Top 10 Conflict-Creating Strategies In League of Legends

In a meta-game as complicated as League of Legends, players often end up having opposing viewpoints on what the "right" thing to do is. Of course, the correct course of action is not always entirely clear, but if something goes wrong, you can be sure that if it was unorthodox, someone is getting blamed.

Check out some of the most common points of conflict below!

Introduction

In a meta-game as complicated as League of Legends, players often end up having opposing viewpoints on what the "right" thing to do is. Of course, the correct course of action is not always entirely clear, but if something goes wrong, you can be sure that if it was unorthodox, someone is getting blamed.

Check out some of the most common points of conflict below!

Focusing Tanks

What Is It?: This occurs when players end up hitting beefy, low-damage front line champions rather than aiming for low-HP, high-damage champions on the back line.

Common Belief: Don't focus tanks

Opposing Idea: Professional players often focus down tanks first during team fights.

Truth: Hit the highest damage, lowest-HP champion that you can attack without being mauled by everyone in front of that target. Professionals can target down tanks first because they kite backwards; otherwise if you have a choice then hit the most dangerous one first.

However, if you have a high cooldown, very important spell, then save it for a priority target.

Taking Blue/Red

What Is It?: The jungler generally gets the first red and blue buff, then donates the second blue to mid, and donates red buff to marksmen once team fights start breaking out.

Common Belief: Marksmen have the fastest auto-attacks, so red buff works best on them. Mid-lane needs blue buff to stand evenly against other mid-laners with blue buff.

Opposing Idea: If the marksman/mid-laner/jungler isn't doing well, then the jungler should just take all the buffs to maximize its usage/prevent it from going to the enemy laner/allow the jungler to catch-up.

Truth: If the marksman is someone with a built-in slow like Blue Ezreal or Ashe, red buff is probably much better served on a high attack speed bruiser like Irelia or Nocturne, especially if they are fed.

When mid-laners are behind, ask them if they think they can survive with blue buff. If they think they can, give them one. If they die instantly, then feel free to take the next one.

Pushing/Freezing

What Is It?: Keeping lanes close to the tower or moving the creep wave into a siege position to deny enemy CS.

Common Belief: Pushing to the enemy turret will prevent them from roaming to kill other lanes and deny them CS.

Opposing Idea: Pushing to turret puts you in danger of dying to the enemy jungler and makes it very difficult for your own jungler to gank your lane.

Truth: Early game, freezing it close to your turret will win you more games than pushing, as long as you watch out for level two power-spike cheese plays. Allies will need to ward their lanes carefully to prevent dying, especially if they want to keep pushing.

If the enemy starts roaming, push to turret and deny him CS.

Leashing

What Is It?: Hitting the first jungle camp for the jungler in order to reduce the amount of health he takes from neutral minions.

Common Belief: When the game begins, players in the side lanes are expected to leash for the jungler.

Opposing Idea: Bot lane players are better served by doing a camp at level one for an experience bonus, and the mid-lane should help leash a different buff instead.

Truth: Most junglers prefer a standard leash until higher divisions. There's definitely some wisdom in taking the first camp for an advantage though. It really depends if the jungler can snowball harder, or if your bot lane has some sort of level two cheese potential.

"Kill-Stealing"

What Is It?: Last-hitting an enemy champion when someone else either dealt the majority of the damage.

Common Belief: Priority for kills goes to Marksmen, Mid-Laners, Top Laners, then Junglers (unless it's a carry jungler).

Opposing Idea: Kills secured are better than kills escaped.

Truth: Assists in a two-player kill grants half the gold of a last hit, so not all is lost. The only exception is for a highly stacked passive on Draven, in which case you definitely want to try and convert it to gold.

Split-Pushing

What Is It?: One player solo pushing the creep wave while the rest of the team is in a different lane.

Common Belief: If the enemy team engages without their fifth player, the enemy team made a mistake.

Opposing Idea: If not grouping costs the team the game, it's the split-pusher's fault.

Truth: If you're split pushing, make sure you understand the engagement potential of the enemy team as well as the disengagement potential of your own team. If your team is comprised of immobile carries and the enemy has Ashe, Sion, and Amumu, you might need to be there as Shen when the fight starts instead of a few seconds later.

Always remember to communicate to your team something like, "I'm going to split-push, watch out for Sion ult" and ward carefully.

Taxing Lanes

What Is It?: Junglers taking some CS after ganking for a lane.

Common Belief: Junglers are pricks who charge too much for ganks.

Opposing Idea: Junglers need some gold for time spent.

Truth: Lane management is pretty key. If you manage to kill the enemy laner top, pushing is a good idea, but only if you can reach the turret before the enemy laner's teleport comes down. If you don't, then effectively you may have frozen the wave at the enemy turret and split a full level's worth of experience away from your own laner.

Warding and Map Control

What Is It?: Placing wards on the map and keeping enough vision so that enemies do not have free roaming across the map.

Common Belief: Supports are responsible for map control and should always buy sightstone.

Opposing Idea: Everyone has a yellow trinket and should buy pink wards.

Truth: Supports should usually buy sightstone. However, every needs to help ward, and if you lose a few turrets early (especially mid turret), map control is going to be extremely difficult to get back.

Camping Lanes

What Is It?: Junglers end up ganking one specific lane repeatedly.

Common Belief: If you get camped, your team/jungler should help.

Opposing Idea: If you get camped, your team/jungler needs to take objectives everywhere else on the map.

Truth: Getting camped happens even when you're not pushed to the turret. Generally, junglers camp either the most dangerous, or the easiest to gank lane. If you're the second, freeze that lane closer to your turret before it's too late. If it's the first, pat yourself on the back for hopefully wasting the jungler's time.

If your jungler can successfully counter-gank, then by all means have it done. However, if your jungler is farming and their jungler is just sitting on your ward, then your team is now winning more than before.

Jungle Ganks

What Is It?: Junglers are expected to gank lanes.

Common Belief: Junglers should go for "easy ganks" when summoner spells are down.

Opposing Idea: Junglers can't gank without some sort of assistance from the laners.

Truth: Some junglers simply can't gank early on if the creep wave is in certain positions. Expecting a level three Warwick gank may simply be a waste of time. Meanwhile, if one lane is already losing badly, a jungle gank may just end up with a double kill on the enemy laner.

Ganks need to weigh in the potential for success as well as the potential for failure.

Conclusions

There is a lot of gray area when it comes to some of the most important decisions while playing this game. Some of the decision-making process may only last a few seconds, but impact the game profoundly and snowball it in one direction or another.

Part of what makes League so interesting is all the minute details, but certainly also what makes it frustrating as well.

What kind of decisions do you find people disagree with the most? Comment below!