Summoner School

Transcript

G'day, I'm UberGiantsBro and today I'm going to show you how to rotate lanes like SKTT1 the world champions. A big reason SKTT1 won the season 3 world championships is because of their near flawless rotations. You'll carry a lot more in solo queue when you understand how and when to rotate lanes.

Lane rotations can overwhelm you, but like most complex systems, when you break it down each individual part is simple. It doesn't take a diamond or challenger level player to understand rotations and it's something practical you can use in your solo queue and team games despite what league you're in. So let's get into it.

So what are lane rotations? A lane rotation is when you move from one lane to another to gank, cover, push or defend the lane. A rotation doesn't just mean you have to run straight there either, in some situations it might be better for you to base and then run to where you need to go. An example is if you do a lane swap for your fast push.

The core idea of lane rotations is that by doing those things and not wasting too much time running between lanes you maximise exp and gold distribution to your team. It's like in Football or Basketball how players spread out to cover more space for their passes, they aren't standing next to each other and they aren't chasing the same person. Remember in junior games how kids always clumped together chasing the ball carrier? In LoL terms if two people were chasing the same farm by moving to the same lane, that would likely be an inefficient rotation and a waste of time and pressure. Rotations are all about efficiency.

So now both teams just traded an early turret kill, but what we're more interested in here is what happens after. Now SKT the blue team swap their duo lane straight back to bot lane after the turret trade. They do this for two reasons; to continue to push down the outer turrets with Caitlyn (this is generally known as a fast push) but more importantly to have numbers near dragon. If the enemy rotates their ad and support to top at a bad time, you can often claim a free dragon.

Renekton rotates bottom to take the cs because Zyra doesn't need it and because his top wave is pushing in slowly. If your wave is pushing in towards you won't be losing much cs if you're not thereso you can usually take this chance to clear a jungle camp or put a ward up.

As you can see Renekton hardly lost any cs top.

Renekton backs and starts running up mid for dragon. Rumble realises his lane opponent has probably backed to go to drag so he rotates to dragon as well. As a rule of thumb, you want to follow your lane opponent.

SKT know TSM are doing their blue so they use this opportunity to push mid. Elise gets caught off guard with this rotation, she's farming wolves instead of defending mid. This a result of not keeping an eye on the mini-map to see where the enemy is putting pressure. See bot is safe because of the ward coverage and top is pushed out, so there's really only one logical place that they could pressure (mid).

SKT hold the middle side of the map and they wait for Renekton to push mid up and then they all rotate mid for a free inner turret. They trade the dragon for an inner turret for dragon is worth. In dragon dances, the team towards the center of the map generally has the positional advantage because they can choose to either rotate mid or force the 5v5 dragon fight.

Caitlyn is running up mid to help seige but they recocgnise they won't be able to siege well against the wave clear of Gragas and Corki and there is a big wave pushing against them top so Cait goes to farm that instead of wasting time running up mid. Thinking ahead is integral to good lane rotations. This call may have been made by someone else on the team but it's important that every player has an understanding of this for themselves.

If you want more examples to help you understand rotations better then here's what to do. Next time you're watching the pros stream, focus 50% of your attention on to the mini-map and see how they and see if you can recognize why. Did they just push out their lane and are now moving to gank another lane? Are they rotating to clear a big wave that needs farming? Are they basing to move into a lane swap to help a fast push? When you get better at recognizing these things then watch a replay of a game from around your skill level (maybe one of your games) and notice the differences in rotations.
Are players slow to react to a big wave pushing in? Do they even react at all? Is there any organised pushing rotations? Do players 'step on each others toes' to cover lane farm?

This is a perfect example of better understanding why you're stuck in a low league despite thinking you're a 'god' at the game. There's a lot of skills like this that you actually have no idea how bad you are at them until you learn what they are and how to develop them all revealed in Summoner School.

That's all for this video on rotations. If you have any comments or questions about rotations make sure to post them below or direct them to my twitter @UberGiantsBro. If you liked the video please show your support with a thumbs up, and until next time all the best in solo queue.