Replay lesson

ADC positioning: find the second enemy when crowd control lands

One Master bot lane on patch 26.11. Alistar lands two knockups, minutes apart. The first ends with everyone alive. The second ends with a Jinx death. Learn where to put your eyes when crowd control lands.

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Thumbnail titled Where was Kai'Sa? showing two replay frames side by side, Kai'Sa circled near a turret on the left and above an airborne pair on the right.

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Same lane, two knockups

A little past two minutes, everyone is level two. Alistar crosses down from the upper-right turret and knocks up Sona alone in the lower left. Kai'Sa stays near the turret farming and picks up fourteen minion gold. Alistar heads back toward the turret. All four survive, and the score is still zero to zero.

Around five minutes, everyone is level four. Jinx and Sona stand together on the left. Alistar walks out of the right brush and knocks up both. Kai'Sa closes from above and to the right as the catch lands. Jinx is later stunned and dies, with the kill credited to Kai'Sa. Sona survives and backs toward her turret.

The game state changed between these moments. In the later one, everyone is level four, Kai'Sa is 2/0, Jinx is 0/1, and the fight happens in a different spot of the same bot lane.

Pause and check

Find both enemies

Pause here. Where are both red champions, and where is Kai'Sa relative to Alistar and the blue pair?

Bot lane freeze at level four. Jinx on the left, Sona in the lower left near her, Kai'Sa in the upper right, Alistar to the right and below her. — Level four, a stretch before the catch.

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Show answer

Jinx is on the left with Sona in the lower left near her. Kai'Sa is in the upper right. Alistar is off to the right, below Kai'Sa. Kai'Sa is away from the blue pair, on her own angle. From this frame on, keep both red champions in view.

Watch the approach

Nothing has landed yet. Which champion and which direction do you watch for next?

Bot lane just before contact. Jinx and Sona together on the left, Alistar at the right brush edge, Kai'Sa above him near the minions. — Level four, right before contact.

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Show what moves

Two separate things move. First, Alistar steps out of the brush and walks toward the pair. That is the moment to check spacing, since the gap starts to shrink. Then Kai'Sa closes as the catch lands. Track them one at a time so you see the order.

Your review routine

Find one of your own lane deaths. Rewind to a stretch before contact and pause. Locate both enemies and say where each one is. Unpause and follow the second enemy through the whole exchange. Then write down the sequence you saw, in order.

Source gameplay

Gameplay by domisumReplay: Kai'Sa, patch 26.11, used under CC BY 4.0.

CC BY 4.0

MacroMind added narration, pauses, on-screen annotations and captions.