By Crowslaw

I last wrote about the suicide lane so I figured this time I would talk about his opponent, the solo safe laner. This hero is often placed into the lane with the thought that he will win his lane, get good farm and fast levels with no resistance. Depending on the suicide hero you will likely have good lane control as long as you can deny and last hit properly—keeping in mind even some of the best players in the game have far from perfect lane control.

Some of the most common solo safe laners are carries such as The Dark Lady, Silhouette, Magebane, Chronos, Draconis, and Moon Queen. Some teams choose to run their suicide hero as their safe laner; in these cases the suicide lane will often be a dual lane designed to push or roam and gank early.

The solo safe lane isn't always a true solo—with the mass popularity of the suicide hero in today's meta the strength of jungler's has really come forward. Combined with a roaming support such as Glacius or Aluna to ensure that the suicide hero does not come near the lane gives you a free win with a pseudo-tri lane.


Because of Glacius sitting nearby as well as Silhouette keeping the lane back, Tempest can only just creep deny and farm ancients.

The most important role of the solo safe laner is to be great at last hitting, and the better you are the better your lane control will be. Ideally you will have no competition in the lane, so learning how to mass deny to static farm is your goal. It is often said that if there is no one in your lane you should not miss a single creep kill—this counts for denies as well. After you get on a roll you will probably notice you have near the same creep kills as denies; this is how you know you have the ability to keep the lane static.

As a skill this translates to any role and farming position. Being able to static farm a lane for several minutes without the lane moving more than a few hundred units back and forth is the key to ricing anywhere near the likes of AngryTestie (RexxcarVroom), NoX or dabeliuteef.

Next on the list is the ability to kill the suicide. A good example is [tdM]Trademark eSports versus [coL]compLexityGaming in the Dreamhack Winter Finals, noobG as a solo Silhouette got several kills on the suicide MoonMeander in both games. While this is often not as easy as noobG makes it look, having your support or jungler there to help you ensure a kill will boost your GPM significantly as well as give you a potential free tower.

DreamHack Winter 2024 Grand Finals - tdM vs coL Game 1




DreamHack Winter 2024 Grand Finals - tdM vs coL Game 2




Tempest comes too far out from behind his tower and SIlhouette takes advantage, netting an easy kill.

A quick reminder: if you decide to push the tower, make sure to double stack and pull the lane back to not give free experience to the suicide hero. Otherwise all that time spent keeping him out with lane control was for naught.

Just like the suicide hero, you should look to get a Ring of the Teacher if you do not have total lane control. If you do have control you can skip it and go straight for your Nullstone, Runed Cleaver, Helm of the Black Legion or whatever it is you are planning to do after your boots.

There isn't much more to say after you've learned to static farm, push the tower fast and kill the suicide hero then pull the lane back and continue to static farm. By this time you should have a commanding lead, just make sure your other lanes are doing well and always carry a Homecoming Stone to port for a gank or teamfight in mid when you are needed.

Just remember you are most likely the carry if you are playing that solo safe lane role. Farming and helping when you are needed is the goal, but do not get obsessed with trying to farm all game. You should always help in teamfights once you finish your Nullstone or Shrunken Head, but typically if you are playing this role in a pub you will not have ideal lane setup or proper teamfight coordination so do your best and don't rage at your team if they aren't warding. If you've won your lane you should be able to afford 100-200 gold for a ward or two to ensure your own safety.

- Crowslaw
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