In the latest of our crash-course series, learn everything you need to know about possibly the most popular video game of all time
League of Legends (LoL) is a phenomenon, the grand-daddy of all multiplayer online Battle arena (MOBA) and RTS (Real Time Strategy) eSports.
Broken down into raw number, at last count, League of Legends had 67m people playing each month and 27m playing every single day.
It appears an intimidatingly complicated game from the outside, and while we’re not going to pretend it doesn’t take time to get to grips with, the rewards of doing so are well worth it.
That many people can’t be wrong, so let’s get started…
Vital statistics
Complexity: 5/5
Longevity: 5/5
Length of game: 5/5
Global reach: 5/5
Betting choice: 5/5
The basics
A single-player game, you take on the role of the ‘summoner’.
As the summoner, you essentially act as the unseen controller of your chosen ‘champion’, battling in third-person against other computer or player-controlled champions on a large map.
Due to the size of the map you work with you are not alone, with a single team also including other players to help accomplish your objective.
Like most beginners, we will primarily be dealing with the most popular map and play-style: Summoners Rift.
As with plenty of other MOBAs, your chosen champion falls into the standard Assassin, Fighter or Mage classes and can use their choice of weapons including strength, magic or long-range.
The overall objective is to destroy the ‘nexus’ – a structure at the very heart of the enemy’s base at either end of the map, protected by a variety of defences including enemy attack turrets.
What’s more, each side’s nexus repeatedly spawns minions or monsters that will advance towards the enemy slowly.
Your job is to ensure that the minions can reach the opponent’s nexus and destroy it, and to do that you will need skill, patience and gold.
The money
To try and keep the game on an even footing, everyone’s champion starts a match at level one – but can increase their level up to a possible 18 from experience (XP) earned all the way depending on how long they survive.
Everyone also starts the match with a small amount of gold, the in-game currency.
More gold is generated both passively – with a small amount gained constantly over time – or actively, by killing the non-controlled monsters roaming around, smashing up enemy buildings or defeating your opponents.
This gold can then be used to purchase items to increase the power or abilities of your champion.
The items and gold accrued only last the length of the game, so there’s no reason not to spend it if you want to win the map.
The map
As mentioned, the map in League of Legends is on the large side, meaning it has traditionally been divided into four distinct sections – top, middle (mid), bottom (bot) and jungle.
Because of the style of play the sections demand, a large part of choosing your champion depends on how you want to play League of Legends.
Top
Ever played Final Fantasy? Did you find yourself spending all of your experience points on attack-based abilities? Then the top lane is for you.
You will want to pick a champion referred to as a ‘tank’ or ‘bruiser’, which as the name suggests, are melee characters that can soak up – as well as dish out – a lot of damage.
Top is not just about surviving the waves of minions that come at you, but also protecting your own so that they can take on the enemy turrets and gain an advantage.
What’s more, you will also have to take on an opponent in your lane.
If you want to out-flank them, you can always get assistance from your jungler to make it two against one – known nn LoL jargon as ganking (a group kill).
Jungle
Jungle champions are often referred to as jacks-of-all-trades since they don’t have an assigned lane.
Their primary assignment is therefore to strafe the two jungle sections in-between the three lanes, taking down camps of enemies to gain gold and XP.
Once they have levelled up, they can pop into any of the three other lanes to help out or team up with champions to defend or attack.
So if you like being constantly involved, crown yourself a ‘jungler’.
Mid
Most of the lanes tend to require similar tactics: stay behind your minions, try not to get killed, level up as high as you can, and repeat.
One of the key differences for the middle lane is the champions that players choose tend to be Ability Power (AP) Carries.
Their main benefit is the ability to use magic, which can give your teammates a long-term advantage. What’s more, in the later stages of a game, the ability known as ‘burst’ can be invaluable – helping to wipe out several enemies with low health at once.
If you’re patient but deadly, head for the mid.
Bottom
The bottom lane usually has two champions assigned to it – Attack Damage (AD) Carries and support.
AD Carries are lean, mean, gold-making machines with an emphasis on physical damage meaning they often get the ‘last hit’ gold boost for being the final attack that destroys an enemy.
Attacking and destroying the waves of minions means more physical damage, more gold and more items.
The support, meanwhile, is part-medic and part-warrior.
Focusing on the bottom lane to help the AD clean up the minions, they can also use spells to give health boosts to teammates and to provide better visibility across the map.
League of Legends betting
Being the biggest and most popular eSport by a mile naturally means that there are far more markets for League of Legends than any other.
In addition to the standard ‘match winner’, some interesting ones include: ‘first blood’ (first kill), ‘first tower’, ‘total maps’, ‘correct score’ and ‘kills odd or even’ (all fairly self-explanatory).
These are just a few, with plenty more LoL markets to choose from per match or across whole tournaments, so find your favourite and increase the excitement.
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