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Understanding Poke and Disengage, Featuring Jin Air

HeckMaister 2015-02-09 11:57:39

Disengage oriented team compositions are difficult to master. Being unable to judge the appropiate retreat time will leave you vulnerable to the enemy champions flanking you from the side. Therefore, vision control around you is much more important when the threat of being flanked is nearby.

The example I'm about to show you from the LCK week 2 is quite possibly the best any team has to offer in terms of dealing with assassins appearing from different angles.

 

Jin Air were clear in the fact that they wanted a poke composition, favoring full avoidance of teamfights yet chunking away at the enemies in order to secure objectives.  Morgana is is a great addition to their composition, as it allows them to aggressively siege onto turrets because of the looming threat that is Dark Binding. If it were to land on any enemy champion, the follow up burst could instantly kill any member on Najin's side.

The team composition from Najin had a very clear goal: Turn the enemy back line into ashes. With both Lissandra and Ahri having methods of bypassing Jarvan's attempts to lock them down, Duke and Ggoong could collapse onto GBM's Xerath and Cpt Jack's Sivir. 

 

However, Jin Air can clearly see this coming. Chaser on Jarvan decides to get an early Sightstone alongside Chei on Janna. While this delays Jarvan's upgrade on his Trailblazer, this does allow Jin Air to monitor Watch's movements, making all his gank attempts towards the bottom and middle side of the map completely useless. In addition to all of this, GBM decided to take the summoner spell 'Cleanse' on his Xerath, knowing that if he were to be targetted by Lissandra's ultimate, he'd be able to free himself from the crowd control portion of it. 

 

After a continuous back and forth in the mid lane where Xerath is continuously poking members of Najin down, Jin Air set up complete ward coverage of the top side red jungle. With multiple pinks and several deep wards, Jin Air knew exactly where the members of Najin are, and baited them away from the dragon, leaving Jin air with a completely free dragon and mid lane 2nd tier turret.

 

Here's a clear example of the warding Jin Air was setting up: 2 pink wards to their left and 3 green wards to their right. This allows complete vision of Ahri, Lissandra and Lee Sin (who are the champions in-charge of flanking). This push surmounted to nothing in the end, but it simply goes to show that even when they weren't going to push hard, they were always well covered in terms of vision, never giving Najin a chance to execute their team composition.

After being unable to target GBM nor Cpt Jack the entire game, Najin found themselves with 2 inhibitors down, thanks to GBM's amazing skillshot accuracy on Xerath who was solely responsible of forcing multiple defensive uses of flash, Zhonya's hourglass and Wild Growth. 

There was one last chance for Najin, where Watch manages to sneak a ward right on the back side of Jin Air, which would allow Duke on Lissandra to be able to finally teleport and charge into the back line with homeguards.  However...

(Advance to 3:15:10 in the video to witness the final attempt by Najin to create a flank, apologies for not being able to preset it)

He was met by a beautifully timed Dark Binding from TrAce, negating Najin's only true attempt to flank from the side. Najin simply had no answer to the continous poke from GBM's Xerath -- and every attempt they had was completely negated because of the vision control Jin Air had placed around their flanks. At no point during this game, up until that final attempt, did Lissandra nor Ahri have a chance to jump onto the Xerath nor Sivir.

As a final point, this game had seen 4 deaths total from minute 33:20 up to 63:45, where Jin Air managed to break the entire Najin base and pick up a few kills. Just over 30 minutes of no kills. If you're a fan of the strategical depth of League of Legends, this game boasts far more entertainment than any regular ol' bloodbath.

Videos and images courtesy of TVOngamenet's youtube channel

 

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