Hey everyone.
Considering all the mid game videos we've been doing lately, we figured it was about
time to brush up your laning phase.
So today, we'll be doing a unique video analyzing both how Rekkles plays Kai'sa Tahm Kench against
a poke lane of Ezreal Soraka, and what the poke lane's goals should be in the first few
minutes of laning phase.
By the end of the video, you'll have a better understanding of what your early game plan
should be from both sides of a poke lane match up,
and more importantly, what kind of mistakes to avoid that will end your laning phase.
But first, let's break down the matchup real quick.
The Soraka Ezreal lane has a huge poke and range advantage, and can safely pressure while
pushing with Ezreal E, granted Soraka isn't overextending.
On the other hand, Kai'sa Tahm Kench win extended trades with both of their on-hit passives,
have strong scaling and all-in advantages, and can easily punish overextensions by winning
all-ins if they conserve their HP and Tahm lands a Q in front of their own tower.
So in the opening minutes, the poke lane's game plan should be to slow push waves in
and land as much poke as possible to build and snowball an HP advantage before Kai'sa
starts scaling, especially during levels 1 and 2.
Meanwhile, Kai'sa and Tahm's game plan should be to conserve their HP while holding out
for level 3, and then looking to all-in if the poke lane ever gets too close to our tower.
We'll explain more throughout the video, but for now, let's get into it.
This game starts off awkwardly, as the poke lane uses their leash advantage to pressure
the Kai'sa Tahm all the way into their own jungle.
This is a good use of their leash advantage, since part of their game plan is to land as
much poke as they can before Kai'sa starts scaling.
Plus, they ended up zoning Rekkles hard enough that he'll have to take a long path to lane,
ensuring our poke lane will get to bottom first.
However, this Soraka is taking it way too far.
Getting to lane first as a poke lane is a great advantage, since you can walk up and
zone and poke the enemy as they approach the wave, preventing them from farming early and
guaranteeing you hit 2 level first.
But by sitting in tri bush here, Soraka is forfeiting that advantage and ends up arriving
to lane too late to properly zone Rekkles from the minion wave.
Anyway, remember the three wave plan we described in a video on how to punish melee supports?
Well, the same strategy applies here as a poke lane, especially against a Tahm Kench.
Our initial goal as the poke lane should be to build a minion advantage without over pushing,
and then to last hit with our slow push while punishing last hits with poke.
Ezreal starts off well by keeping a 3 minion advantage going into the next minion wave.
Now, how should Ezreal approach the minion wave on this second wave?
Some of you might have said he should push for level 2, but it'd actually be better to
last hit.
Why?
Basically, we want to make our slow push last as long as possible so we can extend the time
frame we'll have a minion advantage to zone and poke with.
But if we over push and crash the wave too early, we'll be shortening this window and
making things easier for the Kai'sa.
Ezreal eventually fixes this error and switches to last hitting, but autoing that first minion
down played a big role in crashing our wave just a bit too early.
Now, let's switch back to Rekkles' point of view, early enough to note how he hugs the
wall on the way back to lane to avoid any potential poke from tri bush.
In these opening moments of the lane, it would be ideal to push the poke lane in without
taking damage to make it harder for them to land as much poke, since Ezreal would then
have to use Qs on wave to catch up on the push.
So, how should we approach the minion wave in these first couple of minutes?
It might sound weird since it falls in line with the enemy's goal, but we should actually
let back off the wave and let them push.
This is because Ezreal got to lane first, and the enemy has enough of a poke and range
advantage that we'll probably kill ourselves trying to out push them early.
Rekkles picks up the melee minions while he can, but once Soraka shows up he correctly
switches to backing off of the wave and forfeiting the push.
It's easy to miss, but the way Rekkles plays this second wave is actually very important.
Non-pro players might have stayed and kept autoing the wave here.
But, we should already be planning on getting pushed in, and staying for more autos will
give Soraka a chance to punish with her Q.
However, getting this one auto in crucial since we want to use Fleet Footwork whenever
it's up to help keep our HP up.
It looks basic, but Rekkles is showing some high level decision making by proccing his
passive and backing off all the way to his tower.
Playing like this is crucial to keeping your health up against a heavy poke lane.
Plus, we've said it plenty of times before, but when the wave is already hard pushing
into you, it's better to back off and wait to farm at our tower instead of risking our
health for autos on minions.
Now that the wave reached our tower, it's easier to farm but our gameplan remains the
same: we have to keep our HP up.
So, dodging skill shots takes priority over securing all the last hits.
Once we dodge a spell, we can look to farm in between cooldown windows.
Rekkles ends up getting hit by this first Soraka Q, which sucks.
But over the next few moments, Rekkles shows a great example of tethering, which is basically
moving back and forth in conjunction with the enemy.
This technique plays a big role in properly dodging skill shots while farming.
Instead of walking horizontally and keeping himself in Soraka's range, Rekkles walks back
whenever Soraka walks forward and vice versa.
When combined with not stopping to auto a minion when Soraka Q is up, this mindset helps
a lot in dodging the enemy's frequent poke.
Then, when Raka Q is down, Rekkles quickly starts autoing minions down for last hits
while continuously walking backward inbetween each hit to continue tethering with the Soraka.
Once there's no last hits in danger of being missed, Rekkles shows some pro level play
by backing off once again to his tower to wait for the wave to crash.
Here's a quick tip for last hitting under tower: when there's a cannon for the tower
to target, focus on clearing the melee minions first like Rekkles does here, while waiting
to last hit the cannon.
And again, note how Rekkles is constantly walking back inbetween last hits to keep himself
outside of Soraka Q range, instead of side to side.
Alright, let's switch back to Ezreal's POV for now.
We've found players often struggle with knowing what their gameplan should be from wave to
wave.
How do you think Ezreal should approach the minion wave here?
If you guys saw our video covering the three wave plan, the answer should have been easy:
we should be hard pushing here, looking to crash and bounce the wave back to us.
This might sound weird, since keeping them under tower makes poking easier and letting
the wave bounce means forfeiting our minion advantage.
However, the last thing we want is to be in front of their tower when Tahm Kench hits
level 3: this exact scenario is what every melee support wants against a ranged lane.
Ezreal seems to have the right idea as he autos minions down and crashes a nice, fat
minion wave.
But as we crash this wave, we see the next enemy minion wave has already arrived, making
a bounce unlikely.
Fortunately, the enemy won't hit level 3 until the next wave.
So, our game plan should remain the same: keep looking to poke, and hard push this incoming
wave to get the bounce we're looking for.
It's worth noting that we shouldn't bother hitting tower at all here, since our damage
on tower still sucks this early in the game compared how important it is to get our bounce
and poke the enemy down.
Now, let's do one last POV shift back to Rekkles.
It's been difficult, but we've managed to keep our HP up thanks to some great decisions
on when to back off the wave and properly tethering the Soraka by walking back inbetween
last hits.
Let's pause for a moment.
Do you see something wrong here?
If you're a support main, this is particularly important for you: we just hit level 3 as
a melee vs poke lane, and the enemy is walking up on our tower, for some reason.
This is a huge red flag, and Tahm Kench recognizes it immediately.
Once he lands a Q, he immediately begins a great all-in, properly punishing the enemy
poke lane for messing up and walking up to our tower.
From there, cleaning up is an easy task for Rekkles, as our Kai'sa Tahm Kench lane waaaay
outmuscles an Ezreal Soraka in extended trades at level 3, thanks to both of our on hit passives.
Well, that about covers it for this video.
Hopefully you guys have a better understanding of how important it is to know when to back
off the minion wave in this kind of match-up.
From Kai'sa's perspective, backing off the wave when it's already pushing in played a
huge role in staying healthy enough to eventually all-in.
And from Ezreal's perspective, not backing off of the wave once they successfully bounced
it opened them up to an all-in and gave a double kill.
Some of you may be thinking: well, didn't the Tahm kench carry here by knowing when
to all-in?
Well yeah, he kinda did, but it'd be more accurate to say the enemy threw the lane when
they overextended on that last minion wave.
Even if your own supports don't recognize that all-in window, now that you've seen this
video you guys should know to spam pings when you're healthy with a melee lane and the enemy
ranged lane overextends without a fat minion wave.
Even if you aren't playing support yourself, you can still certainly recognize and act
on opportunities to all-in with some well timed pings.
Thanks for watching, and see you guys next time!