In the professional scene lane swap is used a lot. Teams that decide to use lane swap usually do it to avoid bad matchups in the bot lane, but there are other reasons: to shut down enemy top laner, try to surprise enemy jungler and disrupt him in the jungle or if the enemy team doesn’t know how to react to lane swap. Execution of lane swap tactic is not hard if the enemy team is not expecting it. If the enemy team expects a lane swap, then it becomes a mind game.

First invade when laneswapping on Blue side

Lane swaps can be done with an early invade and a late invade. Early invade is invading right away, without any stopping. It is used to force out the enemy team out of that part of their jungle and get vision control so the invading team can see if the enemy wants to fight. Late invade is waiting in the bush until 1:45 then going to invade. It is used to force out enemy jungler and delay his jungle farming.

If you're blue team there are two ways to invade: directly through red entrance or from top tribush. Invading through red entrance is a little bit faster, gives the enemy jungler less time to act, but since there's big terrain the enemy can spot you and remove that potential surprise effect. Going through top tribush can give you the surprise effect you need.

As you can see there are three wards on the map and they are mandatory wards in every invade: number one ward prevents the enemy coming from middle, number 2 ward prevents the enemy coming from base gates and number 3 ward prevents the enemy from coming from top lane. With these three wards whole red side is warded and you can see if the enemy team try to come.

First invade when laneswapping on Red side

Red team also has two ways of invading: from red entrance and from top side river (blue entrance). They also have three mandatory wards that cover all entrances.

These wards work only if the team is invading early because they have time to place those wards. Teams that late invade place wards according to what they see, like if the jungler is there. In late invade scenarios teams ward in river as usual, covering entrances to their buffs.

How to defend from invades

Defending from an invade depends on the team. If they suspect that the enemy team will invade, they can decide to counter invade them or try to set up a trap. It also depends on the resources they want to put into defending and overall game plan.

Defending from lane swap as red team

Defending from a lane swap tactic (invade) is not so hard. Since we know what they want, and that is to put their wards down, we can set them a trap. Wards (green dots) are mandatory in this case so we can see where they are invading from. Yellow dots are wards that you can place depending where are you hiding. For example, if you are waiting for them in the bush above red buff, then you ward the bush at red buff so you can see when they move and you can make a first attack. If you choose not to fight then you just go and invade their red buff.

Defending from lane swap as blue team

Defending as blue team is easier because the territory around blue buff is smaller than red buff. What you need is two wards plus one more to put depending on where they invade from. Two mandatory wards to cover both entrances, ward in the top bush should be placed over the wall. I suggest to wait for them at the red circles: if they come from the enemy red buff entrance, you have enough time to place a ward at your blue buff bush. If they come from top you will see if they want to late invade or if they early invade you can place a ward over the wall again and attack first.

If you think they will late invade, the best option would be to ward the buff you think they will invade and go to the other one (if you are red team, ward red buff and start from blue).

There are also invades that are not targeted by a lane swap (blue team invade enemy blue buff, red team invade enemy red buff), but those are heavily dependent on team strategy and what they want to accomplish.

Laning phase

The laning phase in a lane swap situation is very dependent on how the enemy team reacts. If they don't send their bot lane to top, then the jungle sides and pressure changes completely. In a lane swap we will have four people on the top side of the map, while the enemy will have two (top and jungle). That means that we will be able to get control over the enemy's buff, but the same thing will happen to us on the bottom side of the map. It's more of a trade, we take control over blue/red buff jungle on the top side while we give away the same on bottom. In season 6, this means that the team that lane swaps will have control over the Rift Herald while the other team will have control over Dragon. One stack of Dragon buff may be worth more than a temporary buff from Rift Herald depends on strength of the teams, their team comps, game plan and if Riot changes something to the game, since right now average game time is around 26 minutes and stacking the Dragon buff is not beneficial.

Now that we know what we gained and what we gave away by using the lane swap, we need to decide what to do next, what our game plan is going to be. There are couple of situations that can happen.

If they don't send anyone top we can leave our adc on the top lane alone to farm and push while the other three (support, top and jungler) ward jungle for him and go to roam and farm. In case they group at bot and fast push, we must do the same because if we don't push they can take turret and come top to defend their and we will be in disadvantage in gold and map pressure. Also what can happen is that they don't send anyone top and instead they want to do the dragon. In this situation we can't really react unless we are prepared for it and want to stop it.

If they leave their top laner on top, we can easily dive him since it's a 4v1.

If they send their support to assist their top laner, then our support will also have to stay and we will send our top laner bot so he can farm. In this situation we can only farm and try to poke them out, and of course ward, so their jungler doesn't surprise us.

After destroying the first turret

After the first turret is destroyed many teams get lost on what to do next. Destroying a turret means that we will have more pressure on the jungle side even after laning phase is over. It also means that during the laning phase the enemy laner has less space to safely move on, since turret safety.

With the first destroyed turret, if the enemy top laner goes over the red line he won't be safe enough from ganks or in 1v1 situation because the turret is not near and we can chase him down. He is not safe from ganks if he goes over the red line unless he wards the jungle, but to do that he will need three wards to keep him completely safe: one in tribush, one in top red buff bush and one ward in bush over red buff, but no one will invest so many resources in warding. There is also a chance that our top laner is over extended but only if we didn't ward their jungle.

With the first turret down, we must maintain the vision control over pressured jungle side. This will keep our top laner safe, we will know movement of the enemy jungler and it will also keep mid laner safe, plus we will know if the enemy wants to gank, do Rift Herald or try to fight back. For that control we need only two or three wards (look at picture one of this article). This control will allow us easier movement through the enemy jungle. We can use this to put pressure on the mid turret and the second turret with rotations. Since we have vision control over the jungle, the enemy team can't move through it or we will see it and can make them a trap and kill them, poke them, etc.

Having good vision control allows you to control the game and how it flows. You can see the enemy plans, know what they will do, set them a trap and dictate how the game will go. Vision also plays a part in the mental side of the game, if we have vision and they know it, they will be afraid, hesitate to enter and facecheck because they don't know if we are waiting for them in that bush. You can see this often when a team that has vision control over Baron sets a trap because the enemy team must facecheck or they will give away huge advantage.