The bottom lane is a very interesting lane. Notice that this is the only lane the meta-game calls for 2 people. First, you will need to understand why bottom lane is so important. When you look at the entire map as a whole, you’ll notice that they are almost complete mirror images of each other aside from Baron Nashor and Dragon. These objectives are key in determining where people go in lane.

Dragon is an objective that holds 190 gold for each player on the team that gets it as well as 25 bonus gold for killing it. This accounts for a total of 975 gold. This objective can be taken very early; most teams do it by 8 minutes while a recent Korean team actually started dragon when it spawned immediately. Control over dragon leads you to put 2 people bot. But who exactly do we want there?

The meta itself calls for an AD carry as well as a support champion. This is a late-game investment that gives your largest damage dealer a free farm lane, a babysitter, and control over a crucial part of the map in the early game. Now the meta actually calls for a lane for each hero and a 0-creep score support. Let’s analyze this.

Usually your AD carry is someone who scales off of items better than levels. By this, I mean that the skills they have get increasingly better with the better items they get. For example, Inifinity Edge is a common item on AD carries. Many AD carries have some sort of attack speed buff that increases the effects of these items. Some people that fit this role well are: Tristana, Graves, and Miss Fortune.

Bottom lane also contains a “baby-sitter” or 0-creep score support. The role of the support as the “meta” dictates is to help the AD carry stay in lane and make more money. Many common supports have some sort of healing skill while there are a couple supports that function by zoning people out. They are also responsible for warding around the lane and making sure that there are as few deaths as possible in order to keep the AD carry farming. Common healer supports can be Soraka and Taric, while people who focus on zoning can include Blitzcrank, Alistar, and Nunu.

Now that we’re done discussing the “meta game,” we’re going to be moving onto one of my favorite parts of the game

Breaking the Meta

The real point of this guide is not to tell you how to play the game, but to encourage you to try new things. A very common practice to counter the AD-support bottom lane is to directly put a “kill” lane to annihilate the AD carry. Your goal is to burst down the AD carry before the support can protect them. This is accomplished most easily through double bruisers. Common lane can include the pairs of: Jarvan and Leona, Alistar and Blitzcrank, and Maokai and Shen. Note that these lane combinations usually have crazy amounts of crowd control that prevent the AD carry from escaping.

Another way to break the bottom lane as a different composition is to include 2 supports. If you dedicate enough farm into one of the supports, that one support can build carry items and help carry the game. Also, if you have 2 dedicated supports, you should have more sustain than the traditional AD carry – support lane and be able to out harass them. You can also trade a lot better because of your better sustain. The main goal of this lane is similar to the double bruiser lane. You need to stop the enemy AD carry from farming and shut him/her down completely. A very good example of this lane is Janna and Sona.