Introduction

The Sheriff of Piltover has become fairly popular in the past few months for many good reasons. She is one of the strongest early game carriers and is one of the only early game ADCs who is also an immaculate hypercarry in the late game. The only struggles Caitlyn has is her weak middle game, which can be softened with a good early game. Caitlyn is a cornerstone champion for the siege composition, whose goal is to force down towers and put you in a stranglehold inside your own base, slowly accruing a gold lead by taking towers. In this article, we’ll take a look at the siege composition with a focus on the champion Caitlyn, and how Caitlyn can be used throughout the various stages in the game to advance the goals of the siege composition.

Lane Matchups and Caitlyn in the Early Stages

Before we get to Caitlyn, we need to talk about what works well with Caitlyn to helps her excel in the early game. Caitlyn works well with characters that are also early game oriented and can invigorate her early game power. One currently strong example would be Morgana, who is a strong counter to many supports in the game right now, such as Thresh, Braum, and Rakan. Her Black Shield on her E ability blocks all incoming CC, and if she hits her Q, Dark Binding, it can combo very effectively with Caitlyn’s W - Yordle Snap Trap. Another champion who works very well with Caitlyn is Nami, who can be considered one of the strongest laning support champions in the entire game. Her entire kit is built around empowering her ADC, and her lane presence can easily bully out other members in the bot lane with the help of Caitlyn. The final champion that I’ll mention that works well with Caitlyn is Karma. Karma has a very strong laning phase with her poke on her Q ability, and her shield provides a speed boost and can allow Caitlyn to land some very effective poke.

Now that we’ve talked about 3 champions that work well with Caitlyn, we can move on to how to play Caitlyn in the early game. Caitlyn should be looking to take the first tower in the game and take it as soon as possible. Caitlyn has immense pushing power with her Q, Piltover Peacemaker, which means Caitlyn should be constantly shoving and working to get the first tower. While the opposing ADC works to farm under tower, Caitlyn should be able to get massive damage on the tower. This is why having a lane oppressive support is crucial for Caitlyn because getting the first tower is important to accelerate Caitlyn’s gameplay. Because Caitlyn’s mid game is considered generally weak, especially before getting her items, getting the first tower and subsequent towers can help push Caitlyn through the mid game into her monstrous late game.

However, pushing this hard will inevitably leave you open to getting ganked. Make sure that you always have a pink ward up on the map and ensure that, at the very least, river is always warded. If the Junglers position on the map is unknown to you, always assume that he is bottom lane waiting to gank you. Although playing safe will make taking the first tower take a little longer than usual, it’s much better than giving up unnecessary deaths to your opponent and helping them back into the game. Additionally, by drawing the enemy Jungler bottom, your top and mid laners will be much safer than they would normally be, and your Jungler should be able to develop an advantage either by counterjungling or by ganking the top or middle lanes.

Caitlyn in the Mid Game

Caitlyn’s mid game is fairly polarizing, depending on how you did in the early game. If you had a successful early game, the mid game should be much smoother for Caitlyn, and towers will fall like paper. However, if you had a rocky early game, the mid game will be much harder for you.

What does a successful mid game from Caitlyn look like? Well, it usually begins right after the first tower goes down. After Caitlyn is free from the shackle that is the bottom lane, she is free to roam the map in hopes of taking down other towers. Your first objective should be swapping lanes with your top laner, and pushing down the top lane outer tower as fast as possible. Once that is down, rotate mid and get that outer tower. Having all 3 outer towers down relatively early in the mid game offers your team an insane amount of map control, and allows you to easily net neutral objectives, take the enemy's jungle camps, and siege down the rest of the base much safer. Again, with a siege composition, your goal should be sieging down towers firstly with a secondary focus on everything else. Caitlyn with her self-escape on her E ability and the trap line with her W makes sieging very difficult for the enemy to stop.

Now, what does an unsuccessful mid game for Caitlyn look like? Generally, it looks like not taking towers. This usually results from a bad early game, which means you can't take down towers quickly or effectively. If you're not able to take down towers effectively, a good idea would be to safely farm a side lane until you are farmed enough to take towers quickly. Grouping with your team is good when ahead because you can force down objectives, but bad if you're behind because your team will be missing out on side lane gold and experience without getting anything in return.

Caitlyn in the Late Game

You've worked the whole game to get here, and it's definitely going to be worth it. Six item Caitlyn is nearly unstoppable! Her range is absurd, especially when she gets the Rapidfire Cannon passive. Her passive Headshot is going to nearly be one-shotting squishy champions at this point, and you should be able to get any tower you want as long as you play carefully. This is where the trap line can be very effective and generally separates the good Caitlyns from the great Caitlyns. What I mean by the trap line is putting your Yordle Snap Traps (all five) in a straight line across your opponent's tower, stretching evenly from the left wall to the right wall. This makes it very hard for the enemy to engage without stepping on a trap and taking a Headshot auto-attack.

This also makes it easy to walk up and get plenty of autos on the turret. Getting all five traps back off of cooldown can take a while, so you have to judge in the moment whether it's worth moving up to get more towers or waiting until your trap line is back up again. Again, as long as you're sieging, you're playing to your compositions win condition. Don't get sidetracked with kills or useless dragons! Focus on taking towers!

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