Three Smites?

In the recent WinterFox vs Renegades game in the North American Challenger Series, WinterFox ran a composition consisting of three smites. Although used to seeing smite top laners running the ever popular cinderhulk, especially on the Hecarim that was played, and being aware of the 'new meta' AP Ezreal mid running runeglaive, three smites was still unexpected. Smite is usually reserved as a jungler's summoner spell, replacing an offensive or defensive summoner spell such as ignite or barrier (as most junglers run flash/smite), but recently we've seen it appearing in lanes.

 Top lane this was run alongside teleport instead of flash for laners with easy escapes such as shyvana and hecarim so they could make use of the powerful combination of the damage reduction from challenging smite and the cinderhulk enchantment to give them better late games. It also meant that having a 'combat' smite made trading with summoner spells much faster, as you only have to wait the 60 seconds for smite to come back up, compared to the 210 second cooldown of ignite. The damage reduction and true damage buff from challenging smite gave very strong trading, and usually lane dominance once completed. This strength was only offset by the vulnerability to ganks these laners have shown due to the lack of flash. 

 However, now we find it midlane on Ezreal. For those of you that are unaware to WHY, its because RuneGlaive is extremly powerful on Ezreal. It doesnt add magic damage onto the next basic attack, like Lich Bane, but rather CONVERTS it to magic damage. This means Ezreal's Mystic Shot is now magic damage, and therefore benefits from all the magic penetration an AP Ezreal will buy to power up his Trueshot Barrage and Essence Flux. Ezreal can also invest into Rangers Trailblazer which gives him some nifty wave clear on a 60 second cooldown, that he otherwise lacked, or get some extra dueling power in the form of challenging smite. Now for most this may not be a problem. And in lane it's not. It takes a while to get going (even though it is marginally cheaper than Lich Bane which is the other option for a sheen effect item), and it takes away Ezreal's options for a defensive summoner spell. 

There are two issues with this strategy. The first is simple, and fairly obvious; Objective control. With two or even three smites on your team it becomes near impossible to steal any neutral objective, especially if those smites are in laner's hands, who are usually higher level making the smite more powerful. Three smites in competitive play make a near unstealable objective. In Solo Q this is not so much of an issue as the lack of co-ordination makes these things more difficult but in a team environment this is very potent. The second issue is that it is a far shorter cooldown than other traditional secondary summoner spells, which is also the problem in top lane. If two midlaner's trade but one is running smite and the other ignite, you KNOW that the smite upgrade will be up first, allowing super-aggressive play. This is more easy to pull off in Solo Q, as the jungler may not be paying full attention so may not be around when your smite comes back up, but it does create great opportunities. And if you DIDNT take a combat smite, you get some nice waveclear that is otherwise the main flaw in your champions kit (again, Ezreal).

 So for a summoner that is designed to clear the jungle, with only a 60 second cooldown (and two charges), why is it so common in lanes? This is something that needs addressing as the item's themselves are not THAT bad, laners could make great use of them and they are VERY strong, but their use outside of the jungle is becoming too common and far too strong.