In this article, I will be talking about several key concepts in the video game League of Legends (or LoL). I hope this will help beginners enter the game!
Table of contents:
How does League of Legends work?
What is Lol?
What is a Champion?
How do you win?
What is the summoner rift?
Towers and minions
Fountain and shop
The Champions / Characters
How they work
The five roles
How does League of Legends work?
What is League of Legends?
League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena, also known as a MOBA. It’s been one of the most popular games of all time and is currently one of the biggest esports.
In a standard game of League, ten players are split into two teams of five and battle it out on a map called Summoner’s Rift.
Each of these players controls a single character, known as a champion.
What is a Champion?
Champions are playable characters that exist inside LoL. All ten players in a match of LoL control a single champion.
There are currently 159 champions with new ones being added regularly. Every champion has unique skills and abilities each with its own playstyle.
Before each game starts, there is a period called "champ select" where each team takes turns picking a champion for each player.
How do you win?
The main goal in a LoL match is to destroy the opponent’s base. You can only get to the enemy’s base by destroying a set of towers that are defending its Nexus (I'll talk about it in more detail afterwards).
In each game, each player starts at level 1 with a single of their 3 base abilities to choose from. Gradually throughout the game, each player levels up and gains gold. Gold is used to buy items in the shop.
Eventually, once each team has gained enough gold and significant power, one final fight is held and the winner would be able to push into the enemy’s base and win the game ("push" means advance your troops to launch an attack).
What is the summoner’s rift?
Each game of LoL is held on a map called summoner’s rift. Summoner’s rift has 3 main lanes (the red and blue lines) and 2 jungles in between (shown below)
-The Summoner's rift
There are two teams of five players: the blue team (bottom left base) and the red team (top right base). To achieve victory, a team must destroy the opposing team's Nexus (the heart of their base).
During a match, minions will continuously spawn from each base's Nexus and cross all three lanes (the paths are shown in the graphic above).
The three lanes are called top lane, middle lane and bottom lane. In all three lanes, there are turrets that will attack enemy champions and minions.
To achieve victory, a team must push to one of the lanes and destroy all the turrets to be able to attack the enemy’s base.
Towers and minions
-2 towers and the enemy’s nexus
In each lane of the Summoner’s rift, there are 3 towers. The first and second are just towers that shoot enemies and minions. The third tower is defending what is called the inhibitor. This inhibitor is what keeps the enemy’s base safe. If you do not destroy one of the inhibitors, you cannot deal damage to the enemy’s base (Nexus).
After destroying a tower, each member of the team that destroyed the tower gets 200 gold and has their minions being able to push towards the second tower.
When an inhibitor is destroyed, your team gains super minions (see below the big one)
-1 big minion and 1 "regular" minion
These super minions help your team siege the enemy’s base and win the game. They have more health and deal more damage than the "regular" minions, often making successful pushes and destroying the enemy’s base.
The fountain and shop
Each team has their own fountain and shop. The fountain is where you spawn as your champion. You spawn at the beginning of the game and you respawn after dying. The shop is next to the fountain and it is where you can buy your items to enhance your champion’s power and strength.
-Fountain and shop
Champions
In LoL, there are currently 159 champions to pick and play from. The developers are consistently adding more champions to develop your gameplay and Lol's lore (backstory).
-All the 159 champions so far
Some of these champs are very difficult to play, while some are rather easy to use. You can play ranged, melee, tanky, buff, small, skinny, and fast champions and even a cat on a book.
Each champion has 4 skills, q, w, e and r.
q, w and e are simple skills that deal more damage each time they level up.
R is your ultimate ability. You can only add points to your ultimate at levels 6, 11 and 16. (Max level is 18).
In these 159 champs, you have designated roles for each champion.
For example, you have Rakan and Xayah.
-Example of bot lane: Rakan (left) and Xayah (right)
These two champions are what you would call a bot lane. Bot lanes consist of 1 Support player and 1 Adc (Attack Damage Carry) player.
Here, Xayah is the Adc, dealing lots of damage ("carrying" the game = be the one that deals damage and pushes towards the enemy's base). On the other hand, Rakan is the support, healing allies, engaging on the enemy (putting debuffs on enemies)and buffing your allies with shielding. (De)buffing is putting a beneficial (buff) or disadvantageous (debuff) status to a player. It can be a shield, stun, speed boost...
Each champion gains gold when you kill a minion, tower, jungle camps, and enemy player.
The five roles
-The Five roles
Champions are divided into 5 roles: from left to right you have the top lane, the jungle role, the mid lane, the adc, and the support.
The bottom one is called fill and it is when you don't know what you want to play so it gives you a random role).
The Top Lane
The top lane is where players bring the strongest champions and are in a 1 vs 1 situation against another player.
The Jungle role
The jungle role is where a player, usually playing an assassin (type of champ), is equipped with a jungle item which allows them to deal more damage to the jungle camps.
-The 8 jungle camps
There are 8 jungle camps in the game. Jungle camps are monsters players kill in order to gain gold and experience (to level up your skills). Jungle players will go around clearing these camps to gain gold and try to gank another lane. Ganking is when the jungle player enters another lane and tries, with his teammate, to kill the enemy's lane.
The Mid Lane
The mid lane is where players bring mages (type of champ) and are also in a 1v1. The mid lane's job is to ensure that his/her team is able to secure main objectives like killing the most powerful (and thus those giving most rewards) jungle camps like the baron nashor (purple on the map) or the dragon (bottom right in yellow) or and to deal a lot of damage to the towers.
The Adc and Support
As explained before, the bot lane consists of 2 players, an adc and a support. The adc is normally a marksman type champion who is very good at dealing damage and evading attacks.
The support’s job is to engage on the enemy’s adc to ensure that their adc gets to kill the enemy and level up. Supports are also supposed to keep their adc alive by healing them or giving them shields.
This lane is a 2v2.
-Typical map with the spots of each player
Bonus, last words:
After reading this guide, you should start thinking more in-depth about champions and the lanes to see how they interact. I think this guide covers the basics of the game; don't hesitate to put any questions you have in the comments!
I hope you will try League of Legends if this has interested you. If you are thinking of trying out lol, I advise you to try a bit every champion to build your own set of "good" champions - this will be your champion pool. I think that you'll get the most out of Lol only when you'll have your own champion pool.
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