Gold has a big impact in any MOBA game you play. It’s what you earn aside from gold when killing minions, champions and objectives all around The Rift. From earing gold you will be able to purchase items and as you progress at farming minions, you will be able to snowball with better items earlier in the game. But there is one thing in League of Legends with a higher efficiency at the early stages of a game, and that’s experience.

Progressing though levels

Just like gold you will earn experience from killing minions, champions and objectives. From experience you progress through levels until the max level, which in League of Legends is 18 for every champion. Every time you level up you will also be able to level up one of your abilities and the ability you level up will get stronger in at least one way (e.g damage output, slow duration). There are different strategies for every champion in what order you should level up your abilities and other facts about leveling your abilities but that’s not the point here.

While you lane at the early stages of the game, every level is a huge power spike in lane power. You might think getting to level 2 in lane before your lane opponent is not a big advantage, but it really is. The pressure you get on your opponent is going to give you your first gold advantage in the game, if you play it smart and zone your opponent from as many creeps as possible and last hit every enemy creep.

Your aim going into a lane should always be to reach level two before your opponent, it doesn’t matter if it’s bot top or mid you’re playing. But there are a lot of scenarios where it isn’t worth to get level 2 before the opponent. Remember that every nearby creep which eventually dies, will guarantee you experience even if you don’t get the last hit. A bad trade early in a lane is never a good idea just to get the gold for a last hit or two since you will earn experience anyway and the difference between the two champions will slowly shrink for every level and the longer you can stay in lane the easier getting last hits will get.

The team to the left won. Level differences matters early game but also in late game fights.

Find maximum experience though laning phase

To maximize your experience while in lane, you will need to recall at the correct time. Whenever you get back to the fountain, a few minions die through fighting the enemy minions and you will not be able to catch that experience. The most important thing to do before you recall is to shove the lane to the enemy tower. By shoving, you push the minions all the way to the enemy tower and after that you can recall and lose a low amount of experience. If you feel like you have an advantage in your lane, you can do this while the enemy is still there otherwise wait until you enemy has recalled. You want to shove every time you back, but at times you can’t do it because a lack of mana/wave clear. When you shove a lane, it’s important to be sure about where the enemy jungler is or have vision otherwise you might be caught over-staying which often ends in death.

What you should do when the first tower in your lane has fallen

Towers start falling around the 15th minute mark of the game. This is usually the point of the game where low ranked players starts to get confused and finds it harder to catch as much experience and the game either slows down or speeds up as the two teams start trying to kill each other instead of farming. In these situations, there are to routes for you to take:

- Either you follow the aggression, go ham and try to fight everywhere any time and maybe get that amazing teamfight which wins you the game. This option works better if your team is ahead in two or more lanes after laning.

- Or, you should consider trying to slowing down a bit and continue farming on your lane. If your Outer Tower is down in your lane, you are vulnerable in a larger area for the enemy team to collapse and kill you. Therefore you should always be sure to have vision around the lane you’re gonna farm at. This option is one way to get back into the game if your team is behind.

This image portrays an example of what a good shove could look like in the bot lane and in when the lane looks like this, it's a good moment to recall if you find yourself with enough gold to afford an item.

TL;DR and what you should’ve learned

Experience is just as important as gold in the early game. You can take you first advantages in terms of gold if you use you level up to zone your enemy. Early in the game, a minion isn’t worth a bad trade where you lose a lot of hit points (HP) for the ~20 gold you gain.

Whenever you recall, your aim should always be to shove the lane up if you feel confident in doing it and don’t risk dying from the enemy jungler. After laning phase, it continues to be important to farm lanes and kill jungle camps so minions don’t die in battles or to towers.

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