How to make Gangplank ult the enemy backline

Okay, let me be clear from the very start: This is not the most practical tech. This will not grant you a bunch of LP, in fact you might struggle to get this to work in the first place. However, this doesn't mean the whole Guide will be pointless, because you can still learn a lot from Melee unit behavior that can be applied in the future as well.

As you might know, when Gangplank has full mana he will summon his ship towards his current attack target. The ship is summoned from one of your corners and attempts to pass through Gangplank while exploding on the first enemy hit.

One of the problems you will face a lot with Gangplank Carry is that the ability damage on the enemy frontline is often wasted, unless he is extremely powerful. In the worst case scenario the ability ends up hitting a single Jarvan or Rogue unit without dealing significant damage.

There is a way to combat this problem, but to understand what's about to happen we need a short lesson in unit pathing!

At the start of combat every unit will figure out their pathing to enemy units. The pathing of other units will be taken into consideration, so with the correct positioning you can access the enemy backline right away.

Two famous examples for this involve Rek'Sai and K'Sante. With Rek'Sai Carry in Set 9.0, one of the strategies involved using Zephyr to make the enemy unit on the side untargetable. By putting Rek'Sai to the very right on the second row she would often path towards the enemy corner, which could potentially win you the fight right away.

K'Sante also had a very noticeable mechanic, because it was easy to get him to full mana. By blocking your own first row, or simply using several Zephyr on one side, you could make K'Sante jump into the enemy corner at the start of the round kicking out the enemy carry.

The main lesson to learn here is that it can make sense to create setups that force Melee units that start in the 2nd/3rd row to path towards the enemy backline and that units that start with full mana can use their ability on this backline target at the start of the round.

Our first tech requires a K'Sante in the front row and a Gangplank in the 3rd/4th row. Preferably both of them are at the side of your board and target the same unit.

The goal here is simply, but hard to achieve: We want K'Sante and Gangplank to ult around the same time. Since the Ship goes towards Gangplank his auto attack target, it will follow the unit that gets kicked into the backline by K'Sante.

Finding the correct timing can be rough, thanks to the latest patch nerfing mana items, this has become close to impossible. You also need to pay attention to the Angle of K'Sante. If possible you want him to knock his unit towards the side, otherwise the Ship will still explode into the enemy Frontline.

Our next example uses a strategy that you will not see very often. We want Gangplank to start in the second row, but have a bunch of Melee units in front of him blocking the way.

It's pretty rare for your opponents to run a large amount of Melee units in their frontline, so the most likely scenario that will happen is that your Melee unit will wrap around the enemy frontline.

Gangplank who starts in the second row will be late to the party, but his pathing will recognize that there is a shorter path towards the enemy corner, so he will not run around the entire board and instead his goal will be the enemy corner, similar to the Rek'Sai Zephyr example.

This setup used to be even crazier when Gangplank started with full mana and cast his ship from the second row right into the enemy corner at the start of the fight. Since the ship would travel at the side of the board it was quite reliable at reaching the enemy backline.

While it is quite satisfying to pull off this tech with Gangplank, it doesn't mean that you have to limit yourself to only one unit. The Wraptech can be useful in any Melee heavy comp to bypass the enemy frontline and cheese a win against a matchup that seemed impossible.