The Setup: Why the Mid Lane Gank Looked So Promising

Coach Reyes starts the review by freezing the replay at 6:58. Blue side has Orianna in the mid lane, Jarvan IV in the jungle, and Rakan as a roaming support. Enemy LeBlanc is at 65% health, has no stopwatch yet, and appears to be standing just outside her tower range. On the minimap, Jarvan is moving through the river toward the pixel brush. Orianna has her Command: Protect shield, her Command: Dissonance, and her ultimate, Shockwave. Jarvan has Cataclysm and a red buff. The coach says this is exactly the kind of picture that makes junglers call “free kill.” LeBlanc has not used Flash yet, but Blue’s mid laner had typed “LB no F” after a previous fight. That misinformation matters later. The enemy Lee Sin was last seen bot lane at 5:50, and Blue’s bot lane did not update his position. The wave appears to be pushing toward LeBlanc’s tower, which the team misreads as an overextension. In reality, the wave state is dangerous for Blue because LeBlanc can retreat to tower while Orianna has no minions to protect her. Coach Reyes says the setup looked promising only because the team was looking at champion health bars and not at the lane’s actual geometry. The first red flag is that Jarvan is pathing through the most common ward spot in the river while LeBlanc still has trinket ward available. The second is that Orianna’s ultimate is the only reliable crowd control, and it is not guaranteed if LeBlanc saves Distortion. The third is that no one has checked Lee Sin’s camp timers. Coach Reyes calls this “minimap optimism”: the play looks good because the team wants it to be good, not because the information supports it. A professional gank starts with confirmed information, not with a hopeful ping.

The Wave State Trap: Diving Into a Pushed-Out Minion Wave

At 7:02, Coach Reyes points to the mid lane wave. Blue has a slow push of two waves, with nine minions and a cannon minion about to crash into LeBlanc’s tower. Many players see a big wave and think it is perfect for a dive, but the coach argues the opposite. A pushed-out wave gives LeBlanc a safe place to retreat and forces Blue to fight through tower aggro without a friendly minion wave to absorb shots. If Jarvan engages, LeBlanc can use Distortion to dash toward her tower, and Orianna must either follow into turret range or let the gank fail. The wave also blocks Jarvan’s skillshots because the enemy minions are not cleared; LeBlanc can hide behind them while her own tower protects her. The coach rewinds further and shows that Orianna had a better play: crash the wave, take a plate, and reset. That would force LeBlanc to last-hit under tower and give Jarvan time to ward enemy raptors. Instead, Jarvan calls for the gank at 6:58, and Orianna immediately stops pushing. This is the critical mistake. By pausing the wave, Orianna lets LeBlanc freeze it. Even if the gank gets a kill, the wave state is bad. If it fails, Orianna loses at least 12 minions, a full level, and mid lane priority. Coach Reyes says, “Mid lane ganks are not decided by mechanics first. They are decided by wave states first. The wave tells you where the enemy can run, where you can stand, and how much time you have.” Here, the wave says the gank should not happen. The minion wave is not a helper; it is a trap that punishes Blue for forcing a play with no exit. A good mid lane gank needs either a freeze near Blue’s tower or a fully crashed wave that lets the laner rotate without losing CS.

Vision, Flash Timers, and the Enemy Jungler's Shadow

Coach Reyes then turns on fog of war. Blue has no control ward in the river brush, no ward in the enemy raptor camp, and no deep ward near LeBlanc’s tower. LeBlanc’s trinket ward in the pixel brush spots Jarvan at 6:57, giving her eight seconds to prepare. During those eight seconds, she positions closer to her tower, holds Distortion, and pings for Lee Sin. The coach highlights the flash timer mistake. Blue’s mid laner typed “LB no F” at 6:45, but LeBlanc had never used Flash in the lane. She was saving it. Orianna assumed that because LeBlanc did not Flash during an earlier trade, the summoner spell was down. That assumption is fatal. When Jarvan lands his flag and drag, LeBlanc does not need to Flash immediately. She waits for Orianna to commit, then Flashes over Jarvan’s Cataclysm wall and chains Orianna under tower. The bigger problem is Lee Sin. Blue last saw him bot lane at 5:50, but no one tracked his recall or camp timers. Lee Sin clears his botside camps, recalls, and paths toward raptors. At 7:18, he walks out of the fog with a ward jump ready. Jarvan is already deep in enemy territory. Lee Sin lands Sonic Wave, kicks Jarvan into LeBlanc, and the countergank becomes a slaughter. LeBlanc gets the first kill, then jumps to Orianna, then catches Rakan, who rotated too late after seeing the fight on the minimap. The result is a triple kill for LeBlanc. Coach Reyes says the spectacular part is not LeBlanc’s mechanics. It is that Blue had three separate pieces of missing information: a ward, a Flash timer, and the enemy jungler’s location. Any one of them could have stopped the gank. Together, they made the disaster almost inevitable. The coach also notes that Blue’s support never placed a deep ward near raptors, even though Rakan had a control ward in inventory. That single ward would have shown Lee Sin’s path and turned the gank into a 2v2 that Blue could actually win.

The Correct Play: What the Coach Wanted to See Instead

Coach Reyes rewinds to 6:40 and shows the correct play. First, Orianna should thin the wave instead of slow-pushing it. A mid laner who wants a gank should set a freeze near her own tower or let the wave bounce, not dive into a stacked wave outside the enemy tower. Second, Jarvan should path toward mid only after LeBlanc uses Distortion to clear the wave. That cooldown is LeBlanc’s only reliable escape. Once it is down, a lane gank through the side brush is far more dangerous than a river gank. Third, Blue must track Lee Sin. If Lee Sin shows bot lane or top lane, Jarvan can invade his opposite camp, take dragon, or gank mid with a numbers advantage. If Lee Sin is missing, Jarvan should not commit to a long-range engage in a lane with no escape. Fourth, the team needs a control ward in the pixel brush before the play, not after. The coach draws a simple timeline: at 6:40, crash the wave; at 6:55, ward enemy raptors; at 7:10, reset; at 7:20, either take a plate or look for a gank after LeBlanc’s W is down. If LeBlanc respects the freeze, Blue can take dragon or dive top. If she steps up, Jarvan can engage from behind with Orianna’s Shockwave guaranteed. The coach even shows a better combo: Jarvan should walk up first, save Cataclysm for after LeBlanc’s Flash, and let Orianna use Shockwave to pull LeBlanc back into the arena. The failed gank cost Blue two kills, a plate, a dragon, and mid lane control. Coach Reyes ends the review with a warning: “A spectacular failure is almost never one bad mechanic. It is a chain of ignored information. Mid lane ganks are about wave states, cooldowns, vision, and timing. If you skip those, you are not ganking. You are gambling.” The lesson is simple: the best ganks are not the ones that look flashy on the minimap. They are the ones where every piece of information says the enemy has no way out.