Do you find yourself hard struck in a low-elo rank? Maybe you’re still playing in Silver despite all the efforts and YouTube tutorials you’ve watched and incorporated into your game. Or maybe you just can’t transition from gold to platinum and diamond.
Maybe it’s time for you to combine your skills and knowledge with these underrated League mechanics: Map Pressure
Also read: How To PEEL For Your ADC in LoL?
League Pressure
The Summoner’s Rift is a fairly wide map. Aside from the lane opportunities, there is also the jungle. As a player, you want to gain an advantage of those lanes and those neutral jungles.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, lane pressure and map pressure are two of the most underrated strategies in League of Legends. The majority of notable plays or objectives achieved in professional play or high Elo games would be impossible to achieve without the development of lane pressure or map pressure.
Examples of Map Pressure
Applying pressure in LoL is pretty common and easy to pull off. You may even be doing it without knowing it.
When you win a lane trade, either solo or team fights. When your teammates do split pushes. When you are simply warding the jungle area. When you destroy a tower. Even when you pick a better champ in the matchup. When you do these, you’re already applying pressure on the enemy team.
Pick A Better Champ In A Matchup
Knowing how to play different champions is an advantage on this one. If the enemy APC was the first pick, you’ll easily be able to counter that champion, thus adding pressure. Just knowing that your presence is seen on the map is enough pressure for the enemy team to tower hug.
Take this for an example, a champ that can play aggressively in early games is a better choice if you have an enemy with pretty low mobility. Let‘s say the enemy team picked Twisted Fate. It would be better if you pick a Zed or a jungler Rengar.
Maximize Jungle Opportunities
The jungle is the dark part of the Summoner’s Rift. It is a neutral area where junglers can farm gold and experience.
You can also find special buffs here. Aside from the lanes, a lot of clashes usually happen here. What you want to do is win these clashes. You can do that by asserting dominance, making sure you get the buffs not just on your side of the map.
If you do this and the enemy jungler notices that his buffs are gone, he’ll be left out in gold and XP gains. He’ll most likely do ego push in chase of gold and XP, so make sure to take advantage of that.
Part of asserting dominance in the jungle is warding the area. As mentioned earlier, there are special buffs in the jungle, you might want to make sure that this area is visible to you. This tactic is not only a defensive mechanism but can also be uti;ized offensively.
For an instance, if you put wards in the dragon area. Then a lone Rengar tried to solo kill the dragon, you’ll have the info necessary to gank that Rengar while he is busy fighting the dragon. Of course, the enemy team will have this idea also, so it will be wise for you to deward popular jungling areas or areas where you believe that the enemy team is guarding.
Also read: Best Peeling Abilities in LoL
The Rift Herald
In Summoner’s Rift, Rift Herald is a strong neutral monster. It is located in the same pit as The Baron Nashor’s. Killing it, before the BR spawns, drops Empowered Recall which allows you to summon the Rift Herald. The Rift Herald then becomes a part of your team pushing lanes until it is killed by the enemy turret or the enemy team.
A well-timed and tactically placed Rift Herald may either make or break a team’s early/mid-game. Using Rift Herald on a specific side or tower may either earn your team a lot of money and be used to exert pressure on your team to allow them to take on a greater goal.
When used correctly, the latter of the two is a significant method of obtaining rewards. When a dragon is up, a well-utilized Rift Herald spawns mid-lane, compelling the other team to respond to the push the Herald makes mid. This would provide your team a numerical advantage, as well as a free dragon or mid-tower.
Another effective usage of Rift Herald is to spawn it in the bot lane to knock down the enemy’s bot lane tower, allowing your bot lane to switch top lane and give your ADC or APC even more money and maybe another tower.
Some players abuse this tactic to gain an exponential advantage in gold so they can build items faster than the enemy team. And also, they’ve made pressure on the enemy team.
Also read: LoL Blue Side vs Red Side
Map Control
At the beginning of a match, both teams have equal towers, thus equal map control. This is mostly the objective of lane players. To take control of the enemy towers.
Pushing towers means taking control of certain areas. For example, if you were able to push bot T1, you’ll have better control of the dragon pit.
On the other hand, if you have destroyed top T1, you get to control od the BR pit. And if you keep pushing, sooner, you’ll be able to get control of enemy jungle areas. Minimizing their chance to farm for gold and XP.
Keep in mind that to maintain good control of such objectives, the more pressure you GAIN, the deeper you want to ward, maybe always seeing the buffs in their jungle.
Split Pushing
We’ve mentioned this one as part of the other mechanics in applying pressure. But it is also `fundamental in applying pressure, so, let’s dig into it deeper.
Split pushing is a key skill in League of Legends that everyone should be familiar with. You can always pull off a successful split push if you grasp the fundamentals of split pushing. This style of gameplay requires knowledge and expertise.
There are numerous instances when you can do a successful split push. IF you believe, your team is capable of fending off the enemy team in a 5v4 clash, it will be wise for you to split push, especially if you are down on tower pushes.
Also, I’d advise you to split push only if you play a champion that is capable of clearing minions swiftly and pushing fat. Maybe pick Master Yi, if you are planning on doing this one in your rank games.
Champions with scape skills are also suitable for split pushing. If you push a tower, the enemy team will most likely take notice of you and do a surprise attack on you, so you better be ready to escape. Better yet kill one with you as you escape.
Split pushing is one of the fundamentals in this game as I’ve mentioned earlier. So, I think it’d be better to discuss it in another article.
Also read: How to Get More Tokens in LoL?
Conclusion
Like what I’ve mentioned at the very beginning of this article, knowing how to utilize and apply pressure is frequently one of the most crucial talents that distinguish silver and gold players from platinum or diamond players.
So, if you’ve been wondering what’s been holding you back from climbing the ranking ladder quicker and you learned a lot in this post, this may be the piece of game knowledge you needed to push yourself further than ever before. Go try out these strategies to create pressure and win some solo queue games; I guarantee you, that you will soon reach your dream rank.
Before we say our goodbyes, I want to emphasize that this is general knowledge and always depends on your situation in the game. The times indicated may be appropriate for certain games but not for others. Each game is unique, so do your best to notice and identify patterns/opportunities to pressure your enemies. Good luck and have fun!
