Now I know you'll have watched some content teaching you the power of freezing (mine own included), but pushing is better. Why? Pushing creates advantages. Pushing allows you to take better bases.
Pushing allows you to get better wards. Pushing allows you to take better trades. Pushing makes the enemy laner miss minions under tower. And most importantly, pushing allows you to roam and impact the game.
Now, what do you do after pushing? I have a flowchart that I share with all of my students, but now you're getting it for free.
First: Do I need to base? Things to consider: How much gold do I have, how much health do I have, how much mana do I have?
Second: Can I roam anywhere? Glance at the minimap, start moving towards where you think you're going to roam, THEN pan your camera down and look more closely to decide if it's a good roam.
Third: Can I take a plate? Can I get a ward down? Can I harass the enemy laner under tower? This of course depends on how much vision and how safe you are.
And that's all, every single time you push out a wave, you start going down this flowchart. And I promise you, you will start seeing results. You will start feeling like you're impacting the game, and you'll roam more than you've ever done.
I have seen students go from Iron to Gold, from Emerald to Master tier. They changed NOTHING ELSE than just pushing every wave, and going down the flowchart. That is how powerful pushing in midlane is.
But of course, just telling you to push every single wave will only get you so far. In the coming articles I'll teach you exactly how to push correctly — avoiding ganks, winning lane, and overall how to improve.