Pick & Push: Learning How to Capitalize
Why solo plays are more common in high-level matches
At high-level of play, the ability to take advantage of an opponents’ mistakes becomes all the more important because the chances to do so are very limited. This makes gettings “picks” one of the most popular strategies utilized by pro-players. Single-target heroes like Cyclops, Saber, and Jawhead have suddenly become very viable picks because of how effective they are at doing their jobs.
One could argue that single-target champions have a very one dimensional playstyle that makes their movements telegraphed but because of how powerful and easy their abilities are, you don’t really need much in order to have success with the, which brings up a very important aspect of this strategy—consistency.
As much as AOE abilities and wombo combos can turn around games, the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of conditions and coordination that has to happen. That’s why everyone gets so hyped whenever someone does so because it seems to impossibly difficult and lucky for the team to have been able to accomplish such a feat, on the other hand, getting picks by pressing a single button just seems a lot easier to manage especially in fast-paced games such as MLBB.
The popularity of single-target picks also came about because it counters a few other popular strategies in the meta. Split-pushing has always been a popular and powerful strat used by gamers. After all, the idea of farming while your teammates die to the enemy team seems like something that’s very natural to do. Kidding aside, ensuring that you have a numbers advantage in teamfights will almost always lead to you winning if you decide to engage while an enemy hero is waiting to respawn.
A great example of this strat match-up would be Week 3 OBS Gaming vs White Rascals. The White Rascals almost exclusively use split pushing in all of their games, usually with Kaizoku using Hayabusa or Zilong to be able to have as much pushing and dueling power as possible while still having the ability to escape if needed.
The split push strat relies on how much of the opponent’s time and effort you can waste on yourself so your team can have their way with the rest of the map. The White Rascals have had some success with this strategy because of how fed the split pusher would get if left unchecked. This was why OG used a Saber and Harley combo to quickly eliminate the Hayabusa to quickly rejoin their team for team fights. The damage and crowd control provided by the two heroes guaranteed that split pushers wouldn’t be able to escape if they over-extended even just a little.
Teams have noticeably become a lot more in-sync as the competition reaches its final stages. It makes us wonder if we’ll see more team oriented plays than single-target ones in the finals. The finals are sure to bring in more than just a few surprises because you can be sure that all the teams are putting everything they’ve been planning up to now.
