How to Initiate Effectively
A lesson on map awareness featuring plays by Top Global Player OP Lard
This article was written by Chise Alcantara.
If you’re a tank or charger main, you’ll know the frustrating feeling of getting a great initiation going and your team still leaves you to die. Sure, it’s easy to blame your noob teammates for not following up on your manly Leeroy Jenkins plays but a lot of times there’s more to initiating then getting those satisfying perfect five-man knock-ups.
In the week three qualifiers, a game between OBS Pegasus and DD. Demon Kings showed how much correctly timed initiations can matter in a game. OP Lard, a member of OBS Pegasus and one of the Top Global Players in Mobile Legends had mechanically impressive plays featuring Akai and Grock but he still couldn’t carry his team to victory, leaving with a score of 2-1 in favor of DD. Demon Kings. Sadly, we won’t be able to watch OBS Pegasus in the regular season but we can learn a lot from this game regarding the factors you need to consider before making an initiation.
1. The “Correct” Play
In one of the final clashes of the first game, OP Lard’s Akai got in a lot of really nice wall Hurricane Dances including one you would see at 19:18 but they didn’t manifest into anything worthwhile for OP because there was no follow up. Sometimes you have to get into the minds of your teammates in order to know if they’ll be following up on your engage. This time, the other members of OP were busy taking care of other lanes and clearing minions but Akai went in a couple of seconds too early. While you could argue that OP Lard’s executed the right play to make in that situation, being right doesn’t really matter if you don’t win.
2. Sometimes you don’t need teammates
Even if you’re a tank, other elements like towers can compensate for the damage you lack in order to get picks without relying on follow-up for your team. Moments later at around 19:50, OP was defending their base against the well-fed DD team. OP had two heroes dead but because of great chaining of skills that provided great AOE crowd control, DD were forced to take damage from the enemy crystal. Even with low health, OP Lard knew that his hero could keep on providing necessary crowd control needed to stop DD’s onslaught on their base.
3. Bursting down your opponents
A lot of people underestimate the amount of damage tanks can do when certain situations are met. Besides knowing the limitations of your champion when behind, knowing the plays you can make when ahead is important too. OP Lard’s Grock was well-fed in the second game and was doing massive AOE damage with his Power of Nature and Wild Charge. OP Lard’s surprise bush engage and bait decimated the DD carries and solidified OP’s victory.
4. Success rate
Also in the second game around 7:43, we see a beautiful Guardian’s Barrier that walled out DD Crypt’s Jawhead from the safety of his team and his tower. This displacement was a good signal for OP’s carries Echo, Yeezus, and Lembot to use their cooldowns to burst down the out of position enemy. They went in wholeheartedly because they knew that this was a really safe and easy pick on the enemy team. Even a half-decent player knows that if you can make a situation a 5v1, it’s a signal to go in.
5. Knowing the counters
In the deciding match, DD changed their strategy to counter OP Lard’s engages by picking Diggy, which is a hard counter for any CC-oriented composition. While OP Lard did get a few good picks with his team, they ultimately fell short during late game team fights as you would see at 14:28 and at 16:30 when Akai’s Hurricane Dances should have pinned the DD team to the wall but it got instantly countered by Diggie’s Time Journey.
These are only a few of the factors you need to consider when playing as a tank initiator. If you want to learn from the pros at the highest level of play, you better watch the matches of the MPL regular season starting this Saturday.
