Each game of League of Legends starts with the Draft. From the draft, we decide our Champions and team comp, and then set out to the Rift hoping that our picks lock into place. But the game doesn’t start at just the moments we think they should. Sometimes our late-game strategies are foiled by early game aggression, and there’s strategies that can help games start off as early as the first minute of the game!

So, today we’re going to be unpacking level one strategies in League of Legends and talking about the advantages, disadvantages, and reasons why we start the game off in these formations.

The Five Point

Five Pointing is a defensive formation that spreads a team out over every entrance of the Jungle, creating a defensive line that can catch enemies as they move. Often this is a default formation that can help prevent early deaths from invades, can help figure out lane swaps, and even suss Jungler starting locations.

In a five point, laners each take an entrance of the Jungle and stand in its choke. A layout that looks like this:

This layout creates a semi-concurrent line of vision between each team's members. This allows for each and every player to contribute to a line of vision and give predictive information on who is moving or standing. This line limits what pathways the enemy can take to move forward onto each other, regardless of side.

Ideally, Junglers take the Mid position in this layout. Why? Well, from Mid Lane, they can fade to whatever side of the map they intended to start if rotational vision has been denied by their allies standing in the chokes. This allows the Jungler’s start point to remain vague, and thus limits his enemy from predicting and anticipating his pathway.

Lastly, the Five Point can limit the success of an invade. By having each player stand at an entrance, even if the enemy comes rushing in to make their pick, the defending player in a Five Point has enough time to retreat towards their turrets or deeper into their Jungle. This allows the defending player’s team to rotate over and set up a choke on the invading team, or it simply causes the invaders to turn around and get back into their own defensive positions if they see that nothing can be made out of their invade.

The Invade

Invades are a level one strategy that is executed to take advantage of a high impact ability. Examples of a high impact ability that can create an invade opportunity are Blitzcrank’s hook or Amumu’s Q. The ideal scenario is to land one of these abilities which hopefully secures First Blood. Otherwise, acceptable outcomes are blowing the Flash of a defending player, or securing Jungle vision, which can allow for the invading team to anticipate the route of the enemy Jungler.

And there are a plethora of routes to choose from when invading as well, we’ll cover some more common examples here:

Each line in the above graphic represents an approach angle that teams can make. As mentioned, the Five Point defense is great at countering invades as it can see each of these routes through one of its players at the Jungle openings. However, as we mentioned, invades often occur when one team has a high impact ability to secure.

So, even if players line up defensively in a Five Point stance, if the invading team possesses a long-range hook-like ability, they can at least secure a blown Flash from a defending player if they push their aggression. For Blue Side invades, simply invert the above image as these routes are applicable the other way as well.

Lastly, while invades are often directed off having a big level one CC ability, they can also be executed by compositions that may just be lacking in that regard. Oftentimes if players don’t see one of those high impact abilities, they won’t guess an invade is coming, so on suboptimal level one comps, it could be a cheesy strat to call for an invade simply to fight for vision, or maybe catch an enemy player unaware.

The Stack

Stacking is a strategy that aims to counter the Invade. But unlike the Five Point which will ideally concede ground to an invading group, the Stack wants to counter-engage and meet the invaders in a fight. And since the invade occurs on the Stackers side of the map, they often have the advantage of setting up preliminary vision around their Jungle to assist in anticipating their counter engage.

Here are common stacking points that can catch invaders:

But, just like Invades, who often come off from big level one focused Champions, Stacks can be directed around the existence of a certain few Champions as well. Shen, Sion, Ashe, and Braum are all examples of Champions that can give a Stack an edge. They’re able to eat the ability from an invading hook and then use their own abilities to catch the invaders at their own game. So, if you’re an invading player, be aware of who is present on the enemy comp, and how they can quickly turn an invade against you.

Bush Cheesing

Bush Cheesing is, essentially, Stacking but on a smaller scale and primarily done by Laners. Bush Cheesing involves taking advantage of a powerful level one ability by being in position to ‘gank’ your opponent with it while they are unaware of your presence. Some great Bush Cheesing style Champions are Darius, Garen, Lucian-Braum, and Xayah-Rakan. All these picks have a tool that allows them to stack up damage quickly on an enemy that gets within their range, and if the output of their damage isn’t given respect it can lead to a kill more often than not.

Here are the spots that are common for Cheesing (Inverse this for Top Lane):

How does a Bush Cheese start? Well, it’s often called by the Top or Duo that are looking to have a strong and dominant lane phase. We mentioned Lucian-Braum as an example as these two picks want to be able to move forward freely in lane and play aggressively with their high damage advantage over most other Bot Lanes. Bush Cheesing allows the duo to establish a early health advantage over the lane which can compensate for the duo’s shorter range and riskier play patterns.

However, Bush Cheesing can create a bit of a dilemma for a Jungler. Say the Jungler wanted to start on Lucian-Braum’s side of the map and work his way up. If the duo is Bush Cheesing for a lane advantage, he’s left without a leash, which can stall his clear time. And, if both the enemy Bot and Top are spotted during the cheese, then it’s quite easy to predict the side the Jungler started on and gives off that they will be lower on resources should the opposing Jungler solo invade.

Champions for Level One Plays

Lastly, we want to go into a brief breakdown of some LoL’s Champions that are capable of being the center-pieces of level one strats. Some are notoriously known, but others can produce unique plays uncommon to others. We’ll break down a few that we view as some of the strongest contenders to level one plays.

Invading with a Hook Champ - Blitz, Pyke, Naut, Thresh

This is the most common invade strat and centers our breakdown above. If you have these guys on your team, you’re quite capable of pulling off an effective invade. Sylas, Poppy, Ivern, and Amumu make our honorable mentions by being able to provide sticky CC in the tight corridors of the Jungle, or in Ivern’s case, he can quietly start an enemy’s camps without needing to ‘make a play’ on his invade making him quite unique.

Stacking

When it comes to stacking, Sion’s probably the best in the business as he can respond to an unaware invade with a five man knock-up. We’ll mention Galio here since we talked about Sion briefly before. Like Sion, as enemies approach on an invade, Galio can opt to take his Justice Punch or his taunt, Idol of Durand, to net either an isolated knockup or a 5-man taunt. The former gives him a small ability to get out if the level one extends and goes long too, so there’s some small situational flexibility to consider.

Bush Cheese

We mentioned Lucian-Braum above, but Xayah-Rakan is also a prime combo for the Bush Cheese strat. With Xayah and Rakan having higher damage potential with each other, the Grand Entrance/Deadly Plumage combination from the two makes X&R one of the best early cheese lanes.

Flex

We call these guys flex options because they can work either as invaders themselves or they do well with stacking too, but regardless are a bit more inconsistent or lacking in comparison to some of the other Champions in terms of output. But, the best in the business here we say is a tie between Bard and Lux.

Both these Champions have the unique ability to stun/tether two opponents at once if they can hit their abilities. And that ability to lockdown multiple targets is big in either an invade or counter-play. Honorable mention further extended to Ashe who’s notorious for being able to run anyone down at level 1 thanks to her slowing-auto attacks!