Move a strong early game into the endgame

Question

Recently I've played a few games as jungle yi, and have had a fantastic time ganking and really building myself up with a very strong early game. By the 15-20 minute mark, I am much strong than anyone else in the game with a lot more gold and experience and can pretty much take anyone one-on-one.

The problem that I am having is taking this advantage and turning it into a strong/winning late game. There are a few different problems I have, including weak teammates (not passing the blame, it just happens) or not being able to press the advantage while their stronger team build farms up and eventually wears us down. As well as this, sometimes my very strong one-on-one game doesn't translate well into team fights.

I'm curious about what I can do to keep my early game advantage going and pushing it to carry our team to the win rather than becoming less relevant as everyone else catches up to me, often resulting in a loss.

Answer 1

There are often cases when one of the teams has a really strong player that can win 2x1 or even 3x1, while the rest of his teammates are considerably weaker and underfarmed. Usually this is a sign of overfarming yourself (I'm not saying that you steal kills, but if you do have a considerable damage output, it just "happens") or sub-standard team play. I'm not sure there's a champion that can sustain a 5x1 against a semi-competent team in any part of the game, regardless of equipment, so overfarming yourself at the expense of your teammates is hardly the best strategy to win the game.

Take a look at your assists at the end of a typical game and compare yourself to the rest of the team. I make it a point for myself to have the higher number of assists among my teammates (I play tanks and supports 90% of the time), and that correlates well with whether we lose or win a game. I've won games with 0/9/22, and lost games with 17/4/8. If I have less than average assists, I have failed my teammates.

So, the best thing to do is to strengthen your team play (I know this is not always possible without premade teams, but at higher levels of play you can get a lot of stuff done with people you don't know).

Some things you might want to consider if you find yourself earning more than you should, but still losing the game:

• Participate in ganks fights with them, don't just wander around in a hunt for a weak unprotected carry or support.
• Leave your teammates to deliver the death blow when a kill is inevitable, and kill yourself only when the target would escape otherwise.
• Push in coordination when you have advantage of two or more alive champions at a given time.
• Be careful when attacking. Master Yi can blink in and out of battle quickly, but some of your teammates might not be so mobile. Don't attack just because you think you can escape, your teammates are likely to commit to an attack and die, when your purpose was only harassing.
• Being overfed, you are more likely to be focused, so don't get cocky and avoid situations when you are alone against an overwhelming opponent, even if you are likely to kill one or two before dying.
• A dead carry is often the cause for being steamrolled and losing the game -- the opposing team can often crush the final towers in a minute or so while you wait to be revived.
• Relieve your support from buying wards. Pure supports are notoriously cash-strapped all game, and while their cores are cheap, they could always appreciate some extra punch in terms of equipment. Plus, if they purchase team buffs (which they often do), it will be a good investment for your extra money.

Answer 2

If you play a champion that has a great early game, and you get fed, you should have a few strategies:

1. Don't allow the other team to feed on your team members (deny kills)
2. Push a lane (preferably mid) and take a turret
3. Deny farm (harrass / poke)

Each of these strategies will help solidify your early game lead.

A late game champion usually needs gold in order to carry. So you're job becomes denying them that.

However, that's not the only thing you need to focus on. You have to focus on ending the game early, too.

This means, pushing a lane and getting those turrets down while the other team can't stop you. This is tricky because you must not feed the other team. Usually what I will try to do is to push the mid lane turret, have bot lane support come up and help me push it down.

Some quick notes about turret push here. The strategy is to get the enemy mid laner far back enough to zone him out of turret range. With three champs in mid lane this can be really easy. Once the mid lane is zoned out, then just stomp on the turret.

A good enemy team will react to this, and try to counter. You have to be ready for the counter. Always think, when they do XYZ, this is how I'm going to make them pay.

For example, say they counter by having top lane go mid. At that point you instruct your top laner to push the lane hard. This will put even more pressure on the enemy team. They may back off, they may let top turret drop.

Answer 3

To keep the flow of a strong early game there's a few very important things that need to happen.

1. Wards. Map control is essential. The only way they can turn it around is by setting traps (or assassinations) and getting dragon to bring up their flow of gold to catch up.
2. Don't get greedy. You're worth more gold on death then they are so trading 1:1 is a no-no.
3. Let your tanks do their jobs. One of the most frustrating things is when you have a clear cut chance to team fight in a good position that you know will tip in your favor but Annie decides to be a hero.

I also recommend getting an oracles. Even if they only have a wriggles, killing that one ward can save your team and let's you know later that you can get a safe baron.

Answer 4

A few things you can do to help your teammates:

• Continue to gank lanes. Make sure your allies can get the CS and kills/assists they need to overpower their opponent.

• Grab global objectives (Dragon/Baron), and give red/blue buffs to your allies.

• Ward the map. When losing, it's common to farm the jungle instead of pushing a dangerous lane. Wards can lead to easy kills. Buy an oracles if you notice their team buying wards.

• Farm the enemies jungle. You've warded the map and cleared their wards, so you can determine if it's safe to steal their jungle.

• Push a turret (or two). This gives more map control and global gold. Some carries prefer to keep their turrets up for safer farming, so check before just blowing it over.

• Assuming the enemy team starts to focus you, buy defensive items that counter their carries.

Do not assume you're superman and try to 5v1 or even 2v1 the other team. Overconfidence leads to silly deaths, which can quickly destroy your lead.