How to Deal with Poke

If there’s one thing that’s true about history, it’s that history repeats itself (Yes, even in League of Legends). Every so often a poke champion or poke comp becomes ridiculously strong in the meta, and when it does, the uproars begin. Not to fear, fellow players, for it is not an unidentified foe we are facing. There are several tried and true methods on how to deal with poke comps and here are some of them:

Sustain

The dubbed “holy counterplay triangle” has been around for what seems to be forever, and now is not the time to forget about it. As the age old story goes: Sustain beats Poke beats Burst beats Sustain (or some variant of this). Sustain comps or picks have always been and always will be a solid tactic to survive poke comps. Picking a Soraka, Alistar or even a Taric will help you and your team survive those Nidalee spears or those Ezreal Q’s. Having champions with abilities that heal themselves and/or others will help counteract getting poked out of a fight or being low enough to get killed. But what people forget is that sustain goes beyond picks. It is not only the job of the support to counter that Corki ADC. It is also the job of the other members of the team to adjust their build enough sustain to heal themselves up. Building a Bloodthirster first as a Marksman or building that extra spell vamp will always help in keeping alive and ensuring you have enough health to fight back.

Hard Engage

If the drawn-out heal and kite fight is not to your liking or you want to complement your support's counter-poke pick with your own, picking a champion with hard engage has, historically, helped a lot of teams deal with this “issue”. Having a champion who can easily dash, knock-up, pull, or pounce on the problem will forever be useful. Having a champion who can easily focus a poke-based carry not only helps you with the engages, but it also limits the amount of poke the enemy can dish out because the more skill shots he throws, the more information he gives about his position. And playing against a Malphite or a Shen, the moment they know where you are is the moment you’re done for. As opposed to engaging on the target, bringing the target to you is also obviously beneficial. Poke champions are generally the squishiest champions in the game and bringing them to the front line might as well be an instant kill.

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Vision Control

Not that many players associate vision control with dealing with poke. While vision is integral in any League of Legends game, its need should be stressed when dealing with comps centered on poke. Firstly, this provides proper sight of where the skill shot will be coming from and allows your teammates and yourself some time to maneuver. Additionally, this allows your front line to dive the source and stop the poke. But it’s not only placing the wards that count. Sweeping is also very essential because of the very simple and obvious fact that hitting a blind skill shot is a lot harder than hitting one with vision.

Clearing wards also gives your team opportunities to draw the enemy in. Poke based champions often try to reposition themselves to get in range to land their skill shots, and by denying vision, it becomes easy to punish this style of play.

Build Accordingly

While this topic was briefly discussed in regards to sustain, counter-building against a poke comp extends beyond life steal and spell vamp. To deal with the heavy magic damage barrages coming your team’s way, one person should make the sacrifice purchase. By this, I mean buy the Locket of the Iron Solari (ahem, EULCS). The Locket provides +20 magic resist to all allies around you which will help minimize the damage taken from the poke, if it hits. Also the added health regeneration helps the entire team recover from any damage from that Corki missle barrage.

Aside from a locket, getting a Banshee's Veil helps you stay alive and be in good condition for a team fight. It also provides added health which will help when the unique passive of the item is down. Several players don’t build these items because they are stuck following the same build pattern every game. This habit should be broken especially when dealing with that Runeglaive Ezreal. In dealing with these strong picks, you have to adapt to survive.

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To close, we, as players, don’t need to panic, give up, or rage whenever we’re faced with yet another “overpowered” poke champion or comp, or any other powerful comp or pick in the current meta for that matter. As there will always be comps and champions that stand out in a certain patch, there will always be ways to deal with them, and often, they are “problems” the player base has dealt with before. As the saying goes, “If we do not learn from history, then we are doomed to repeat it.”