Just like in real life, trading in League of Legends is a primary way to determine who stands taller. The ones that gather the goods more efficiently win. Picture yourself giving your car to somebody for free. You will consequently find yourself with a 10k deficit. Sounds familiar? Indeed, that very concept can be applied in League of Legends also. Thus, do not give objectives for free. Instead, make sure you're in a position to trade in some sort of way, whether it's through force or through stealthy rotations.

Dragon

The Dragon is a peculiar objective since it gives underlying stats, instead of gold from its previous version. Obviously, the most lethal one being the 5th dragon, Aspect of the Dragon, nowadays putting priority on Dragon control is establishing an eventual win condition like a ticking time bomb. With that being said, in the earlier stages of the game, losing the Dragon in itself isn't that crucial. There are important points to take into consideration before accepting the fact that the enemy does in fact have Dragon in their grasp :

- Power spikes (Example: Does your Corki only have a Phage and a Sheen while the enemy AD carry already has Infinity Edge? If yes, you're heading into a battle at a disadvantage.)

- Vision control (Do you have wards on around the Dragon pit? If not, it's too dangerous to wander into the dark.)

- Numbers (Do you see the enemy top laner in his lane and you know he doesn't have Teleport while your own top laner does have his? Force a fight since the numbers are in your favor.)

If the criterias above aren't in your favor, it's better to let Dragon go. The important thing is to realise it preemptively. Do not attend a dragon slayer movie as in you go to the Dragon pit, run in circles and end up doing nothing because you know that you can't do anything based on the aforementioned points.

In this situation, the best decision to make is a reactive one. So what can you do while you have the knowledge that the enemy team is slaying the dragon? A cross-map objective like the first tower in the top lane is a basic trade that is in fact a more than valid trade :

Trade Dragon for top turret

Being the furthest away from the enemy team's current objective almost guarantees that they won't defend your counterattack in time. Thus, top tower for Dragon is the best option. It is to note that a member of your team must beforehand shove the bottom lane, if possible, to negate the possibility of trading top turret for a dragon AND your bottom turret, which would make you the loser of this trade.

Towers and jungle pressure

The aftermath of this event will most likely be that the enemy top laner will freeze his lane and increase his CS count. Sadly for him and fortunately for your team, that is also exploitable. Farming will indeed give him money but since he's killing your minions, you have the information that he's in the top lane, while your own top laner can transfer the pressure elsewhere since it's dangerous to contest a freeze so far away. Information can still be rather useless. What's important is to use that information.

A good option to trade the starvation of your top laner while the enemy top laner freezes his respective lane would be to gather your team in the mid lane. The first turret in the mid lane possesses a pivotal influence on how much pressure you can apply in the enemy jungle. When that moment comes and your team focuses on the mid lane, make sure to ward around both sides in case the enemy wants to catch you by surprise with a flank.

Siege mid tier one

In this scenario, if they decide to take a side lane tower, it's still a winning trade since you can then pressure the enemy jungle more easily. To elaborate on that point, the mid lane is the shortest lane. Therefore, your minions reach the enemy minions or tower faster. It pins down the enemy mid laner. If your support along with your jungler chooses to establish deep wards, the collapse from the enemy mid laner will be slower and, more importantly, more predictable because you can easily see him farming with his first tower down. Again, just like the example whereas the enemy top laner freezes his lane, it's through your minions that you gather information. Even if he does try to deny your invades, he will miss out on more minions and experience than the much longer side lanes. Also, regarding deep wards, I believe that they are an underrated part of the game as they do seem innocuous at first.



Deep warding

The image above shows examples of deep wards. If the game is still in its laning phase, you'll probably only be able to secure one half of the map with your deep wards. Nonetheless, that is perfectly fine. In the image above, for example, if you do not see the enemy jungler around his blue buff or by his wolves, he's more than likely around the top half of the map. Therefore, that enables your bottom lane to play more aggressively because they have no fear of being ganked. How you can truly cash in on this information is to play on the opposite side of the map that you do figure out the enemy jungler's position. In the example that I just mentioned, you could warn your top laner to play safely and hug his tower as he is most likely the next target for an enemy gank. In turn, you call your own jungler for help in the bottom lane and put the numbers in your favor. To definitely seal the deal, your top laner can even back away completely from his lane if he's expecting a dive or a somewhat certain death and make a Teleport play bottom instead. That scenario will seemingly result in the loss of your top tower but you will have taken a tower of your own in the bottom lane plus probably 2 kills with a possibility of 4 members of your teams participating to those. In the best case, if Dragon is there for the taking, seize it too ! If planned well, you will again win the trade of objectives in this situation and it's all due to vision control.

Baron Nashor

Baron Nashor is a delicate subject. Historically, Baron has been the center of some of the most monumental moments in League of Legends history. The risk of taming such a beast has provoked the greed in a lot of shot callers. As the buff, Hand of Baron, greatly empowers your minions when sieging and also gives up to 40 attack damage plus 40 ability power, it's well worth the gamble once you have it. If you and your team aren't the fortunate ones to claim the benefits of such a quest, there are still efficient ways to trade for Baron. An inhibitor is a perfect example, the bottom inhibitor most likely. Again, since Baron is in the upper half of the map, distancing yourself from the enemy team as much as possible is the best choice, it forces the longest reaction.

Trade Baron Nashor for bottom inhibitor

To apply even more pressure, you could have initiated a slow push top also (a slow push is basically to kill only the 3 caster minions to eventually create a big wave of your own minions). In that case, you delay as much as possible, just like a penalty kill in hockey, their eventual siege with Baron empowered minions. After all, the fact that they have the Baron buff is already a fact. However, to limit as much possible the use of that buff can be determined by how well you manage your minion waves and defensive wards.

Slow push

To touch a bit more on the slow push factor, there are many crafty ways to play around a slow push. It takes about 2 minutes for a slow push to result in a massive minion wave. Most likely, if a team initiates a slow push in the bottom lane for example, they will then move their members in the opposite part of the map because they can rely on their own minions to do some damage by themselves eventually. If your minion wave does indeed become substantial and could take down a turret on their own, here are the scenarios :

- One of the enemy members is forced to deal with those monsters. You will then see him on the map since he'll go to your minions. That is information that you have the possibility of outnumbering the opposing team. However if it's someone with Teleport as a summoner spell, be wary as he can still join his team if something happens.

- If the enemy team doesn't send somebody to clear your slow push, you can still slowly siege the opposite side of the map. While the opposing team is busy negating your team's siege, your minions are pressuring the other half of the map. In a good scenario, your minions will indeed take a tower down. In the best case scenario, they destroy the tower you set them to conquer AND your own siege is successful too, which makes it two towers for nothing. Another warning in this case is that if the enemy team is willing to not send somebody to defend your slow push, they have the intention of forcing a 5v5 team fight. You then have to be ready to disengage if you deeply rely on your slow push's success or you try to win the team fight also.

- You could also send a team member with Teleport to split push the lane where you initiated the slow push to accelerate the pressure on the tower, while having the option of joining up with the rest of the team available. The crucial part of this strategy is the timing of a rescuing Teleport.

Again, these situations all imply a trade along the line. While analysing your circumstances, choose the tactic that is the most compatible with your win conditions.

On a side note, if it's the enemy team that's initiating a slow push, they can employ the options above or they could set up a pick. That usually happens when a team composition's primary strength is to assassinate and relatively get a pick instead of the sieging type of tactics written beforehand. Here's an example :

Creating a pick around a slow push

What a team could do, whether it's yours or the enemy, they can estimate that at a certain point in the lane, the big minion wave will come in contact with the opposing minion wave. Obviously, killing minions result into income. A big juicy minion wave can't go to waste by getting obliterated by reaching the turret, so instinctively someone will try to farm it before that happens. In the image above, red team realises that very fact and will try to get in position to assassinate whoever comes to end the slow push. However, since the red team will most likely pass through the blue team's jungle, if the blue team sets up defensive wards preemptively, they can in turn cut off the assassination attempt and the assassin will instead get a taste of his own medicine.

On both sides, since they can both be very good strategies, haste is your worse enemy. If you risk face checking a bush, it's better not to. If you weren't able to install defensive wards in a dangerous area, don't risk it. A dangerous area is often defined by your minion waves. Minion waves are excellent guidelines to rely on, it can usually tell if you're either pushing your luck or you're good to go. Here are other examples of defensive wards, which you would usually use when you're behind :

Defensive wards

Closing tips

There's so much to say and so many things to consider such as team compositions and win conditions, which may cause variations regarding the tactics that I've described in this article. Nonetheless, the essential of what I wanted to point out in the notions that I've reviewed here is to prepare dilligently. Make no mistake about it, neutral objectives are very important to the road to victory but Dragon spawns every 6 minutes and Baron spawns every 7 minutes. While those two are on cooldown, there are towers to be taken down, there are team fights to be fought, there are picks to be picked up and there are wards to plant relative to your objectives. A slow push takes about 2 minutes to truly ramp up and regular wards last 3 minutes. How you invest your time when planning the next move is absolutely critical to determine if you'll win or if you'll lose, whether it's in solo queue or in ranked 5's.

On that note, I hope this article and the knowledge that I've shared will help you reach new heights in your upcoming games. For more content on your favorite esports, stay tuned for more on team-dignitas.net!

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