Lanning Set-Ups: Introduction (1/3)

Part I:Introduction

This article is meant to give the community in general better tools to think about lane set-ups, and understand how the game is played accordingly. I have two goals in this article:

1. Set Terminology
2. Discuss Lanning Set-Ups


 A basic problem facing theory-crafters and players alike is a lack of terminology to describe what teams are using as their lane set-ups. Therefore I have set-up four segments to describe common lanning set-ups and have given them each a title. Here is diagram of each of the starts I will be talking about through this article:

Cross Lanes                                   Mirrored Lanes

 

Reverse Lanes                            Standard EU Lanes

Once the terms are established I discuss why each set-up was chose, and how they shape the start of the game. This will naturally flow into some exposition of Lvl 1 strategies. In this section I draw from all the games I've had the chance to see, and note them to the best of my abilities.

Finally I back all of my discussion with detailed game notes of 8 of WE's games from the current GIGABYTE StarsWar League Season 2. I believe China is posed to become the strongest League of Legends region, with a possibility of even toppling South Korea. With the recent addition of Godlike to the Royal roster, China is shaping to have 3 world-class teams that all have insanely strong ADS, unique strategy and picks that are not seen in other regions. WE is the strongest team in China as of now, and arguably the world as well, tearing through IPL 5 and going 9-1 SWL. This part specifically deals with WE as a team, but has shaped many of my thoughts in the previous sections. I put this in the last section to make it a lighter read, and you could skip this section, but I feel that it is definitely a worth-while read, and I go more in-depth on WE's tactics.

As with the last article I will be using a Bush map and it's terminology to describe where wards and players are. The Inner Bush and the Red Bushes are new(R1, R2, R3). The rest are the same, with ML as short for Mid-Left, and MR for Mid-Right.