The Art of Playing From Behind - League of Legends by AthertonWing

The Art of Playing From Behind - League of Legends

So there you are, walking back to lane after taking an all-in that you thought was a sure thing, the sting of embarrassment sharp in your chest, and all you can think of is that you're behind now. The enemy will get to run all over you, the game is surely finished, all your friends hate you, and you'll never amount to anything. Truly, an un-enviable position. For many players, it's just too much - they simply give up, to protect their ego - they'll say things like "I wasn't trying" or "I got unlucky, bad teammates", or other such excuses, and just all in again, and again, and again, desperately trying to exercise power that they don't have. "Just play safe" their team begs, but they don't really know what it means to play safe, or see how it could ever win them the game, so they ignore the message. Quickly, the game snowballs wildly out of control, and all hope is lost. Another crushing defeat.

However, being behind isn't nearly as much of a damning offense as it feels. Although the psychological side plays an enormous factor here, that's not what I want to focus on - instead, I want to talk about the technical decisions that can be made from a weaker position to survive, and eventually recover. If one does not know what to do from behind, how can they remain hopeful, and stave off this feeling of claustrophobia?

It all starts with a very simple idea - The Defender's Advantage.

Defender's Advantage

When the match begins, usually one champion (or pair of champons, in botlane) is stronger than the other. However, in professional matches, we hardly ever see any early kills go down, and even large CS discrepancies are rare, even in what might seem like impossible matchups. What prevents the stronger player from chain killing the weaker one over and over? What causes the laning phase to behave like it does, with both sides feeling like if they were to all in, they would die? The answer lies in some of the most fundamental rules of the game.

When a champion damages another champion, within range of enemy minions or towers, those minions and towers switch their aggro from whatever they were targeting, and protect the champion that took damage. This gives the defending player a combat advantage. By using your minions and tower to protect you, you can stay safe, even when facing a stronger opponent that would win in a fair fight.

There are still more defenders advantages - skillshots are easier to land while an opponent is walking into you because the particle has to travel a shorter distance. As you retreat into your own territory, the enemy will have a more and more difficult time controlling the fog of war, and you'll be closer to your fountain so you can shop and heal more frequently with lower cost.

So, one must abuse these mechanics to remain safe while playing from a weaker position. Be willing to give up some minions that you would need to walk too far forward to get, because you'd need to leave the protection of your own minions and would lose the trade. Be willing to cede control over the wave for a bit, and just let them push you under tower if you have to. By simply preventing yourself from dying, and continuing to collect resources, you propel yourself closer to being even with them. Why is this? It has to do with how power growth works in the game.

Resources and Power Growth

If you die once, early on, the power gap that that can create can be tremendous. When both of you only have 1000 gold to your name, an extra 200-300 can be a suffocating lead. But, if from that point, you only let the gold gap grow a little bit, and mostly go even, you end up with something like a 4.5k total to a 5k total. The percentage lead gets smaller, even though the absolute lead gets larger. The ultimate example is of course that as you approach the end game, and everyone gets six items, it doesn't matter who has more gold because you can't spend it anymore. Of course, games don't generally last that long, but it's the principle at work here that's important. If you're weaker, going even is winning - it makes your opponent's lead less and less important, to the point that eventually you can win fights using the defender's advantage, and start to come back into the game. Bounties are another wonderful comeback mechanic that can help equalize the gold difference between two teams, and which can change the payoff of ganging up on a particularly fed member of the opposition.

One must also remember that resources are not the same as power. Gold and experience allow you to buy items and level up, but how much better your abilities get, and how much your champion cares about the stats that they can buy depends on the kit that they have. A six item reksai isn't nearly as scary as a six item master yi, because of how efficiently those two kits can make use of the gold they get. If you're a champion that scales better than your opponent, you can actually be down resources, and be equal, or potentially even ahead in power.

But, sometimes the game continues to snowball out of control - the enemy plays their cards right, puts you in situations that you can't deal with, and you fall even further behind. The key here is a mixture of patience, and lightning fast aggression. The key is the difference between doing nothing, and waiting.

Doing nothing Vs. Waiting

If you're doing nothing, there's no end in sight. You've given up - the game will end at some point, and you could care less. You've disengaged from the activity. Waiting is different - on the surface it can look like doing nothing, but you know that you're priming an action, which is ready to go as soon as the right circumstances arise. Perhaps the only way you can win a fight is if the enemy blows an important cooldown without thinking it through first. You wait, tensed, keeping your eyes peeled for that animation to begin, and as soon as it fires and misses, you pounce, ready to capitalize on the mistake. Sometimes it never comes, but most of the time it does, and if you're not ready for it, you'll miss it. When behind, you must constantly be asking yourself "What mistake can I punish", and preparing to allow them to make that mistake.

When you put all this together, you'll find that games where you go behind, or have a weak matchup are no longer a horrible situation that you can't escape, but a dynamic, compelling part of the game, just like being ahead and trying to figure out how to snowball.

So get out there, and break some hearts - use your defender's advantage, let the resource gap shrink over time, and wait for the right moment to show them what you're made of.

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