Strategy: Coping With Split-Push

Anyone that has had split-push done against them successfully knows it is a pain to deal with. The entire thing is set up as a lose-lose situation. Then how do you deal with it?

My argument is that it's mostly about not letting yourself get in a bad position. When you're backed into a corner, you'll generally have to face the conflict or give up. You need to have situational awareness so that you don't get stuck in a corner.

To start, we'll look at when split-push is effective and how to dismantle it based on that.

When Is Split-Push Most Effective?

• They have 2 lanes pushed
• They have a hero that can quickly get with the rest of the team
• They have good warding / map awareness

When you begin a game, you have to recognize they have split-push potential (as opposed to something like Wombo Combo). If you let your lanes get pushed, then you'll be forced to choose which tower to defend.

Now you're stuck with this decision:

• Smoke Gank the solo hero, who may TP away
• Team Fight the group, who may back off, stall, or have the solo hero port into the fight

Good warding allows a lot more split push because they can move around safely, or have some idea where you are.

How to Cope With It

1) Don't let multiple lanes get pushed

If there is only 1 lane pushed, then they can't split push easily. Someone will have to push up the other lane so they can get into position to split-push. If they do that, then you can smoke gank the solo hero or force a fight with the other 4.

This also is something you need to mostly take into account when they have a split-push capable team. If their lineup is like: Faceless Void, Disruptor, Puck, Beastmaster, and Crystal Maiden - odds are they won't split push (I mean, they could with Puck maybe but it wouldn't be that effective).

2) Take Towers Into Account

Depending on what hero they have split pushing, you might want to take towers into account. Someone like Lone Druid would have to TP to a fight, whereas Nature's Prophet can teleport anywhere.

If you choose to push out a couple of lanes, push out the ones where there are towers and put less emphasis on the one without a tower.

Now they have the situation where the split pusher has to push a lane and cannot easily come to a team fight.

3) Decrease Their Map Awareness

Your team has the most power when you have lots of vision and they have none. However, there is more to awareness than vision.

Map Awareness covers:

• Warding
• Having an idea where heroes are (e.g. if they catch a blip of you, if they can guess your trajectory, etc.)
• Knowing what they can see
• Items in Inventories, amount of mana/HP, etc.
• How quickly heroes can come to aid

Limit how often your team shows itself. You want them to have no idea what you're up to, when you might go for a kill, if you're smoked up, etc. If you keep them in the dark, it makes it very difficult to split push because of how risky it is.

4) Other Ideas

• Utilize Smoke of Deceit to gank heroes that are out of position
• Force them to play Defensively
• Kind of ties into keeping lanes pushed - they can't split push if there is no easy target
• Gives you a lot more room to smoke gank anyone out of position
• Be careful about being too out in the open - if they have good initiation, they'll get easy wipes
• From a pre-game standpoint, you can:
• make sure you ban out heroes your lineup will have difficulty dealing with
• pick up heroes like Nyx Assassin, Wisp, Tinker, Storm Spirit, etc. who are all good at killing split-pushers
• KotL also works to some extent here because you can send someone to deal with the solo hero, then have KotL summon them
• Disruptor can work in a way too (sometimes) - when the split-pusher TPs in for the team fight, you can send them back. Now as long as they lose the team fight and towers, you'll come out on top (even if they get a tower as well)
• pick up heroes that are good at keeping lanes pushed

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many other ways to deal with split-push. When you take a step back, dealing with strategies is always about pushing the other team into a position that favors your own team (more or less like Chess). However, don't just look at forcing the other team into a position, look at your own position as well and make sure you've covered your bases/weaknesses.