---
title: 'How to WIN LANE using ONLY Wave Control - League of Legends'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=cL6cWGQtocw'
video_id: 'cL6cWGQtocw'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 596
---

# How to WIN LANE using ONLY Wave Control - League of Legends

> Source: [How to WIN LANE using ONLY Wave Control - League of Legends](https://youtube.com/watch?v=cL6cWGQtocw)

## Summary

This video breaks down a Jax vs Mordekaiser matchup in low Platinum, demonstrating how game knowledge and wave control concepts are more important than mechanics for winning lane. The creator shows that missing even one key concept can cost you the lane, while applying multiple concepts correctly can secure a win.

### Key Points

- **Level 1 Importance** [0:34] — Level 1 is crucial in top lane as it dictates the next three levels. You must know who is stronger at level 1 in any matchup.
- **Determining Level 1 Strength** [0:55] — Consider champion type (AD vs AP) and abilities. Jax starts E, blocking auto attacks, while Mordekaiser starts Q (shorter cooldown). Jax wins extended fights, Mord wants to poke.
- **Level 1 All-In Mistake** [1:28] — The creator mistimed E activation and auto-attacked a minion, losing the all-in and forcing a flash. This shows how small mistakes can lose advantages.
- **Wave Control After Level 1** [2:10] — Despite lower health, the creator maintains lane control due to level advantage. Proper wave management is key: crash three waves for a good recall and slow push back.
- **Trading with Level Advantage** [3:26] — At level 3, the creator trades to weaken Mordekaiser before crashing the cannon wave, using E to reduce damage and hit minions.
- **Freeze Mechanics** [4:12] — A freeze requires at least four minions. After crashing, the wave slow pushes back, giving the creator item advantage without needing TP.
- **Gank Decision Making** [5:55] — When Skarner ganks, the creator chooses not to help because he is low health and level 4, risking a 2v2 loss and losing minions. He focuses on wave control instead.
- **Mordekaiser's Mistake** [6:58] — Mordekaiser stays in lane too long after the gank, missing a recall opportunity. The creator baits him, recalls, buys Sheen, and TPs back to secure a kill.

### Conclusion

Game knowledge and wave control are more important than mechanics in League of Legends. Mastering concepts like level 1 strength, wave management, and recall timers can help you climb to Masters and beyond.

## Transcript

league of legends is all about concepts
game knowledge mechanics are nowhere
near as important if you learn all the
concepts and bring them all together you
easily make it to at least masters then
you have to refine them and actually get
good at the game and that's what the
climb from master is a challenger is
just missing one or two important
concepts can make you lose a lane
especially against a player that isn't
missing that game knowledge today i'm
going to show you a perfect example of
this in a low platinum mmr game where
i'm on jax vs mordekaiser i'm going to
break down a bunch of different concepts
where they all could lead to a one or
lost lane don't worry if you don't play
jacks or mordekaiser though as the
concept will apply to any champion so
let's jump right into this lane one
could argue level one is the most
important part of top lane as the dick
takes the next three levels and like i
always say in loilo i wouldn't lane in
the first three levels 90 of the time
you need to know who's stronger at level
one in any matchup that you play do you
know who's stronger here
well even if you don't have the match of
experience like me
you could know who wins level one here
just by thinking about two things first
mordekaiser is an ap champion where jax
is an aed one this normally means the ad
champion will win a long extended fight
on top of this jax starts e at level 1
which blocks autos from minions and
champions this is obviously really
important when autos are going to be the
main form of damage when both champions
only have one ability the thing is
mordekaiser q which is what he starts at
level 1 is a shorter cooldown than
jack's e so mord wants to avoid level 1
all in and just poke with q
remember how i said just missing one
piece of game knowledge can win and lose
the lane well i actually don't have the
matchup experience here but because of
the things i just talked about i look
for a level one all in when he walks up
and auto attacks me here i make sure to
turn on my e after auto attacking more
because that's when his minions will
start hitting me the more minion autos i
soak the more damage my e will do i
should have turned it on to block mord's
first auto but i mistimed it at this
point i have my passive on and conquer
and we established that i went all in
sadly i wasted auto attack on a minion
which made me feel like i would lose the
fight because of his q coming up he
flashes to try and finish me off but i
flash as well and survive so because i
accidentally auto attacked a minion i
don't punish the board and end up having
to flash away i should have easily got
first blood here because he didn't
respect that my level 1 was stronger i
started corrupting potion though and
have biscuits so i have plenty of
sustain i don't need to recall on top of
this i have the push advantage since i
was auto attacking minions at level one
remember how i said the level one
determines the next levels as well even
when i have lower health than him i
still mean control the lane for these
first three waves level advantages are
too important with this big health
disadvantage i would still win 1v1 if i
jumped in right now it's important that
i control the minion wave properly from
here though if i push too fast right now
the wave will half crash on the tower
meaning the melee minions will be in
tower range and the ranged ones won't
then the next wave will arrive and
mordekais will be able to safely farm
under tower and will hit level 3 around
the same time as me it would be really
hard to fully crash the wave to get a
good recall off if that happens this is
an extremely common mistake in the wii
low and toppling you want to crash 3
waves which makes the enemy laner take a
long time under tower to farm the wave
and it will push back towards you
this also makes so you don't have to tp
back to lane i'll show you exactly what
i mean here and again this is one of
those core pieces of information that
you need to understand or you lose or
miss an opportunity to win a lane
anyways getting back to the gameplay i'm
basically lasting at this point because
i need to make sure i don't finish
clearing this wave until the next wave
gets here mordekaiser is respecting my
level 2 as well but if he walks up i
would definitely look for a trade i used
my q here to get the cs though and i
knew he would hit level 2 from this
minion so i didn't trade with my q down
now the third wave is arriving and
mordekaiser actually clears a big chunk
of it with his q and his e but since he
doesn't have those i'm free to hit the
minions i'm fully focused on clearing
this canon wave and crashing it for a
reset
but i hit level 3 here so i jump in for
a trade with my level advantage this
isn't to kill him or anything though
it's just to weaken him so he can't
pressure me while i'm trying to crash
the wave i didn't use my either though
since that's a big cooldown and without
it i'm much more vulnerable and when
mordekaiser wakes up to try and trade
back then i use my e you might not know
this but jax e reduces the aoe damage he
takes when he's using it so i reduced
mord's q damage while also using the aoe
damage from the e to hit all the minions
i had to make sure that the cannon
minion actually got into tower range
though if it didn't i would only have
two options either stay and try and
crash the next wave or recall and tp
back right away this is because the wave
would freeze so if i didn't tip you back
to lane i would lose a ton of minions as
i ran back enough minions at the lane
can easily be decided by that you might
be wondering why the wave won't freeze
when there are still three minions there
after the cannon dies
and that's because you need at least
four minions to actually freeze those
three range ones aren't enough
especially when they are missing a lot
of health already the wave will slow
push to me at this point now this is
another crucial part of the lane like i
said it's slow pushing to me so i don't
have to tp back i will have my gold spin
here when i get back and mordekaiser
won't so i will have the item advantage
but since it's slow pushing you'll have
a minion advantage and a level advantage
if i'm someone like irelia here where i
can easily clear a bunch of minions i
have a ton of kill pressure jax is good
in this scenario too because his e
avoids minion damage but i still have to
be careful best case scenario would be i
bait out mordekaiser's q and e and dodge
them and then i just all win
if mordekaiser doesn't want to take the
risk of dying here he can recall now and
tp back to lane but then i'll have the
tp advantage let's see what happens
though when i walk into lane you see the
footsies i'm playing right away walking
in and out of his q and e range to try
and bait it but once he clears my wave i
have to back off even after he uses his
q now that my next wave is here i want
to try and kill as many minions as
possible so i can hit level 4 along with
trimming the wave down to prepare for my
all in while doing that i'm trying to
bait out his abilities like i talked
about earlier this means when i walk up
for some cs i'll just let them die since
i'm anticipating that he'll try to
contest it it's kind of tricky doing
this in low elo since i don't know what
they are thinking this applies to skill
shots as well it's really hard to dodge
the player's skill shots since it feels
like they're just random it's 100 easier
to dodge high level player skill shots
world crazer walks into the brush though
so as i walk up and clear some minions i
wore the brush to see if he's recalling
in it if he was i would definitely stop
him last second since i might have a
chance to kill him here sadly
mordekaiser hits me with an isolated q
here and hits level 5 then hits me with
another isolated q to make me too low to
fight him at this point i won't be able
to use my item advantage to look for a
kill but that's fine i'm not in a
terrible spot or anything although if it
was high yellow i could easily be dove
i'm just going to let motocross crash
the wave at this point but while i'm
doing that my skarner shows up trying to
gank so what i do next is an extremely
important concept that many players fail
to understand or know i can't help my
skarner in this gank if he can kill mort
alone that's great but the risk reward
here isn't good for me it's way too
risky if i try to help here and the
enemy jungler counter ganks we lose the
2v2 since i'm level 4 and have half
health i would die and lose all these
minions and my lane would be unplayable
on top of this if i help skarner here
and chase the mordekaiser i'll still
lose all these minions to the tower so i
won't even be gaining that much if we
kill him especially if i get the assist
and not the kill then it actually
wouldn't have been worth it for these
reasons i don't help skarner and i just
focus on the wave notice what i do with
it though i don't just let it crash i
use my e to tank it and avoid letting
the wave crash on the tower this is
because i want to freeze and if skarner
kills mord or even chunks him hard
enough to make him recall mord would be
forced to tp back to lane because of the
freeze but when i noticed that skarner
backed off early and didn't really chunk
mordekaiser i just let the wave crash so
i'll be honest here this mordekaiser has
played pretty well so far he's exceeded
my expectations this is where he starts
to slip up though because he's missing
some important fundamental concepts it
only takes one remember as i'm clearing
this wave i noticed my low health makes
the mordekaiser stay in lane and he's
sitting in the brush he might have
forgotten that i ordered it earlier but
this is a huge mistake from him since he
could get a big advantage from just
recalling after the skarner gang just
like we talked about earlier with what i
did to him in the first three levels the
wave will slow push back to him so he
could walk back to lane and i'm so low
that i would be forced to recall and use
tp since the wave would be frozen i
wouldn't be able to crash the wave on
his tower before he got back then he
would have the tp advantage to punish
this i'm going to act like i'm recalling
to bait him out of the brush before we
see what happens let's say neither of us
touch the wave from this point will the
push to him push to me or stay where it
is
because the even minion rule meaning
when the waves are even it will push the
opposite way it's slow pushing to him so
i don't stop my recall to bait him into
using an aoe ability on the wave either
his q or his e now the wave is pushing
to me and look at where my next wave is
it's close enough that the mordekaiser
won't be able to crash the current wave
before my next one gets here so i start
channeling my recall i buy a sheen which
is a big power spike for jax and tipped
me back to lane right away while
mordekaiser is trying to clear the
cannon wave last time i only had a long
sword advantage on him this time though
i had the long sword plus an entire
sheen mordekaiser is overstated as
welcome a bit too long now so when i tp
in i gladly take the fight even though
he's level 6 and i'm level 5. my item
advantage is too big especially when
he's missing this much health already so
i get the kill like i said it only takes
one piece of game knowledge that you
could be missing that your opponent can
use against you like this
alright guys so as you can see game
knowledge is just too important in
league much more important than
mechanics but we're giving you
everything you need to know in our
videos if you pay attention implement
the concepts you can climb easily so you
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below that's going to bring us the end
of this one we hope you enjoyed it and
thanks for watching
[Music]
you