Cheese to Win - A Guide to Cheesing in League of Legends
Everyone wants to start strong in their games, what better way than to cheese the enemy!?
Many people might realize the game starts right when you get into Champion Select or right when you load onto Summoner’s Rift. However, many people do not play like the game has started until the first wave of minions reach their respective lanes or when the Jungle Camps spawn. This is something that you can take advantage of! Taking advantage of your opponent’s guard being down, or at least lowered, is extremely helpful. Most players do not always think about playing against an early game cheese strategy, and this is when it will work best!
There are a few ways to, “cheese”, the enemy and we will go over those in this guide! But first let us talk about why it is such a useful early game strategy, and then the different strategies that can be used, and finally the best “Cheese Champions” for each lane.
EFFECTIVENESS OF CHEESING
Cheese strategies in the early game might seem like a bit of a cheap trick to get an advantage. Well, that is because they are! But they are very potent when executed properly and rarely have a high risk to deter you from attempting them. The reason they are often low risk and high reward strategies is often dependent on how well they are executed, as well as how prepared the opposing team is for said strategy. Most of these strategies revolve around having at least one CC heavy Champion on your team, and it usually ends up being your Support.
Depending on how you try to cheese the enemy team, you are likely going to at least get one or two of the enemies’ Flashes if not a kill. If you do this with your whole team, you should be relatively safe and likely not lose the early trade, especially if you have the element of surprise on your side. These early strategies are often best executed when your team has a decent number of early game Champions, or if the enemy team does not have any. Doing these strategies with only late game Champions can be some of the only times that trying them might have a higher risk than the reward might be worth!
Keeping this in mind, let’s now check out some of the cheese strategies and how get the most out of them!
CHEESE STRATEGIES
Starting off, the best known cheese strategies begin with invading the enemy team’s Jungle. You and your team can do this if you know where the enemy Jungler is likely to start in their Jungle. By doing this, you have a strong chance to catch the enemy off-guard and may be able to secure a quick kill if you can lock them down or catch them when they are AFK (which is honestly more often than it should be).
Usually, this will involve invading through the bot side Jungle, as this is where most Junglers will begin their path. However, there is another way to cheese the enemy team by taking advantage of the fact that most Junglers will start bot side: invade the top side.
If the Top Lane and Jungler invade the enemy team’s top side of the Jungle, then you are at least guaranteed a bit of vision in the enemy team’s Jungle. You may even be able to take the enemy’s Buff if no one sees what you are doing!
Your Mid Laner can also be quite strong in assisting in this situation as well. If you happen to be seen by the enemy Top or Mid Laner, then your Mid Laner can roam up in assist in the squabble. Beyond these methods, there are also the Jungle specific cheese strategies.
As the Jungler, the super early level 2 ganks are no longer a thing, but you can still gank quite early after your second camp at level 2! Depending on the situation, you can look to punish the enemy Laners at level 2 if they are pushed up farther than they should be and do not have a means of escape! It is very unlikely that the player will be able to 1v2 you, unless they play it flawlessly. Doing this is likely to result in a low risk/high reward situation of your team either getting a kill or at least getting a Summoner Spell! Getting an opponent to Flash is great as it sets you up as the Jungler for an easy gank next time!
The next strategy moves us back down to the bot side of the Map and can only be done if you spawn on the Red Side of Summoner’s Rift. This involves the ADC and the Support playing a bit of a waiting game in the opposing team’s tri-brush.
Depending on the enemy Jungler, the enemy Bot Lane will leash their Jungler’s Red Buff, and this will give you some time to set up for the cheese! After you leash your team’s Blue Buff (again, depending on your Jungler and where they start) you will want to go to the enemy team’s tri-bush and wait. There is a decent chance that the enemy Bot Lane will walk through this Bush to get to their Lane and you can catch them by surprise this way if you both have strong early game Champions! That being said, let’s now move on from the cheese strategies and see which Champions are best for cheesing the enemy!
CHEESE CHAMPIONS
Each role has its respectively powerful early game champions, but there are also some Champions who have a powerful early game cheese mechanic but really scale to late game. An example of this would be Veigar, but we’ll touch back on him later. For now, we will move to Top Lane Cheese Champions and move our way down the Rift!
Top Lane
In the Top Lane, there are a couple really good Champions to choose from to cheese the enemy, the first of which being Aatrox. If you are really good with landing Aatrox’s Q, then you will easily be able to lock down the enemy while doing a large amount of damage to them! Aatrox at level 1 has a lot of CC and therefore is the perfect candidate for a Top Lane cheese Champion.
Next on the list we have Nasus. This might sound weird at first, but if you level 1 invade with Nasus and have a point in your Wither then you are very likely to at least get a Flash from the enemy you target. Wither is an extremely powerful invade tool, as it slows the enemy by an increasing amount for 5 seconds! This is why Nasus earns a spot in the Top Lane Cheese Champions.
Jungle
In the Jungle, our first cheese Champion is going to be Volibear. The reason is for Volibear’s insane potential on his Q, Rolling Thunder. When an enemy sees Volibear running at them on all fours, they are likely to try to Flash away before he flings them into your team. Next on the Jungle cheese list, we have Sejuani.
Sejuani is a tanky Champion with a decent bit of CC at level 1 if you start her Q. She will charge forward and knock up all enemies that are hit by her. This has the potential to catch out multiple enemies at level 1, making her another great choice for some early game cheese strategies!
Mid Lane
As previously stated, Veigar is a decent level 1 cheese Champion, but this is only the case if you start his E: Event Horizon. This will diminish your ability to get some early game stacks off of your Q, but if you catch someone in the center of this ability, they will have to Flash or die.
Veigar has a decent amount of potential here and is also great late game so he has earned a spot on this list.
Another great cheese pick in the Mid Lane is Twisted Fate. Twisted Fate starts his W: Pick a Card, and this has the ability to stun for 1 second at level 1. This stun is very powerful on invades and can really assist your team in an early game cheese attempt!
ADC
ADC is a bit harder to decide on cheese Champions as they really are not hailed for their CC, because well, they do not really have any, with a few exceptions. The first ADC I recommend for cheesing strategies would have to be Vayne.
Vayne is much better late game but can really help out in an early game cheese strategy if she starts her Condemn. If Vayne Condemns an enemy into a wall at level 1, you will very likely get that kill! Next, we have Caitlyn.
Caitlyn has a decent bit of level 1 potential if the enemy is already stunned, as she can place her traps right under the stunned targets to prolong the CC they are already enduring. This makes Caitlyn a decently valid option when it comes to early cheesing the enemy team.
Support
Support Champions are often tankier with a lot of CC in their kit. Because of this, there are a lot of good options when it comes to early game cheesing supports. However, I will list the two Champions I believe to be the best at in early game cheese strategies. The first is Thresh.
Thresh is an amazing all-around Champion with the ability to engage or disengage with every ability in his kit, but let’s focus on his level 1 potential. Thresh can start his Q, Death Sentence, or his E, Flay. Both of these abilities have the ability to cheese the enemy. If Thresh lands a Q, the enemy is stuck and Thresh can pull himself to whomever he struck with said ability. This allows Thresh to stick on an enemy in the event of an early invade, allowing your team to take them out! And finally, we have one of the ultimate cheese Champions - Blitzcrank.
Blitzcrank is probably the staple of cheesing in League of Legends. When the enemy team sees a Blitzcrank, they are almost always going to be ready for an invade, but this does not mean that they can avoid it.
Blitzcrank’s Rocket Grab will pull any enemy hit by it right to him. This means that if Blitzcrank is sitting in the middle of your team and he hits a Rocket Grab, then that enemy is coming right to the center of your team. There is no getting away from that. More often than not, Blitzcrank will be able to at least get a Flash from the enemy team which makes him a great choice for cheesing the enemy in League of Legends.
If you can get your team to cooperate with you try some of these cheese strategies and Champions in your games! They are very strong when done properly, and they quite often have little risk involved. Hopefully, you get to see some success with these strategies as I have and maybe knowing all of these will also help you better play against them!
Good luck in your coming games Summoners and don’t forget to cheese your enemies next time you are out on Summoner’s Rift!
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