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Summoner's-rift-map

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 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.

  1. Pick your champion - There are currently over 140 champions with new ones being continuously added over time.
  2. Choose your lane - Walk to your lane to kill minions and battle enemy champions.
  3. Level your abilities - Earn experience to level up your abilities.
  4. Purchase items from the shopkeeper - Use your gold to purchase items to enhance your damage.
  5. Destroy towers - Use you abilities and items to destroy towers and eventually the Nexus.

The ultimate goal of League of Legends is to destroy the other team's base, but it's not easy.

Your enemies will do everything they can to kill you and destroy your base.

League-of-legends-nexus

The roles in League of Legends

Although there are different types of top laners, generally speaking, teams will play with a 'Tank' champion - someone who can take a lot of damage before being eliminated. They are used to get into the middle of the opposing team, being the focal point, or trying to stun or attack the enemy ADC.

The distraction caused by the Tank champion enables the rest of the team with high attack damage to eliminate the players. The laning phase is incredibly important for this role as the player needs to be strong for the later game.

This role is used virtually always in the middle lane of the map. Along with the ADC, this is usually the champion that dishes out the highest amount of damage. The midlaner is usually ranged but can be either depending on what is picked

The midlane player is incredibly important as it is the middle of the map and he can be killed from various different positions. Having a good awareness of the map, as well as good use of his vision is important in this role as it's very easy to over-extend in the lane and get crept up on from behind.

Whilst getting killed in the lane is possible, the roaming ability of more mobile Midlaners, who can clear the minion wave and move quickly around different parts of the map depending on their current situation. This can be combined with the Jungler as well in order to provide an overwhelming situation for whomever is in that lane.

The Attack-Damage Carry (ADC), now commonly known as the Marksman, is the main form of physical based damage hitting champion on your team. Typically, the ADC does a sizeable amount of damage to all on the enemy team, with the exception of potentially the Tank.

The trade-off though, comes with an ADC's relatively low base health and defence, meaning they are known to be “squishy” (die easily), but this is usually compensated by a Support champion. One of the most important roles in the team, this type of champion will usually be found in the bottom (bot) lane of the map

The Support player is coupled with the ADC and is mainly used to help the ADC in any way they can to get kills, protect their with their abilities and provide vision for the ADC and the rest of the team by using wards or trinkets.

Usually low on damage and high on hit points, they can be used as well to tank damage and distract the enemy onslaught (enabling the champions with higher damage to eliminate them).

The Support can be used for assisting the ADC during the laning phase, however, they can also play a large part in engaging in team fights. Support champions such as Thresh can use their abilities to hook onto an enemy champion that is out of position (or in position) to force a team fight and the engage

There are three lanes on the Summoner's Rift (the LoL map) but five champions so the Jungler will spend most of their time between the lanes in the area of the map called the jungle. The primary reason for having a Jungler is to utilise the largest amount of the gold and experience points (XP) on the Summoner's Rift at any one time.

The Jungler will start and spend most of the early game inside the Jungle, and this allows him to build up his own economy of gold and XP that will eventually allow him to start helping to kill the opposing teams champions.

As well as ganking lanes, the Jungler is important for ensuring good vision around both the Dragon and the Baron. Controlling the jungle ensures you control rotations and control the main focal points of the map, especially at the early stage where a lot of games are won or lost