Though one could argue that jungle is the King of the map, my counter arguement to that is if a person can ward correctly, a jungler is no more than a back-pain making you go see a chiropractor. I will make an article going more in depth about warding later on. So in top lane, the jokes "it's an island with no impact" are more or less true for the first 15 minutes of the game. After that though, the top laner could be a menace to the enemy team. If a top laner can go even, playing safely and farming efficiently in lane, he should have at least one item(or more), in a teamfight making him tanky and being able to put out damage, examples being Renekton, Maokai, Gnar etc. And though I said "top lane has little impact for the first 15 minutes of the game", this can be null and void if you have great teleport presence. Teleport is my main reason for top lane being such a dominant force in game and here is why:

The summoner spell lets you go anywhere on the map from anywhere on the map, other than flash this is the most dominant summoner spell in the game and is a reason why you sometimes even see it with ignite, instead of flash. Use this to gank bot lane and put yourself and your team ahead. Tell your bot to ward the bushes so you are able to Teleport. I will stop here because there is an amazing Teleport Guide already up, go check it out!

Mid Game:

Now you are in the mid game, 20 through 25 minutes in, you on average should have about 3 items: a Sunfire Cape, Mercury Tread/Ninja Tabi, and depending on what champion you are playing, a Black Cleaver or a Spirits Visage/Banshees Veil. This is the big moment for you, you have to be finding the right engages, calling for the correct objectives, so on and so forth. As a top laner, you are the one to engage, do not get engaged on or it will be rough. Ward up and find the carry you want to kill, make sure your lanes are pushed out so if you do find a kill on a carry, ADC or mid, you can ping your team to go baron, get an inner towers, or get inhibitors. A nice rule of thumb is: Inhibitors> Baron> Dragon>Inner towers.

This rule is NOT 100%. In game, there are many scenarios that can change this rule. Okay, so you find the ADC or the Mid laner, you engage on them and get the kill, analyze the situation: your lanes are pushed, you all have 3/4ths to full HP, baron and dragon are up, Inner towers are alive, we only killed the ADC/Mid laner, you have ward controll over baron not dragon(or vise versa). Go to Baron/ Dragon(whichever one you have controll over) and do it. If you have Dragon controll, do dragon, BUT MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ONE WARD ON BARON. If you have Baron control, do Baron, and while Dragon is important, you do not need to think you'll lose eveything for forfeiting one Dragon for a Baron.

After getting baron, your opponents are in a check type of gameplay. You have taken the drivers seat and are ready to put the pedal to the metal. Have your team group up, take all the Inner towers if not already. If you are pushed to the Inhibitor towers, then you should go to a separate lane to split push while your team can go to another and presure immensly. If you see your team get engaged on or engage themselves, Teleport immediatly, if you win that fight the game should be over and you have earned some sweet LP. But, if the fight goes to where you are not able to end, DO NOT FORCE IT, take the Inhibitor you are at right now, take the other inhibitors if you can, if you can't just back. After this go back, stick with your team, and push to end.

Be the engager but be careful with your engage. Too many times do I see lower and even higher elo players not looking at their map when diving inhibitor towers. You just took an inhibitor, so wait for your super minions to push to the enemies base. If the minions are in their base they have to send someone to get it, so when you see that it is a 4v5, AND you have minions tanking the tower to start the dive, dive them and go hard, this dive should end the game and now you have got your well earned LP.

Final Notes, some Key Items and Tips for Top Lane:

- Unless you are so comfortable on ignite that it feels like a Lazboy couch, try and always run Teleport Flash
- You dont need a 5-0 score to be controll the game, farming well(70 cs by 10 minutes) and not dying are just as good as being 2-0 50 cs at 10 minutes Of Course get kills if your opponent makes a mistake or your jungler comes to gank

Some Key Items for top lane include:

- Sunfire Cape/ Black Cleaver(Or both)
- Righteous Glory
- Mercury Tread/ Ninja Taiabi
- Spirits Visage/Banshees Veil

Good luck in your games to come!

-Dalltorian

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