Hello everyone! My name is Zach, summoner name OsirisLordofDead, and I play mid lane for the UIUC Team B for League of Legends. This is my first blog post here, the first of hopefully many, and I intend to write about mainly League of Legends and my specialty, all things mid lane. For my first post, I'm going to start off a series (not sure how frequent) where I will cover different things about the mid lane, ranging from broad topics, to specific things like champions, runes, or counter-picking. I plan to include a video of at least one narrated game with each post to demonstrate either the specific things talked about in the post or just show some general game play. Without further ado...
The best place to start is always with the basics, and a few questions.
First, what exactly is the mid lane?
The mid lane runs through the center of the map and is surrounded on each side by the river/jungle and the other two lanes. It is also the shortest lane, meaning that it is the quickest route to take to get to the enemy base, it has the shortest distance between the two outer turrets (the ones farthest away from the bases) on either team, and the shortest distance between the outer turret and the secondary turret (the next one closer to your base).
What is the importance of the mid lane?
The distance between the two bases is an obvious answer, but there are more. The mid lane's location means that it has the quickest accessibility to both the top and bottom side of the map (compared to top going to bottom or vice-versa) and therefore provides the most map control and vision to your team. It is also close to each of the neutral objectives (Baron, Dragon, Buffs).
What do these things exactly mean for me, the player?
Firstly, being central to the map means that as a mid laner, you are able to help the sides lanes as much or more than your jungler (if you have one), and therefore should pick someone who is somewhat mobile. Secondly, because you will most likely be alone in this lane versus your opponent, it is in your favor to play as a champion who likes to get all the experience in a lane and level up quickly, as well as receive all the gold provided by the minions and therefore make use of items. Thirdly, the mid lane is in the middle and therefore most accessible to the enemy team as well. Therefore you must have constant map awareness and ward around your lane so that you aren't killed and provide the most vision to the rest of your team.
As we can see, the middle lane has many positives to it, but also carries a lot of responsibility. A mid laner can single-handedly win or lose their team the game because of everything is provides for the player and for the team as a whole.
With these things in mind, what do I do?
A good place to start here is to find a champion to play as. We already know we will be going mid lane and will therefore get experience and farm, but we will want mobility to roam, area of effect skills to clear lots of minions and push down towers, or a lot of single target damage to burst down other champions and secure kills that will put me, and therefore my team, ahead in gold.
Everything covered thus far is usually general game knowledge/sense, however this is where the misconceptions start to begin.
Many of the champions that fall favorably into the categories (Mobility, AOE, Burst) tend to be Mages, Assassins, or Bruisers. The mid lane is by no means meant for AP or Magic Damage Champions only. Many of them are mid laners, however, many other things are viable in the mid lane, and which of these you pick should depend entirely on what your team looks like, what the enemy team looks like, and most importantly, who you like to play and who you feel the most comfortable on.
Now that we have these basics down, next time I will go into more depth on an aspect of the mid lane. I hope you enjoyed the article, and below I've included a video of a game played on the new patch!
Watch live video from xosirisx on TwitchTV
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