As a Smite player, I can guarantee that you have dealt with a split pusher at least a few times. It may have been a Skadi or a Chronos, either way, split pushing can be an infuriating tactic that many people, myself included, have had issues dealing with.

There are two major strategies that split pushers use. One is the traditional split push tactic, where a god goes through lane and pushes up creep waves to take towers and phoenixes. The second strategy is backdooring, where characters take lane objectives suddenly without creep waves. Backdoor strategies exist solely because a few gods can get rid of the backdoor protections on objectives but I'll cover that later.

What is Split Pushing?

Some notable examples of Split Pushers are Apollo, Chronos and Mercury

Split pushing is the act of a character pushing down waves rather than participating in team fights in the hopes of either getting objectives or creating pressure for their team. A few gods excel at this role due to their kits. These gods are known for having good wave clear and escapes. Almost all viable split pushers can clear waves in one ability or a few auto attacks and have reliable escapes that prevent the enemy team from punishing them for overextending, some examples being Apollo's Ultimate Across the Sky or Chronos's Rewind.

The core strategy for split pushing is to farm in the early game and wait for teamfights in the mid-late game, the grouping allows the split pusher to quickly push a lane on the opposite side of the map, either forcing the enemy team to fully engage into a fight, which guarantees the objective goes down, or making the enemy disengage from the fight to save their objective, which gives the split pusher's team more pressure on the map. Either way the enemy team is forced to play back due to the possibility of losing objectives. It might sound pretty rough to fight against, however there are a few simple solutions to prevent the heartache of split pushing.

How to Counter Split Pushing.

There are two ways simple to counter split pushing. These strategies can't prevent split pushing; however, they can minimize the pressure a split pusher has on the map. The most common overlooked counter-strategy is to push up the creep waves to the midway point of the map. The simple act of keeping waves pushed up allows your team to have more forewarning before a split pusher reaches an objective, thus allowing for more counterplay opportunities. The other solution is to have the relic Teleport. This isn't too much to ask, since most Solo laners pick up this relic anyways. Teleport makes it so you can have teamfights in advantageous conditions and then have someone Teleport to where the split pusher is after the fight to prevent them from doing any damage.

What is Backdooring?

Some notable backdoor gods are Bastet, Skadi and Nu Wa

First off, I should cover what backdoor protections are. Backdoor protection is a mechanic meant to prevent a character from diving a tower and dealing full damage to it without having minions. The system prevents strong split push characters like Chronos from nearly one-shotting towers in the late game. However, this is what makes backdoor gods special.

All backdoor gods have one thing in common: they can spawn minions. These characters have abilities like Bastet's ultimate Cat Call or Nu Wa's Clay Soldiers, which circumnavigate backdoor protections since their minions act the same as creep waves do. these minions serve two purposes as the minions can both tank the objectives and get rid of the protections, allowing gods to quickly take down objectives with ease.

The backdoor strategy heavily relies on speed and stealth, the gods have to wait until the enemy team is nowhere near the objective and then quickly shred them. This has little counterplay potential in the \ of happening unlike split pushing, so you have to prevent the strategy from happening in the first place.

How to Counter Backdooring.

The stratagem I mentioned before in the split push segment has the flaw of being irrelevant in most backdoor scenarios due to the nature of backdooring. The only reliable way to counter backdooring is to place wards wherever a god may hide, as shown above. These warding spots allow you to spot the character, which gets rid of the element of surprise that backdoor gods need to be effective. This also allows your team to have some countermeasures in place for when the enemy is setting up.

Which God is the Ultimate Backdoor/Split Push?

Loki

This god has the best of both worlds, he is designed to be a nuisance and fits the role of a split pusher extraordinarily well. He can quickly wave clear with his Decoy and can run away with his invisibility so he fits the role for a split pusher, however his Decoy has the added benefit of being able to tank objectives so Loki also has backdoor potential as well. This makes Loki hard to fight against if you don't know what you are doing.

Loki's ability to be annoying with split pushing is his largest downfall. In teamfights, Loki is almost irrelevant since his kit relies on picking people off in skirmishes rather than full blown teamfights. This makes Loki fairly predictable in behavioral patterns since the character will mostly be anywhere else besides being with his team so the stratagem that counter both backdooring and split pushing work amazingly well against a Loki, essentially shutting down the character. This in turn, puts the game in your team's advantage since it will mostly be a four vs five since Loki will be mostly irrelevant.

I hope this guide will improve your play against the split push strategy and maybe even help you understand how to run these strategies yourself. Either way, I wish you happy hunting.

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