The complete beginner’s guide to League of Legends

By FAISAL - 3:29 AM

League of Legends is one of the most popular video games in the world. It is played by over 100 million active users every single month. League of Legends is also the most popular esport. At the 2015 League of Legends World tournament, a five-week tournament that is theLeague of Legends equivalent of the UEFA Champions League, over 334 million viewers tuned in. The finals, the League of Legends equivalent of the Super Bowl, brought in 36 million unique viewers.
League of Legends, often just called League or LoL by fans, is widely loved despite its very complicated nature. When watching League, you need to understand the basics before you can learn the complicated stuff. The goal with this guide is to start with the simplest of ideas and progress forward into deep details. After reading just one section, you should have a better understanding of what League is, and after reading them all, you won’t miss a beat!

Table of contents

What is League of Legends?

  • League of Legends is a downloadable video game available for Windows PCs and Apple Macs
  • It is Free-to-Play, meaning that there is no cost to play the game. Money can be spent onLeague of Legends, but only for 1) cosmetic items like skins and icons or 2) unlocking champions, which can also be purchased with an in-game currency earned by playing.
  • League of Legends is a competitive, team-based game.
  • Players create a login and a unique account name that other players will know them as. This is called a Summoner Name.
  • Each player can group together with friends or play with strangers in a match.
  • Before a match starts, players will be grouped up into a team of five total players.
  • After players have been grouped into teams, players will each select a unique character (known as a champion) to play for the duration of the upcoming match. There are currently 132 unique champions to choose from, with a 133rd to be released in the coming weeks.
  • Each match consists of two teams set against each other: at the end there is one winner and one loser.
  • The team must work together to defeat the opposing team.
  • Each individual match can last anywhere between 20 minutes and 50 minutes. In extreme cases, matches may last over an hour.

What is the objective?

  • Games traditionally take place on one map: Summoner's Rift.
Summoner’s Rift
  • Each team has a base they must guard from their opponents while simultaneously attacking their opponent’s base.
  • There is the Blue team, whose base is located in the lower left part of the map, and the Red team, whose base is located in the upper right part of the map.
  • At the back of each team’s base there is a building called The Nexus. You win the game by destroying the enemy team’s Nexus.
Blue Nexus
  • Guarding the Nexus are two large turrets (commonly called towers) that will deal damage to any enemy within its limited range. These turrets must be destroyed before the Nexus itself can be destroyed. These turrets are commonly called the Nexus Towers.
Blue Towers
  • There are 3 lanes that extend out of each base. Running along the top of the map there is the Top Lane. Running along the bottom of the map there is the Bottom Lane (commonly called Bot Lane). Running through the middle of the map is the Middle Lane (commonly called Mid Lane).
  • Where the base meets each lane, there is a another turret guarding a small building called an Inhibitor (a structure that will be explained shortly). This turret is commonly referred to as the Inhibitor Turret (or the Inhib Turret). At least one lane’s Inhibitor Turret and Inhibitor must be destroyed before the Nexus Turrets can be damaged.
Blue Inhibitor
  • A little ways down each lane there is another turret, usually referred to as the Inner Turret or second Tier Turret. This turret must be destroyed before that particular lane’s Inhibitor Turret can be damaged.
  • Finally, each team has another turret towards the end of their half of each lane. This turret is commonly referred to as the Outer Turret or the first tier Turret. This turret must be destroyed before that particular lane’s Inner Turret can be damaged.
  • Turrets cannot and will never return after they have been destroyed. They remain destroyed for the remainder of a match.
  • Every few minutes, each team’s Nexus deploys minions, little creatures that walk down each individual lane. They will attack anything in their path, including enemy champions, enemy minions, and enemy structures such as towers, inhibitors, or the Nexus itself.
Blue Minions
  • Minions can be killed by enemy minions or enemy champions. Without interference from champions, minions will push against one another indefinitely, getting essentially nowhere.
  • Destroying an enemy Inhibitor will make your Nexus spawn Super Minions for five minutes in the lane with the destroyed Inhibitor. If the Blue team destroys the Red team’s middle lane Inhibitor, the Blue team Nexus will spawn Super Minions down the middle lane. These Super Minions will push against other minions faster, nullifying the Minion against Minion standstill, and deal much more damage to towers and champions. After five minutes, the Inhibitors will rebuild themselves and Super Minions will stop spawning down that lane.
Blue Super Minion
  • Teams must use their minions to push down one lane or multiple lanes in order to destroy the enemy’s Outer Turret, Inner Turret, Inhibitor Turret, Inhibitor, both Nexus Towers, and the Nexus itself in order to win the game.
The Blue side base, the Red side base mirrors this perfectly

What are champions?

  • Champions are individual units that are directly controlled by real life people. Each team will have five champions, for a total of 10 champions per game.
  • Champions are unique, meaning that no two are exactly the same. In a standard game, there can only be one of each champion per game. For example, if the Blue team picks the champion Ryze, then the Red team will not be able to pick Ryze for their side.
  • Currently, there are 132 completely unique champions that players can choose from.
There are certain things that make up a champion, and all champions will have these things.
  • Player-controlled movement: Because champions are individually controlled, they each move independently of each other. Some champions may be faster than others, or have abilities to increase their movement, but we will get to those things a little later. Champions are controlled via player inputs from their mouse and keyboard. Movement is controlled by right clicking with the mouse somewhere on the screen. This will issue a command to the champion they are controlling. The champion will then find their way to that location on the map on their own. If they player issues another command by clicking again, the previous command will be ignored.
  • Auto-attacking: When a player right clicks onto an enemy unit, whether that be an enemy turret, minion, champion, or the Nexus itself, their champion will begin moving towards that enemy unit. When the champion gets close enough, they will begin attacking the enemy unit automatically. This is known as an auto-attack, or a basic attack. Some champions will hit the unit with swords, others with their fists. Some will shoot bows, others will use guns. Some auto-attack quickly, others will auto-attack slowly. Some champions are melee champions, meaning that they need to be very close to the enemy unit before they are able to auto-attack. Other champions are ranged champions, meaning that they can begin to auto-attack the enemy unit from a distance. For some champions, their auto-attack is their main source of damage.
  • Abilities: Every Champion has at least 5 abilities: a passive ability, an ability mapped to Q on the keyboard, an ability mapped to W, an ability mapped to E, and an ultimate ability, which is mapped to R. While auto-attacks are mostly the same for everyone, depending on if they are ranged or melee, abilities are what set champions apart from one another. These abilities can do a multitude of things, from dealing high damage to crowd control (commonly referred to as CC, abilities that impact the enemy unit’s movement, like a slow or a stun). Some abilities can also target allied units. These abilities can do things like give allies health back, shield them or speed them up. All abilities have cooldowns of one kind or another, which limits their use. Most Q, W, and E abilities have short cooldowns, meaning that a player only has to wait a few seconds before using that ability again. Ultimate or R abilities however have much longer cooldowns, usually totaling between one and two minutes. The term commonly used to speak about a champion’s collective group of abilities is their kit.
  • Life and death: All champions have a health bar. This bar will show above the champion's head and it will indicate how close they are to death. Some champions have a lot of health, others have only a little. As a champion takes damage, their health bar will deplete. When a champion's health bar reaches zero, that champion will die. When a champion dies, they will leave the map for a period of time. That time is determined by the current time of the game. Players whose champions die in the first 10 minutes of a game will be returned to life, or respawn, within a couple of seconds. Players whose champions die after the game has been going on for 40 minutes will remain dead for about a minute. When champions respawn, they will be returned to the map behind their team’s Nexus in a safe zone called the fountain. Health regenerates slowly over time, but champions will regain all of their health very quickly if they return to the fountain.
  • Resource: Most champions have a resource that they use to cast abilities, displayed directly below their health bar. For most champions, this resource is called mana. For champions that use mana, their abilities each cost a set amount of mana. If you are playing the champion Ryze, and you cast his Q ability, Overload, it will remove 40 mana from his resource bar. If Ryze doesn’t have 40 mana, he will not be able to cast Overload again until he does. Mana regenerates slowly over time, but champions will regain all of their mana very quickly if they return to the fountain. Some champions have no resource, and their abilities cost nothing. Others will use their health as a resource. Others have entirely unique resources.
  • Summoner Spells: A Summoner Spell is essentially an ability that players can take with them into every single game regardless of the champion that they have picked. These abilities have long cooldowns, often taking from 3-5 minutes to be ready again. Each player can bring two Summoner Spells with them and they offer massive bonuses. For instance, the most commonly taken Summoner Spell is Flash, which allows players to dash forward a short distance instantly, even over walls. This Summoner Spell can be used offensively, getting the player into a fight to get a kill, or defensively, getting a player to safety. There are several Summoner Spells to choose from and they bring massive benefits to different champions.
If you want to see some detailed breakdowns of Champions, check out our recent guides forTaliyah, Ryze, Kled and Yorick.

What are the roles?

Certain champions are good in certain places of the map, and certain players are good at playing certain champions. Like any sport, League has positions that players play. While these roles were not originally intended when the game came out, they were developed over time as strategies were formed.
The roles are:
  • Top laner - The top laner plays in the top lane and traditionally plays Champions that are difficult to kill. It is the top laner’s job to protect their team and focus onto the enemy team’s powerful members. Because of the way that the map is laid out, top laners are usually isolated off from the rest of the team. Often times, games could go on for quite some time before a top laner groups together with their other teammates.
  • Mid laner - The mid laner plays in the middle lane and is often thought of as the star role of the team. Because they are in the middle of everything, they can quickly get to any point on the map to assist their teammates. Mid lane champions are usually one of the team’s two main damage dealers. Their goal is to kill the enemy team quickly and often. Most mid lane champions use a lot of abilities rather than auto-attacks.
  • AD Carry — This stands for Attack Damage Carry. An AD Carry plays in the bottom lane and is one of the team’s two primary damage dealers. The AD Carry focuses mainly on ranged, auto-attack based Champions that can deal a lot of damage from a distance. Similar to mages, AD Carries must be properly protected from the enemy team.
  • Support - The support plays in the bottom lane with the ADC and helps them throughout the game. While the support may primarily help the ADC early on in the game, as the game moves forward they usually transition to helping the entire team. Support champions usually will not deal a lot of damage at all, but have incredibly powerful abilities that can help their team out in many situations.
Now there is one role that we haven’t talked about yet: the jungler. I have saved the jungler for last so that we can take some time to talk about what exactly the jungle is.
The jungle is the space between the lanes that you see on the map. In the jungle, there are a lot of walls and narrow paths, almost like a maze. Inside this jungle there are little camps, and inside these little camps are jungle monsters. These monsters can be killed by any member on either team, but they are much harder to kill than minions.
From the very center of the top lane to the very center of the bottom lane, there is a river running through the map. This river is the dividing line between the two sides. There is the Blue Team’s jungle and the Red Team’s jungle. These jungles mirror each other completely. Ok, now that we have established a loose understanding of what the jungle is, we can talk about the player who spends most of their time there.
Here we see the Jungle in green and the River in light blue.
  • The jungler - The jungler roams around the jungle for the beginning of the game, killing monsters. In between killing monsters, junglers will fulfill their primary role: ganking. A gank is when an allied champion comes into another lane to help out a teammate, usually by trying to kill their opponent. For example, if a Blue Team Maokai is fighting against a Red Team Sion in the top lane, the Blue Team jungler, Lee Sin, may decide to gank, turning the 1 v 1 into a 2 v 1. As the game goes on, the jungler will try and fill the gaps in his team, helping out where they are needed: trying to add extra damage to the team if the team needs it, or trying to protect the team if they are losing members quickly. Because of this, jungle champions are usually very flexible in terms of what they can do.

How do champions grow stronger?

There are two major systems that determine how champions become more powerful as the game goes on, allowing them to overpower the enemy team and finish the game.
Experience (or XP):
At the beginning of every game, each champion starts out at level one. Each level awards champions one upgrade point for their abilities — until an ability is bought with one point, it cannot be used. When each game starts, each champion has enough ability points to unlock one of their Q, W, or E abilities. The other abilities can be unlocked in the following two levels, or a player can choose to make one ability stronger and delay being able to use the third.
The ultimate ability can only be upgraded at levels six, 11, and 16. Abilities other than the ultimate ability can be upgraded a total of five times. The maximum level a champion can reach is 18. Upgrading an individual ability makes it more powerful. Leveling up champions also gives them better statistics, like more health, more damage, and more mana.
Leveling up champions is done by acquiring enough experience points. Enemy minions give experience points divided among nearby champions when they die. For instance, a Blue Team minion dies and it yields 50 XP to the Red Team player nearby. If only one player is nearby, like in top or mid lane, that player will soak up all 50 XP. However, if there are two allied players next to the same enemy minion, each would receive 25 XP.
Here we see the Champion LeBlanc, who is already level 6 and her progress towards level 7 is indicated by that purple bar.
There are other ways to gather XP: Monsters in the jungle, which allow junglers to level up as the game goes on without having to come and take XP from the laners. Killing enemy champions and destroying enemy turrets also yield XP.
Items and Gold:
In League, items are the most complicated and most important system. Like learning all of the champions, learning all of the items takes time. Every item can be bought by every champion (mostly) and they all do different things. At a base level, most items provide bonuses to a character's statistics. For example, one item may increase your health by 400 or reduce the cooldown of all of your abilities by 20%.
Many items will come with stats and have unique properties. For example, the item Dead Man’s Plate grants health and armor while also giving the champion increased movement speed the longer they walk without fighting anything, plus bonus damage on their next attack. Some items also have abilities that must be activated and are assigned to number keys on the keyboard. For example, the item Zhonya’s Hourglass grants Ability Power, cooldown reduction, armor, and an active ability that makes the user invincible for a few seconds, but freezes them in place.
Here we have that same LeBlanc’s inventory. We see the items she has already purchased as well as the gold that she currently has.
Items are bought with gold. In League, everything is done for gold. For instance, this is one of the reasons that you want to kill enemy Champions: they award you gold. Destroying enemy towers also earns you gold. You even earn gold slowly over time. Similarly, if you land the killing blow on an enemy minion, you will be granted gold. This is called farming. Every time you kill a minion, your Creep Score (or CS) goes up. This is just an easy tool to tell how well a player is farming in a particular game.
At any time, a champion can retreat back to their base by using Recall (usually assigned to the "B" key). As long as they are not harmed in the next several seconds, they will be teleported back to their fountain. This is occasionally used to heal, but is most often used to buy items.
The easiest way to see who is currently winning a game of League of Legends is to see their team’s total amount of gold. The basic win condition looks like this: Gold is earned by getting kills against the enemy or destroying towers, gold is then used to buy items, items make champions stronger, when champions are stronger they can defeat their enemies and eventually destroy the base.

What is vision?

Now that you know a little bit, it is important to talk about some of the additional objectives around the map. The game would be too easy if everyone could see the enemy team at all times, so the map is shrouded in a fog of war. Because of this fog, you can only see in a radius around units on your team. Champions have a large circle surrounding them that will illuminate the immediate area. You can also see the areas around friendly units such as turrets, minions and other allied Champions.
These circles of vision do not extend over walls or terrain. So if you are walking through the jungle alone, the entire enemy team could be hiding behind a wall you are standing right next to and you would never know.
There are also patches of tall grass placed around the map often called brush. These patches act like hiding places. You cannot see into them or through them even if you are right next to them. However, unlike walls, you can walk into them, which will then allow you to see inside. These brushes are often used to hide from enemies that may be chasing you, or to ambush an unsuspecting enemy walking by.
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Other than having allied units walk around the map, there is another way to attain vision of darkened areas. Every champion is equipped with a warding trinket. This trinket will allow champions to place a select number of wards around the map. Wards act as allied units and grant vision of an area for three minutes. Vision is a crucial strategic element in League, especially in professional matches. Vision keeps players informed of where their enemies are, allowing them to make smarter decisions around the map.

What other objectives are on the map?

Every thing a player does in League should be in service of destroying the enemy Nexus, and there are several important objectives around the map that can aid in achieving that goal. On the southern side of the map, along the river in between mid lane and bot lane, there is a circular arena built into the wall. This is where the Dragon lives. Starting early in the game, one of four Elemental Drakes will spawn onto the map. These Drakes have a lot of health and usually require multiple Champions to fight. If a team kills an Elemental Drake, they will get a permanent buff. The four different kinds of Elemental Drakes are:
  • The Infernal Drake - Killing a Infernal Drake will increase the entire team’s Attack Damage and Ability Power by 8%.
  • The Mountain Drake - Killing a Mountain Drake will increase the entire team’s damage against Epic Monsters (Elemental Drakes, Elder Dragon, Baron Nashor, the Rift Herald) and enemy turrets by 10%.
  • The Cloud Drake - Killing a Cloud Drake will give the entire team 25 bonus movement speed when they are out of combat.
  • The Ocean Drake - Killing a Ocean Drake will give the entire team a buff that restores 4% of their missing health and mana over five seconds every eight seconds when they are out of combat.
The Elemental Drake that spawns at the beginning of the game will always be random. Once the first Elemental Drake has been killed, another will spawn six minutes later. These Elemental Drakes will also be random, however only three different kinds of Elemental Drakes can spawn per match. If a team kills the same type of Elemental Drake multiple times in a single game, they will get multiple stacks of the benefit, up to three times. So if the Blue team kills two Infernal Drakes in a single match, they will have an additional 16% Attack Damage and Ability Power.
After 35 minutes, the Elemental Drakes will stop spawning, and a gigantic Elder Dragon will spawn instead. This Elder Dragon is incredibly difficult to kill, as it deals high damage and has a lot of health. Killing the Elder Dragon will grant every alive member on the team a buff for 120 seconds, granting them additional damage on all their attacks based on how many Elemental Drakes they killed as well as increasing all Elemental Drake buffs by 50%. When the Elder Dragon is killed, another one will not spawn for another ten minutes.
The Elder Dragon
On the north side of the map, along the river in between top lane and mid lane there is another combat arena similar to the Dragon Pit. This is the Baron Pit and houses League’s scariest creature, Baron Nashor, as well as the namesake for this website, the Rift Herald.
Early on in the game, the Rift Herald will spawn in the Baron Pit. He has a little bit too much health for one player to take down on their own, so killing it is usually a combined effort between a team’s top laner and jungler. When the Rift Herald dies, he will drop a buff on the ground that can be picked up by a nearby Champion, usually the top laner. This buff grants the bearer reduced damage when no allied champions are nearby, as well as increased damage on their auto-attacks every few seconds. This lasts for a full 20 minutes before expiring.
Once the game timer hits 20 minutes, the Rift Herald will despawn and Baron Nashor will take his place. Most commonly just referred to as Baron,it is a gigantic worm-like creature that is very tough to take down. Similar to the Elemental Drakes and the Elder Dragon, taking down Baron is a group effort, but yields worthwhile rewards. Killing Baron will net all alive team members a buff that lasts for three minutes and 30 seconds, increasing the holders’ AD and AP, making them recall much faster and empowering nearby minions.
Baron Nashor
Getting the killing blow on one of these giant monsters is usually the job of the team's jungler. Junglers take the Summoner Spell Smite, which calls down a bolt of damage from the sky to deal damage to minions and monsters. Junglers will use Smite to help them kill monsters in the Jungle throughout the game and to secure objectives for their team later.
Since the buffs given by Baron, the Elemental Drakes, and the Elder Dragon are all given to the team who lands the killing blow, securing the kill with Smite is crucial to success. Often times, enemy junglers will risk their lives trying to steal an objective away from their enemies with Smite.

What are the game phases?

  • Pick/Ban
The Pick/Ban phase, also known as the draft phase, actually takes place before each game begins. This is the phase where teams will pick their champions. Before teams pick, they can ban champions from being selected by eitherteam. When Pick/Ban starts, the Blue Team will ban first. Once the Blue Team has chosen a champion to ban, the Red Team will ban a champion. This process then repeats until each team has banned three champions, totaling six gamewide bans.
Once the six bans have been chosen, teams will begin picking champions. The Blue Team picks first, selecting one champion. Then the Red Team picks two champions, in order to make up for the fact that they have to pick second. The two teams then pick two champions each until the final pick, where the Red Team selects the last champion.
Pick/Ban is one of the most important and strategically deepest phases in the game. Games can be won and lost here. Because of how crucial it is, professional teams are allowed to speak to their coaches while the drafting phase is going on. Communication between coach and players is banned during actual gameplay.
  • Laning Phase
The Laning Phase is the beginning of the game, where each member of the team goes to their assigned lane to farm and become more powerful. In laning phase, the primary goal of each member of the team is to get ahead of their lane opponent. This is done through a combination of efficient farming and harassing the enemy laner in order to make farming harder for them. This is also the part of the game where the jungler will do their best to gank for their teammates, helping get them both ahead by killing allied lane opponent or forcing allied lane opponent to go back to their fountain to heal.
  • Mid Game
While there is no official start to the Mid Game, it usually happens around the time the first turret on the map is taken. When the Mid Game begins, players will leave their lanes to group up with their teammates. It is here that teams will try their best to push the advantages they acquired in laning phase. In the Mid Game, death timers are still relatively low, so mistakes can be easily corrected and losing one or two teammates in a fight is not the end of the world. Usually the Mid Game is either extremely bloody, with lots of kills and lots of fighting, or very rotational, with teams moving around the map quickly to try and take objectives without conflict. Either way, Mid Game is a race against the clock to finish the game before your advantage is diminished.
  • Late Game
Late Game refers to the point in the game where death timers are long and most champions have bought all six of their items. Often times taking a game into Late Game can lead to two powered-up teams bashing their head against one another for an extended period of time until one chaotic, or even random, fight ends the game.

How often does the game change?

While I have discussed the many similarities between League of Legends and traditional sports, it is here that we see things really diverge. League sees major rule changes twice a year and minor changes every two weeks.
These changes, called patches, can have a lot of different focuses, most often towards specific champions and items. When a champion is given changes that favor them, it is often referred to as being buffed. When a champion is given changes that remove or lower their power, it is often referred to as being nerfed.
Every two or three months, we will also see Riot add a new champion in one of these patches. Because of this, the roster of champions is ever expanding and constantly getting more diverse. In the recent past, Riot has also made a concerted effort to improve and rework older champions that may not particularly fit the game very well or just look and feel old.
Worlds this year will be played on Patch 6.18.

What is all of this information on my screen?

Because there are so many variables in League, there is a lot of information available to a spectator. While the spectator view may look complicated at first, it is important to know that not all of the information on screen is immediately important. The longer that you watch and the more comfortable you get, the more you will be able to apply the information to what is happening in the game. But at a base level, things are pretty simple.
This make look scary but have no fear! Let’s break it down piece by piece.
There is a lot of information here that will begin to make sense over time! It is OK if the stat and item page looks like a lot. It is. The most important thing here is that the three numbers next to the items correlate to Kills/Deaths/Assists and the number next to the Champion is the Creep Score.

What is the Worlds structure?

For more on the tournament, click here.
There are 16 teams that qualify for Worlds each year, three each from Korea, China, Europe, and North America and two each from The International Wild Card and Southeast Asia. To start the tournament, they are broken up into four groups, groups A, B, C, and D. Starting on the 29th of September, the group stages will begin. Groups play among themselves and each team will play each other team in their group twice over the course of two weeks. The top two two teams from each group will move on to the Quarterfinals stage.
Now with only eight teams left, the competition gets far more difficult. After a weekend of Quarterfinals, the four victorious teams will advance to the Semi-finals. Once Semi’s weekend is over, the two remaining teams will enter into the League of Legends World final which will take place on Saturday, October 29th. The team that wins that series will take home the Summoner’s Cup trophy and all teams will head home to prepare for Season 7 in 2017.
Feel like you are ready to test your knowledge before Worlds? Follow along with this great North American Semifinals match between Cloud 9 and Immortals.

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