League of Legends: Barely Getting Started

Hello everyone, back to League of Legends time! Last post we went through the pre-game: your attitude, your team composition, and your individual setup. I want to follow this train of thought to talk about the early game, also known as the laning phase. This includes such actions as deciding the lanes, level 1 fights, and actually laning. Once again, these are my opinions only and they should not be taken as a true reflection of the game.

Deciding your lane

I had previously talked briefly about the meta game in my last post. This section goes into more detail about what it is and, more importantly, why it is. So, let’s get started:

Bot Lane

A lane that is currently composed of an AD ranged and a support. This is the only lane that contains 2 champions sharing experience. This is the major distinguishing factor about this lane as it has led to the 0 cs support. But why is this? AD carries scale mostly with items rather than with levels. Since you are sharing experience with your support, you will gain levels slower than the solo lanes. Therefore this lane is highly farm focused for the AD carry. What is the purpose of a support then? The support “helps” the AD carry farm. This includes zoning your opponents and protecting your carry. 

Kog'Maw needs a babysitter <3

Another important factor about bot lane is dragon control. Since bottom is the closest to the dragon’s den, the jungler depends on bottom lane to help him kill the beast. AD carries do more damage than AP carries to dragon (who’s going to blow their combo on drag?) and so should be in bot lane.

Mid Lane

Usually an AP carry, but sometimes has counter AP like Talon. Mid lane gets experience the fastest because it is the shortest distance between towers. AP carries scale the best with levels due to high base stats. Mid lane is also in a great position to gank for other lanes, which allows the AP carry to have a presence early through late game.

 

Top Lane

Depending on team comp, another AP or a bruiser. Top lane is farm lane with solo experience. Its distinguishing factor is its distance from many early game objectives. Therefore, the champion in this lane must be someone that the team wouldn’t mind not seeing for the first twenty minutes of a game. It should also be a champion that is able to effectively use the farm and experience that it is given. Furthermore, top lane champions must be able to keep themselves safe because the distance between towers is longer in top than in mid lane and top lane does not have a support.

See you in half an hour.

Jungle

With the jungle change, I feel that jungle should be considered another lane. The primary purpose of a jungler should be farming this lane rather than ganking lanes. If an opportunity arises, then yes, of course jungle should gank. However, lanes should not be calling constantly for ganks. That said, the jungler should be capable of clearing waves fast while also being able to maintain high health. Many of the favored junglers are those with aoe clears and with some sort of sustain.

So these are the reasons why the meta game is where it is at this moment. These are legitimate concerns when creating a team. However, you should not feel constrained to this composition. There are plenty of ways to win the game, be it farming or killing. Rather than playing straight to the meta, try some other tactics. For example, you could run double bruisers on bottom lane for a kill lane rather than a farm lane. AD carries and their support are squishy and would not be able to handle the cc and power of a double bruiser composition.

Now that you’ve decided where you want your champions to go (you’ve probably followed the meta despite my precautions), let’s get this game started!

Level 1 Fights

Okay so there’s a minute and a half at the beginning of the game before minions spawn. Go do something with it. The game starts when you spawn and you aren’t accomplishing anything standing under your tower. The decision to engage a level 1 fight comes from an analysis of the relative strength of each team along with expectations.

Level 1 Strength

Generally, a team’s strength is determined by damage and cc. Any champion that will allow you to lock the opponent down adds to the element of surprise. A team that is going for a level 1 fight will want to have some form of hard cc. Examples include Alistar, Taric, or Annie (if she chooses incinerate first). Damage will come from the presence of your teammates since champs are really squishy at level 1.

CAN'T MILK THESE

Expectations

Much of a level 1 fight consists of predicting your opponents’ movements. Therefore, bringing CV may not be a bad idea if you are planning on fighting just to check where they are. Take note of what kind of jungler the enemy team has in order to decide where to attack. Is it a blue dependant jungler, like Amumu? Or one that starts at red, like Shyvana? Furthermore, consider is the enemy team will be together. Many blue side teams will split up because the ad carry and support will take double golems. Use this information to your advantage as you can add numbers to your strength.

Outside of doing the predictable, it is also beneficial to sometimes do the unpredictable. If your team has a weak level 1, the enemy may not expect you to be aggressive early on and therefore may not prepare for it. You can exploit this lapse in judgment by going ahead and catching them unawares. On the same note, you may want to consider not counter jungling with a stronger level 1 as the enemy team may be prepared for you. Basically, the moral is to always be prepared for a counter jungle. If you decide not to level 1, make sure that you have someone watching both buffs and that those champs are prepared to get out if they happen upon the enemy team.

So in general, when choosing to level 1 or even to just counterjungle, you must consider relative team strength and what the enemy team expects you to do. You should also consider the purpose of your roaming. Do you want to gain a gold and experience advantage from getting first blood? Or do you want to gimp the jungler by taking his buffs? Level 1 fights are a high risk and high reward a successful fight may snowball into a victory.

aAa up two kills after catching Goose in the jungle. They won this game.

Summary

Once again, thank you for reading my posts. I didn’t cover all of early game yet (barely even got through the first two minutes!) so I will be finishing up in my next post. I expect to cover many aspects of the laning phase next time, so please watch out for my next post! If you’ve got any questions or if you disagree with some of the points that I’ve made, feel free to leave a comment or ask me on the League of Legends client (my summoner name is UTXKai).