Hey everyone.
We recently released a video of Dopa playing Xerath vs Orianna, where he used a waveclear
advantage to freeze against Ori, instead of pushing.
This strategy of course can be applied to other champions so in this video we're going
to be watching how I applied the same gameplan while playing Vel'koz vs Twisted Fate in a
Masters/Challenger MMR game.
Alright, let's jump into analysis.
Velkoz is a long range poke mage vs Twisted Fate a medium range control mage.
Vel'koz has more range, more waveclear, and more damage.
But twisted fate has better skirmishing and roaming potential especially because of his
ult.
Also, TF has better mana sustain, which plays an important part in the matchup.
So the purpose of using this strategy in a matchup like this is so keep TF in lane, and
make sure hes punished if he ever tries to leave.
If we just shoved the wave as hard as we could, it would use a lot of mana and since we can
both clear the wave relatively quick, both waves would die and he would get base timings.
Also, since I know his gameplan is to push as hard as he can so he can leave the lane,
I can constantly thin the wave so he never fully shoves the wave into the tower.
Knowing this, lets create a gameplan.
Mission 1: Let the wave push
Since were looking to freeze, of course we need to let the wave push.
Mission 2: Thin the wave while harassing to freeze
TF is going to constantly be trying to push the wave in, so were going to match his waveclear
with our waveclear advantage, and harass him at the same time.
Mission 3: When TF gets low and needs to recall, start pushing the waves to force him out of
lane
Eventually TF will be forced to recall, when we see that time coming, we want to start
pushing the waves and harassing him under tower until he's forced to leave and lose
at least 1 wave.
Alright, let's get into the gameplay.
As the lane starts, im just sitting back starting mission 1 and letting TF push.
I know he's going to start with red cards, so when he pulls one I back away from my ranged
minions to make sure he doesn't get any poke off as well.
It's really important I use my range advantage to never give him any free damage when going
for a gameplan like this.
I won't be able to hold a freeze if im too low to stand my ground vs him later.
Now that the wave is pushing to me, I need to start mission 2, so I walk up and start
autoing minions and collecting CS.
Then I use a Q on the 2 melee minions to soften them up to kill quickly.
I don't want TFs wave to get too big that I can't freeze it.
My wave is dying now, so I need to backup until my next wave gets here, and also need
to make sure the ranged minions don't get into tower range.
The wave timings matched up fine, so I didn't need to pull the wave.
Now that the wave is frozen, I can continue mission 2 and look for some harass.
I kill a melee minion then shoot my Q through it directly at TF since he's so close that
I don't need to go for any fancy angle.
Vel'koz Q takes some practice to learn how to use, so throughout the video i'll be giving
some more tips on how to land it.
Moving on, TF hits level 2 and is still fully focused on shoving the wave, so im still constantly
auto attacking to thin the wave.
I go to use a Q to poke TF but this melee minion randomly changes aggro and walks in
front of me, it was ok though because the Q split apart and last hit the other melee
minion and Q refunds mana when it kills something.
Anyways, I hit level 2 from that, so I level up my W and immediately use it on the wave
and TF.
This is exactly what I want, I know he's going to red card my wave so im matching his red
card and harassing for mission 2.
After that only one of my minions is left alive, and I know TF really wants to clear
that, so I position very aggressively making him choose to either give up that minion or
take harass for it.
Luckily for me he walks up to last hit it so I hit him with my Q and W, chunking him
to 40% health.
But since my wave died, I need to tank these 2 minions to prevent the wave from crashing
and keep my freeze.
This is why it's so important to not take any free poke from TF and to thin the wave.
If the wave is huge here I can't tank them without taking a ton of damage and would be
forced to let it crash.
Or, if I took too much poke from TF he could play aggressive here and force me to back
away.
But since I have such a nice health lead and the wave is thinned, I can just tank these
minions like this and keep the freeze.
As the next wave arrives, I do the same thing as before and kill a minion then shoot my
Q through it at TF.
I pop the Q early this time predicting him to dodge towards me because last time, he
just kept running and got hit, so naturally he thinks he needs to change the way he dodges.
But, he goes back to his gameplan and is throwing more red cards and Q`s.
So I continue mission 2 and look for some more harass.
I miss my W, but it still hit some minions so it wasn't completely optimal but not a
big deal.
Since he's so low, I position further up to try and force him to get scared and give up
some CS.
But i'm sure some of you are wondering why don't I just walk up and kill him?
Well, first of all, if I don't know exactly where the jungler is, and I go in and he's
here, I throw this lane lead that I have.
And even if he isn't here, If TF dodges my Q, I don't have much damage left and he can
still chunk me with the help of his minions, again throwing my lane lead.
I don't need to do anything crazy at this point, the lane is going exactly how I want
it to.
Anyways, I see another opening for a Q since he's not standing near any of his minions,
and I predict that he would do the opposite dodge that he did last time, but he didn't
so I missed.
Since the new wave arrived though, I go back to mission 2 and hit him and the wave with
a W again.
Which makes him move away from his minions giving me a window to look for some Q poke.
This Q is actually not a prediction.
This Q will almost always hit because when they are positioned like this right behind
3 minions, they are always going to run towards them to try and use them to block.
I learned this from talking to a challenger vel'koz player and its made my vel'koz laning
a lot better.
I see my hecarim is near, so I start pinging to gank TF, since he's a super easy kill right
now.
Sadly I believe I misplayed a little because I forgot hecarim had predator and it would
alert TF of the gank, so I should have just went in early instead of trying to let TF
walk up further like this.
But either way, Tf is running low on mana, and he's out of potions, so I can start mission
3 now and start pushing.
TF doesn't have enough mana to spam his abilities on the wave anymore and all of my harass will
be permanent damage now, so he's going to have to recall soon.
So I use both my W charges to clear the wave.
Then as the wave gets near the tower, I hit TF with a direct Q since he was in range and
had no minions to block for him, can just shoot it straight.
After I use my Q to poke, I move out of vision to make sure i'm not getting ganked by graves.
This is a concept that really helped me climb when I was stuck in diamond 3.
I would constantly shove the wave for pressure but would stand near their tower to harass.
When you don't know where the jungler is you can poke real quick but then back away so
the enemy jungler thinks you recalled or are going to ward, and dont path towards you.
After that I go back to harassing Tf under tower, and him with a Q using the concept
I talked about before.
The minions are in front of him so I know he's going to walk up.
Pretty easy right?
Now TF is way too low to stay in lane and is forced to recall, so I use my minion dematerializer
on the cannon, and quickly clear the wave, then I recall myself.
When I get back to lane, the wave is already pushing towards me so mission 1 is done, but
the wave is pretty big so I start thinning it out.
While im doing that, hecarim is fighting over a pink ward with the enemy jungler.
Me and TF both head down, but since TF is caught in between us, me and hecarim go on
him and make him blow flash to get away.
Since TF is so low now, we can move right on to mission 3, and start perma pushing waves
and harassing under tower.
So I use my minion dematerializer on the cannon again to shove as fast as possible.
and since I see graves bot, I stat sieging aggressively.
I use W to force him to move one way, and it makes my Q really easy to hit, just another
vel'koz trick to add to your arsenal.
And since hes slowed from my Q, It makes my E easy to hit, which gives him 2 stacks of
my passive now, so I use W to pop the third stack and finish him off, giving me the kill.
After killing him, I hit level 6 and finish clearing the wave, then go clear a pink the
brush.
And since clearing this pink delays my recall, and the next wave is already here, I quickly
push the next one in as well to make sure I don't miss any CS.
But, after killing a TF, when you clear the wave and go to recall, that's one of his openings
to look for a roam or ultimate play.
Knowing this, I put a ward down right here, and go into this brush.
I put a pink down and start recalling, but then stop because I see the enemy top laner
Tping top, so TF might be looking for a play.
I wait for TF to get close and hit him with my Q first so slow, then follow with my W,
E and ult, to kill him again.
Then push in the cannon wave to make him miss that as well.
Alright, lets do a quick recap.
As the lane started I let TF push with his red cards and once it was pushing to me I
started autoing the wave and thinning it.
I didnt let the wave crash on the tower so it would freeze, and started poking TF with
my W and Q, making my Q`s easy to land with a few different velkoz concepts.
I kept the wave frozen while harassing for a while and TF evnetually ran out of potions
so I started pushing the waves in and forced him to recall, giving me an experience advantage.
When I got back to lane, the junglers were battling over apink ward and TF moved to help,
but he went a dangerous route so me and hecarim collapsed on him.
We got him to blow flash and lose 80% of his health, and since I saw graves ganking bot
it gave me the green light to be really aggressive under tower and get a kill.
After I killed him I saw that he was about to hit level 6, and it looked like the top
laners were about to fight, so I stayed in the brush and waited for TF to move towards
top, and caught him again for another kill, closing the lane out.
Thats going to be it for this one, thanks for watching!