Hey everyone, were bringing you some really clean and calculated gameplay today from the
best mid in NA, Bjergsen, on Akali, up against Ahri.
Bjergsen uses 1 key advantage that Akali has to win him this lane, and we want to see if
you can figure it out.
As always, lets breakdown the matchup first and create a gameplan for both champions.
Akali is a melee AP assassin vs Ahri a ranged AP hybrid assassin or mage.
Ahri has more waveclear, and wins trades through poke or landing her charm, while Akali wins
burst trades if she can dodge Ahri's abilities with her shroud.
With that being said, their gameplans are going to be pretty standard for these kinds
of matchups.
For bjergsen, Mission 1 will be: Let the wave Push.
Since Ahri has more waveclear than bjergsen, if he tries to push, she can easily freeze
the wave and be safe from any kinds of trades, just like how Dopa did in last weeks video.
Then mission 2: Stay healthy
While the wave is pushing, he needs to choose CS wisely, and stay healthy as ahri is going
to be looking for poke.
If he gets too low he would have to take a bad recall.
and Mission 3: Prevent Ahri from Freezing.
If ahri Freezes, thats when Bjergsen will be in a dangerous spot where he could be ganked
or be forced to take a bad recall, so with good wave management he can prevent that.
We will get into this more later.
Alright and for Ahri's missions, which once again are pretty standard.
Mission 1: Slow Push the wave
Mission 2: Harass when Bjergsen goes for last hits
Mission 3: Don't die to Ganks
Alright, now that we know both gameplans, lets get into the gameplay.
At the start of the lane, Bjergsen is sitting back, starting missions 1 and 2 by letting
the wave push, and staying out of Ahri's Q range to avoid any unneeded harass.
Remember Akali doesn't have a heal on her Q anymore so her sustain in lane is substantially
lower.
As ahri is going for these last hits, Bjergsen looks for a small trade here using his Q and
passive auto.
He went for the trade at this time because there were only 3 minions left of the enemy
wave, and the next wave didn't arrive yet.
So if you were wondering why he hasn't gone for a trade like this from the start, there
you go.
Akali needs to use her passive auto to trade which draws minion aggro.
Now its back to missions 1 and 2, farming safely while the wave pushes.
Everytime ahri uses Q, bjerg takes that window of time where her Q is on cooldown to grab
as much CS as possible.
Now that bjergs wave is gone, he completely retreats back to his tower, as he doesn't
want to take any unneeded damage from the minions.
Bjerg knows this is where Ahri wants to look for poke, so he plays towards mission 2, giving
up almost all of these last hits to preserve his health.
Alright, now both waves are even again, and this is where wave management knowledge is
crucial.
If both of them don't touch the wave, it will slow push towards ahri because of the even
minion rule.
The even minion rule just means, if the waves are even, whichever side of the lane the wave
is on, it will push the other way.
But, Ahri can easily thin this wave as it pushes and freeze since she has more waveclear.
We already talked about how that would be such a bad situation it deserves its own mission.
So everything Bjerg is about to do in the next minute or so,is all part of mission 3.
Let's get started.
So the first thing to pay attention to here, is how as soon as the waves touch, Bjerg starts
autoing, and uses a Q on the wave.
This obviously wasn't meant to be harass, so why is he pushing?
Well if you don't know, after killing the first 3 melee minions on the third wave, you
hit level 3.
Bjergsen starts pushing her to get level 3 first, then watch how aggressive he gets.
So by pressuring with his level lead like this, Ahri is forced to back away from the
wave, meaning she cant thin it.
If ahri does try to walk up and do anything, Bjerg can force a trade with his level advantage.
So, ahri walks up for this last hit, and bjerg does exactly that and goes in for a small
burst trade.
After chunking her to half health, its even more dangerous for her to walk up, so Bjerg
keeps posturing aggressively, not letting Ahri walk up to thin the wave.
Now, the last thing he needs to do is crash this wave on the tower, so he focuses on clearing
these last few minions with his Q.
Alright, so that was all part of mission 3, and is very advanced minion wave management.
If he didn't play so aggressive, Ahri could easily set that wave up to freeze, and then
it would be almost impossible to break.
So right here is a perfect time for Bjerg to recall, but he doesn't.
This ties directly into the main thing Akali has that Ahri doesn't, which bjergsen uses
s to win the lane, so remember to be thinking about that.
Anyways, since he's staying in lane, he goes and drops a ward in top pixel brush.
As he gets back into the lane, let's look at the wave again.
its set up just like it was before, button the opposite side.
With the even minion rule, it will slow push the other way.
And since Ahri is out of potions, she wants to slow push this wave, and crash it, to get
a nice recall.
Slow Pushes are one of the best waves to recall on because it will bounce the wave off the
tower and by the time you get back to lane, the wave will be pushing back towards you.
Bjergsen knows this, so everything he does in the next minute is going to be to stop
her from doing that.
So the first thing he does, is start trading right away, hitting the minions plus Ahri
with his Q multiple times before backing away after his wave is cleared.
This forces Ahri to use her last potion, and since bjerg has been playing around mission
2 perfectly, he still has his 1 potion as well, and
pops that.
As his next wave arrives, count the minions.
bjerg has 6, and Ahri has 7.
This is far from a slow push with only a 1 minion lead, which is perfect for bjerg as
thats what hes preventing.
Ahri is still looking for a good time to recall, so shes trying to push the wave and haras
bjerg at the same time.
But Bjerg is making sure to use his Q on the minion as well to thin it out.
Alright this is where things get tense for both players.
Ahri wants to cleanly crash this wave, and bjerg wants to stop her, so lets see what
happens.
Ahri plays cautious, slowly trying to push the wave, while bjerg continues to thin as
much as he can, and as she goes for these last 2 minions, Bjerg goes in for a small
trade pushing ahri away.
After that, Ahri recalls, and since Bjerg thinned the wave to make it reset, he can
quickly shove in this next wave to deny it from Ahri before recalling himself.
When he gets back to lane, the wave is pushing to him, and since he has an experience advantage
now, and is close to level 6, he holds the wave to freeze it.
As soon as he kills this cannon minion, he hits level 6, and goes in right away.
Then with the clean mechanics we all know bjergsen for, he dodges Ahri charm which nets
him a solo kill.
Then, to make things worse for Ahri, since the wave is pushing to Bjerg, he thins it
out a little bit and recalls, which is doing to deny ahri all of this CS because the blue
minions will slowly kill the red ones while they are both on their way back to lane.
So its safe to say, this lane is over.
Alright, so did you catch the important part of the matchup that Bjerg used to make all
of this happen?
This one was tricky, but it was all because Akali has Energy, and Ahri has Mana.
This should answer some of you that are wondering why Ahri would Recall at level 5.
She was running out of mana, and knew if she tried to stay in lane any longer with no potions,
she would be forced to eventually take a bad recall or would get dove, and would have no
mid priority until she finally does fit in a recall.
So if we start from the beginning, Bjerg let the wave push in, bounced it off the tower,
then quickly killed a few minions to get level 3 first.
Then he used his level 3 advantage to push Ahri off the wave to prevent her from thinning
his slow push and freezing.
Once Bjerg crashed the slow push on the tower, he didn't recall because he knew he had the
mana sustain advantage, and warded up his top side instead.
He came back to lane, and traded with Ahri to burn her last corrupting potion while thinning
the wave as it pushed in to prevent ahri from getting a clean recall.
Ahri was running out of mana so she recalled, which let bjergsen deny her a wave.
When Bjeg got back to lane, he used his experience advantage to surprise ahri with a level 6
all-in, resulting in a really clean solo kill.
Alright, that's going to be it for this one, let us know if you figured out the key to
the matchup before we told you, and as always, thanks for watching!