Lesson 5 of 6 · 6 min
Plates, Turrets and the Map They Open
gold is the largest untouched pile in most players' games, and the map a fallen opens is worth more than the gold. Both have a clock on them.
// What you will be able to do
- Price a plate against the wave and the risk it costs to take
- Take the first turret for the map it opens, not the gold it drops
- Stop trading a turret you could have had for a kill you did not need
plates expire at fourteen minutes. Until then each one is 160 gold, they come off in ones and twos, and a laner with priority who never touches them has left about a thousand gold in the middle of the map for nobody. Meanwhile the same player will chase a 300 gold kill across half the lane. The plate is closer, safer and larger, and it does not run away.
| The thing | Gold | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| One plate | 160 | Four seconds of standing under a you can see |
| A full wave | ~110 | Thirty seconds of lane, and it comes back |
| A solo kill | ~300 plus tempo | Requires the enemy to be wrong, and you to survive being right |
| First bonus | ~700 shared | It never comes back, and it opens the map for everyone |
The last row is the one to build a game around. First is the biggest single gold event before 
, and the gold is not even the point: a fallen outer means the lane's minions push toward the enemy, the jungle behind it becomes yours to walk through, and the enemy laner has to farm further from home. That is why teams that take first win far more often than the gold difference alone explains.
// The rest of this lesson is Pro
Plates, Turrets and the Map They Open: the practical half
Everything above is the concept. Behind the gate: the situations where it applies, the mistake that costs the most, the interactive drills, and a field assignment measured against your own ranked games.