League of Legends

The long and wide concept of Aggresive play. I bet you've heard about it, around forums, streams, live tournament commentary and so on. Is it as simple as it looks? What exactly does that mean? Let's go into a very important concept that will bring the light into our LoL lives.

Carpe fenestra quam minimum credula postero

The original and popular phrase by Horace, Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero, which can be translated as "Seize the Day, putting as little trust as possible in the future", is somewhat related to the concept I'm trying to draw. But, instead of using this phrase, I made a little modification to it, using the concept -fenestra-, (Carpe fenestra quam minimum credula postero) meaning window, a breach, a loophole; and overall "Seize any breach, putting as little trust as possible in the future".

Which means, finally into LoL: do not let your chance to kill/obliterate your enemy fade into time, as there is no way to know if there would be another situation like this.


Easy to understand, hard to master.

Fenestrae

A breach is usually measured by:
a) Amount of damage that can be dealt (amount of autoattacks, skills damage)
b) Amount of damage that can be soaked (total HP, armor, magic res)
c) Timing
d) Positioning

All of these concepts are learned by experience. How much damage Ashe + Soraka combo can deal, can soak, and heal. Where is the best place to be, and how should skills go in succession. Implying maths (numbers and armor/mres reduction values), implying coordination (stun followed by a silence once stun is done, flash if necessary), and implying Map awareness (default concept everyone should know).

ELO

This breach is what makes a player a sad, average, good or extraordinary LoL player (or within any strategy game too). ELO itself is not accurate enough, but we can deduce and actually see that there is a clear situation regarding breach sizes.

Bronze league and below: breach size is huge. You can actually see clearly that you have an advantage in some of the aspects above. Usually this means: tower diving, unscrupulous harass (overextending the creep wave), engaging while in low health, and specific scenarios like not knowing the enemy skills.

Silver and Gold leagues: breach size is usually for a few seconds. Players might know the skills, might know how item synergy work, but still the positional mistakes, the stupid exchange of hits and the overextension are catalysts. Engaging full face versus a level 2 Tristana with Ignite and Heal, trying to Harass a Corki/Taric by walking into autoattack range while your AD carry is in the bush miles away, etc.

From Platinum to Diamond leagues the breach size is decreasing exponentially from seconds to actually simple frames of time which can only be capitalized by a coordinated execution.

This is not only for Bottom lane, but any lane. Harassing in itself is nothing but a constant push for a higher breach to break in and perform a coup de grâce to either kill or move someone out of his lane. Ganks and teleports will enhance this moments of clarity like nothing else in the game, while contributing also to generate breaches in other areas of the game (counter jungle, objective control).

Counter Jungle by itself is, again, a breach, a fenestra of light which gets shorter, dimmer and very difficult to perform as higher you go on the ladder.

Epilogus

Being aggressive, for me, is the constant search for these breaches, or windows of opportunity. This also means a constant psychological harass, which can produce mistakes; mistakes that will lead into open spots. Warding the bushes, baiting skills, baiting heals, headbutting into wall the second they walk by them, stunning and bursting, baiting to flash for a better positioning, and so on.

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