[0:00] Welcome back team. Today I'm going to be
[0:01] teaching you all the new wave control
[0:02] that you need to know for season 16 in
[0:04] just 10 minutes. There are quite a few
[0:06] big changes that heavily impact the way
[0:08] we manipulate the waves in top lane. So
[0:10] it's really important that you
[0:11] understand them if you want to climb in
[0:12] solo Q. So let's not waste any more time
[0:14] and get straight to it.
[0:20] Starting off with wave 1. And due to the
[0:22] increased movement speed from the wave
[0:23] this season, you have to be a lot more
[0:25] careful with wave 1 than we were in
[0:27] previous seasons. So you can see in this
[0:29] example where I'm playing Jax up against
[0:31] a Garen. I played it pretty much exactly
[0:33] how I would in the previous season, a
[0:35] big fat E that hits him and the wave at
[0:37] the same time cuz I want to go for a
[0:38] two- wave crash. But because I did that,
[0:40] because my E hit the entire wave and I
[0:42] also committed a bunch of free autos. My
[0:44] wave one got put in a very awkward
[0:46] position where it doesn't really quite
[0:48] crash. Even if it did crash, you really
[0:49] don't want to do that. It really messes
[0:50] with your wave. And now Garen can freely
[0:53] farm. It feels a little bit
[0:54] uncomfortable for me to hit the wave,
[0:55] get level two, and abuse that level two
[0:57] versus one. So, it's definitely
[0:58] something you should strongly avoid
[0:59] doing this season. And here's an example
[1:01] of what it looks like if you optimize
[1:03] wave 1 correctly. So, in this game
[1:05] versus Casante, I wanted to do a wave
[1:07] two crash so that the wave came back
[1:08] near my tower and allowed me to get an
[1:10] extended trade against him. With
[1:12] Conquering Ghost, I'm going to beat him
[1:13] in an extended trade, but he can win
[1:15] short trades. So, if I slow down my push
[1:17] too much, and he pokes me down, gets
[1:19] level two same time, level three same
[1:20] time, and blocks the wave, it can be
[1:22] very hard for me to crash. So, wave two
[1:24] crash is optimal. So, you can see I'm
[1:25] bashing the wave down. I want to push
[1:28] quickly, but I'm not hoofing my Olaf
[1:29] life axe through the wave or anything
[1:30] like that and pushing too fast and
[1:33] getting my wave 1 too close to his
[1:34] tower. So, you can see the goal for a
[1:37] wave two is you want to kill the last
[1:39] minion of wave 1 just as wave two is
[1:41] passing the tower like this. You'll also
[1:43] see I walked a little bit ahead of the
[1:44] wave because I wanted to block it
[1:46] momentarily. The reason why I want my
[1:49] wave two to move up a little bit because
[1:50] it cuts down on travel time when I kill
[1:53] wave two. I want my wave two to crash
[1:55] under his tower quickly. So, if it's
[1:56] close to its tower, it's going to get
[1:58] there a lot faster because wave three
[2:00] moves very quick every wave does. But
[2:01] the extra movement speed means wave
[2:03] three arrives to your lane faster than
[2:04] it did before, which means you need to
[2:06] crash wave two faster. So, you can see
[2:07] now I'm hoofing my ax through the wave
[2:09] because I really want to crash this
[2:11] under tower. So, you can see making sure
[2:13] it goes under clean wave two crash. So,
[2:15] that's the number one rule for wave 1.
[2:17] If you want to do a wave two crash, you
[2:18] want to kill wave 1 before just as wave
[2:21] two passes the tower. If you want to do
[2:23] a wave three crash, you have to be very,
[2:24] very gentle with the wave.
[2:28] Now, one of the most important wave
[2:30] control concepts this season is still
[2:31] when to crash wave two versus wave
[2:33] three. That's something I talked a lot
[2:34] about last season and is still extra
[2:36] important now, especially with the
[2:38] enhanced minion movement speed. You have
[2:40] to have a lot of intention. If you're
[2:42] crashing wave two or wave three, you
[2:43] have to really know what you're doing
[2:45] and nuke that wave in because the next
[2:47] wave is going to arrive very quickly.
[2:48] So, in this game, vers Gwen, I want to
[2:50] showcase an example of a wave two crash
[2:52] and the benefits of it. So, like we just
[2:53] talked about, kill the last minion of
[2:55] wave 1 before wave two arrives. This one
[2:57] is pretty much perfect, the position of
[2:59] the wave, it's not quite under tower, as
[3:01] you can see. So, I can hit all the
[3:02] minions, but it's so close to the tower
[3:04] that when I kill wave two, my wave two
[3:06] is going to crash very quickly. So, you
[3:07] can see I'm just bashing the wave down,
[3:09] perma, hitting it, trying to kill it as
[3:11] quickly as possible without missing CS.
[3:13] So, you can see I got 12 out of 12
[3:15] minions and crash wave two very quickly.
[3:17] Now, the benefit of that here, I just
[3:19] checked the jungle. Nothing to see
[3:20] there. The benefit of the wave two crash
[3:22] is now not only did I have level two
[3:24] advantage and he had to respect. Now, I
[3:26] can allow the wave to come back towards
[3:28] me. So, I'm trimming the wave as it
[3:29] comes in trying to stay healthy. And now
[3:31] that the wave has come back in, it's
[3:33] time to go. The lane is stabilized. It's
[3:35] by my side. I'm an extended trading
[3:37] champion. It's time to go here. So,
[3:39] you'll see the second I hit the zolafax,
[3:41] boom, pop the ghost. I've got so much
[3:43] room to run her down from my side of the
[3:44] lane to hers. I'm able to get this
[3:46] extended trade and get the kill based
[3:48] purely from my two-wave crash.
[3:52] And now I'll showcase an example of a
[3:54] game where it's more optimal to do a
[3:55] wave three crash. So this game I'm grasp
[3:57] the hen versus silus. So I want short
[4:00] trades. Now I'm a short trading
[4:01] champion. So it's better for me not to
[4:03] crash wave two and let the wave come
[4:05] back in. I'm not going to be have to run
[4:06] down a conquer silus with a early game
[4:08] grasps ahead. it's better for me to
[4:10] maintain priority and go for a wave
[4:12] three crash. So, your goal here is to be
[4:14] quite gentle on wave one and do slightly
[4:16] more damage to the wave than your
[4:17] opponent. You don't want to do too much
[4:19] more. So, if they're a Mundo sitting two
[4:20] screens away doing nothing, you're also
[4:23] being very gentle. If they're farming
[4:24] the wave and doing a bit of damage,
[4:25] you're just trying to do slightly more
[4:27] than them cuz if you push too quickly,
[4:29] you can't wave three crash. And if you
[4:31] push it too slowly and let them hit the
[4:32] wave more than you, they're going to get
[4:34] level two before you, level three before
[4:35] you, and you're not going to get
[4:36] priority anyway. So you can see I'm just
[4:37] doing slightly more than the silus. And
[4:39] when I know I've got pry, which is
[4:41] around here, the switch, boom, I've got
[4:42] push. Nothing you can do about it. Now
[4:44] I'm being extra gentle, milking the
[4:46] last. You can see I'm lasting them when
[4:47] they're really low HP, not when they're
[4:49] 76 or whatever I'm hitting here when
[4:51] they're very, very low. Now, same with
[4:53] the wave 1 mindset I talked about. You
[4:55] want to kill the last minion of wave
[4:57] two, just as wave three passes the
[4:59] tower. It's exactly the same. You kind
[5:00] of see the pattern now. So now I only
[5:02] have to kill the six minions here, the
[5:04] seven minions, including cannon. I don't
[5:06] have to kill eight or nine. So you can
[5:08] see I'm eating the wave. I'm just nuking
[5:09] it and getting it cleanly. Crash under
[5:11] tower. Can even proc the crust here for
[5:13] good measure. So much better way to play
[5:14] the lane in this type of matchup where
[5:16] you really favor short trades. And if
[5:19] you give them the wave advantage, if you
[5:20] give them the level advantage, then they
[5:22] can use that against you. The Olaf
[5:23] versus Gwen, even though she was
[5:25] momentarily higher level than me, she
[5:26] couldn't do anything about it and
[5:28] eventually I could kill her. The Silus,
[5:30] he could, if he's level four versus
[5:31] three, he could beat me up as you're
[5:33] kind of going kind of see here. So, it's
[5:34] better for me to maintain priority. Get
[5:36] level two first, get level three first,
[5:38] but get do a nice slow push the whole
[5:40] time so that the wave doesn't bounce
[5:41] back to me.
[5:45] Next up, we have the cheetah recall,
[5:46] which has made a return this season with
[5:48] wave three being the cannon minion. So,
[5:50] now that wave three spawns a cannon, if
[5:52] you can cleanly crash wave three, you
[5:54] have the option to cheetah recall, which
[5:55] is essentially basing for free to get a
[5:57] resource and item advantage over your
[5:59] opponent. So, in this game versus
[6:00] Gangplank, I want to go for a wave three
[6:03] crash because I have to respect his
[6:04] barrels the whole time, which makes it
[6:06] very difficult to do a two-wave. He can
[6:08] hit the wave a lot and if I go near him
[6:10] and I don't respect the barrel, you can
[6:11] see this whole game I'm purely playing
[6:13] the barrel mini game. So, it makes it
[6:15] actually a little bit difficult to just
[6:16] ignore him and crash wave two as I'll
[6:18] take way too much damage. I have to play
[6:20] that barrel mini game. So, you can see
[6:22] here I'm slowing down my push a bit and
[6:24] then here kill the last minion of wave
[6:25] two as wave three is arriving. And now
[6:27] it's time to nuke. So I could have
[6:28] slowed down my wave two a little bit.
[6:30] That E was a bit much, but it's still a
[6:32] good example. So here, just nuking the
[6:34] wave as quickly as possible. Q him to
[6:36] get minion aggro. So my E hits the whole
[6:38] wave, and you can see him. I don't want
[6:39] to miss Lassets, of course, but I'm
[6:41] essentially pushing this wave in as
[6:42] quickly as I can. So just hard pushing
[6:45] it here. Don't look at that cannon miss.
[6:47] I swear it was worth dodging the barrel.
[6:48] I promise. And now I can cheat a recall.
[6:50] So when do you want to cheater? In the
[6:52] Zahen game, I have three wave crash and
[6:53] didn't cheat a recall. The only time you
[6:55] want to is if you're getting resources
[6:57] and item advantage. Never cheater just
[7:00] for a long sword or just for an amptome
[7:02] or anything like that. Only do it for
[7:03] resources and items. So in this
[7:05] situation, I'm half HP and half mana. So
[7:08] I'm getting 400 HP mana back and an
[7:11] item, not just a single long sword. So
[7:13] it's definitely worth it there. And
[7:14] there's a hame. It's full HP, full mana
[7:16] pretty much. So there's no point basing
[7:18] for just a single long sword. And you
[7:20] can see the wave comes back to me
[7:22] nicely. I've got this item advantage. I
[7:24] can trade with him and he's also set up
[7:26] for a jungle gank as well. So, cheating
[7:28] has quite a few benefits to it. Just
[7:30] make sure you only do it in games where
[7:32] you need the resources and items. And
[7:34] it's really important to keep in mind
[7:35] the wave two versus wave three crash.
[7:37] You can't really go into a game thinking
[7:40] I'm going to cheat a recall. Unless your
[7:42] opponent is fully an AI, it's fully a
[7:44] noob. Because if your opponent plays the
[7:46] game, a lot of the time it's not fully
[7:48] in your control. So, I'll give an
[7:49] example. Let's imagine you versus a
[7:51] Mundo one game and he sits two screens
[7:52] away chucking Q's. You can do whatever
[7:54] you want with the wave. You can
[7:55] three-wave crash. But if I'm playing
[7:57] Versodo the next game and he walks up
[7:59] and I beat the out of him with Jax
[8:00] and my E hits the entire wave. Now I
[8:03] need a two- wave crash. But it was worth
[8:04] it because I chunked him. So don't try
[8:06] to go into the game trying to cheat a
[8:08] recall. It really depends on how your
[8:10] opponent plays. Just remember in the
[8:12] moment when you're thinking about wave
[8:13] two versus wave three crashing, it
[8:15] really depends on the matchup and how
[8:17] your opponent plays. And if you decide
[8:19] on a three-wave crash, like in the Zahen
[8:21] game, like in this Jax game, then you
[8:22] have the option to cheer recall if you
[8:25] need the resources and you want to get
[8:26] that extra item advantage as well.
[8:30] And finally, we have sneaking bases. And
[8:32] I'm going to include this as wave
[8:33] control, even though it's mainly related
[8:35] to back timers, just cuz it is wave
[8:37] control related as well. And it's very,
[8:38] very powerful this season due to the new
[8:41] home guard. So sneaking bases is
[8:43] essentially basing at a time your
[8:44] opponent won't expect to get a resource
[8:47] and item advantage. So in this situation
[8:49] right now, if I were to play out this
[8:50] lane for the next minute or two, Quinn's
[8:53] going to out sustain me with fleet
[8:54] footwork. She's range melee, so she's
[8:56] going to poke me under tower a little
[8:57] bit, proc my cross. I'm not going to be
[8:59] able to base at all. It's going to be
[9:00] very, very difficult for me to play the
[9:01] game if I stay in lane here. Sure, I
[9:04] could do my best to sneak a base when my
[9:06] TP is back up, but it's better for me
[9:08] right now to sneak a recall. So you can
[9:10] see here I trim the wave a little bit,
[9:12] go into this bush so she can't stop my
[9:13] base in that second bush and just sneak
[9:15] off a base. And due to the new home
[9:17] guards, I get back quite quick with
[9:19] resource and item advantage. And you can
[9:20] see I barely missed anything. The new
[9:23] home guard system is very strong. So
[9:24] make sure you abuse that anytime the
[9:25] wave is coming towards you. You will
[9:27] lose a little bit, but being full HP
[9:29] with extra items is better cuz you can
[9:31] imagine now me and Quinn both handshake
[9:33] a base. I'm in a really happy spot back
[9:35] here. If I stayed, you could imagine me
[9:37] being under tower, desperately trying to
[9:39] farm, I will bleed out way more. Now,
[9:42] that last example is definitely
[9:43] something we could have got away with
[9:44] last season. Maybe just missing one or
[9:46] two minions more. This is a much better
[9:48] showing of the power of sneaking your
[9:50] bases. So, as we can see here, I'm
[9:52] basing on the cannon wave. That's a
[9:53] really important step. If you want a
[9:54] base like this right in front of
[9:56] somebody's face, it must be the cannon
[9:58] wave. either one-shot the wave before
[9:59] cannon or if you feel like they're not
[10:00] going to crash it under tower like he
[10:02] didn't just sneak off the base before
[10:04] cannon because the cannon minion takes
[10:05] them a long time to clear and it'll tank
[10:07] the tower for a long time for you. So if
[10:09] we count the minions here, let's see how
[10:10] much I lose. Two caster minions plus the
[10:12] next seven from the cannon wave. So we
[10:14] boost back to lane and keep in mind this
[10:15] guy pushed as fast as possible. He did a
[10:17] fully charged W. He queued the entire
[10:19] wave. He was not messing around here. He
[10:21] cleared it as quickly as he can. So we
[10:23] come back to lane here and look, we
[10:24] missed one cast to minion and one mele.
[10:27] We're in such a good position. I'm even
[10:28] thumbs uping this guy because you can
[10:30] see how broken it is. So definitely
[10:31] sneaking your bases off the season. You
[10:33] can really minmax it here as you can see
[10:36] and it's a better alternative than
[10:37] getting to the jungler for sure. All
[10:39] right team, that's it for now, but do
[10:40] not panic. I am working on a full
[10:42] in-depth wave control guide for season
[10:44] 16 where I go through literally every
[10:46] wave control concept. So that is coming
[10:47] soon. Make sure you subscribe to see it.