[0:00] Welcome everybody. Coach Mysterious here
[0:01] and in this video I'm going to explain
[0:02] you everything you need to know about
[0:04] wave management. We're going to start
[0:05] off by understanding how waves work and
[0:08] then we're going to move on on how to
[0:09] actually manage waves and influence them
[0:11] yourself. So there are two main forces
[0:13] that influence wave states. Size and
[0:15] location. Yes, size matters nowadays
[0:17] guys. So the reason why size matters is
[0:20] because if there's a minion wave that's
[0:21] bigger than the other minion wave, it's
[0:23] always going to clear their minion wave.
[0:25] Location matters because if a wave is
[0:27] closer towards someone's turret, the new
[0:30] minion wave will arrive faster than the
[0:32] other minion wave will. And that means
[0:33] that there's going to be more damage
[0:35] dealt and it means that it's going to be
[0:36] pushing. So these forces can work
[0:38] together or they can work against each
[0:40] other depending on the situation. We
[0:42] have a neutral wet. You see that the
[0:43] size and the location is similar and
[0:46] that means that the wave is actually
[0:47] going to stay in its place and it's not
[0:49] really going to move anywhere because
[0:51] there's just as many minions and it's in
[0:52] the middle of the lane which means that
[0:54] the location is neutral. Now you can
[0:56] also have a pushing wave state. You see
[0:58] that we're still in this somewhat
[0:59] neutral wave state but in this case
[1:01] Oriana has got one more minion which
[1:04] means that it will slightly slow push
[1:06] into or into any side. We also have
[1:09] pushing by location. In this uh example,
[1:12] we see that we have the wave state that
[1:14] is somewhat equal when it comes to the
[1:16] size, but the location is closer towards
[1:19] Oriana's turret, which means that it's
[1:20] going to be slow pushing into red side
[1:23] because of the fact that the blue
[1:24] minions will arrive sooner than the red
[1:27] minions, dealing more damage towards
[1:28] their redside wave. Finally, we got the
[1:30] frozen wave state in which that the size
[1:32] and the location forces are
[1:34] counteracting each other and keeping the
[1:36] wave in this position. There's a handful
[1:37] of wave states that can happen in
[1:39] League. And each of the wave states have
[1:41] clear advantages and disadvantages. And
[1:43] knowing these will allow you to
[1:45] understand when to utilize which wave
[1:46] state in which position. And that will
[1:48] allow you to then manage the wave in the
[1:49] correct position. We're going to start
[1:51] up with the hard push. When do you hard
[1:53] push? Well, you hard push if you want to
[1:55] have something happen right now. And
[1:57] that can be either something that's
[1:59] happening on the map. Maybe there's a
[2:00] play happening on bot that you can then
[2:02] move towards. So, you got to nuke the
[2:03] wave and then get out. But in this case,
[2:05] you see in this example, I'm getting
[2:07] ganked. So, I'm hard pushing the wave to
[2:09] make sure that I don't have to attend
[2:11] any minions and I can run away from the
[2:13] banion. There can be other reasons for
[2:15] hard pushing as well. I'm going to hard
[2:17] push again the next wave right here
[2:19] because I want to take a reset. Usually,
[2:21] you hard push for tempo, for time. So,
[2:24] the faster I push this wave out, the
[2:26] faster I can actually reset myself,
[2:28] which means that on the next wave after
[2:30] that, I'm not going to lose that many
[2:31] means. So, when there's hard pushing,
[2:33] there's also slow pushing, which means
[2:35] that we want to push the minion wave
[2:37] into the enemies, but we don't want to
[2:38] do it fast. We want to do it slow
[2:40] because we don't need to have to attend
[2:42] to anything on the map right now. And by
[2:45] slow pushing, we're actually going to
[2:46] generate a minion advantage. And having
[2:48] a minion advantage means that there's
[2:50] more minions on our side, and that's
[2:52] going to give us a trading advantage
[2:53] because if we trade and we hit each
[2:55] other, what's going to happen is that my
[2:57] minions are going to be stronger, going
[2:58] to be dealing more damage towards the
[3:00] rise. So that's why a slow push is so
[3:02] incredibly powerful. We use this also to
[3:04] get lane control. One of the powerful
[3:07] things of a slow push is that you can
[3:09] create opportunities to trade because
[3:11] you can last hit your minion before the
[3:13] enemy last hits their minion. So you've
[3:15] cleared yours and then they still need
[3:16] to clear theirs allowing you to use your
[3:19] spell or an out attack onto the enemies
[3:21] granting you a trading opport
[3:22] opportunity. And this will usually allow
[3:25] you to have lane control because it is
[3:27] really easy to turn a slow push into a
[3:29] fast push. and instantly make a play on
[3:31] the map if we actually see that once
[3:33] happening. So, the next wave state is
[3:35] going to be the freeze. And the freeze
[3:37] can be used offensively as defensively.
[3:40] In this case, I'm using it offensively
[3:41] to zone the enemy of resources, but you
[3:44] can also use it to have the wave closer
[3:46] towards your side and make it harder for
[3:48] the enemies to trade up on you. This is
[3:50] in the new season a pretty rare wave
[3:53] state, but it occasionally still
[3:54] happens. And the way that you do that is
[3:55] by holding three to sometimes four
[3:58] millions onto your side and making sure
[4:00] that you manage that the wave keeps in
[4:02] this position. So you got to manage the
[4:04] size and the location factor that it
[4:06] stays in that specific position. If the
[4:09] wave gets too big, it will push into you
[4:11] and crash. And if the wave is too small,
[4:14] then the location factor will push the
[4:16] wave into the enemies. Next up, we got
[4:18] ourselves the neutral wave state. This
[4:19] is a wave state in which that you're
[4:21] super flexible to do whatever you want
[4:23] because waves can go in both directions
[4:26] and this gives you a lot of options.
[4:28] That's the biggest benefit of this wave
[4:30] state. This is the if I'm not sure what
[4:31] to do, this is the best way to go for
[4:34] this wave set also has the benefit that
[4:35] it has creating a lot of trading
[4:38] opportunities because a lot of minions
[4:40] are dying which leads to both parties
[4:42] being able to punish the other onto
[4:44] their last hits. The final wave state is
[4:46] a held wave state. This isn't a freeze,
[4:49] but it is basically a glorified slow
[4:52] push. The way that you set it up is by
[4:54] holding one or max two minions barely
[4:56] outside of your tower range. And what
[4:58] happens is that both of the waves then
[5:00] are equally strong in size, but it's
[5:03] very close towards your turret, which
[5:05] means that it will very slowly push into
[5:07] the enemies. And this wave set is
[5:10] incredibly OP because it has the
[5:12] benefits of all of the slow pushes, but
[5:14] it is closer towards your turret. So the
[5:17] location is closer towards your turret,
[5:18] which means that it is a lot harder for
[5:20] the enemies to actually manage the wave
[5:22] and it's easier for you to zone them off
[5:25] if you actually get into a position
[5:27] where you can win trades. And you see
[5:28] right here that I'm playing Cinder
[5:29] versus Aan and Axan is actually walking
[5:32] up constantly to clear the minions. And
[5:34] I'm constantly timing my abilities onto
[5:36] his last hits. And that means that he's
[5:37] slowly losing HP because he's forced to
[5:39] CS so close to my turret. He can't swing
[5:42] at me. He can't extend the trade at me.
[5:44] And it puts him in this position which
[5:45] is just super super awkward for him. And
[5:47] because I'm now winning the trade battle
[5:49] and I'm now turning this into a slow
[5:51] push. You see how slow I'm pushing it.
[5:53] I'm only last hitting the minions. We
[5:55] see now we got a real slow push right
[5:57] here because the the wave state is
[5:58] neutral. The location is neutral but my
[6:00] size is slightly bigger. And this leads
[6:03] to me taking insane amount of trading
[6:05] opportunities. So the health wave state
[6:07] is one of the strongest wave states in
[6:09] the game because it forces the enemies
[6:10] to overextend and it forces them if they
[6:13] don't to otherwise lose a lot of means
[6:15] because the size is equal which means
[6:17] that at the beginning they're going to
[6:18] lose a lot of creeps and this held wave
[6:20] state turning it into a slow push is
[6:22] leaving me in an insane lane position
[6:24] where I don't take any damage myself
[6:26] because he simply can't hit me and I'm
[6:28] slowly chipping away at his his health
[6:30] bar which puts me in a position where
[6:32] I'm absolutely destroying him in the
[6:34] trading department. really incredible
[6:36] wave set and I really recommend you guys
[6:38] to play around with it. The way that you
[6:39] set it up once again is by holding one
[6:43] or two minions barely outside of tower
[6:45] range. You see that I'm tanking the
[6:46] minions so it doesn't get into tower
[6:48] range. Now that means that it's in this
[6:51] particular position and I do it again on
[6:53] the next wave. I'm trading him off. He's
[6:55] trying to crash the wave. He's desperate
[6:57] right now. He really wants to get the
[6:58] wave out but I just tank it. I hold it
[7:01] and he's getting absolutely destroyed by
[7:02] this wave state. So, since a slow push
[7:04] is probably the strongest wave state in
[7:06] the game, and I get a lot of questions
[7:08] about players in my coaching program
[7:09] asking, "How do I properly set up a slow
[7:11] push or I I feel like I can't get the
[7:14] push, Tim. How do I do that?" I wanted
[7:16] to specifically highlight that in this
[7:18] example, in this video. There's because
[7:20] there's a bunch of tricks that you can
[7:22] use to get the push. Now, very high
[7:24] level, what you want to do is you want
[7:26] to make sure that the size or the
[7:28] location of your wave gets so big that
[7:31] it pushes into the enemies, but not too
[7:33] big that it hard pushes. So, we want to
[7:35] find a nice balance. So, we want to have
[7:37] a slight mean advantage. That's the
[7:39] goal. There's a lot of tricks that we
[7:41] can use to get a slight mean advantage.
[7:42] Normally, we can auto more. Sounds
[7:45] simple, but a lot of people just don't
[7:47] auto attack. So, if you're the first one
[7:48] to auto attack the minions, you
[7:50] generally already get a slow push. So
[7:51] that means that at 125 you get you
[7:55] better make sure that you're in the
[7:56] center of the lane to start hitting
[7:57] these minions if you want to get a push
[7:59] in that lane. Another thing you can do
[8:01] is you can make sure that you look for
[8:03] high value abilities. What do I mean
[8:05] with that? You look, for example, if I'm
[8:06] playing Victor, my E hits both rise and
[8:09] the minion wave, which means that I get
[8:11] push and I hit him. That is if he's
[8:13] contesting. If he's not out attacking
[8:15] the wave or he if he's just sitting
[8:17] back, then we want to just out attack a
[8:19] little bit and not do not do this.
[8:22] Another thing you can do is you can hit
[8:24] the enemy champion so that the minions
[8:27] will attack you. So you got to stand
[8:29] your ground and the minions will then
[8:30] attack you, which means that they won't
[8:32] attack your wave and that will reset the
[8:34] aggro and that means that then you can
[8:36] also drag the minions backwards which
[8:39] means that the location factor is
[8:41] getting closer towards your side. It's a
[8:43] little bit more advanced. Another thing
[8:45] you can do is if you're currently
[8:46] playing versus mages like Zeraf, you can
[8:48] stand outside of the wave. Zerif has a
[8:51] lot of AoE with his W. And if you stand
[8:53] inside of the wave, what's going to
[8:54] happen is that he's going to be getting
[8:56] these high value abilities, putting him
[8:58] in a position where he's going to be
[9:00] able to
[9:02] um hit both you and the wave, worst case
[9:03] scenario, you're going to absolutely get
[9:05] destroyed if you do that. So, let's take
[9:07] a look at this specific example versus
[9:09] Rise. What I'm going to do is I'm
[9:11] pushing him off because I know I'm the
[9:12] stronger champion level one. So, I'm
[9:14] pushing him off the wave. I'm
[9:16] controlling the space in the lane and
[9:18] I'm going to make sure that I am then
[9:19] going to hit the minions first. And what
[9:21] I'm doing is I'm hitting him and I'm
[9:23] nuking a minion because if one minion
[9:25] dies, that's one minion from the enemies
[9:28] that doesn't damage my minions anymore.
[9:30] So, which also leaves me to slow push
[9:32] into him. And what I did is I hit rise
[9:35] and I slightly dragged the means back.
[9:37] Once again, I'm hitting Rise. You see
[9:39] what happens to these means? They're
[9:40] getting closer towards my side. So that
[9:42] means that right now on my side, I'm
[9:44] turning this into a slow push because my
[9:45] means will arrive a lot more, not faster
[9:47] than it would be in a neutral wave state
[9:49] right here. Turning this into a slow
[9:51] push. The more you're going to out
[9:52] attack, of course, the better it is. And
[9:54] now I slightly stop auto attacking a
[9:56] little bit because I already have the
[9:58] slow push. I don't want to make it too
[9:59] big. Okay, he's stepping up again. I'm
[10:01] managing my auto attacks. I'm just
[10:03] making sure that I'm having this small
[10:05] main advantage over him all the time.
[10:07] not out attacking too much but not out
[10:09] attacking too little as well. Um having
[10:11] a bit of a combination and you see that
[10:13] the combination of having the slow push
[10:15] is leading me to getting these trading
[10:17] windows onto rise and this puts me in a
[10:20] fantastic position where I can pressure
[10:22] him due to the beautiful wave state and
[10:24] this is the power of this wave state. A
[10:26] slow push perfectly an example right
[10:29] here. Now I want to have a bit of an
[10:31] example what a high value ability is.
[10:32] The high value ability is for example
[10:34] this. You see what I need to do? I need
[10:36] to clear this wave because the next wave
[10:37] is coming in. I got to make sure I crash
[10:39] it otherwise he can hold it and that
[10:41] would be a disaster for me because then
[10:42] I can't reset. I need to hard push this
[10:44] as fast as possible. But I also want to
[10:46] hit rise. So I clear the minions plus I
[10:48] hit rise with my E. High value ability.
[10:51] Now the final thing I want to talk about
[10:53] is cycling waves in a rotation of two.
[10:55] And this is really important if you want
[10:57] to take your wavement to the next level
[11:00] and want to pressure your enemy lane
[11:02] opponent. And the way that we're going
[11:03] to do that is by slow pushing wave one
[11:05] because slow pushing wave one nicely in
[11:08] the center of the lane gives us a lot of
[11:10] trading opportunities. And I got this
[11:11] example versus kill because it's
[11:13] literally me versus me in this lane. I'm
[11:15] managing the wave. This guy is
[11:16] spectating. So this is the perfect
[11:18] matchup to practice it on. And what I do
[11:20] is this first wave is I slow push the
[11:22] wave on top of her giving me trading
[11:24] opportunities onto all of the minions
[11:26] that she needs to last it. I can zone
[11:28] her away right here. And I'm going to
[11:29] push the second wave a little bit
[11:31] faster. And this is going to allow me to
[11:34] cycle waves. And bear with me because
[11:36] I'm going to explain why that's the
[11:37] case. So, what we see right here is that
[11:39] I'm crashing the minions. I'm punishing
[11:41] her onto her last hits, which then allow
[11:44] me to hit her under tower and pressure
[11:47] her. Now, what would happen a lot if you
[11:49] do a two- wave crash, there's a reason
[11:50] we call it two wave cycle, not a two-
[11:52] wave crash, because if you do two wave
[11:53] crash, what would happen a lot is that
[11:54] the next melee wave will get stuck up
[11:56] right here, and that would be awkward
[11:58] because Kale can then really easily CS.
[12:01] But what I'm going to do is I'm actually
[12:03] going to make sure that the minion wave,
[12:04] the next minion wave is going to go
[12:06] deeper towards my side. And I do that by
[12:08] in this case taking aggro. You can also
[12:10] do that by crashing the second wave a
[12:12] little bit faster. And because the wave
[12:14] is now closer toward the middle, this
[12:16] guy needs to step up more, granting me
[12:18] more trading opportunities onto him
[12:20] because otherwise he would just be able
[12:21] to duck on the tower, get all the
[12:23] experience, and that means for free
[12:25] standing on a range where it's harder
[12:26] for me to hit him. So now I'm doing the
[12:28] exact same thing. I'm slow pushing wave
[12:30] one right here, hitting him onto his
[12:32] last hits, pressuring him whenever he
[12:34] gets close. You can see it right here.
[12:36] I'm hitting all of my abilities, getting
[12:37] some damage off onto the kill, and I
[12:39] want to make sure that the next wave
[12:41] right here is one that can slightly
[12:43] stack up with the next with the new wave
[12:45] coming in. It's not perfectly in the
[12:47] center of the lane. I think I could have
[12:49] done a little bit better job cycling it,
[12:50] but it shows the example quite well
[12:52] right here. And this see leads to me
[12:55] getting a lot of pressure here onto the
[12:56] kill where I'm just cycling the waves
[12:58] trying to hit my abilities onto her last
[13:00] hits. And this also allows me to punish
[13:03] her under the tower whenever she needs
[13:05] to hit her minions. The power of this
[13:07] wave state is that you can punish her
[13:08] onto all of her last hits. Whenever
[13:10] you're slow pushing, you've hit your
[13:12] minion. She needs to hard last hit her
[13:14] minion. You can harass her. You've k all
[13:16] of your minions under the tower. She
[13:18] needs to CS all of them. You can harass
[13:20] her. This is the most powerful wave
[13:22] state. if you want to dominate the enemy
[13:24] lane opponent. But of course, this is
[13:26] also one that you have to use a lot of
[13:28] fundamentals that I previously discussed
[13:30] well to get it done properly. Now, if
[13:33] you want to have more advanced knowledge
[13:36] on wave management, if you if you're
[13:38] like Tim, I want to see more, check out
[13:40] this video right here because I go even
[13:42] more in depth on wave management.