MSI: Double-Teleport Meta

We had a total of 36 games on MSI(25 of group stage and 11 from playoffs). In those 36 games, we sawat least one team running double-teleport in 30 games, meaning83% of the games played had at least one team withdouble-tp. Although it looks like teams want to rundouble-tp and play around that to create advantages, all in all, atleast at MSI, it did not have an impact on the win rate. When ateam with double-tp faced a team with only one teleport, 52% of thetimes the team with only one tp won the game. Despite that, thedifference in the group stage was interesting. In that stage, teamsrunning only one teleport (while the enemy had double-tp) won 60%of the games. Although, when we take a closer look at that, we seethat almost every match where that happened, the team that won withonly one teleport ended the tournament in a much better seed thanthe enemy team. We should take that into consideration that itcould mean that the winning team is better all-in-all than theenemy and, with that, they do not even need the double-tp to createadvantages.

The use of double-tp has only oneobjective: have better map pressure and create number advantagewith that. But, what are the other teams/mid players using asSummoners Spells when they are not running teleport? We took a lookinto it. First, we should know some information about the currentmeta for mid lane: (MSI stats from oracleselixir.com)

• Ryze is the most contested picks at the moment with a P+B% of92.7%.
• Azir is the second most contested pick (if we do not considerEkko since he is played top often and he was not that much pickedthis tournament) with a P+B% of 90.2%.
• After this two, we saw 12 more champs being played,highlighting Ekko, Zed, Lissandra and LeBlanc.

Since we know this, there are somethings we can think about. If Ryze is the most played champion atmidlane and he has hard CC’s and huge burst, you will need tofind a way to counter that. Although Azir is good one-on-oneagainst Ryze, for a better performance on lane, he must run Exhaustto fight the Rogue Mage. With that, and if Ryze chooses to runteleport, the team will have better map pressure and possibility tocreate number advantages on side lanes.

With that known, and with Ryze vsAzir being one of the most played matchups on MSI, it was expectedthat Exhaust was one of the most used summoner spells at mid lane,after the teleport (because of Ryze). In the end, when there was ateleport on the enemy midlaner [most of them because of Ryze– 17 games that Ryze played with teleport (89% of the Ryzepicks), two with exhaust], 60% of the matches there was an exhauston the enemy mid laner. The possibility to create number advantageson side lanes is created. For your information, the other 40% arefrom Ignite (20% – especially because of LeBlanc and the pressureyou want to put on lane with that champion), Cleanse (8% – alsoused against Ryze), Heal (8%) and Barrier (4%).

But, how are teams takingadvantage of using double-teleport on mid and toplane?

First, the team composition needsto fit this game plan. It is expected to have a top and mid lanerwith teleport so there are some things that the champions that fillthat positions need to have!

In the current meta, it is likelythat the top laner has some tankiness (the current meta is largelybetween Poppy, Maokai and Ekko). As you can see, the champions thatare chosen to be played on top tend to bring a large amount ofcrowd control. With the ability to lock down the enemy, thesechampion’s teleports can make a huge impact and completelyturn around the fight.

The same is expected from a midlaner using TP’s. There are some characteristics that achampion must have to be played mid with teleport:

• Crowd Control to impact and turn around fights when usingtp.
• Wave Clear so they can push their lane, TP to another andcomeback without losing a huge amount of experience and gold whilethe enemy must make an option: help teammates and loseexperience/farm or stay in lane and let the team in a numberdisadvantage.

And this is why Ryze (and evenAzir) fits this good the current meta.

But, how are teams takingadvantage of this champions by using teleport?

It is all about creating numberadvantages. One team tries to force the enemy player to useteleport, either by making him teleport to lane, so he does notlose experience and gold, or by obligating him to teleport toanother lane/objective to contest it from the enemy. Obviously, ifthe team has already a teleport advantage (double-tp against 1-tponly) this advantage is already created and they will try to forcesomething into a side-lane by teleporting both players and creatinga 4×2 on bot lane or even a 5×2. Here are some examples of how SKTused the teleport advantage to win over RNG:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UGJn7xTsiQ

If your team wants to run adouble-tp comp, always remember, the teleports are your font ofadvantage but you must not over commit if you made a bad move withyour teleports. The enemy team always has time to react and if youdid not get what you wanted from that and it seems risky to try it,think twice.

Do not forget to follow me ontwitter for more content like this: adriano_cmf!