The enemy team got a pick and is now doing Baron.
To stop them Fizz engages onto the entire enemy team.
Rather than looking to maximize his damage by landing a 4 man E or something and killing
Lee, he instead uses it to get away and kite, taking 0 damage.
He baited out a ton of abilities and wasted the time of these 4 players, while his teammates
killed Karma for free.
Then, he can rejoin his allies and easily Ace the enemy team
And back to Caps.
We bring this up, because he's *constantly* looking to do this whenever he plays mobile
assassins.
Here we see him baiting Shyvana away from the rest of her team and tower.
There's so much to learn from a situation like this.
Maybe he's over-tanking Shyvana trying to bait too hard, holding his stolen Dragon Form
instead of just committing to getting way.
He definitely should've ulted over the Baron wall instead of to the left, as he had Yuumi
waiting to heal him.
Or maybe, this bait was never going to work because of how far behind his team was.
There's so much learning potential when you take skirmishes like these The best part is
that you don't actually need a team fight to practice it either.
Any situation where you're outnumbered is fine.
Engaging skirmishes where you have to dance around a ton of people while trying to take
minimal damage is great practice for this.
It's impossible to teach someone mechanics.
You just have to constantly go in and fail, and see what happens.
Repetition is the key to success, and being afraid of looking bad or losing is the only
obstacle in your way to success.
And with that we wrap up our mini limit testing series featuring Caps.
We hope you guys enjoyed it and thanks for watching.