This article aims to help you put more impact on the sidelanes when playing in the midlane. I will focus on when, where, and how to roam, on the champions that you can use best to roam or put pressure on sidelanes, and on how to impact them throughout the early game until the very end of the game.

When to roam?

You can’t always roam. When you move away from your lane to gank toplane, you are leaving your lane behind. Which means that the opposing midlaner is free to push the minion wave into your tower and deny you all the creeps, or to roam themselves to put pressure on another part of the map.

Roaming is best done the moment you have priority in the midlane. Priority is when you have the push which means that the minion wave is at their side of the lane and they must choose between either following you or getting all the CS, which means they’re making a sacrifice one way or another and you will usually come out ahead.

Another important part is the vision you have of the enemy team. If you have vision of their jungler or know where he is you can gank the other part of the map, creating an almost certain advantage in numbers for your team. If you feel that you need to make a play on the map but you don’t have vision of their jungler, it might not be the worst idea to still go for it, calling your own jungler to help or being confident in winning the 2v2/3v3 are still good ways to make a successful roam.

This picture shows priority, the wave is pushed into the opponents tower, making him choose between letting the creeps die or following me on my roam.

Where to roam?

Both lanes are available for a midlaner to roam to, but which one you visit is entirely up to you. Making this decision can sometimes be very straightforward and sometimes a bit more difficult. The first thing to look at when ganking a lane is what will you get out of it? Roaming toplane can net you the Rift Herald, but ganking bot can make it easier for you to take that Dragon, and what about both towers? Both lanes also have your allied champions contributing to the gank, which means is there enough damage or setup for us to be able to kill the opposing laner? A Maokai toplane will be fairly difficult to kill since he is tanky enough to withstand most of the damage, so it might be a better idea to try and kill that squishy Sona support.

How to roam?

We have already touched on the midlane priority aspect of roaming, that’s the first step. Pushing the wave in and disappearing into the fog of war is often already scary for the opposing team, as they have no idea where you are and will already play safer until they see you again. This already creates an impact on the game which is why it’s a good idea to have pink wards set up in and around the river, to deny the enemy vision of when you are going for a little visit.

 A classic river ward denying the enemy vision of you walking through the river

How you are ganking a lane in terms of abilities is obviously dependent on the champion you’re playing. Taliyah can use her passive and ult to quickly move to another lane and Twisted Fate can use his ult to instantly move somewhere else. Use your own instinct and proficiency on the champion to determine the best way to move and kill one of your enemies.

Champions

There are a lot of viable champions midlane, and a large amount of those are also very suitable for roaming and playing in the sidelanes. In reality every midlaner can roam and gank other lanes, but some are more proficient at it than others. Champions with global or semi-global abilities are usually a strong pick for this type of playstyle, think of Taliyah, Galio, Twisted Fate. But also, champions that have a lot of mobility and can quickly go around the map, for example Talon, Kassadin or LeBlanc. But, like mentioned earlier, every champion can roam. Orianna or Viktor might not move around the fastest, but can still certainly make an impact if you have the opportunity.

Teleport and playing in later stages of the game

Now we are moving on from the laning phase of the game where you roam and gank lanes, towards the mid and late game, where strong sidelane champions can wave clear one of those sidelanes and offer pressure on towers through that. Champions with global abilities will often be a good choice to be in a sidelane, as they can join a teamfight immediately when needed. Other ones that have strong 1v1 potential and are good at pressuring towers, through for example Lichbane or Hextech Gunblade (like Kassadin, Leblanc or Fizz) will usually take teleport as one of their summoner spells. This offers them the ability to stay in a sidelane and put pressure on the tower, either pulling one of the enemies towards their sidelane or taking the tower themselves. All that while still having the ability to join a teamfight with teleport and help their team out.

When playing a sidelane in later stages of the game, it's often very important to keep watching your team, telling them to back off and not fight if you’re about to take down a tower or telling them you can TP in when they need you to. Playing a sidelane is meant to tear the other team apart and put an end to their 5 man squad walking around together, creating a broader map for you to make plays on. It takes a while to get used to and to play it well, but if you put the time in it can certainly help win your games.

Conclusion
To conclude, when roaming you should always have your wave pushed, meaning you have lane priority. While also trying to deny vision of yourself to the enemy and at the same time having vision of them. Take good notice of what champions are in every lane and think about those when making a play. In the mid to late game while playing a sidelane it’s important to keep track of what your team is doing and what you can do to gain an advantage for them.

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