2v1 mentality

[Jonathan Meer]

For those times when the enemy team doesn't have a jungler. One, what should the solo-laner's strategy, beyond the obvious 'be defensive'? Two, what sort of champions excel here? What sort do not? In what way should the top-laner communicate and coordinate with her jungler?

[Kaden]

Normally, you want the solo laner to do two things better than most other champs on your team: sustain and scale with gold. Top lane should be able to sit in the lane with full health and farm all day long.

A 2v1 situation is similar, but a higher priority is placed on sustainability and you shift from scaling with gold to scaling with level. Udyr is a great example of this because he's very sustainable, scales insanely well with levels and is an absolute bitch to kill.

A 2v1's highest priority should be to stay alive. Period. Creeping, killing... all of that normal stuff becomes secondary to not dying. You'll lose a lot of gold to the tower and you might lose some XP because you get zoned, but you have to play patient. Them not having a jungler means the rest of your team can make insanely aggressive 2v1 or 3v2 pushes in the other lanes and they won't be able to respond to it.

That advantage, though, is completely contingent upon the 2v1 being able to hold their lane without dying.

[Ashe]

One thing you have to keep in mind is what the enemy's team comp is up there. If they are running something like Kayle + Tryndamere, then what's going to happen is they are going to use Kayle's Righteous Fury to just push the shit out of the lane while Trynd takes the last hits, then Trynd will tower dive you regardless of who you are or what your health is and do as much damage as he can with his Ult + Kayle's Ult to let him just get back out. After you pop all cds to survive, some of which are likely to be triple their ult cds, they'll just keep farming till their ults are back and suicide you again, every time. What happens is that if you stay, they kill you. If you leave, they kill your tower. Half the time, if you stay, no matter how careful you try to be, they kill you AND the tower, simply because you can't do a damn thing about it.

In those situations, (and similar, extremely bursty teams like Poppy + Zilean) you pretty much have no choice but to ask your jungler to lane with you. Hopefully you can avoid it, but it DOES happen where there's just jack shit you'll be able to do about it.

[Josh]

2v1 at top is ridiculously hard, and it requires not only a competent jungler for back up, but teammates who can actually hold their lane so top can get help when they need it.

[Anzekay]

2v1 top really depends on the champs. Last night that game where I was beset upon by Trynd + Garen as Renekton was very, very, difficult. If it was trynd + Shen though I could have dealt with it reasonably well. If I was something ranged, or someone like Irelia it would have been even more possible to lane well against them. Something like Kog'maw though? I would've died over and over again and got nothing done at all.

Basically I find it best to just try and live and not give them kills. Trying to poke them is insanity, and you're really only going to be able to last hit at your tower (so get bloody good at tower last hitting). Chances are you jungler will never be able to get a good gank on them without possibly dying, or unless they are already super fed. Just gather XP, sneak last hits when it is safe to do so, and don't die, that is the best you can do.

Probably the best thing though is to remember that if you manage to soak up XP you may well outlevel them individually, so if either of them goes back or roams at all you can possibly press that advantage here and force the remaining guy out of the lane or get a gank. If you can manage to do this, you may end up having some time 1v1 as their partner returns to hold the lane, and you can just keep pressing that advantage. That's what I managed to do as Renekton- when Tryndamere went roaming I was able to kill Garen 3 times between bouts of having Trynd come and hold the lane.

But yeah, it really does depend on who the 3 champs are, and who your junlger is.