Lesson 1 of 5 · 5 min
Priority Is the Whole Job
Mid lane is the shortest lane on the map and the only one within reach of both halves. Everything the role is worth comes from one thing: the right to leave.
// What you will be able to do
- Define priority as the right to leave the lane, not as being ahead
- Take priority before an objective window rather than during it
- Recognise the games where farming mid is the correct use of priority
Mid lane is short. That is the entire reason the role matters: from the middle of the map you are thirty seconds from the 
pit and thirty seconds from the 
, and no other laner is close to both. Whoever can leave mid first gets to decide what happens at either end, and the thing that decides who can leave is called priority.
| Minute | What is happening | What priority is worth |
|---|---|---|
| 0–8 |  and first ganks | Your jungler wins the river fight because you can arrive |
| 8–14 | , first  | The is taken by whoever can put four bodies near it |
| 14–25 | , plates, first rotations | You are the fourth player at every objective, on time |
| 25+ |  , sieges | The team with mid priority chooses where the fight happens |
Which of these players has priority in mid lane?
spawns, your jungler starts hitting it, and only then do you begin shoving your wave. By the time you arrive the fight is already twenty seconds old and has been a 4v5 the whole way, you brought priority to a fight that was decided before you had it.
The fix
Priority has to exist *before* the objective, which means the shove starts thirty to forty seconds early. That is the whole skill: reading the timer, not the fight. If you are shoving when the pit is already being hit, you are late by design.
11:40. spawns in 40 seconds on the top side. Your wave is in the middle of the lane, even. Your jungler is clearing top-side camps and has pinged the .
- Herald in 40 seconds, top side
- Wave is neutral in the middle of mid lane
- Your jungler is already top side
- Your opponent is even with you in level and health
- What is the next objective, and how long until it spawns
- Am I shoving forty seconds before it, or during it
- If I leave right now, does my take plates for it
- No objective in the next minute? Then farm: priority you spend on nothing is priority wasted