Welcome to the University of Legends! This is a lengthy game guide targeted at any player of any ability level, covering many important topics of various breadths and depths. There will be foundations for the player who is immediately new to the game, guidance for beginners, insightful gameplay concepts for the intermediate players, and introspective ideas for the seasoned player to take and expand upon, if they so desire.

The main premise of this guide is that the biggest separating factor between expert players and the less experienced players is knowledge. In a game that boasts over one-hundred very unique playable champions, over one-hundred important items to tailor each champion with, forty-nine masteries divided into three trees to put your champion in their own gameplay niche, countless runes which serve a similar purpose, complex game mechanics, and so many more factors... it's certainly a lot to take in. This guide aims to break it all down into manageable subjects that should prove to be learning-friendly in respect to the current level and experience of the individual.

8/17/2012
-Guide Started
-Introduction Added
-Changelog Added
-Who Am I? Added

Why have this section? It's important to know that your source of information is credible, isn't it? If you want to know what kind of experiences this guide has been built from, then please read this section.

My Summoner Name is "Cavaldi" on the North American server. I spent most of my early LoL career playing a ton of Co-op Vs. AI, with a handful of 5v5 Normal Blind-Pick PvP games interspersed throughout. I had fairly sound reasons for only wanting to play Co-op Vs. AI. First, I preferred the predictability of playing bots so I could refine my interaction with the many champions and gameplay mechanics. Second, I felt better about playing the game in general, because I experienced more positive winning situations fairly often. Lastly, since my teammates were winning just as much as I was, they had little reason to exhibit any foul-mouthing or bad attitudes (which are always big turn-offs in a team-oriented game like LoL).

Eventually, bot games became absurdly predictable--almost mindlessly easy. By Level 30, I had experienced many gameplay scenarios in this controlled environment, having non-volatile opportunities to try out my ideas and strategies. By this time, I had also integrated the all-important Meta into my gameplay style, built up a resilience to bad attitudes, and developed positive-constructive methods to handle bad attitudes from other players--important steps to becoming successful in Solo Queue (and LoL in general).

While my current personal resumé in LoL is hardly extensive, I take pride in being a person of great intellect and analytic capacity, and I feel I have ample experience and know-how to write a guide that will ease and expedite the growth of any player in the complicated LoL environment.

Outside of LoL, I am a professional pianist, teacher, and a hobbyist-composer.

Welcome to a fairly recent, unique, and exciting style of gameplay: The DotA genre.

DotA is an acronym for "Defense of the Ancients" which finds its origins as highly-acclaimed user-made custom maps for WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne. It evolved over time and variants of the genre were created, refining the original concept to new heights. A succinct description can be taken from Wikipedia's article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients

"The objective of the scenario is for each team to destroy the opponents' Ancients, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and AI-controlled fighters. As in role-playing games, players level up their heroes and use gold to buy equipment during the mission."

Although this describes the genre as it existed in WC3:TFT, the description still applies to League of Legends and other spin-offs that exist in the spirit of DotA.

So what can we extract about the game based on the above description?

"The objective of the scenario is for each team to destroy the opponents' Ancients, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map." "Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and AI-controlled fighters." "As in role-playing games, players level up their heroes and use gold to buy equipment during the mission."

The objective is to destroy the enemies' structures, similar to an RTS game. You and your allies each control a powerful character that can become stronger by leveling. You have non-playable fighters that automatically help you. You earn gold to buy items that will help you.