Thought: Dragon Priority

There may be a few spoilers regarding MLG Dallas in this post. Consider yourself forewarned.

There were many fantastic games over the weekend, but rather than highlight any particular one game I'd like to focus on an interesting trend I've noticed across all of LCS and Season 3 thus far. It's something Gambit Gaming has picked up on and made central to their strategy. Specifically, Dragon is more valuable early than turrets.

The strategy Gambit Gaming, and some others, employed was to simply take every Dragon during the early-game, even if it meant committing all five members of the team and losing a turret. Dragon is considered more valuable because the outer turrets are almost guaranteed to fall eventually. Thus, taking a turret in exchange for Dragon will only temporarily keep the teams even in gold. The team that prioritizes Dragon has an advantage because they evenly trade a permanent advantage for a temporary one, and eventually the other team will have to pay the piper.

The key to the strategy is the initial mid-game team fight. If the Dragon-hoarding team wins that first, crucial team fight they'll easily gain several thousand gold on their opponents due to all of the easy objectives within reach, regardless of their relative position before the fight started. Even without a decisive win, it's far harder to defend outer turrets than inner ones, meaning even a disadvantaged team is likely to make up ground. The result is a near-guaranteed slingshot effect, where the team which had yet to take towers will catapult forward.

This is not an invincible strategy, but it appeared to be a very reliable one for Gambit Gaming. It took them all the way to the international exhibition finals, and almost made them the victors. It was only KT Rolster B's superior early game pressure, consistently shutting down Darien, which kept Gambit in check.

I've mentioned this to a number of people in a number of places, and the reaction has been largely the same every time. Practically everyone becomes immediately concerned about map control, citing how the loss of one's jungle, increased necessity of wards, and the like negates any benefits. Given how prominently this strategy was on display, especially during the first two games between Gambit and KT Rolster B, I myself was, in turn, surprised by the reactions.

Map control is an issue, but I believe it to be nowhere near as dire as others seem to believe, at least competitively. Against a coordinated team who wards as a team and reacts as a team, jungle invasion and aggressive map control are risky even with turrets down. The potential for the defending team to intercept incursions is high with proper warding, and the likelihood that there are unsuspecting players to catch out of position is low. Especially with GG Edward prioritizing warding and clearing wards over personal development, the map control issue seems born out of solo queue experience more than competitive. At the very least, Gambit Gaming was not particularly inhibited by this.

It's also important to note the progressive nature of the exchanges. One does not instantly trade three turrets for Dragon, but does so over the course of 12 minutes. For much of that time map control is still assured due to the remaining turrets and the developmental stage of both teams. It's only when the mid-game is effectively in progress that map control becomes a major issue, and that's when the strategy calls for team-fighting in order to begin making up the difference.

Again, the strategy isn't perfect or without counter, but I believe it's more effective than many players will realize. It has potential applications in both solo queue and ranked 5s, and should be carefully considered by any competitive player.

Jungling: Dragon Control

When it comes to dragon control the current meta stands in stark contrast to all that preceded it. For the majority of League of Legend's history the jungler could solo dragon fairly easily, demanding perpetual wards to keep dragon safe. It is only very recently that junglers stopped being considered a notable threat to dragon.

In the past junglers used to be able to solo dragon after their first clear, or even sooner in some special cases. As a result Riot increased the defenses of dragon, pushing out how quickly any jungler could manage this. Since then the jungle revamp nerfed Madred's and Wriggle's, making dragon even riskier. The jungle revamp also shifted the meta away from the bruiser junglers who excelled at taking dragon. Finally, warding became much more prevalent, especially with supports coming to lane with 3-4 wards. Combined, all these factors make solo dragon too risky for too little reward.

Today the norm is for dragon to be continually warded, but only taken when there's a significant advantage. Whether it's because the enemy jungler is ganking top, a nearby enemy has recalled, or an enemy was successfully ganked/killed, dragon is typically taken or attempted only when the enemy is limited to giving up or running headlong into a highly unfavorable situation. Attempting dragon at any other time is dangerous, similar to attacking an equal opponent under their tower.

Because of this the value of Wriggle's has declined greatly. I've stated in the past that Wriggle's is overrated, and it's even truer now. With dragon control being a team responsibility rather than a jungler-specific function it's simply unnecessary to build an item specifically for controlling dragon. Even on junglers who have potential synergy Wriggle's is no longer the best option.

Dragon control has fundamentally changed. Even though Wriggle's may see a resurgence in the future in double/triple Wriggle's compositions, dragon is no longer controlled by a jungler but by a team.