4Game

I wanted to share this video as an example of how a lane can get absolutely destroyed:
https://youtu.be/v7tr8Tqhwc0

The premise here is that a couple small mistakes by one side (in this case the dire pos 1/pos 5 AM/CM lane) can result in a really terrible lane. The AM gets 9cs in the entire laning phase before we destroy his tower at about 7.5 minutes.

I am the pos 4 Snap here, with a pos 3 Natures Prophet. The key to this lane is understanding the nature of AM as a hero and how he has to play to not get owned in lane.

AM has his biggest lane powerspikes at levels 1 and 2, being able to burn all the enemies mana early if he can get on top of you. He does tend to be weak against double ranged lanes who can output a lot of damage against him if he tries to get close.

The second factor here is that AM wants the enemy heroes to be split up, such that he can then blink on one of them alone to take this advantageous trade where he burns all their mana. Sometimes the enemy will split up just cause they are bad. But as the pos 5 cm in this game, he could have tried to play to deward his small camp and go for a pull. Even if he is not successful – this could have drawn the pos 4 away from the lane, giving AM an easier time.

Since CM never did this, the result was an almost constant 2v2 against two high damage range heroes. AM lost a ton of hp fairly quickly, and didn’t buy enough regen to sustain. He also wasn’t getting the CS to get an early ring of health.

The NP and I also do a good job over time of pulling the lane equilibrium back, making it even more impossible for the them to lane effectively.

Keep in mind these are 6k mmr players here – so these things can happen at any mmr level. The key is being able to identify how the enemy heroes want to play, and then adjusting properly with your own playstyle. Given a couple small mistakes on their end, the result is maybe the worst laning stage you could possibly have on carry without dying.