Good League players will decide their approach on how to play and start the match when the champion selection is finalized. You know your teammates and you also know the composition of the enemy team. You know who you are going to face in the lane and the choice of starting items is made right at the outset.
You start off with 500 Gold and the first item of choice for most League players is either the Doran’s blade or the Doran’s shield. However, more recently, players have started experimenting with Long sword and potions as well. Cull is another starting item that can be very useful if you know when to choose it. It costs 450 Gold and gives you 7 attack damage with 3 hp lifesteal on hit-attacks.
The cool passive that Cull brings with it is it grants you +1 gold and this can stack up to 100 minions. When you reach 100 minions, you get an extra +350 Gold and this passive then expires. Reaching 100 minions can take up to 15 minutes on average. Getting that extra gold can help snatch that big-ticket item faster such as a Mythic Item or an Epic Item. All that extra gold basically means the item is free with a bit of extra gold to your credit.
But to make the best use of any item, you must know when to use it. Cull gives a bit of extra gold if you can farm up really fast as compared with the enemy champions. That means you should choose this item when you are confident you will be able to farm much faster than your opponent. Only then you can benefit from the advantage Cull’s passive has to offer i.e. extra gold so you can get a much-needed quicker and this will allow you to dominate the lane. Choosing Cull if you are in the top lane and you are facing a tanky opponent that doesn’t have much in the way of CC or AoE damage means you have some liberty to farm easily.
Of course, the Doran’s blade and Doran’s shield offer slightly more attack damage and slightly more sustain as well. Cull seems to be a more likely option for top-laners as compared with mid-laners or the bot-lane, for that matter. However, the choice of the starting items ultimately depends on the player’s individual preferences, how they want to build up their items during the game and what sort of team combination the enemy team has.
With all of the above in mind, it can safely be said that Cull is definitely worth it in Season 12.
