Small clarification not included in the title for reasons of space, the action we are going to talk about takes place before the 10 minutes of play. So to better clarify the point, let’s rephrase the sentence with all the information in it: a player managed to destroy the three outer towers, as well as an inhibitor and a Nexus tower in 1 minute and 30 seconds, all before the 10 minute mark. Note however that the Bel’Veth player was not alone, and that his Darius accompanied him. Afterwards, those who are familiar with Darius’ push abilities in the early game know that at worst he represents one more cannon minion, and at best two cannon minions.
The principle
To activate his ultimate, Bel’Veth needs Nether Coral. This specific resource is dropped on champions, but also on epic monsters. Moreover, the Coral dropped by her last allows Bel Veth to have an improved transformation and especially the ability to summon Remoras of the Nether, each time an allied minion dies near her. Here the Void Empress rushes into the toplane, after killing the Rift Herald. She returns to her true form (ultimate activation, Bel’Veth’s true form being her transformation and not her base appearance) to gank the Tahm Kench, and summon the Herald on the toplane. With the help of the latter, the first two towers fall easily.
At this time, there is nothing unusual. While it’s fairly rare for outer towers to fall before 10 minutes, it’s also not impossible, nor surprising. That the two champions push further is already more unusual (and generally rather unwise, your toplaner will not appreciate having to advance so much so early in the game, which for him is like carrying a sign: Feed on me ), but almost any champion duo could have done it. It is when approaching the third tower that the aberration takes on its full meaning. The Void Remora spawned during the initial push are so numerous that the duo can push the third tower without issue, despite being staggered by other players on the enemy team. Then the inhibitor and the first T4 fall in turn.
An overrated mechanic?
Although the action is impressive, it would not necessarily be abused at low ELO. While it would be problematic for players to have a lane down that fast in the game, lower-tier summoners have a hard time closing games quickly. Hitting an inhibit too quickly amounts to depriving them of the resources of a lane, and ultimately leads to a deficit of gold and experience for them. On the other hand, as soon as we go up in the divisions where the players know how to fold the games in a few minutes, such a mechanism is much too strong. This remark is also valid for the competitive scene, even if in this specific case, we cannot imagine the push teams up to the inhibits. On the other hand, drafting compositions early and using Bel’Veth to do the first two major neutral objectives (Dragon + Herald), and taking advantage of the Coral dropped by them, to take the first towers and snowball on this advantage could be an excellent strategy. . This mechanic will be monitored in the coming days, to see if players will find the parry, or if a nerf will be necessary.