Wave Management is one of the most beneficial subjects to learn in League of Legends thanks to it being required in every single lane. Everybody has heard of wave management, but not everybody knows how to use it the right way. There are so many guides out there, but they all lack information that is crucial to understanding the subject fully.

In this guide, I will teach you how to manage minion waves like a pro and help you understand what is needed for effective wave management in its entirety.

This guide is aimed at anyone who wants to learn about wave management at a ground level, and anybody who wants to expand their knowledge on the subject. Wave management takes concentration and dedication to perfect. You will need to stay concentrated when managing the waves as one slip up can cost you the wave.

This can make all your efforts of wave manipulation go down the drain, however, one way of improving at wave management is by messing it up completely.

If you understand where you went wrong, you can improve on it for future games. At the end of the day, wave management is all about learning and improving- so don’t get disheartened if you struggle with it to start with. Our goal is to make you understand how to use wave management in your games and use them to your advantage.

Minions start to spawn on the map from both sides at 1:05 and continue spawning every 30 seconds after until the game has ended. In the early game, they take 32 seconds to reach the middle of the lane after spawning. Depending on where the current wave is in lane, they may take longer or less time to get to the middle of the lane. Because the middle lane is shorter in length, minions arriving will only take 22 seconds to reach the middle of the lane instead of the 32 seconds in the side lanes.
In every standard wave, there are 6 minions and in every cannon wave there is 7. For terminology purposes and to make it easier to understand, let’s say that there is only 1 block of minions (up until 20 minutes.) The first and second wave consists of 3 melee minions and 3 caster minions which is considered a standard wave. On every third wave up until 20 minutes, there are 7 minions: 3 melee minions, 1 siege minion, and 3 caster minions. This block of minions contains 3 waves before resetting. For each block of minions on the rift, there is a replacement block that is even stronger than the previous one. Every 90 seconds, aka 1 block, the minions become stronger and increase in health, survivability and damage.

Up until 20 minutes, each third minion wave will be a cannon wave which includes one siege (cannon) minion. The first siege minion will spawn in at 2:05, and get to lane at around 2:37 in the side lanes and 2:27 in the mid lane. After 20 minutes, one will spawn every 2 waves. Instead of there being a block which consists of 3 waves, every block after 20 minutes will consist of 2 waves (1 standard wave and 1 cannon wave). After 35 minutes, there will no longer be any blocks and instead, every minion wave will be a cannon wave.

Minions will continuously walk down a lane until they seek out an enemy and keep focusing down the chosen target until the target dies or another, higher priority target approaches them. The minions have a priority order that they will follow if there is more than one potential target in the area. They re-evaluate their focus every few seconds, so if a higher target approaches them, they will stop focusing on that target and switch.

The minion priority system works as follows (from the perspective of a minion):

1) Enemy champions attacking an allied champion

2) Enemy minions attacking an allied champion

3) Enemy minions attacking an allied minion

4) Enemy turrets attacking an allied minion

5) Enemy champions attacking an allied minion

6) The closest enemy minion

7) The closest enemy champion

How To Execute The Freeze
Depending on where you would like the freeze to occur, you will need to manipulate the enemy minion wave in order for it to stay there. The closer you are to your tower, the more enemy ranged minions you need in lane. This is because your reinforcement minions will get to lane quicker compared to the enemies.

If there was no minion advantage for the enemy, your minions would start pushing, however leaving alive some minions will prevent the wave from pushing towards the enemy. To make the concept super simple, count how many full health (or healthy) enemy caster minions there are in lane.

Slow pushing is very simple to understand and perfect. To slow push a wave, all you need to do is kill the caster minions in the enemies wave. You can do this with your basic attacks as well as using your abilities to take them down faster. Another way of setting up a slow push is just by having a minion advantage. Whenever you have a minion advantage over the enemy, the wave will slow push.

If the minion wave is crashing on your side of the map, you will need to have around a 2 or 3 minion advantage over the enemy, whereas if it’s crashing on the enemies side, you will need a 4 or 5 minion advantage. Basically, if the enemy has a total of 2 minions alive in lane, you want to have 5 if it’s on your side. If it’s past the middle of the map and on the enemies side, you want to have at least 6 minions alive for the enemies 2.