Hello guys, I'm Batmoro and I'm here since the middle of Season 9. First I played Summoner's Rift like all of us but quickly switched to ARAM because I enjoyed its dynamics and chaos and loved trying new champions. There's no "ranked aram" (I wish there was!) so I can't really prove how good I am. All I have to say is that I'm level 219 at the moment and 95% of my games are ARAM, so I believe I've seen pretty much stuff. I can only give you the statistics (see the picture below) that I find pretty satisfying :) Both in ARAM and Summoner's Rift i enjoy playing sups and tanks the most. I'm Lulu and Janna main, played a bit in ranked with them (sometimes other champs) and finished Silver IV last season. Not sure if I'll try again just because I love ARAM too much :)

Quick note: this guide assumes that you know basics of how to play League of Legends. ARAM is played mostly for fun and madness, which means you can do whatever you want. I will show you how to increase your chances to win though.

So, what is ARAM?

The acronym stands for All Random All Mid.
The main thing that here you are to play random champion and everyone plays in midlane, other lanes just don't exist. The map is different here and called howling abyss which looks like a huge bridge somewhere in high cold mountains.

• For general infromation below I quote Wiki, this page to be precise:
  https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/ARAM#Map

Basic Info
Map & Objectives	Base
There is only one lane. There are only two turrets protecting the inhibitor and two turrets protecting the nexus. There are 4 health relics positioned in front of the outer towers, with 2 relics on each team's respective side of the map. There is more info on relics below.	Recall is disabled, however, the channel's animation will still play. The fountain does not grant any restoration effects to champions. There is a Base Gate that blocks champions from leaving the base for the first 15 seconds.
Shop	Timing
The shop will be disabled after champions have moved too far away from the fountain. It will be enabled after death. The range at which the shop becomes disabled is a slight distance away from the Nexus turrets.	Unanimous Surrender is enabled at 8:00. Surrender is enabled at 12:00. Normally games lasts between 12-25 minutes. The longest game I've heard of lasted for about 55 minutes.

Champions

• Champions starts at level 3, meaning they have increased base stats and 3 skill points. Champs like Nidalee, Karma and Elise have 3 points despite having one in their ult.
• Champions start with 1400 gold.
• Champions take 15% reduced damage from enemy champions further than 1000 units away, excluding damage dealt by damage over time or ultimate abilities.
• While you are alive, nearby enemy minions killed by any ally other than you grant 6 Gold.
• Melee champions gain 10 bonus magic resistance and their basic attacks deal 20% bonus damage against siege and super minions.
• Melee champions now deal 20% bonus damage against structures, if they adaptively have more ability power. This buff is replaced by the generic time-based ARAM buff's bonus damage to structures once the latter exceeds 20%.
• All champions on the howling abyss gain so-called "Howling Abyss Aura":
  rerwe+70 summoner spell haste
  rerweRestores 0.15% of maximum mana per second.
  rerwePassively gains 5 experience per second.
  rerweReduces all outgoing heals by 50%. The healing reduction does not affect self-heals.
• Champions deal 0% − 25% (based on minutes) bonus damage to structures after 18:00. Here are the exact numbers:

Why play ARAM?

To summarize it... What you won't learn: how to cs, lane, fight solo, jungle, splitpush, dragons. What you will learn: Teamfighting, team composition, skill landing, countering.

Even though ARAM is motsly just a fun mode, it can contribute to your play skills. The very first thing is skill landing: the game is extremely fast, you have to be precise either to kill or stay alive. Believe me, your R will never miss again. You will also learn quickly how most champs work and how to play against them. The pool here is much wider than in SR, you can counter even rare champs. Moreover, you see the wildest team composition and you learn to adapt your strategy against them. And the most important point is that you learn how to teamfight. There is simply no solo fighting, and after ARAM you have a much better understanding of how to cooperate which can help you win ranked games.

Lobby

So, it all begins with choosing your champion.

Firstly you're given a random champion, either one you own or one from Free Champion rotation. Unlike in Blind SR mode, no champion can appear twice here, meaning that everyone in both teams will have a unique one. You can trade champions with other players if you both own him/her. It means that if you for example have Urgot and another player doesn't, you can't trade. The only exception is free champion rotation. You can also reroll champion if you don't like yours. You can have up to 2 reroll points which are earned by playing games in ARAM (the number of points granted after every match can be seen on the post-game screen above the "Dice" icon tooltip). Rerolled champion goes to the bench and can be taken by other players.

Team composition

An important note: You can simply pick a champion that you want to play most because he/she is your favourite or you want to try it. You don’t look at team composition, you just want to have fun with this champ. And it’s absolutely fine!

	However, if you are more interested in winning more than in playing particular champion, you can think about team composition. It’s totally random, isn’t it? Well, you have some influence.
First, look what kind of champions you have. Try to keep in mind that you want to have a balanced composition, kinda like in SR, which means: - your team does both AP and AD damage; - ideally, it’s a “classical” team with a champs in each role: tank, mage, adc, support, assassin.

Following these statements, champions like Ezreal, Kog'Maw, Shyvana, Miss Fortune become a good pick as you can choose whether to build AP or AD. Guys like Malphite or Amumu are also good examples of how you can adapt, building them as mage or tank. Of course, you are given absolutely random champions, and there are not many, so chances to have all roles are not very high. That’s okay. ARAM is a place where sometimes an incredibly weird team composition can turn out to be awesome. For example having 4 AP champs (lets say Lux, Ahri, Brand and Morgana), especially with a decent CC, can give such a pressure that you will win quickly.

It’s crucial however to have tank and adc. Let me be Captain of obviousness: tank will give your backline to do damage, and adc will kill enemies and take objectives much faster. Still there were hundreds of times I played when the team composition was nice except that we really needed tank... but then (for example) Amumu went AP and not tank and the whole team simple died because of lack of sustainability. You may not be a great Darius, but if your team has no tank, your chances to win become lower. You don’t need to play like a pro, just play safe and guard your adc who does the main work.

Lastly, it’s good to consider whether there’s somebody on your team who is good in engaging and poking. This will shape your strategy and you can read about this in next section. What usually doesn't work: - having 2 supports (except when it's Lulu or Karma who can also do damage); - having 3 adcs (somebody will take most kills and leave others nothing); Risky, might work if you are lucky and play good enough: - 3 squishy ap champs and 2 adc (or 1 adc and 1 sup); - 3 ad champs and 2 squishy ap champs; - 2 assasins, 2 ap or ad champs, 1 sup; An unbalanced composition can also work fine if you have a huge amount of CC. Just don't let your enemies move and you win! Also you may sacrifice balance if you see there are two/three champions with great synergy (like Lux and Morgana); good combos never hurt!

I have a tier list where I share my opinion on best picks and give comments on certain champions. You can find it here: https://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/tier-list/best-aram-picks-with-comments-3652

Strategy: team composition

Poke team

What is a poke composition? That means your champions fight by hitting enemies with skillshot again and again, not using their auto-attack much. Many of them are quite squishy AP champions who can keep enough distance.

If you have many poke champions you excel early game. You strategy is to poke other team until they will be low on health. If they don't have similar composition they will probably sit under their tower (it's the safest thing they can do), so the only thing you need to be cautious is Mark/Dash or abilities like Lee Sin's Sonic Wave. Your team is most likely squishy and you don't want them to engage and kill you. Eventually they will be too low on health and you will have an opportunity to safely come closer and destroy the objective. For that you need to clear waves quite quickly so that enemies don't hide behind them.

Many champs that rely on their abilities are mana-hungry so your "poke and destroy" strategy is not going to be that straight. You will have to go back and get some mana from health relic or die to get items that prove you mana. So there will be times when you will have to defend, but in fact your strategy won't differ much: you play safe, try to low enemies' health from distance and then go.

Unfortunately poke composition is likely to fall off late game when tanks come into full power and even Liandry's Torment doesn't help you much. So if you have poke composition you want to end game as fast as you can.

Dive composition

By saying "dive composition" I mean having mostly tanks, fighters and assassins in your team. You have many melee champions that have to come close to do damage.

As I said, poke composition is stronger early game. So in the beginning you want to play safe, even if it means that you mostly chill under you tower and try to avoid their poke. I know some players find it boring and engage right away to have some action, but believe me that most times it means dying and nothing more.

You have to wait until you will have your ults. Then it will be much easier to dive, especially if you have at least one champ with CC. Than you will slowly get the whole control as it's you who decide when to fight. Great of you have "hook champion" like Thresh cause you will be able to get some easy kills.
I've had these games when there were only melee champions against like 3 adcs. What can you do here? Wait until the moment when they will have no or almost no mana. Try to kill minions under your tower as fast as you can so enemies don't hide behind them, and then go straight there all together.

It's very important cause otherwise that one champion is likely to be just "eaten" by enemy damage. If you have tanks you will have some time to kill the team - and I mean the whole team, try to get as many kills as you can. If you have lots of assassins your goal is to kill all of them instantly. If you have mixed composition you want to protect your assassins and let them do their damage. A great example here is Katarina and her R; let her do the work, just protect her.

After you kill them you need to rush and take objectives down. Closer to lategame it will be more and more easier, especially when your tank become too tanky for them to kill.

Mixed composition

Of course it's not that often when you have purely poke or dive composition (yet it happens regularly, believe me!). Then you have to adapt to specifically to your set of champions, their synergies and combos. You can use both strategies.

Strategy: when to fight and run away

Here are the tips you can use regardless of your team composition.

Don't just run into the bushes in the beginning. Check if your teammates follow you. There's no point in starting a fight when only two or three of you have come, and you have the whole enemy team under your nose. In this case sit under your tower and wait until others.
In any case check the bushes, but again don't go there blindly! Certain champions ike Quinn or Ashe have abilities to give you vision, or you yourself may use Mark/Dash if you have one.

First (and second, and third...) teamfight.

You can read above what poke and dive teams can do. However there's one general tip: don't be afraid to ping. Please be respectful and don't do it like 10 times on a row, but one or two can really change the whole game because of a good communication.

I strongly recommend that these champons better ping before they ult so teammates know that you're ready to... Initiate and dive (team should follow): Amumu Illaoi Leona Maokai Malphite Zac Hecarim Lissandra Tryndamere Sett Pantheon Nocturne Diana Kennen Rengar Olaf Nasus Swain Nunu & Willump Kled Camille Rakan Fiddlesticks Irelia Galio Vi Warwick Initiate and use CC (teammates should dive, follow or be ready to do damage): Nami Seraphine Yuumi Kalista Sona Lillia Zyra Rammus Sion Ornn Do their damage (teammate should initiate soon): Miss Fortune Neeko Varus Pyke Jhin Samira Kai'Sa Akali Ahri Evelynn Morgana

If they ping, be ready. The fight will start soon.
And there's one more reason why you should ping. You team might just be a bit too late to follow you, and it will ruin everything. And it might sound obvious, yet still there are lots of players who do this simply because they don't ping: they go 1 vs 5 or 1 vs 4... And die.

And please, apart from that when your teammates are dead or far away don't just go alone 1 v 3, 1 v 4 or even 5! Rarely that may work, for example Evelynn has her R and enemies are low on health, but be careful and don't let your greed take over you. Usually it's not worth it.

Also don't push too hard when you feel like your team is ready to fight but enemies hide under their tower. Go back and let them follow you, then you can fight.

Objectives

If you are here to win, get objectives, not kills. If you play to get penta, that's okay to jump over your head only to kill everyone, but in other cases remember that taking down a tower or inhibitor bring you closer to victory. It's more forward-thinking that having a pleasure of killing that irritating b... enemy now.

It's sometimes worth to die but to take down an objective, especially inhibitor which brings super-minions to life, it's a great way to keep them busy. The best moment for this is when you have lots of money and want to get new items.

Actually the same thing about dying comes after winning a teamfight. You have gold and spare time to do your business while enemies are dead or too low to take your objectives down. Some players don't like executing, but it's worth it if because it's chance to become stronger and... don't give enemies that bonus gold for your head :) After you took the tower or inhibitor down and you're low on health, go back. Many players stay because they won't kills, but really, really it's worth to retreat and regroup. And if you want kills so badly this strategy will actually help you because you will have higher chances to stay alive. It's most porbably that you took that tower down after killing the enemy team, and they will come back stronger, while you are not. You need that health!

A cool move you can perform here is hiding in bushes with the whole team. For this you need enemies still to be away so that they don't know that you're preparing a huge trap. Hide and let enemies come close, than start a fight. Works amazing if you have a champion with a hook ( Blitzcrank, Thresh, Nautilus, Pyke). Even if you're quite low in health, the surprise might be a decisive thing.

Healing

The relics closest to the middle spawn at 1:45 and the relics closer to the fountain spawns at 2:30. All relics respawn every 90 seconds after being taken.

• Restores 8% of missing health and 8% of missing mana to the champion who picks up the relic.
• After being picked up, triggers a beam of light to strike the ground after 2.5 seconds, restoring 16% of missing health and 16% of missing mana for all champions within.

Please, please, please ping before you will pick a healing relic! Your teammates might need it badly, and it's always very annoying when they don't because somebody did behind their backs. Moreover, because of that you will probably lose next teamifight as your teammates simply didn't have enough health to survive.

It's nice to ping before you heal your teammates. Mostly it's about Janna, Soraka & anyone with Redemption. However, you may not ping if you use it in the middle of a fight, that's fine, you simply don't have time for pinging.

Now, who should pick up the relic?

• the player with the lowest health;
• two players have very low health, let pick up the relic the one who have no mana;
• if enemy team is close and might kill you, let up pick the relic your tank or mobile champ pick it, others will be healed a bit without being hurt;

When not to pick up relics:

• everyone is fine and only you have low health, and you just won a teamfight;
• you killed enemy team ahd have time to take tower down;
• enemy is close and is likely to kill you while you take the relic.

You should take relic even when you're fine when enemy team is low on health. Steal their opportunity to heal!

Farming

There is not much time and capacity for that. There is only one wave of minions for everyone. And the drastic difference betweeen ARAM and SR is that you don't really need to worry about you CS. You will get some gold anyway (remember that nearby enemy minions killed by any ally other than you grant 6 Gold). You only need to focus on killing and/or last hit them if:

• you get stacks by killing them (e.g. Veigar, Nasus);
• you heal by killing or hurting them (e.g. Warwick, Nunu & Willump);
• you are low on health and you have omnivamp items or runes to get some of it back. Never lose a chance for that, I must say.
• you're far behind and you want some money from last hitting to keep up with others.

Small tips

Place traps around relics to dissuade the enemy team from getting it. Also a good idea is to place them in bushes for the same reason.

Leaving the enemy low is sometimes better than killing them. If they do not die, the next fight will be like a 4v5 as it will be too dangerous for that one champ to engage. You can also leave him/her if he/she is far ahead, in that case you don't let them to die, buy items and become even stronger.

Ping if you're waiting to buy items. Staying near the fountain for a while seems like you went afk, let your teammates know that you're still with them.

Runes

As for runes, I usually check them here on Mobafire while champion selection.
Except for a few situations, what works well in SR is also good here. The only thing I don't like is Inspiration, most of the runes will become useless lategame. Consider choosing Precision or Domination depending on your champ.
Why I don't like Inspiration runes:

	Future's Market: it might be useful but total income in ARAM is higher than in SR (you get 3 gold per second!) so most of the time you won't need it;
	Magical footwear: you have enough gold to buy boots at the very beginning, shop recommending system sometimes even suggest that you do that. Even if you don't buy boots now, you're likely to get them on your first or second time back;
	Perfect timing: yeah, it works nice for Fiddlesticks and Morgana but you won't use before you have your R. It's very possible that you will have enough money when you die to buy Stopwatch, you want to get Zhonya's Hourglass as soon as possible.
	Minion Dematerializer: minions don't play that big part here as in SR. Don't waste runes on them.

However, there are two Inspiration runes that are fine:

	Biscuit delivery: you may want it if you're mana hungry, and in ARAM you're going to use all of it since the very first mintues.
	Cosmic insight: great if your ult has long CD and you want to use it more often.

I must admit that I never picked those runes: , , because, eh, didn't like them while reading and didn't want to give it a try (and almost never haven't seen them in guides). I heard that is a nice rune, but I haven't tried it yet. Wait for the update!

Summoner spells

The spell you won't find in SR is Mark/Dash. It's great for anyone who engages and any melee champion, especially assassins. I also take it for champs like Evelynn, Lillia, Gwen, Neeko, Quinn to get close and do damage.

• A trick: use Mark/Dash to escape. You need enemy minions behind you, so when you run away from enemies you cast and fly away quickly.

Sometimes I see people choosing this spell playing adc, but I won't recommend it: you may use it to get vision, but there are other champs who can do that, and you won't probably recast the spell. Heal or Ignite are much more useful.

Another unique ARAM spell is Clarity. Great for mana hungry champions, and a must-have for Yuumi. It's nice if one player in your team takes this spell since you won't regenerate when going back to base.

Teleport is removed here; however, the animation will still play, so you can show others how cool it is :)

Last but not least: summoner spells have 40% CD in ARAM!

Items

The recommending shop system is rather nice here, yet I still advice you to rely on your current matchup and itemize against their team. If they have 2 tanks someone must definitely go for something like Liandry's Torment, Kraken Slayer or Void Staff. Always consider antihealing items ( Morellonomicon, Mortal Reminder, Chemtech Putrifier) whenever enemies have healing champions or items, it can change a fight.

There is only one tip for the beginning:
I often take Rejuvenation Bead even when I know that I won't upgrade it later. You need it to survive longer early game so ideally you die when you already have money for you mythic item. I will probably not take it playing supports, but definetely do if I am going to dive in the middle of a fight.

You will find many small white creatures running around... Meet Poro the Hungry!

These little guys don't fight, you can't kill them (please don't even think about murdering these cuties!), they are simply here. And you can feed them!

• Poro-Snax automatically occupies the trinket item slot.
• 1 charge is granted upon the start of the game, as well as the first time your team destroys an enemy turret. You can have 2 Poro-Snax at max.
• Braum starts with 2 charges, and if he feeds a poro, it will have a mustache.

If you all feed one poro, it will grow bigger and bigger until it will be so enormous that it will burst and many small Poros will appear! They say it bring luck :) *all images in these section are actual summoner icons that can or could be earned in game

Thank you for reading my guide. I tried to contain everything I know about ARAM and I will definitely upgrade it when I learn more. Please feel free to comment, I am open to discussion and your suggestions. And I'm sorry if there grammar mistakes, English is not my first language, I tried my best. I will correct them if I find them. I will highly appreciate it if you upvote this guide, so more people would be interested to read this. I also hope that this guide raised your interest towards ARAM if you never played it. It's all about fun and can be a refreshing experience after playing SR the whole time. I plan to start streaming ARAM games soon. Please let me know if you're interested! Thank you once again and good luck!