For those that prefers to read, you can find the transcript of the video below.
What type of character to play in Mid?
When it comes to midlane there is two main criteria that a character must fulfil to be a valid pick for that role. The first one is the ability to quickly clear waves and the second is to be able to farm those waves without being too vulnerable to gank, either because you can farm them at a safe distance, so you remain very close to your tower or you have mobility tool to get to your tower quickly.
We see those criteria make the role quite open, but we usually end up with Mage in midlane since they also benefit greatly from the presence of river buff to help with their mana consumption but also because it is tough to put them in any of the other 4 roles while they still contribute greatly for a team especially if you are looking for magical damage.
What to do in the Early Game?
Your number one priority is to get good farm, it is especially important on Mage since you are only dangerous if your ability does a lot of damage otherwise everyone will be able to run you down in between the cast of your abilities. It is a role where it is extremely important to not fall behind the curve, so you need to get good farm. Thankfully mid is simple to secure farm since you don’t really have any complex wave management. The most important thing is to improve your last hitting.
Your number two priority is information gathering, in particular when it comes to the enemy jungler and enemy rotation. You have a central position on the map and fog wall are close to your lane which mean you have quick access to jungle information by simply going behind fog wall. But you also are easy to gank for the same reason, this is why information gathering is key and this is the main mistake I see new midlaners do. They try to fight before gathering information and end up getting killed through enemy rotation. If you gain an edge in pushing the wave, use it to gather information, know what the enemy team is doing then you can act upon it. You also have the added benefit that every time you disappear behind a fog wall the enemy team need to respect your potential rotation.
Your third and last priority as a midlaner is to gain priority. What is it? Well it is the fact that you are able to rotate or gather information before your direct opposition because you gain an advantage over them. The simplest way is to push faster than them since now they are stranded in lane since they need to clear their own wave or they will lose farm. But it can also be due to the fact that the enemy midlaner had to base while you don’t need to. Which bring an important missconception in the midlane, this lane is not about killing your opponent but all about gaining priority on your opponent since if you get it that means you gain priority on the whole map thanks to your central position.
To explain it even better let’s compare two situation that occurs quite a lot. You did a good job trading against your opponent he is low on health, you are quite healthy. Usual reaction from many players let me go for the kills with an aggressive move, even a dive, you secure the kill, flash out to not die from tower and now you need to back to not get exposed to potential rotation. Great you gain a bit of gold for yourself while losing your flash and luckily you did not die. Now, let’s see the other play, Your opponent is low and instead of diving you let him go back to base. Then take the opportunity to rotate to your duo lane that was pressured by opponents, do a successful gank here that cannot be matched by enemy midlaner, and thanks to the prio gained against the duo it is now easy to get the Fangtooth. Same amount of gold for you but your duo lane is now ahead, and your team have a Fangtooth advantage, much better result with way less risk.
So really the 3 main focus point of a midlaner is to farm efficiently, gather information and gain priority. Any action you do should try to contribute to one of those 3 points.
For instance, paying attention to river buff and getting them are great but why? Because they help a bit your farm, and the mana regen it provides allow you to gain priority since you can spam more your abilities to push faster before having to go back to base. That also means that sacrificing farm and priority to get them is not worth it, really stop dying for river buff.
Surviving to ganks is also very important, because if you are dead you cannot farm, cannot gather information and lose priority in lane which is the worst thing you can do for your team.
A last note for midlaner it is important to time your back correctly, try to find windows of backing that won’t give a priority advantage to your opponent but also try to time your back when you can afford mage item components because they are quite expensive and lacking magical power can put you in a tough position since you are going to struggle to keep clearing wave without it and therefore lose priority to your opponent which will make it hard for you to keep gathering information and your whole job as a midlaner start to collapse. Remember how we said farm is crucial for that role at the beginning.
What to do in the Mid Game?
In Mid game farming is still crucial. Remember you need to not fall behind the curve, so you keep being dangerous. However, now farming wave should be quite fast which free more time to impact the map.
The first way to do so is by working with your jungler when he comes mid. Two important things to do for a successful mid gank. First keep resources up for the gank, if you throw your whole kit at the wave, you will have nothing left for the gank itself which will reduce your chance of success and also increase the risk since midlane gank needs to be fast and decisive because it is easy to collapse and counter gank. Second is you should not make it obvious your jungler is coming for a gank. I see a lot of midlaner that plays super passive and suddenly full-on aggression at a strange timing, if you do that it will be obvious. This part is a bit more complex since there is a lot of mind game involved but try to think about it. If the gank is successful you should have gain great priority to gather information or rotate.
Speaking of rotation, rotation to sidelines is another way to impact the map. Before you go for it be sure you gain a slight priority since we don’t want to lose the mid lane tower for your rotation. Here it is straightforward, rotate to a lane and gank, try to envision how the gank are going to unfold to increase your chance of success. For instance, as Gideon use first your Cosmic Rift and Void Breach before using your Ultimate that way at the end of the Ultimate those two cooldowns are going to be close to up again. Also be careful, don’t stay too long when you gank because you probably need to go back defending your tower or the enemy midlaner is following you for a counter gank.
One thing to note is that, compared to sideline, midlane tower is not easy to take by yourself and so except in very specific situations, it is usually better to look at impacting the rest of the map than trying to solo take mid tower. Most of the time, mid tower will fall because of a successful gank on the midlaner that then allow the ability to take tower with multiple persons.
Last important point in the mid game is how you teamfight? As a mage you have an important role even before the teamfight begin, is the ability to poke the enemy team, which is simply do damage to them while remaining safe before the teamfight break down. Against composition with no healing, it is a very important thing to do to soften up the enemy team, but the important part is to remain safe. If you let the enemy team engage you when you go for those poke moment, it is not good.
There is a second point before teamfight breakdown that are critical to mage, your mana management. You need to always keep enough mana to fight the future teamfight to your maximum ability. If your mana is at the limit of not being able to use your full kit of spell twice, stop poking and simply conserve it for the actual teamfight. If you are lower than that, you probably would be better off going back to base to regen your mana pool.
Then the teamfight breakdown what should we do? As a caster, your job is to be a damage dealer, which means deal a lot of damage while remaining safe. Most of the time you throw out your abilities and then stay safe until they come back of cooldown, rinse and repeat. Our abilities are very impactful but take a while to comeback up. Which means missing one of them can be the difference between winning and losing a teamfight. Naturally landing every single skill shot is impossible but we can use numerous tips to improve our chance of landing abilities.
First, look at the Crowd Control your team have and anticipate your teammate using them, so then you have an easy target to hit when they are stuck in place. Another one is to target opponents that are focused on attacking an ally, since they will be less likely to be aware of you to dodge your abilities but also their movement is easier to predict since they are trying to attack an ally. Last is to simply aim at the zone there is the most player since most of your abilities are AOE and therefore will likely end up hitting someone anyway if there is a pack of player.
Teamfights will come with experience but if you really want to get better at them you need to watch their replays and ask yourself what should I do at every point in the teamfight while reviewing it. Remember the 50/50 rule from the “Perfect Mindset” video.
What to do in the Late Game?
As a mage you are very good at two things in the late game. The first one is clearing wave fast, so one of your job is to set up waves. Which means you need to keep the wave pushed so your team are gaining map priority thanks to having our minions advanced in the lane. But be careful to not overextend since the enemy team might try to catch you when you go for those plays. Another thing your fast wave clear is important for is during siege defense. If the enemy team are pushing your structures, you are a crucial part of the defense since you are great at clearing wave and without wave enemy cannot push. Which means in defensive situation it is imperative for you to stay alive and that you focus the waves that are coming to your inhibitors or core. This is a good rule of thumb, which is unless you can get a kill on the attacking team, focus on clearing minions’ waves before spending your abilities to deal damage to the enemy team in defensive scenario.
The second one is dealing great damage in teamfights, which means your main role is to be present with your team to try to win teamfight to secure big objectives and then push together with them. Teamfight in the late game are very similar to the teamfight of the mid game for mage, so keep looking at poking, be mindful of your mana management, and use every little tip to make landing your spell easier.
Conclusion
We are at the end of this guide, and there is a lot to digest here. Keep in mind to practice while using the isolation training method, you won’t be able to apply everything immediately so just focus on one step at a time. Luckily for us, midlane is pretty great for that so I would recommend that you follow this order and once you feel confident on the current topic move on to the next in your games:
- Get better at last hitting
- Learn to gather information
- Understand the concept of priority
- React correctly to the gank in your lanes
- Learn to rotate and increase your gank quality
- Improve your teamfighting
- Impact the map correctly in late game
Thank you for spending the time on this content and I hope it has provided you clear direction on how to bring your gameplay to the next level. Keep in mind that everyone around you also progress, and so if you want to rank up you need to progress faster than the pack. Following what we have seen in this guide will definitely allow you to do that, because very few play games with an understanding of what they are doing. So go out there and feel free to share your success story in the comments. For me, I will see you in the future with more educational content to help you towards becoming the best at Predecessor.
Mugi out!