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Professional League of Legends is played very differently from ranked games.
In fact, compared to the highest-ranked games, there is a major difference in how pros handle certain situations. This is ideally because of a five-person communication that does not exist within solo-queue ranked matches.
Lane priorities play a crucial role in professional League of Legends play, and the role of jungler is instrumental in handling the same. Every team looks for one lane which they want to win as early as possible. This then benefits the other lanes, thereby allowing the side to snowball the game.
One of the most critical concepts that arise from this idea is the mid-jungle prio that most professional teams use to enable the rest of the squad.
Lack of proper mid-jungle prio in professional League of Legends spells doom for any team
The mid-lane within League of Legends is by far the most influential amongst every other lane. It is because the way professional players love to play is through rotations.
No pro mid-laner will spend 30 minutes farming mid-lane as it will definitely lead to a loss. This is because the bot-lane or the top-lane will get ganked to oblivion leading to significant gold and experience difference, which in most cases is non-recoverable.
Professional players in League of Legends use teleports very effectively to dive the enemy laner as soon as there is some sort of minion advantage. Teams like MAD Lions and FPX do this a lot, where the bot lane will crash the minion wave into the enemy tower.
As soon as this happens, junglers dive from behind, followed by a teleport from the mid-laner and the top-laner. However, to do this, getting a mid-lane early advantage is hugely vital.
This is why the ally jungler in League of Legends will look for opportunities to assist the mid-laner in getting as many kills as possible. Even the ally support might join in once in a while and dive the enemy mid-laner to ensure a guaranteed kill.
In such cases, the ally mid-laner will keep accumulating gold, teleport back to base, and come back with a level advantage over the enemy. The idea is to focus on skirmishes instead of big team fights to keep building the gold edge as the game progresses.
Usually, teams communicate such that the other lanes will play as safely as possible to prevent any form of death. They will hold on until the mid-jungle prio can gain an advantage, and once the mid-laner hits level six, they start roaming.
This is a reason behind the immense popularity of champions like Ryze and Twisted Fate. Their ultimates allow them to keep pressuring the other lanes every two minutes.
It is essential to understand that mid-jungle prio does not always mean that the mid-laner has to win or get kills. It also means the pressure the mid-lane and jungle duo can put on the side lanes with their level and experience.
One of the best examples for this has to be MAD Lions versus Fnatic Game 1 in the LEC finals. The latter’s mid-laner hit level 6, and as soon as he did that, the entire team collapsed onto the bot lane.
As shown in the image above, the jungler joined in the fight, leading to two swift kills. It is important to note that Fnatic does not have a kill yet, and even after that, they went for the dive with Bwipo and Nisqy leading the charge.
The mid-jungle meta in League of Legends has been very prevalent in Season 11. Almost every team, from LEC to LPL, abuses it as it helps to make the game very easy for the rest of the group.
It gives a lot of freedom to create openings for the other lanes within League of Legends. However, it works very well in professional play and not so much in ranked games due to the risk it possesses.
It is crucial to remember that mid-jungle prio in League of Legends can fail if the dives are not calculated, and giving a double or triple kill to the enemy top-laner or the bot lane can be disastrous. The timing has to be perfect with very intricate knowledge of positioning as well.
However, pro players practice these timings and thus make those dives very smoothly.
Note: This article reflects the author’s views.
