Introduction
One of the hardest things in League is How To Stop Feeding After Losing Lane. Today we are going to cover this so when it happens to you next time you will not struggle as much and be able to do better thus increasing your chances to climb out of your elo bracket.
It’s incredibly frustrating to start losing your lane, especially early in the game. But, it’s critical to be in a mindset where you understand that you should be losing lanes about 50% of the time. So, get comfortable with the idea that you will start some games on the back foot, and instead of overextending to force a play to come back in the game, you’ll need to learn to play from behind and minimize the losses.
All too often, players think they need to go out of the laning phase beating their opponent to have a good chance at winning. Most players usually come out of lane, either winning their matchup or losing it. Essentially, most solo queue players have a feast-or-famine mentality for the laning phase, and that needs to stop if these players want to have consistent play and overall improvement over time!
Determining the Enemy Win Condition
So, before figuring out how to stop feeding in the lane, it’s crucial to determine what’s needed to win and then work backward to find the right course of action to get there! The first step of this road map is to determine the enemy’s win condition. The win condition for the enemy team will be the single point of investment that will most likely result in them winning the game.
Usually, this is a fed hyper carry Champion like Vayne or Kog’Maw, but it can just as easily be a split pushing Champion or stacking the Dragons to get the Dragon Soul! Essentially, the player should consider what the threshold is that, when surpassed, feels like the game is a guaranteed loss.
Ideally, analyzing the enemy team’s win condition should be done before loading onto the rift. However, things don’t always go according to plan, and the enemy’s win condition may change as the game progresses.
By keeping up to date on the most probable win condition for the enemy, you’ll be able to start planning steps to avoid playing into their win condition as best as possible. When behind in a game, it’s never a good idea to play into their win condition because you will never be able to beat them at their own game.
Consider the enemy team’s win condition is a hyper-carry split pusher like Fiora. If their team has a terrible team fighting composition, you should always want to force team fights over matching their split push and then fighting four against four on the other side of the map. Even if your team also has a split pushing win condition, it’s not ideal for matching in the same manner because they are already ahead and are stronger overall.
Determining Your Win Condition
The best idea is to strategize your team play to minimize their strengths. This will essentially reduce their win condition and their advantage by proxy. Once that is understood, teams should then determine their win condition, given the state of the game.
Especially when already behind! Consider which Champion on your team is your “late-game insurance,” meaning they are a hyper carry that will always be able to carry games when they approach full build! Also, consider who on your team is the most fed to see if you can already start investing your resources to generate that snowballing effect!
When you identify these options, the path to victory becomes more straightforward and more achievable. By focusing on what you should do with the two win conditions in mind, players will already feel as though the game is still winnable. Making the pathway forward clearer helps reduce toxicity and maintain the mental fortitude needed to come back from the clutches of defeat!
Remember, it is essential to play into your win condition, but it’s more important not to play into the enemies when you’re behind. Any favorable win condition that does not also play into the enemy team wants will have the best chance of a comeback!
If you would like to read more on the psychology of the win condition there’s a good article here that explains more on it.
The Importance of Vision
When they are falling behind in the game, most players will notice that they have very few wards out on the map. In League of Legends, vision is key to victory. The more vision you have, the more information you have. When you have more information than your opponents, you’ll be able to make better decisions that can start putting momentum in your favor.
Specifically, once you have decided what your win condition is and the enemy win condition is, your team can strategically ward to prevent their snowballing and encourage your own.
For example, suppose the enemy team has tremendous team fighting. In that case, your team needs to have complete confidence that they have the contested area warded before even considering challenging the objectives, like Dragon or Baron. When behind, of course, there is the added difficulty that the enemy team will be able to sweep out your wards in critical areas of the map. While this is true, it’s vital to consider alternatives to the specific positions that may result in your ward being swept.
Likely, this means placing a ward in a slightly less advantageous position for the increased chance that it will remain until expiration. Consider where you usually place wards, their purpose, and where you can ward nearby that isn’t in the bush. By following this mindset, you’ll have a better chance of gathering the same information while also avoiding being discovered by control wards and sweepers! Instead of warding in typical bushes around the jungle, consider warding a camp in the jungle!
Of course, these atypical wards will not spot out enemies as often, but with proper coverage, you’ll at least be able to piece together the information you have and better predict their locations! After all, a ward showing no one on the map is better than no ward at all!
How To Be Gold Efficient
When your team has less gold, the gold must be stretched to have as much value as possible. Efficiently building items and investing in the right tools to accelerate your win condition can often make up the difference in gold! To ensure you are economically efficient, you must understand when to catch minion waves in the side lanes. In low ELOs especially, these side lanes are often left untouched after 25 minutes, wasting tons of gold that is better off in your pocket!
Being gold efficient also means putting gold into the right pockets, not just any pockets! Think back to your win condition and any late-game hyper carries. If you do, you should be attempting to funnel gold into their pockets to attain their power spikes much sooner.
To do this well, you’ll need to communicate with teammates to make farming the side lanes much safer than they would otherwise be when behind! Another big part of being efficient with gold is entirely purchasing an item rather than having two pieces built! Fully upgraded items are always a more efficient use of item slots and gold!
Strategize Around What You Know
Once you have established what you need to do to avoid the enemy’s win condition, play into yours, and gather as much information as possible with the least risk, it’s time to strategize. This stage of coming back after feeding is the equivalent of the spark that lights the flame of your comeback.
Of course, it’s beneficial to continue funneling gold into your hyper carries, but it’s even better to do that while baiting the enemy to collapse on them to get a free kill! When you’re behind, you’ll need to be more creative for these plays to work, as you’ll have to force your enemies to make mistakes.
It’s one thing to play around the vision to try to set picks, but it’s a whole added layer of value to set picks while already playing to your win condition. Remember, what you’re doing is technically just baiting the enemy into playing into your win condition!
Trust Your Teammates
The last aspect of the comeback to note before discussing each lane is faith in your teammates. This is easily the most challenging task once you are already behind. However, if you can manage to trust your teammates, you’ll find you flip a switch and play better than the other team collectively, or you die trying! Even if a teammate previously made a bad call, you need to trust them. If they signal they want to engage, you need to follow them in.
When players feel their teammates don’t trust them, they close themselves off and play on their own, just attempting to survive at all costs. To win, it’s not just about surviving; it’s about thriving! You need to play as a team to thrive in a team game!
Adapting Your Laning After You Start To Fall Behind
With the above in mind, players need to understand what they can do from the 10-15 minute mark to start recovering from falling behind and feeding a few kills in the first 10 minutes. Going lane by lane, we will review players’ approaches to avoid falling into the traps that extend the enemy’s lead while recovering to a decent state when transitioning to the mid-game!
Starting with the Jungler, the best thing to do once fallen behind in the early game is to attempt to play the more supportive/utility role for the team and snowball any leads a laner has. Ideally, after the first 10 minutes, at least one lane will have a lead, and if not, there will be one that is still in an influential state!
At this point, it’s critical to develop an advantage through that laner and sacrifice some jungle efficiency to do it. While jungle efficiency in pathing and ganking is essential, if you’re already behind in the matchup, the enemy jungler will be able to do it better.
Moving onto the Support role, there is a similar call to action. Supports have the ability and are often encouraged to roam to other lanes to apply pressure that the jungler alone wouldn’t be able to do. Usually, this will be for Rift Herald or a dive in mid or top lane. Similarly, Supports should prioritize pushing the advantage any single laner has to get them out of laner faster so they can influence the other lanes.
Mid laners have a similar role. They can be very impactful when taking a more supportive and utility-focused playstyle that emphasizes roaming and assisting in winning matchups around the map. Of course, this only works if the specific Champion can take this supporting or utility-focused role, which many Champions like Assassins cannot.
Instead, they can sacrifice the laning efficiencies to roam to a winning matchup to pick up a kill, gathering sufficient and relatively uncontested gold while advancing the winning matchup. The other important aspect of preventing further feeding in the lane is controlling the wave whenever possible. By requesting assistance from the jungler or another ally, you may be able to pull a freeze that can alleviate some of that pressure and force the enemy to over-extend.
As a top laner, you’ll primarily need to work on effective trading and wave management to attempt to stabilize a losing lane! While roaming is an option, it’s much more detrimental to roam and get nothing out of the time spent than the other positions. The side lanes are inherently longer, and the longer the enemy is left to control the wave however they want, the harder it will be to recover when you return. Thus, communicating with your teammates to get appropriate assistance can make a massive difference in the lane!
Finally, it’s much more difficult for Marksmen players than the rest of the other positions for one specific reason. Marksmen cannot leave the lane unless it’s to go to Dragon. The identity of the Marksmen is congruent with a late-game carry which means it is essential that they invest their time and energy into getting as much gold consumed as possible.
While the Support can easily uproot and roam, the Marksman cannot and should not. Ideally, at this stage of the game in a losing lane, the Marksman will stay put in lane and farm as much as possible while the Support roams with the Jungler to create advantages in other lanes. While the Marksman is patiently waiting for power spikes, the idea is that the now-fed Jungler and Support and possibly mid laner can then roam down bot lane to gank or dive the enemy and use the Rift Herald to get the first turret bonus.
Conclusion
Of course, there is a lot to consider when you start feeding and losing your lane. It’s easier said than done, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the shot. After all, it is your LP. Remember that the best games to win are often the toughest ones, and the game is never over until the nexus explodes!
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