Pro players, streamers, and casters often mention that top lane has the least impact on the result of a game of League of Legends. While that may be true in pro play, top lane can be one of the strongest roles due to the snow-bally nature of it. After killing the enemy top laner once or twice, they cannot walk up without you having kill-pressure on them. This usually results in you pushing waves into their tower and they farm whatever minions they can. The question of how do I push my lead is often raised. In this article, I will cover four ways you can push your lead in the top lane without relying on your team to do anything extra.

Rift Herald

Many players only take the Rift Herald with their junglers. However, it is easy to solo it for most top laners with just one item. If your jungler shows on another part of the map, almost no one expects you to be on the Rift Herald, which allows you to take it for free. If you have priority (pushed your wave under their tower) and you see the enemy jungler on another part of the map, taking the Rift Herald can be a safe, yet extremely powerful, option. If you have lifesteal, you can often take it without losing a significant amount of health allowing you to return back to lane. It also gives you 100 gold just for killing it (and some experience), and at least 320 gold from plates prior to 14 minutes which is more gold than a kill. In addition to gold, taking the top tower early opens the map up a lot allowing you to make quicker rotations while the enemy laner has to farm by their tier 2 turret.

You don't have to use the Rift Herald top lane always. Generally, breaking the tier 1 turret in the mid lane is the most impactful just due to its position on the map. If the top tower is already low and you can just manually break it, you can push the wave in and rotate mid to use the Rift Herald. If your team groups with you, you can often get another charge or even take the tier 2 mid-tower.

If their top and jungler contest Rift while you are taking it, you should obviously try to get out. But, if you are comfortably ahead, you can try to 1v2 for a few seconds and bait for your jungler/mid laner to rotate and quickly turn a losing fight into an advantageous one.

Taking Enemy Jungle Camps

Say you have taken the tier 1 turret and have pushed in the wave to the tier 2 turret. Staying that pushed leaves you susceptible to ganks from the enemy jungler and you don't have much kill pressure on your laner because he is under the turret, even if you are ahead. Assuming Rift Herald isn't up, what can you do now? Take the enemy jungle camps. Especially if you are on the red side, you can quickly take camps and leave without much threat since most top laners excel at taking single target camps (Gromp, Blue Buff, and Wolves). Once you have pushed in the wave, walk into the enemy jungle. If you run into the jungler, you can usually 1v1 them since you have a significant level lead, but if the fight goes on for too long, their top laner will rotate and the fight will turn into a 1v2. If the jungler shows elsewhere on the map, you should be able to take all the top side camps. Taking all three camps gives you 300+ gold and a buff, more than a kill's worth. If none of the camps are up, leaving a ward (recommended location shown below) helps tracks the enemy jungler which can keep you and your team safer while you split push.

On the blue side, taking enemy camps can be a bit harder due to the nature of the terrain. Unlike red side, there is no "easy" way to escape after taking camps. You either have to walk back through tri-brush or through raptors, which is next to the enemy mid laner. I recommend taking krugs because even though they take more time than other camps, they give a lot of gold and XP. Only take their red/raptors if you know where the jungler and mid are. Otherwise, the top side of the map can collapse on you in a matter of seconds. If none of the camps are up, as always, you can leave a ward to keep you and your team safer (recommended place to ward is circled in red).

Rotating to Mid Lanes/Dragons

Once again, after pushing in the minion wave to the enemy tier 1 or tier 2 tower, it can be risky to stay especially if you don't know where their jungler is. Two options you have then, besides resetting, are taking jungle camps and Rift Herald which I explained above. A third, riskier, option is to roam mid to gank their mid laner. An important aspect to consider that can be done during champion select is the mid lane champion/matchup. For example, if the enemy mid laner is Leblanc, you know her wave clear throughout the game will likely be worse than your midlaners, so it's not likely she will be pushed up, which is where you want her to be if you are ganking. Also, champions like Leblanc, Zed, and Fizz can easily escape unless you can CC and burst them down. On the flip side, champions like Xerath, Vel'Koz, and Ziggs want to shove their minions into your tower and harass the enemy midlaner with their abilities. They are also some of the squishiest champions with extremely limited mobility without flash which makes them a good target to gank.

This is an especially powerful strategy in lower elos where laners are only focused on tracking with their enemy laner and jungler are, not other lanes. Once you enter the fog of war, they will usually assume that you are just backing and won't ping their team that you are missing. A powerful timing to do this is a minute or so before drake spawns. By pushing the top wave before you start rotating down, you can save your TP to return back to top lane instead of using it to get to drake and having to walk back to top. If you are able to kill their mid laner on your way to the dragon, you can almost guarantee the drake for your team.

Split Push Focus

The most common role for many top laners over the last decade is to focus on split pushing. Split pushing is utilized in every level of play from low and high elo solo queue, to professional play. It is a tried and tested strategy that every top laner should know how to do effectively. On champions such as Jax, Fiora, and Tryndamere that are weaker in team fights compared to most other champions, split pushing is the best way to apply pressure and create passive leads for your team. One very effective form of split pushing you can do later in the game if you have teleport advantage is pushing the side of the map opposite to a major objective. In the time that the other team takes to rotate to baron/dragon, you can often take a tower because of how quickly many top laners take towers.

If your team is able to win the fight 4v5, then you can continue pushing to get an inhibitor. Otherwise, you can teleport into the fight with the minions in the opposite lane already pushing. If you do not have teleport up, split pushing becomes a little bit harder because it requires your team to play safely around you. If the other team engages on your team 4v5, it is extremely hard to win unless your team is very ahead. It also relies on your team taking advantage of the enemy team sending multiple people to kill you. If they don't, your death goes untraded and your team is at a disadvantage until you respawn. Although it is very hard to win a game solely from split pushing in an uncoordinated environment where fights start spontaneously, it can be a great way to accelerate or even stall the game and get lots of farm. Just make sure you can be part of the team fights or your team will not be happy with you!

Conclusion

Although all of these strategies are powerful in their own way, knowing when to do what can only come with experience. If your team out scales the other team, you want to draw the game out as long as possible by playing safe. If you have an early lead without a scaling team, you want to help your team accelerate the game by taking towers and objectives. Before trying these out for the first time in ranked, play a few normal games to learn these strategies and their limits.