How to Lane Versus Double Poke Matchups
Poke or double poke matchups are some of the hardest to lane against in League of Legends. These matchups are hard from the get-go, and one mistake on your behalf can cost you the lane. While these matchups are incredibly tough to play against, there are a few things you can do in champion select and during the laning phase to increase your survivability.
In this Mobalytics guide, we will break down how to lane against double poke or strong poke matchups in League of Legends. While this guide will be aimed at the bot lane, some tips will help you in other lanes like the mid lane.
- Who are strong poke champions?
- Adjust your Rune choice
- Invest in a Refillable Potion
- Get early Boots
- Watch your positioning
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1. Who are strong poke champions?
There are many different strong poke champions in League of Legends. Poke champions are champions that want to harass you from afar with their abilities. They use their abilities frequently to push the minion wave and harass you.
There are too many poke champions to list them all, but here are some popular poke champions in League of Legends. Note that if a champ has low cooldowns, uses their abilities often and focuses more on harassing with abilities rather than auto-attacks, they could be considered a poke champion.
- Sivir
- Vel’Koz
- Brand
- Karma
- Syndra
- Senna
Double poke lanes usually contain a poke Support and an ADC that has low cooldowns and AOE damage. They will both work hand in hand to try and harass you and poke you down. Once low enough, they will force you to recall or kill you when you overstay your welcome.
2. Adjust your Rune choice
During the laning phase, in particular, the bot lane, ask yourself who will be the more significant threat. In some matchups, for example a Kalista Vel’koz lane, or any (relatively) weak pre-6 champion, you may want to adjust your minor runes to help you deal with the bigger threat. In this matchup, the Vel’Koz will be your biggest threat, and he will harass you very frequently with his abilities.
I would recommend adjusting your rune choice and take double magic resistance minor runes if you can to reduce his damage output. Any Support champion can change their runes to take double magic resistance.
For ADC’s you may want to swap your armour rune for a magic resistance one instead to help tone down on some of their damage.
When laning against a double AP lane, make sure you adjust your runes and take magic resistance over armour runes too!
3. Invest in a Refillable Potion
Let’s keep this one short and sweet. When laning against a poke matchup, you may find yourself buying lots of health potions to help you stay topped up in lane. You will need sustain in order to stay alive in the lane, but don’t bother buying lots of health potions!
The cost-efficiency of the Refillable Potion is very good and will save you a lot of gold in the long run. Let’s suggest on each back throughout the early laning phase; you buy 2 health potions. This will delay your core items and you would’ve spent a lot of gold on consumables.
Instead of spending all this morning on pots, buy a Refillable Potion and get free sustain throughout the whole of the laning phase!
4. Get early Boots
Poke can be really hard to deal with, especially when it is coming from 2 champions. I love to rush boots in matchups where the enemy has a lot of pokes as it makes dodging their skill shots a lot easier.
The additional movement speed can help you move around the lane slightly faster which helps you get out of the way of their skill shots. You do not need to upgrade these boots, but just getting them early can help you a ton.
If the enemy consists of lots of AP champions, then you can also upgrade these boots to Mercury Treads if you want to.
5. Watch your positioning
During the laning phase, you need to be careful of your positioning so you don’t take damage for free. In this section, we will break down some tips to help you deal with double poke matchups. Take note that these tips will not work in every matchup.
Stand outside of the minion wave when applicable so the enemy cannot poke you and push the minion wave at the same time. Force the enemy to choose between pushing and poking you. This is good against champions like Syndra or Sivir.
Stand near the minion wave so you can run inside it to dodge skill shots. This can be helpful when dodging abilities like Vel’Koz Q as minions block the damage. Just run inside the wave when you see him throw out his abilities.
The thing to remember is that some abilities can be blocked by minions and others can’t. Try to stand inside the wave when the enemy doesn’t have AOE abilities or when the minions can block the damage. If they have AOE abilities that go through minions, stand outside of the wave if possible.
Conclusion
When laning against double poke matchups, you need to realise that they want 1 thing and 1 thing only: to poke you down. Use everything we’ve suggested in this guide to increase your survivability and your chances of surviving lane against double poke matchups!
For more tips and tricks, head to Mobalytics!
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